5 Things I Learned Living in a House That's Only Temporary.

 Here’s what I love: 5 things I learned living in a house that’s only temporary.

I really let my guard down knowing this house is temporary.  I didn’t care so much about messes or tidiness or organization.  We kept soccer balls in the china cabinet (yes, really) and my daughter did a huge painting project in the dining room and I hardly cared. 

I guess it was because this isn’t our permanent home, I didn’t stress so much about how things were in this house.  Then, I realized, that the earth is not actually our permanent home either.  So, there are probably several lessons I could apply to real life…

In any case, here’s what I learned living in the rental:

1.  People don’t care how it looks. 

In every other home we’ve lived in, I’ve turned into a complete crazy person getting the house ready for visitors.  Everything had to be in it’s place and floors and sinks and corners had to be clean as a whistle.  But, something I found out living here in the rental is that people don’t care how it looks, they care that they are invited.  This applies within reason.  You can’t invite people to a house with piles of poo everywhere or old food slopped on the couch or something.  But, as long as your home is basically hygienic, people will come when you invite them.  And they will feel loved and they will talk about real life things.  They might judge your 80s wallpaper, but if it makes them not want to be your friend, then they are dumb and you shouldn’t be friends with them anyway.  The rental freed me from the idea that my house has to be perfect in order to have people over.  This is huge, people!  This applies to life as well—we shouldn’t wait until we have everything just right in order to invite people into our lives—they don’t care how we look, they care that they are invited, wanted, loved!

2.  Ingenuity and resourcefulness go a long way. 

Because we sold our t.v. armoire thing before we moved into the rental, we put our television on a desk as an “entertainment system” and it barely even looked weird.  Also, we used a sheet as a curtain on the front window.  A little creativity goes a long way when you are living in a temporary home.

3.  Thankfulness will make you happy, complaining will make you miserable.

The kitchen sink in the rental was ridiculously shallow—like trying to wash dishes in a 9x13 casserole dish or something.  Also, (as you may have heard once or twice,) we did not have a garbage disposal.  These two things tended to make us very cranky from time to time.  However, when we focused on the things we DID have (like heat in winter, AC in summer, internet, beds for everyone, space for all our junk, remodeled bathrooms, gorgeous hardwood floors, stainless appliances, a nice deck, a big yard etc. etc.)—when we focused on those things, we felt thankful, content, HAPPY.  (Plus, reminding ourselves that the stupid shallow sink with no garbage disposal was only temporary helped a lot too.)  

4.  Life is quirky.

The dining room in the rental has striped wallpaper with a fruit and wine scene above the chair rail and there are forest green tile countertops in the kitchen.  There is also this “interesting” iron sculpture thing bolted into the wall.  We think it’s a wine rack of some sort.  These items coupled with the old outlets and choppy flow, made this house a tiny bit odd.  But life is like that.  We couldn’t change the strange décor in the rental, so we just learned to live with it, laugh with it, maybe even appreciate it for what it once was.  Now THAT is applicable to life on earth, no? 

5.  Time flies. 

It feels like just yesterday that we were moving our stuff in the hot July sun, being bitten by chiggers in the yard and trying to figure out where to put everything in our temporary little home.  And yet, today, we close on our new house (and prepare to move all over again).  There were times when these last six months felt like six years, but really, the time went very fast.  Life is like that too—there are times when the days and months are a gray drudgery of un-fun, but ask anyone over 30 years old and they will tell you that life goes by in a blink of an eye.  That’s right, our time on this third planet from the sun is slipping away—it’s only temporary.  So, we should

be inviting,

be creative,

be thankful,

and appreciate the quirks. 

Soon enough, we will be headed through the yellow door of our new, blue house—a more permanent dwelling than the rental, but still only a shadow of our someday, forever home…