Today felt like 'Good-bye'

Today felt like a I was saying a long good-bye to our house, and the life that we lived there... Closing the chapter of years well spent under its roof...
Although we still own the house, it is now empty of most of our belongings. The picture is of the last box of stuff to leave the house destined for our apartment. We have no more knick knacks there. The walls have no decor, and are devoid even of a clock. It echos when you talk. I cleaned the rooms, and scrubbed the walls. I burnt the all of the paper meant to start fires in the winter in the hassa -- the remaining water in the tubes, gave a half-hearted gurgle. The few items in the house have a final location identified -- either long-term storage, remain with the house, or someone else's place. It felt good to get the house so cleaned out, but it also felt like I was saying good-bye to the place, cleaning it out for its final time... trying to remove the last bits of us so somebody else (hopefully) can move in and love it just as much.

It's not just that I loved the place, and that somehow its crayola colored walls had become home to me. Saying good-bye also meant that I was closing the door to a myriad of things I loved about the place: hosting overnight guests, having couples over, cooking in the kitchen in the fall/winter, hauling/splitting/stacking wood on crisp fall mornings, decorating for Christmas and the other winter Holidays, spending weekends curled up in front of the fire, watching the garden come to life in the spring (and always thinking that I would keep it weed free this year), and grilling out dinner on the deck in the summer. Although there are many things that I do love about apartment life, especially its ease... there are just some things about the house I will miss.

During our years at the house, we managed to accomplish quite a bit. Although, I think there will always be 'home projects', this place had its own special brand project... One thing I can't fault the house for, in the absence of school... it kept me busy. In our 4 years we:
-tore down the oldest barn in the county (because of a cracked beam) and a chicken coop
-put in a floor in the garage and automatic garage doors
-replaced ~20 windows (all windows) on 2 floors of the house because the ones that were there were single pane, were cracked and did not open
-put in a new wood floor in the living room because the one that was in there... had holes going into the basement (no joke)
-re-did many floors
-painted about every surface in the place
-re-wired the second floor
-put in a water softener... a good thing when your water would otherwise weigh almost as much as solid rusted iron
-chopped up lots of wood from downed trees
-seeded the horse pasture
-refinished the countertops
-added shelving to the pantry and bedroom closet
-gutted and put in a new bathroom
-installed a wood stove
-fixed some holes in the walls
-fixed the trim on the outside of the house, because bats were getting in (we have not had bats in our house in 2+ years)
-among may other projects.

So, I guess it's good bye to the house. It was a good place to live, and a great place to dream. I will miss my time there, but I know that in the future there will be other places to love, call home, make memories in, and dream about other future plans.

Eta: I had to clean it out like this now, because this is my only substantial break until I am done with school. And, if it were to sell or be rented out in the midst of a semester, I would not be able to help out with the move at that time.