High Five

Building a house won't make you happy.

You will start out all giddy because the graphic designer in you is screaming THIS IS MY GREATEST PROJECT EVER! You'll dance about your big pantry and the prospect of soft-close cabinetry that assures you will never, ever hear another slam in your lifetime,  

but building a house won't make you happy.

You will agonize over the slightest curves of hardware and the profiles of routed wood, neither of which anyone but you will ever notice. You will ask your aunt with magic eyes to fly out from California just to pick your paint colors. You will Google, Houzz, and Pinterest until your brain blows up.

Building a house won't make you happy.

You will spend $1K (not really, but maybe) eating out over the course of a year because you squandered your dinner prep time after time, be it driving to Spanish Fork to look at stucco samples in the sunlight, meeting Rulon the Stain Guru at Sherwin-Williams in Provo because he's the Dalai Lama of undertones, or unloading your 17' faux wood beams from a semi. Oh, and have a baby during the experience just for funsies, because the only thing better than weighing fireplace insert options by yourself in a showroom is weighing your options while you nurse under a blanket as your toddler runs around with a stanky, ripe diaper.

Building a house won't make you happy.

Snow might warp all your doors as your house sits half-built and totally exposed month after month during the worst winter in years. Your primer might be bad so all the paint peels off over the course of three months. Your carpet manufacturer might go out of business the week before you order your carpet.

Building a house won't make you happy.

You'll spend all your energies focused on a THING, and seldom does a thing make one happy. Plus, you'll spend money like a drunk sailor on that thing and then get so cheap you return a $3 Cover Girl lip balm to Walmart because you didn't need it and force your family to eat soggy celery because the budget demands it.

Building a house won't make you happy.

You'll hate your new house at times and curse the dumb diggers for ever carving the mountain open. You'll cry so much, partly from being tired and partly because you're scared you're leaving everything/everyone that ever mattered to you. Because you're so tired, you'll forget to groom your dog for six months and then PetSmart will shave her until she looks like an inside out cat because you initialed the "shave authorization for matting" clause without reading the fine print.

Building a house won't make you happy.

But holding your little boy's gumball-shaped head in your hands while your cut his hair will. And crying behind the organ while your friend assures you life goes on will. So will Utah summer nights, when the temps drop and the grasses cool and neighbors who love each other flock together and chirp till dark. Making a new friend will; new friends are like Pandora's boxes of unlimited interesting goodness. Late night phone calls with old friends will, too. Helping Archer spell words with IKEA alphabet cookies will. Hearing RE tell Archer that he is her greatest treasure will. Kissing your baby two thousand times a day will, as will his baby's breath. A unified family chorus of hoorahs for Everett as he conquers the top stair with a 6-toothed smile will. Stress-eating treats with Greg, giggling siblings in the double hammock, and circus scripture reading on Archer's mattress will. Finishing strong in this sphere will make me happy later, when I'm double checking for regrets.

However...

Waiting 4 1/2 hours outside with no chairs, no snacks, no water bottles, no sunscreen, and no toys (other than gutter remnants, road base, and sharp objects) for cement to be poured and cured enough for handprints made me happy. No one lost their cool and during the wait we met two of our future friendly neighbors. Making our mark as a family, pressing twenty five fingers into a cold slab, promising THIS IS WHERE WE WILL CONTINUE BEING HAPPY...that made me happy.

Building a house can make you happy.

Seriously, my hand is fading like Michael J. Fox's when he's playing the guitar at the Fish Under the Sea dance. But could Everett's hand be any cuter? The sweet concrete workers let us do his five times because he kept fisting it up. After the 5th impression he clearly communicated to us there would be no more tries. I think I'm obsessed with "making our mark" because of Archer's current favorite movie: The Good Dinosaur. Such a good movie, and I hate kids' movies! Arlo, the knobby-kneed baby dinosaur, wants to make his mark on the family's silo but his dad tells him, "You gotta earn your mark by doing something BIG for something bigger than yourself." Five handprints are my mark.