Goodbye, Kitchen...

Well, today is the last real day in our very first house (eyes mist over). Last night I began the saddest part of moving: taking pictures down. The good thing about taking pictures down is that they'll be waiting for you at your new home, it's not goodbye forever, just goodbye to the familiar arrangement. No more going to the cupboard to get a bowl and saying, "Well, hello there Liam, with your face smushed against the glass of the back door! Oh, ha ha, how well I remember you yearning to get into the backyard that day! Ha ha!" Of course, I don't really say all that out loud, but it fleetingly zips through my mind, which is the purpose of pictures, to help us remember the good times and good friends and loved ones.

Almost daily now, I find myself doing something that is like my mother. I've pretty much given up on resisting when my one of my siblings or Zachariah says, "That's just like your mom!" And, Mom, don't worry, it wasn't anything personal when I would insist that I wasn't turning into you, I think it's just natural at first to automatically want to be different. Now, though, I embrace it, since it is, of course, a wonderful thing to be like you! Ummm...I love you! Anyway, before I dig myself in deeper...my mom likes to tape family pictures onto her cupboards, and I definitely inherited that trait. Or I was just around it for so long it was embedded on me. I think she still has a pic of some cousins pointing enthusiastically at Granny's garden when they were about 6 and under. The oldest in that photo is now almost 22. As I took down the pictures of neices and nephews, parents, and siblings, postcards of places dear to our hearts, a somewhat more elegant kitchen emerged. Down came the beautiful drawing of the San Antonio Temple, down came baby Mia and Mathias, down came a day at an icy-cold river on a hot July afternoon in Washington, down came our Brussels postcards, ones we would look at and say, "Remember when...man, I miss Brussels!" The cupboards aren't horrible, I like looking at wood. Reminds me of trees, and those are very nice. But it reaffirmed to me that I would trade elegantly bare spaces for a picture of grinning kids and their now-deceased duck, Martha, any day.

Ha ha. The title "Goodbye, Kitchen..." almost makes it sound like I would miss the actual kitchen, like I had forged a relationship with it through the successes and failures of creating amazing meals and...oh, shoot, Zac cooks 75% of the time. Okay, 77%. I will miss the oven for the cookies it would give us and the microwave for the popcorn. And I'll miss the faucet because Zachariah installed a new one that is waaaay better than the old one, but of course we are leaving and only got to enjoy it for, like, a month. (I'm not bitter, just stating fact.)