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Last Saturday was a day that we'd been waiting over nine months for. We came back from Minnesota at the end of January, leaving our household belongings behind in a storage unit. We thought that we'd be back to get it in just a few months. When we first arrived back in California, we stayed with my sister and her family for two months. We were sure that by the time we got into our own place, we'd have saved the money needed to go and get our things. Time passed and money was coming in at a slow trickle. We were scraping to pay our bills and had nothing extra to put aside.
One night while trying to go to sleep, I was thinking about it all, trying to figure out a way to make some extra money, specifically for this cause. That was the beginning of The Retrieval Project. Joe and I planned and brainstormed, and came up with a plan. We were so amazed and encouraged at the response of so many supporting our goal. We painted, blogged, painted, packaged, painted and painted for 50 days.
It was such a good project for us in so many ways. It was fun to have something that we were working on together. It felt good to come up with a creative way to make money aside from our employment. It pushed us to paint when we were tired. When we didn't like what we were creating, we could go to each other for advice and encouragement. It was fun to see which paintings resonated with people. It was even more fun to have made some new friends and connections through it all, and to have the support of those already dear to us.
Even though we didn't quite make our original goal, we feel that the project was a success. We've been blessed by long time friends of Joe's family (and his brother's in-laws), who brought our things to us last weekend. Here are a few photos from the long-awaited day.
Joe guided Fred as he backed down the street...
good thing we're at the end. That was a huge truck!
Excited kids and neighbors gathered to watch.
Fred had a couple of stops before ours.
It doesn't look like much at the back of the truck, but the things kept coming and coming!
We had stacks of boxes for a few days, but it's getting better.
Looking more like a home and less like a warehouse each day.
First meal at our new table, with Fred and his wife Jan. This was Joe's grandmother's table, which his mom had brought to us. It's such a nice, sturdy table, with lots of room. At this point, we had one leaf in it. Later we decided to add two more. We can still add two additional leaves when we have more people.
I love a big table, and I love it even more when it's full of people and good food!
Thanks so much for following this journey with us, and for all who have purchased our art and encouraged us along the way. There are still paintings available in our etsy shop.
Home tour posts coming soon on Jenny's blog with more pictures. Please stay connected there!
