Two weeks ago tomorrow we arrived “home, home” – the end of wheat harvest 2019.

As is typical, as soon as we park the equipment and get the cottage on wheels parked in the driveway, it feels as though the previous 100 days of being on the road never happened.

I don’t like this.

The transition of coming home is so much more difficult than leaving in the spring. When we leave in the spring, we’re leaving a world that we are used to and have accepted. The world we leave revolves around the clock and a schedule.

Harvest has it’s own schedule. It is, by far, more simple and I like that! Until you’ve experienced this simplicity, it’s difficult to explain.

I began working on emptying the trailer house the very next day. There’s nothing worse than living out of two homes. I figured I may as well just suck it up and start the process of moving back into the house.

We came home to Nebraska to summer…leaving the very cold temps and rain to the northern country. The first night home was nearly impossible to adjust to the heat and humidity. Sleep was not good since we were still sleeping in the trailer house (and we can’t run the air conditioner).

The very next day, the weather we left up north caught up with us. And it’s been cool (and very rainy) ever since. Goodbye summer! This was another motivator of getting moved into the house – it was warmer. Crazy weather!

On Saturday, October 5, we celebrated Taylor and Baby Josoff. Jamie, Jenna and Callie planned a wonderful baby shower – and I got to be there to enjoy it! I was afraid with the way things had been in Montana, I wasn’t going to be able to attend.

The day was absolutely gorgeous – and the party…even better!

We celebrated Callie’s 22nd birthday the next evening. At home. In our teeny, tiny little house. We are so short on room when everyone is together but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world (well, maybe for ONE larger room). How in the world can my “baby” be 22????

The past two weeks have been a blur! The trailer house is empty and cleaned. The flower gardens are showing less and less weeds. The equipment has been changed over to fall harvest (Jim has even had a couple of days in the soybean field). I’ve emptied nearly 8″ of rain from the rain gauge. We’ve had a couple of things to celebrate. Life is beginning to be feel more “normal”. It seems to take me a couple of weeks to get to that point.

And then I did this…

For those of you who kept up with us on our Zeorian Harvesting Facebook page, you probably watched my daily videos. As the season got longer…so did my hair. And towards the end, more and more gray was showing through. My TRUE color.

I started coloring my hair in my late 20’s. Recently, I’ve been feeling like it was time to just quit. There has been a lot of soul searching, thinking and reading.

It’s just hair…right?

Well, that’s what I say about a haircut. The decision to quit coloring my hair has been a very difficult one. It’s like a step into the next stage of life. I mean, my birthday tells me how old I am. I just never really wanted to LOOK that old. My brain tells me I’m still 25. 🙂

The process of going all white scared me. I didn’t know if I could actually live with the drastic line between color and gray as my hair grew. I did a lot of reading on Pinterest and realized it could be done easier by blending the color into the white. Becky (my most awesome hairdresser) reassured me if I absolutely hated it, I could always go back.

Okay…I’m just going to do it! It’s time to be 100% me. No more fake color!

Now, how in the world is the rest of the world going to accept it? Another scary thing to think about. The shock of seeing something different. Change is different. Change is scary. Change is something we can all count on.

The reactions from the family have been varied. The best was watching Ben stare at my hair while I talked to him. Eli and Nora are surely wondering when their other Grandma will come back. Each time I pass a mirror, I have to back up and wonder who that person is looking back at me.

Social media needs to have a place to click, “Embraced the Gray”. You know, like “in a relationship” or “married”. Maybe one that says, “accepted the next stage of life”.

Looks like I’m going to have to get Taylor to take a new profile pic!