As you might have noticed, I've had trouble keeping up with this blog in the past three months. There are a lot of reasons, but the main one is that WE MOVED!!!!!!
Remember that property on a hill in Philomath that I've been mentioning for years now? We finished all the paperwork (YEARS of paperwork and analysis and engineering) and found a contractor who broke ground sometime in early-ish 2016. So on March 10, 2017 we traded up from this:
to this:
It's not the most flattering picture of the new house. Technically it still doesn't have a yard or a driveway. (We're waiting on the weather to clear before we can put one in, so here in the Willamette Valley we can count on that being sometime around July. Or never.) But there is SO much more space inside! (There's a daylight basement that can't be seen in this picture.) Space to live! Space to spread out! Space to store things and have furniture and have people over! Don't get me wrong, I will always love our first house. Joseph worked so hard fixing that thing up over six years to make it cute and functional for a growing little family. We had all our babies in that house, and I have the best memories of all our kids growing up there, running around in the yard, planting things, climbing trees, chasing each other around the house... if I dwell on it too much, I'm going to make myself an emotional wreck. Leaving was bitter and sweet, because the simple fact was that we had outgrown that house. We were constantly on top of each other, there was no peace anywhere, and there was nowhere to put everything. So while I shed real tears during packing, and going back to get last loads and clean up tugs at my heartstrings, I leave with some sense of peace because it's just not the right house for us right now.
Lots of people are curious to see our new house. We've even had people invite themselves over for private viewings (???). I can only imagine these people have never moved before. Anyone who has gone through the excitement and torture that is moving knows that this is not some HGTV home improvement reveal. We've been here almost two weeks. There are still boxes all over the place. I don't know where everything is or where it's supposed to live. We moved from a small house with no room for furniture to a large house where we need to purchase approximately 400% more furniture. I still need to make trips to IKEA, Home Goods, Target, World Market, etc. to decorate this place, but I can unpack, run kids to swim lessons, cook/clean/do laundry, OR decorate. I can't do it all at the same time. Moving will cause you to lose your mind. Here are real conversations that happen when you do something stupid like move a family and all of their things:
"Hey, do you know where the drill is so that I can put [some piece of furniture] back together?"
"No. Did we bring over that box? Could it still be in the truck?"
"I guess so. I don't see it in the garage. I guess I'll put some shoes on and go get it. Where are my socks anyway?"
"I don't know. I think they're in one of those boxes."
"Oh. Do we have a knife or scissors or something to open it?"
"Nope. Those are also in boxes."
"Which ones?"
"I have no idea."
Also,
"Oh, hey! Here is the set of Allen wrenches I was looking for! How did it get in the kids' bathroom drawer?"
And other such nonsense.
Here is a fun game where I share carefully curated social media-ready photos, and then a picture of what a room actually looks like because we are real human people who don't have Chip and Joanna Gaines to decorate and unpack our house for us. Ready?
Here is our lovely new bathroom. Ooh! Aah! Look at how these people have it (mostly) together! I can't understand why they wouldn't be giving tours to people every day!
And here's what our bathroom actually looks like. I'd like to say I'll get to these boxes before the weekend, but I think they may celebrate their two week birthday in this house with us.
Look at this perfect kitchen! Everything is in its place and it is all cute!
Surprise! This is the kitchen of real people who moved, not some perfect mommy blogger! We still haven't found a good place for the trash can, so it lives Just Anywhere Out of The Way for now, the kitchen desk is covered with the remnants of a sorting/reorganizing project, and the bar counter is covered with mail, coupons, holiday decorations to be put away, and to-do lists. And there's a mountain of (clean!) dishes. Not pictured: Cheerios all over the floor. Also, this picture is blurry because it was taken while a baby was swiping at the camera from my other arm.
All this to say that while we would LOVE to start having you beautiful people over, it will take a hot minute (few weeks) for us to get everything in place. Unless you love us enough to also love our mess of boxes, be patient! We want to see all your lovely faces and hope to have a housewarming party sometime in late April or May!
We've been thinking a lot about the changes to our lives in having so much more space. Obviously, we're free to entertain guests (even overnight ones!) where before we were constrained by a lack of seating, open space, or rooms to sleep. However, this house is too big for just one family, honestly. It has a lot of functionality for living and working that our other house didn't have, but there is no way on earth that one family of six needs this many square feet. On our first day in the house, Liam asked, "Where are all the other people?" He was under the impression that everyone we knew would be moving in with us since it is actually large enough to fit them all. He seemed genuinely shocked when he learned this was all just for our family. We have big, vague plans for this big house. We want to make part of the currently unfinished daylight basement into a living area for friends or people who need a place to stay. We don't know how it will happen, but we keep asking God to help us use this space for good.
Another thing we've been keenly aware of in this new house is that it may change people's perception of us. That's partly unavoidable. But we're really just the same people in a different space. We're not suddenly better off (especially considering all the things you have to buy to furnish a new house). We haven't magically transformed into a movie family. (Though it does feel like we broke into the set for a movie and security just hasn't found us to throw us out yet.) The novelty wears off and the kids still get grumpy and bored sometimes. We've had a cold AND a fever making the rounds in the two weeks we've been here. Our first night, Diana accidentally ate a piece of candy with peanuts in it, so she was throwing up all night long and the next day Joseph put off hauling in and unpacking boxes in favor of installing the washer and dryer. We've already gotten mud on the walls, scratched the floors, and left smudge marks on the windows. We don't have window coverings because I can't manage to get out of the house to pick them out. We're still just a wild family of six trying to do our best. But now we live in a different house, and despite the fact that our kids have asked us multiple times to go back to the old house, I think we're going to be able to do good things and make great memories here too.
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