Crazy/Awesome

The other day as I was watching A. build a water catchment system for the well he hand-dug in the back pasture, I had an interesting thought: The things people think you are the craziest for planning to do are ultimately the things people think are the most awesome after they're done.

When A. first said he would dig a well in the pasture--by hand, with a shovel--so he could set up a gravity-flow pipe to fill the cisterns? YOU CRAZY.

Once he had dug the well and it was filling the cistern? AWESOME.

When A. said he would build a greenhouse for the tomatoes out of trees? YOU CRAZY.

Once he had built the greenhouse and we had ripe tomatoes for months? AWESOME.

And so on.

Of course, the crucial middle step to going from crazy to awesome is successfully completing whatever plan everyone thinks is crazy to start with. Otherwise you just stay crazy, I guess.

I think our move to New Mexico is going to fall into this category.

I'm pretty sure when we announced to family, friends, and the world at large that we were going to pack up our children and our lives and move to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere New Mexico that only A. has been to, and that only a couple of times, the general (though unvoiced) reaction was, "YOU CRAZY."

Possibly. But once we've done it, once we've made the move and settled in, and have our little family in our little village within driving distance of cousins and out of the punishing northeastern winters? Well. Then it will be awesome.

We just have to get from here to there, starting with our road trip commencing tomorrow*.

Awesome, here we come.

* I can hope the road trip will be part of the awesomeness, but I'm afraid it will fall squarely in the crazy category. Wish me luck, and lots of it.