I'm calling this my warm up week for the blog, lots of ideas, but as I said consistency is what I am going for here, so I thought I'd talk about our new house (new to us).
Here she is. We went from thinking, hmm, maybe in the next year we should think about selling our house to talking to a realtor and then actually having our house sold all in 3 weeks. We are used to going along rather slowly in life but having some BAM moments where things go so fast we aren't sure what we were thinking, but normally those moments are for the best (except for the occasional pesky impulse buy).
I was sadly negligent in taking pictures of our old house, at least the outside of it. I sometimes loved that house and sometimes hated it (the hate came when the plumber or electrician would tell us how stupidly built our house was or when I could feel the lack of insulation during freezing winters. However, it was the first home we ever purchased, and it was full of 10 years of memories. It was old. It was boxy. It needed a million updates besides the ones were proudly did ourselves, but we brought home 4 precious children to it, and it kept us safe, relatively protected from the elements, and I can testify that the Lord made a lot of it work way longer than it should have. Here's a little of the old house's garage and our older than vinyl, vinyl siding:
Here is our lovely former front porch:
And my favorite thing about the old house was for what we paid we had a relatively large yard. Yes, the sprinkler system needed some repairs and so our lawn suffered between that and doggies, but it was a great yard for running around in and plenty of room on the side for my gardening passion. Oh, and the old fence-how much fun we had fixing it as it fell apart. Besides the regular wear and tear, we had 1 drunk lady crash into it one cold January so got a new part, and then 1 August a lovely windstorm allowed us to put new posts in on another section of our fence. We learned some skills and worked hard, and to have the big yard, I suppose all that work was worth it. There is where we put in the new posts.
The hustle and bustle of showings, packing, and moving made me not realize until that very last day how heart wrenching it would be to move away from the old, less than stellar place. We put a fair amount of work into for people raising 4 rambunctious children and on a very limited income, but it still wasn't a whole lot to look at, but that last day, as Luke and I furiously cleaned and then said goodbye to each last room-that was a little hard. Each room's use had changed and adapted as our lives and hearts grew, and so many memories. On that last day, all the worst days, all the crying and frustration that life's experiences had brought us were gone. It just seemed like a hallowed place where miracles had happened and love resided. I still have a hard time driving by, knowing I will never probably go in again and even if I did it would never be the same.
But I love our new house. Smaller yard, fence yet to be built, but our house is newer, and there is a lot to love about it. It has a fabuloso deck which doesn't look so inviting in the 20 degrees temps, but we are going to live out here this coming spring/summer/fall:
Luke will be smoking (meat you sillies), and I will be attempting grilled pizzas. The kids will have all sorts of imaginative options too. We will have beautiful flowers in hanging baskets. When money allows, I have an unfulfilled tree house fantasy from childhood which must be fulfilled through my children by that tree to the right of the pictures. Also right at the bottom of the pic, out of the screen shot, is a lovely circle that had previously had a heap of flowers but which I want to turn into a fire pit. With 3 boys, you know the playing with fire thing is inevitable, so why not in a moderately controlled environment? Ooh, and the mystery of our house, to the bottom left of the pic, right out of view, is our bedroom window. Outside our window, somewhere lurks....a frog...seriously. A week or so after moving into the house I heard what sounded like a "mechanical frog" in the middle of the night. It occurred every so often, and then Luke heard it too, meaning I wasn't crazy. The Eldest, skilled at tall tales, says she saw it the other day, but we can't know for sure. We do know it seems to be surviving the winter quite well, and I kind of like having a mascot, if you will. This house was surrounded by hundreds of flowers, which I cursed the day I had to pull them all for winter. Next spring, I promise, to keep peace with awesome neighbors, to plant a ton of flowers up front, but behind the fence, the true ME will shine with all beds being converted to vegetables and berries and...perhaps grapes, except for a few flowers. I can't help myself-must have productive plants. Otherwise, our yard has a useful garden shed, and we am training Enzo to do his dogly duty in just one area so that the beautiful green yard the former owners bestowed us with can stay almost all beautiful and green. We have 2 quaking aspens, which my sisters assure me will be hellish nightmares with their rooting sucker things, but I like how they look and am hoping it won't be an issue.
Now the big selling point, the main reason we moved, is our family, especially the handsome, intelligent, hard working Lucas, needed some more space. I was also told that if we were ever to possibly further procreate that a larger house was not optional. In moving, we got double the house, with a basement which is great for banishing children too but can be hard to find in our area! Our new home has 5 bedrooms and an real, live master bedroom which I enjoy so much. We will talk about my sancto-sanctorum another time. There is plenty of space, but it will all get used. In our new neighborhood, you could say our home is one of the homelier ones, but it fits us perfectly with room to house the youngins when they become moody, gangly teenagers. We don't have a mansion, and this is not the dream house we told ourselves we would move into when we left our starter home at last, but a dream house is probably more about what you do with your life and your family than where you live (at least in our income bracket), so I think we are all as happy about it as can be. Kiddos didn't even have to change schools as it was so close to our previous home.
Now, in closing just a few more extremely amateur photos of some of my fav places in the new place:
This is the walk-in shower entry, lots of tile and 2 shower heads. It is a bit spa like, and, most importantly, there are 2 locks between me and the rest of the house when I am in here. Safety!!! Peace!!! Sanity!!! or, at the very least, Cleanliness!!! And my favorite, favorite place in the house if I am not sleeping:
See how I'm keeping it real. I wanted to show you my marvelous tile backsplash but note on the stove The Eldest made eggs for breakfast. I get so torn between the huge help she is by feeding herself and her brothers and the fact that there is much cleanup FOR ME after the fact. But, it does clean up easily, and I have a ceramic top so I would be pathetic to complain too much. Our appliances at Ye Olde Place were pretty much as old as the house and stayed functional mostly from prayers, I do believe. I love the new kitchen, newer oven, fridge, counters and backsplash. The oak cabinets, which I was convinced pre move-in I would have to paint, I quite love for now. Woohoo! And, as a random but very important new part of my house, note by KitchenAid. Sure, every cook and their dog gets 1 for Christmas eventually, but mine means a lot to me, and as our friend who is living with us can attest, I spend WAY TOO MUCH time concocting foods in the kitchen, so this baby is going to earn her keep, and I have already run it like 3 times just to hear the motor.
Well, that will probably be my longest post ever, but I wanted to record a few things for posterity, and seeing as how I flipping need reading glasses now, who knows when the memory will go, need something to jog it if it's sooner rather than later.
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