Our son flew home for a week to rip out the carpets. They were installed in the eighties, and have three decades of embedded dirt and unmentionable spills. Micah is playing motivational music on loud as he uses his six feet of strength to wrestle with unwieldy foam that falls apart like Hansel's crumbs, and faded green rugs that are way past their warranty. 

The twins and I worked on emptying the room of its fifty three quilts, and trash cans, and plants. Micah moved the furniture, stacking it in the entryway and dining room. 

It became embarrassingly apparent how much stuff we have that is not especially lovely. Broken drums, forgotten art projects, toys no one plays with all piled up to mock me. Doing a major overhaul is an incentive to dump, donate, and recycle. Putting them back on a newly sanded oak floor would be absurd. 

Right now the house is a mess, as in there are no places to sit and pokey nails lie in wait to pierce your feet. Not an opportune time for entertaining. But it feels like change is in the works. Possibilities hover on the other side of sweat. 

A man I don't know very well was eager to tell me about the workshop he attended at the conference. He walked me through the three pages of hand outs, and how things made sense to him that had been collecting dust for ages. Clearly the upheaval of entrenched patterns had begun.

I have no idea if the renovations stuck, but the opportunity had arrived.