Tuesday Riddles

Q: What's the guaranteed result of jumping up and down because two rooms are completely box-free?

A: Josh will bring home a car full of boxes from his parents' house, most of which go in those two rooms.

Q: How many DVDs really fit on the shelf we bought at IKEA over the weekend?

A: Half of them.

Q: What is Hudson's new favorite Crepe from 407 Cafe?

A: Mine. (Capresa. I don't blame him.) 


Q: Why is it important to bring Jasmine grocery shopping?

A: She's the one who can find your toothpaste. And the face soap will be right next to it. You rock, Kiddo!

Q: What's the prettiest palm tree ever?

A: Whichever one you're looking at.

Monday Morning

I woke up SO ready to take on the day.
...to re-alphabetize our DVDs and put them on their new shelf
...to wash all the laundry and get it put away
...to help the kids find homes for more of their toys
...to shop online for more storage things for the kitchen
...to have a great day of normal school. (we haven't had a school room for this entire school year, which started in May)

So far, at 9:45, it's had mixed results.

Laundry's going. The kids' games are up in Hudson's closet. I found things that I think should work for the kitchen.
But school...it's off to a very mixed start.
They rocked their math and phonics, but Jasmine decided poetry (something new and different!) was pure torture.
I read them Frost's "A Girl's Garden" and we talked about what the poem said. Then we listened to the Frostiana choir piece while they were supposed to draw a picture from something in that poem.
You would have thought I was asking her to kiss a tarantula.

(She did finally draw the picture, with much kicking and screaming and remininscing on my part on what she was like at 3. I forgot just how much more mellow she is most of the time now!)

Hey, don't you love the way the school room looks?? We went to IKEA yesterday and bought those two white shelves with bins. It's one of two rooms that are now box-free. What a huge step! I'll try to get more pictures soon :)

How Not To make a cross-country move

1. If you own three coffee pots that take two different kinds of filters, it does very little good if the filters are packed in separate boxes from the pots. It's a guarantee that you'll find filters for one and the other coffee pot.

2. It's a brilliant idea to use your favorite towels to put on the very top of boxes to make sure it's completely full so it won't get crushed.
Until you want to take a shower. You'll have to open 30-40 boxes to find a single towel.

3. A great idea for keeping the kids from going insane on a 5-day car trip is to have a suitcase full of activities they've never seen.
Just remember to check all the batteries before you go.

4. Planning to stay for sunrise at the most beautiful lake in the world is a near-guarantee that you'll have rain.
It doesn't mean you won't get a beautiful picture anyhow.

Lesson: Learned

You might remember my former post about learning to love.
Now that we're actually moving away, I've wondered if I did, indeed, learn my lesson. Is it something that I'm carrying on with me?

After talking through it with a couple people, the answer is YES.

I did hate it here. I fought putting down roots. I struggled every single winter with the gray gloom, and struggled every day with the economic and spiritual darkness I felt every day.
But I was victorious. God showed me how to be thankful. Not just a light-hearted thankful, but truly and actually thankful. I've learned a new level of flexibility.
And I just realized this week how deep my roots really are.

If I'm completely honest with myself, I'm nervous about our upcoming move. Last time I moved to a different state I was 7. When I went to Turkey I was 22 and adventurous. Now I'm 35 and have three kids. We need new doctors, dentists, hairdressers, church, and friends. I am so very thankful for my group of homeschooling moms I can laugh and cry with, and for my other friends who encourage and push me.

I'm excited. I've wanted this for years and years. But the scene from "Tangled" keeps coming to mind, because right now I can completely relate to Rapunzel:


Rapunzel: I've been looking out of a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what I might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it's not everything I dreamed it would be? 
Flynn Rider: It will be. 
Rapunzel: And what if it is? What do I do then? 
Flynn Rider: Well,that's the good part I guess. You get to go find a new dream. 

I'm so thankful for the things I've learned. I finally learned the lesson of being content in my situation, a lesson I hadn't learned when I was first given the opportunity (at 24-26, single and not sure where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to be doing. I had no idea that it was possible to be content as a single woman, and now I can see that I was supposed to be learning that!!) I'm a walking testimony of how much God can change hearts.
I don't know how often I'll miss living here (unlike how often I'll miss my friends here, and occasionally Wegmans, DiBella's or Ted's), or how often I'll come visit, but I'm leaving with no resentment, no regrets, and a smile on my face about this time. Which is huge.

Moving, by the numbers

16: how many times we cleaned the house for a showing
3: number of open houses

8: how many houses we walked through (one was via Facetime)
18902 (approx): number of houses we looked at online

1203: number of miles between our old house and the new one
5: number of nights on the road between our old house and new one
4: number of houses of families we'll stop at on aforementioned drive

5.5: months between first seeing the house show up on the MLS and when we finally had a deal
5.25: months between when we though we'd sell it and the actual sale date

2: realtors whose names both start with Mary
2: Marys who are SO happy to be finishing business with us

3: children who can't wait to see their new rooms
2: girls who want periwinkle walls
1: Charla who can't wait to have a master bath!

30: how many boxes are in the living room at this moment
6: how many boxes aren't completely full and are sitting in the living room

8: number of houses we put in offers on
2: houses who first said no and then came back to see if we wanted the house
1: number of houses whose owners accepted our offer. Thankfully, this is also the perfect house for us...

Heading Home

Last night, Josh and I got back to frigid Buffalo, after a lovely 36 hours in sunny Orlando. Night and day, I tell you.
The kids stayed here with my sister-in-law Elizabeth and her one-year-old son. They had a wonderful time and I don't think the kids wanted us back quite so soon. I'll try not to stay offended.
We spent time walking through our new house, hearing from the inspector the tiny things we'll need to do (the sellers have taken fantastic care of the house!) and falling in love with where we'll be living.
I didn't bring my camera; just my iPod Touch.

The house, the palm trees, and the car we didn't want to have to return:

Walking from the front yard to the back:

The living room:

We are going to be very happy here.

So now I have to get to work on this side of things. Two weeks to pack up our lives, then 5 days of travel, stopping to see all my siblings and parents and two grandparents, and then to our new house!!! 

When we get to the market...

Hudson's a little confused.
He knows we're talking about "market." But since the only market he knows is the farmer's market, I think somehow selling this house and moving to Florida must involve a trip to the farmer's market.
Or something like that.

Last night he said, "when this house is at the market will we move to Flowida?" I said yes, and he asked, "and then I should put on my shoes?"
It's all about the priorities.

The house looks crazy right now. The living room is half-painted, half-just-primed. The dining room is primed. Most of the holes from pictures are now puttied, though Josh still has at least one more trip with the putty.
But there are boxes everywhere.

We're selling a ton of stuff on Craigslist, and I keep finding more. We're headed close to having made $400 in the past 6 weeks, which I'm happy about. I'm at least as happy that those are all things that don't need to be packed, moved (and paid for) and unpacked and re-housed. They're just gone, and they're things we won't even remember. (and since I'm deleting the pictures as we sell the items, there's nothing to remind us of them!)

We wanted neutral-but-not-boring. Unfortunately, the color on the left was a little too not-boring. So we went back to the store and got the color on the right. It's a gorgeous butterscotch, and I love the way it looks!

My attempt at Pottery Barn (just don't notice that the ceiling beam isn't finished, or the box in the corner of the picture. Thanks so much)

I've rested long enough. It's time to tackle something else again!