
Putting the Home into Homesteading
We have been living at The Knob for less than a week and we are already up to our eyeballs in projects. First off was the task of unloading every shiny new kitchen tool we received as wedding presents into an already amply stocked kitchen.
The process of cleaning, organizing and stowing away everything that was already there took us a full day and allowed us time to full appreciate the idiocnycracys of our new living quarters. Shelves that aren’t quite level is the norm, and it’s almost expected that every couple cupboards will have a gaping hole cut into the bottom for reasons now unapparent to us. It’s very obvious that this home was built over decades by many different builders with varying skill levels, all with different intentions of how the space should look.
At first I thought it would drive me crazy, but at least in the kitchen, the ability to fill the space with my belongings gave me a sense of attachment and also allowed me to appreciate the quirks as character rather than inconveniences. But maybe the novelty will wear off.
Other adventures have included the long and tedious process of getting ourselves to be legal Americorps volunteers. To ensure the FBI stays off our backs, we were requested to get fingerprinted in Michigan before moving to West Virginia, but upon arriving learned that those tests were invalid for the state and that we needed to get retested here ASAP.