![0924180857.jpg](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmWz6Q3iDP87CteFZ23hfmXkSfE5rQsfCwW7whjrUtP8GP)

Staring at a mountain of mess is not something you want to do when you come home. It's even worse when it hasn't been home for half a year. Those million annoyances I mentioned the [other day](https://steemit.com/ulog/@driptorchpress/daily-thoughts-74) make settling back into life much much more difficult than it ought to be.

In my head I had left the house much cleaner. I worked really hard the couple weeks before we left to get it ready. But when we walked in it was just scary. The way this house looked when we walked in is just another indicator that stress makes hard work far less efficient. Apparently I had just spun my wheels in February and March. Sure, I fixed the broken truck (this is beginning to sound like a broken record), but I let other things slide.

The best part of returning here is that after six months so much of this stuff has lost it's usefulness to me. I haven't seen it or touched it or used it in half a year. Why do I really need it? How much of our junk do we just keep because "one day" we might find use for it again? I have realized that is a very pauperish thing to do. Poor people keep things and re-use things almost compulsively. This is not wrong, when the situation calls for it. But when you have the resources to replace broken things or pass along unused things without having to "worry" about replacing them later, you should. I have not used so much of this stuff, why hang on to it when I can give it to someone who can, and if I need it later simply replace it?

Emotions are fickle also. I said I liked it out there and wasn't so sure of here. But now that I am here I am not so sure. There are advantages to having the grocery store two miles away. There are also disadvantages to having fast food and shopping so close. There are temptations galore!

The biggest question right now is this: Is this vacation or is this life? when you spend equal time in different places it almost feels like you take on two different lives. We have different friends, different activities, different styles. It almost feels like we are entirely different people out there.

Settling in to a "new" place takes time. I'm still not sure this is home or not. But for now it will have to do.

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