The week leading up to and including our move could be easily described in one word . . . . exhausting.
Oy. Each night I was so very happy when my head finally hit the pillow!
The week was full of painting . . . . I was able to prime and paint the laundry room and all 3 kids bedrooms all by myself.
The week was full of preparations . . . . appliance deliveries, carpet cleaning, setting up utilities, a visit from satellite & internet guys, and phone calls to the city to get our water turned back on after they shut it off.
The week was full of everyday life . . . . getting the kids to and from school, piano, swim, scouts, etc. etc. etc. Not to mention figuring out what was happening for dinner each day. We ate a lot of fast food and pizza.
The week was full of long nights . . . . some nights I stayed at the house alone, working on the painting. Some nights the kids were there with us either running amok or, in Anna's case, finding an open space to crash on.
The week was full of discoveries . . . . a leaking sink in the boys' bathroom, a non-functioning toilet, . . . . . and a scorpion in my family room. That's right. A scorpion. Luckily, the appliance delivery guys were here at the time so I asked them to get rid of it. Did you know you're not supposed to kill scorpions inside the house? I was told that the scent will attract more. Good to know. (The above photo features my scorpion floating in the pool, drowning.)
The week was full of want vs. need home-project lists . . . . Pest control is definitely a need. As well as new toilets.
And I should also mention that this particular week was Scott's busiest week of the year. Budgets were due.
Yes, exhausting is the correct word.
But then FRIDAY came (moving day - October 12) and I was more than ready to turn the work over to the professionals! We hired movers to haul the contents of our storage unit into the house. My job was to supervise. Scott's job was to go to work and get those budgets in (but stopping by to check-in from time to time). And the kids' job was to hang out at the house and watch tv (they had no school that day).
One of the things that we knew would be so awesome about this move, was being reunited with our "stuff" that has been sitting in storage for the past 7 months. Anna has been anxiously awaiting a reunion with her penguin Happy Napper. It didn't come out of this particular box, but there were plenty of other stuffed animals that she was very happy to see again.
The movers finished around 2pm. We spent the rest of the day and all of Saturday finishing up the move ourselves. (We only paid for one truck load and we had way more stuff than would fit in their 8x26 moving truck).
We ended up renting a U-haul for a few hours on SATURDAY and made several trips in the van and truck to clear out the rest of the storage unit and our apartment. We also managed to clean the apartment from top to bottom. It was a relief to finally be out of there! After a week of going back and forth between house & apartment it was so nice to have just one place to call home.
The kids were fantastic little workers.
At the end of the day the house looked like this . . .
Messy. Just the way it should be. We had beds to sleep in. Clothes in our closets. All of our belongings in one place. And plenty of space to spread out.
We went to The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate our successful move. Everyone got just what they wanted -- appetizers for us, appetizers for the kids, delicious meals, Anna opted for a hot fudge sundae instead of real food, and I got a slice of Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake to go. We came home and watched the BYU football game on Scott's giant new tv, a.k.a. "The Monstrosity".
Everything is falling into place and we couldn't be happier. Tired, but happy. :)
A few weeks ago while listening to General Conference we received some good counsel about finding joy in the journey -- every day we can find things to appreciate / enjoy / be thankful for. It's also important that we don't bog our days/lives down with this concept of "busy" so much that we miss all those things that we could be enjoying along the way. I saw this on Becky Higgins' facebook page this week and thought it was perfect.
We are definitely busy. But our busy is definitely full of blessings and I'm going to remember that each day!
