Month: November 2017

One Day To Just…

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Thankful on Thanksgiving!

Let me preface this post acknowledging that I live a very American-Dream like life. But…yup here’s the but…I would just like one day to just sit and be. You feeling me moms out there? Sitting, drinking copious amounts of coffee, snuggling my girls and dog under the blankets, reading a little, taking a too long hot shower and just being. We’ve been purging, packing, in limbo with the closing, living out of boxes, moving, reflooring, painting everrrrrything, still semi-living out of boxes, attempting unpacking, and it’s never ever ever ever ending.

Today is Thanksgiving and today of all days I shouldn’t be whining like a toddler. I am beyond thankful this year for my incredible family, my new, lovely home and what is to come in the year ahead! This weekend I will continue to enjoy our home by finishing painting the girls closets so we can unpack their boxes. Shaun will install all the new moldings so we can then put the furniture where it should be. We will unload the bins and bins of RV stuff that are in the garage and should be in the basement. And on and on and on…

We are so blessed to be able to move into our home and be able to make all of these changes but it’s a bit more overwhelming and time consuming than I ever dreamed. Shaun’s grandmother said to me today that moving is exhausting and would be if you moved just across the street. Truer words couldn’t be spoken!

Along with trying to assemble a life in our home, the girls and I are homeschooling all morning long. Normally they’d go to school and I would power through getting stuff done around the house and errands but it’s a group effort to do those things now which is delayed by about 3 hours of learning/teaching. Thankfully the girls have expressed how much they are loving homeschooling, phew! The only thing that they miss is seeing their friends every day. I get it, because I’m missing my day-to-day life a bit too. It’s an adjustment and a short life phase. Next September they’ll go back to public school and we’ll be right back into the life we had this past September and those before it. I’m sure when that happens we’ll all miss homeschooling lol. Double edged swords we so often carry.

I know that once our house is settled and we get into more of a rhythm of our new day-to-day we’ll acclimate. With the holidays coming, my absolute favorite time of year, we have a lot of fun to look forward to. Our annual Christmas party, a few shows my mom and I are surprising the girls with, a Santa lunch, opportunities to help others, Christmas service, Christmas music and more. In our new home, it’ll be a magical time most definitely.

Not Settling

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Don’t let the title of this blog post confuse you. We are positively settling, but not for less, just into more. This house is so warm and already wrapping its arms around us in a way that is hard to imagine anywhere else. Although a bump in the road, the delay in closing and life in boxes longer than anticipated, has really been a blessing by pushing me into a place of contentment at closing time, which was yesterday.

Throughout the week I can’t say I felt as much complacency as I do now. After Natalie, my oldest, was born I experienced some severe postpartum. After Brie, my second, was born I had it again but was slightly more prepared. This move has made me feel like my first postpartum in some ways. The feelings that progressed were unexpected, intense, numbing, and ultimately confusing.

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Just me & my girls

After we slept in the new house for the first time I didn’t feel any different. It was a similar feeling to waking up in a vacation house. The boxes stayed packed and we were living out of luggage in the days following because the rooms weren’t painted, the closets weren’t finished, and the floors were not completed. Some great news for everyone reading, the floors are finished! The master closet is also finished! And we are working on the painting epidemic but it’ll happen along with a lot of electrical work. With a lot left to do and we are all thankfully comfortable with a slow settling, we haven’t had anyone over yet and probably won’t for a few more weeks. Just us living and melding into our new space.

In my life I have not moved a lot and so I connect myself emotionally and physically to my home. Our last house, was all our daughters knew, the place our second daughter came home to from the hospital, where our first daughter was potty trained, the place they both learned to swim, every room filled with firsts, some lasts, and a lot of in-betweens. It’s a chapter in our life that has happened and we’re supposed to move on from. Not easy! There’ll be times in the future where Shaun and I will say “remember when” referring to memories in our last home like it was yesterday but the girls, being still so young, won’t remember and these thoughts throw me. The circular motion of bleakness to excitement haven’t stopped for the past week. I hope that the girls’ best and more memorable moments are to come, in this house, and last with them forever.

Family room and kitchen floors during reno, post, and pre-cleaning but still gorg!

Tuesday I started homeschooling the girls. The one major lesson I have learned already is that we have to set boundaries during our homeschool time. Such as, I don’t answer the phone during this time. Monday we played hookie while the floors were being finished and we got errands done, like cleaning the old house and returning our snowboard equipment from last season. Tuesday after homeschooling we caught up with some friends (picture below) at a Girl Scout event at Curly’s Ice Cream. As you can see below, they had so much fun! We are now three days into homeschooling and we are loving it! The decision not to start the girls in a new school mid-year and to live out my dream to home school them seemed to just fall into our laps with our move timeline.

The girls are still involved in their regular gymnastics class, we’re checking out our local library (which we didn’t have one of before) and so much more is keeping us in tune with the rest of the world. We women in my family normally hibernate come cold weather so our slight exclusion from the world is not abnormal for this time of the year anyway. Honestly, everything couldn’t have fallen more into place thank God.

Here’s pictures of Day 2 of homeschooling…in pjs!

Brie 1st Home School Day

 

So, to summarize my chaos of feelings, it’s all bittersweet. The good memories, neighbors/neighborhood, life we had in our old house was beyond amazing and beautiful. However, our new house, home, is nuzzling us and bringing us a different kind of joy. Our family is growing in time together and different kinds of experiences with a future that is so wide open and promising!

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Our neighbors (Whitney, top left, was 9 when we moved in and now she is 16; Cole is 14 yesterday and was 6 when we moved in; Natalie, bottom left was 2 and 3/4 when we moved in and is now 10; Brie was 4 weeks from being born and is now 7+)

Long Live the Valley of Empty Boxes

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The key to it all!

We have officially moved in! We are sleeping, eating, waking up here and all. Thanks in part to my high caffeine intake provided by San Fransisco Bay Fog Chaser coffee, it’s happened! Once the coffee maker changed addresses, then we were officially home.

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It’s happening!

The floors were done! I know you’re happy that I’d stop talking about them now lol. However, we’ve decided to keep the footprint of the kitchen for a few years and have the cabinets painted. So now the flooring, as of Monday, will be throughout my entire house YAY!! So, the glass half full, there’ll be one more floors post.

The painting downstairs will begin in about two weeks. Shaun started painting the girls’ rooms. I, with Shaun’s help, painted the master closet and the new closet system is going in this week. Shaun is finishing up the flooring on the stairs. I am still figuring out where I want all of the furniture. Settling never felt so good!

Thank God for NJ Teachers Convention because the art studio by our new home is having half day art camp and the girls are super pumped to go. During those few hours, I am fitting power box emptying time in, probably clothes because I miss my clothes. We packed most of our clothes about a month ago before the closing was pushed up almost three weeks. Since, we have had limited items that have been washed a lot since, choices will be very welcome. Now that the girls are going to be homeschooled we’ll have A LOT of time together but time to unpack by myself is going to be time well spent.

Homeschooling the girls has always been a dream of mine and I can’t wait to get started. My favorite hashtag is #noschooliscool because I love having the girls with me! It is going to be priceless, quality time together. The girls and I are making excessive lists of topics we want to learn, science projects we want to make, outdoorsy activities to keep us physical, and more. The lists just keep growing and expanding and it’s so exciting!

Last breakfast in BT
Last public school day of the year

I do have to say that I am already missing our home, friends, neighbors, and general everyday regular life. On the flip side, I am loving our new home, looking forward to walking the sidewalks, enjoying the view of the beautiful surroundings out of my kitchen window, shopping the local farms, and more! It’s such a change of scenery but totally loving what we are enveloped by. I also found an amazing coffee shop called The Coffee Potter! They make my coffee to perfection and that’s no easy feat.

We are all sharing much love of the office space. The girls and I love when Shaun is home so much and this space will allow him to work at home with more ease! Even if he’s busy working or on the phone, it’s just better having him share space with us. We will also be able to do lunch together, take early morning walks together, and more often than not be together for dinner.

We are truly four solid corners that completes the square shape. The feeling of goodness, happiness, and an exciting future is definitely in the air and I am so excited for it!

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Cheers!

Drawing to a Close, Closing That Is

Reno in process
Wood floor everywhere

This has been the biggest reno week I have ever experienced in one of our homes. I’m sore from head to toe but also equally excited for what’s to come. Making this house our forever home and a home we are proud of is my driving force. Last weekend we ripped up the rug on the stairs and hardwood flooring in the foyer and dining room. The worst part was getting it all, nail, dust and splinter filled, from the house to the dumpster. Hands, arms, shoulders, everything hurt!

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Snippet of the flooring

Wednesday the floor dudes started installing my beloved flooring, Cali Bamboo Antique Java from Lowes (no payment taken for the endorsement). Here’s a snippet of what’s been started. Shaun has been a godsend going from eLend to the new house and back to our house for days. We also picked paint colors for all of the bedrooms, family room, and dining room (the current color is visible in the pictures above, just ugh!). The kitchen will be renovated at a later date so the floors in the kitchen and family room will stay for now since those rooms flow together. Forward thinking genius moment, we purchased enough of the same flooring we are putting down now to cover those rooms too so they will mesh perfectly.

On top of that, we also bought mass quantities of white paint to cover the dark moldings and the built-ins. This is going to unequivocally change the downstairs rooms because every single one of the moldings are super dark. Then the light fixtures will be replaced, or in the bedrooms case be added since there aren’t any. If you could see the dining room fixture, you’d know why this is third on the priority list.

The girls are enjoying their extended time in and around town. We had our trunk or treat, Halloween festivities at school, Halloween on our street (which is a BIG deal!), girl scouts, and more. They were excited to have more time at school (they’re still young LOL).

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2017 Trick or Treating in BT

I think we’ve hit the point in the changeover where we are no longer more sad to leave then we are to move. We’ve reached a juncture where we love where we live and do not want to leave but are more apt to go and start our new chapter. I think part of this transition is that we are ready to not be living out of the literal box, ready to be settled into our new home, and excited to be in the place we’re working so hard to make home.

The movers come next week and we will finally move into our new home and start our next chapter. I will post a lot of before and after pictures in the weeks forthcoming. My hope is that by the end of November we’ll be unpacked, painted, finished with some of my projects, and decorated a smidge. It’s essentially like starting anew with regards to decorating since I’ve rid of so much and am not rushing buying shtuff (not a typo but two words joined together) to just fill the spaces but want to really find things we love when we do and do without until then. It’s going to be ongoing and a huge work in progress. It’s going to be a fun trip we are on! So happy we took the leap!

Here’s a picture of one of the things I’ll really miss, my favorite tree in our yard in Fall.

Fall on The Lane

Fall on The Lane