Saying Goodbye

It's been another busy week around here, and at the end of it we are tired and dirty - but we finally have everything out of the old house and the garage. We still have some things in the yard to clean up, but we are out and my brother's family is in. We had to say goodbye to a lot of things this week.

Goodbye, chickens. We will miss your eggs, for sure. Goodbye, awesome sunsets over the lake that we can see in the wintertime when the tree branches are bare. Goodbye, fuzzy  brown bear carpet. It was replaced it with the pink carpet we pulled out of my dad's basement.

Goodbye, junky garage!  We threw stuff out like crazy and took a whole load of garbage to the metal recycler. Goodbye, creepy pressure washers and all your questionable friends that have been lurking under the shrubbery.

Goodbye, floor space in the storage garage, and much of the vertical space too  - but hopefully we will see you soon as we go back and clean it out. Goodbye, perpetual sunroom snake pits of computer cords. I will not miss you.

Goodbye, gorgeous view of the west mountains as we drive home past the cemetery (but hello gorgeous views of  the east mountains!).

Goodbye, having lots of elbow room between us and the neighbors.  I will miss you forever.  And goodbye, spacious master suite with my own closet and my own bathroom.  I will miss you like crazy.

Oh, and as we've been cleaning out, we couldn't keep everything. So goodbye, old plastic cups that my boys chewed on like a pack of hungry puppies.

And, sadly, goodbye crippled little Elmo. We found him, neglected and abandoned, in a storage shed when we bought our first house, many many moons ago.  He used to have bright red hair and a red clown nose.  My youngest brother named him Elmo, long before Sesame Street's Elmo was popular.  The name stuck and all the kids have loved riding our little Elmo.  And falling over backwards on him because he is tippy.  And cutting their chins up in said fall enough to require stitches.  Maybe that was just Ben.  But still.  It pains me to see his old, cracked plastic finally bite the dust. We've been through so much together!

Oh, and goodbye old math trailers at the junior high. The junior high finally tore them out after decades of "temporary" use. I never loved taking classes in them;  I will not miss them.  Can't miss everything, I guess.