We've moved!!!!! And our house in the burbs is pending!!!! You guys, moving is so much work. Que the violins... The five kids doesn't help much since they all still need to eat, require clean clothes, to be bathed and over all, monitored. It also doesn't help when The Pilot wants to DIY the move with two trailers. True story.
Mark has almost exclusively moved our 5 bedroom house 20 minutes down the road with very little help. This means that while he's lifting heavy objects and hauling things, he's not been able to work on projects around our farm. It's slowly coming together and the last of our stuff will be brought over this weekend. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and then a boat load more work after that. Encouraging words. Good thing I'm not a motivational speaker! 😂 And good thing we have forever to accomplish this because I am not moving again until we go to "The Home".
He could DIY the move because he's had about a month off in a row. He had the last half of October off and then the first two weeks of November. God is so good!! He's back to work in Amsterdam right now getting ready to start his day as I'm getting ready to turn in for the night. That's weird.
I think it's safe to say at this point that no one is going to die in this move. Two weeks ago I wasn't so sure, but things are looking up. OCD people probably shouldn't move. We closed on Halloween, cleaned for a few hours, and then hosted a Halloween dinner for a small army that same day. Yes, I need to be committed!!
We LOVE our new place. It is the greatest blessing and I can see that God had us travel down all those failed loans, botched appriasals and picking selections for a brand new house never to be built to get us to this place. I'm so grateful he did because with some work, it's going to be perfect.
Besides the quiet, space, and the view, this is what has made the grueling work of moving worth it. Sorry for the dark picture, I've taken so many more photos with my iPhone because that's what's handy. I love our barn set up. It's just down the hill from our backyard which I like because it's close and we can kind of see it, but it's not in our face.
We're tractor owners now! My niece's husband, Brian, gave us tractor lessons a few weekends ago. It was a hoot!
Mark said he was glad the neighbors couldn't see us learning the ropes. I'm sure they heard us hooting and hollerin' though.
This is what city slickers turned country folk do on the weekends for fun when they're not unpacking and moving stuff.
We inherited a barn cat named Frank and this hot tub. We've yet to interact with the cat, although we have been dutifully feeding it daily, but we have made good use of the hot tub. FYI: We turn it down when the kids get in it so it's more of a warm tub than hot. 😁
Our property is so neat. Behind me when I took this picture are our two pastures and looking forward is our creek, outdoor arena, and then up the hill, the house. It's so peaceful, but so not far from civilization.
The view from my bathroom window... It's going to take a while to get used to seeing Mark on the tractor. It's fun to drive, but complicated to mow and make sure you don't take anything out behind you.
The funny thing about the house is that it's not to my taste with lots of natural wood work and such, but it feels so homey. After I put my touch on it, I know it's going to be just fine. I do not have a death wish so we are not painting all the wood trim white. I will just learn to appreciate it.😉 Thankfully, the bedrooms at least have white trim.
Our kitchen is much bigger. Not to my taste either, but neither were the last two houses we've lived in. When Mark is finished moving stuff, he and my dad can tag team the downstairs painting because I'm getting antsy to put my stamp on things. They've been working upstairs so please don't take that as a complaint... Rome wasn't built in a day either. I just want to make it cute and soon!
Mark and I slept on the living room floor for about a week. We slept on mattress most nights, but not all. A friend of mine said that sounded romatic. Yes, seperate sleeping bags is very romantic!
Progress is steady, but it feels slow at times. We now have our full couch, so don't go feeling all sorry for us. We weren't going to move in right away, but we quickly realized that we couldn't work on the house and still get the little kids to bed at a decent hour. Also, I was tired of SHOWING our other house. Don't you know the people that are buying it came through on the Feast of St. Jude the patron saint of impossible cases?!! A coincidence? I think not! I prayed the Novena with the sale of our house being the main reason I was seeking intercession. Our buyers sold their house in 3 days so then then were free to make an offer on ours. God worked this out too! The family also home schools which is perfect.
The boys get the bonus room bedroom again.
Chaos everywhere...
Brooke has handled the move pretty well. She feels like she didn't cope well at times, but the overall picture has been a positive one.
I will be doing the Happy Dance when this light fixture hits the trash.
And the watermelon boarder in the dining room. An interesting choice for sure!
My sister doing the dirty work. This house was filthy. Dog hair and dirt E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E!! My mom and sister have helped tremendously with the cleaning and more!
So I may have a paint problem...The funny thing is that I have only bought samples one other time in my life (that I can remember anyway!) when we redid our master bath last spring. This is how it went, I brought a sample home, didn't like it, and then chose a color from a paint chip in the end anyway. I think it's truly some OCD issues. I searched Pinterest for all the hottest SW colors, but in the end, mostly I chose some not so famous colors that were not found on the web. It's the wood that throws everything off. I'm going to start a case for the Lowes' Valspar line and stick that in everyone's Pinterest feed. 😁
Ellie's room is right next to ours, sharing a wall and a set of french doors that in the near future will be removed. This arrangement is not ideal because this girly wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night and talks to herself for a half hour to an hour or she wakes up at 5 AM and talks herself back to sleep. This is NOT cool. It feels slightly like we've got a baby in the house again, which Lord willing at this point, will not be happening. Fostering the same kid for 2.5 plus years + Ellie the one toddler wrecking ball + moving = no more arrows to be added to our quiver. I should add a caveat... if Ellie's mom ends up pregnant again, we would consider taking her sibling. Lord, help us!
Despite what this picture shows, Ellie has not been helpful in this move. Cute, but a menace. Oh, and last week, we found out that all foster kiddos at their 2nd birthday are required to be out of a crib no matter what. I had no idea, so we've had an extra 4 months of bliss. Yeah, we're "working" on that.
Nash helped me paint the only wood trim I wanted to convert to white in the powder room on the main floor. It didn't make sense to me to have white bead board with natural trim above and below it. I rectified that situation and then my dad painted the walls "Winter in Paris". Just so you know, that yellow has nothing to do with Paris.
She's a handful alright. I think Ellie is going to do us all in eventually. No new news yet. Still waiting to see if enough time has passed with her dad making no progress and her mom falling off the wagon for the county to consider filing for permanent custody. I don't expect to hear anything before January. I've got patience oozing out of my ears at this point. 😏
We have less boxes in our master bath, but unfortunately our closet is under construction so I still feel like I'm camping a bit. It doesn't really bother me because the rest of the house is pretty much fully functioning. This is one of two showers in the house currently. Another one will be put in the basement in the near future...we hope. Lord, let it be so!! Going from 4 showers to 2 has been a bit of an adjustment. #spoiled
Saying we've been so busy is an understatement, but I forgot to tell you how we ended up inheriting our barn cat, Frank. A week and a half before closing, we met with Mr. Seller who showed us around the property. When we were in the barn, he starts pointing out things and then points to the hayloft and says, "Oh and Frank, the barn cat, lives in the loft. His food is in that bin over there. He gets one cup a day and yeah, he doesn't like to be picked up." Boom! We got a cat! Just like that...There was no, "How do you feel about keeping this cat? or Do you mind because we don't want to re-home him because we're afraid he'll run away?" Nope, it was a package deal. Frank was a rehabilitated feral cat whom I've only glimpsed from a far. I did have the presence of mind to ask what color and if it was neutered. He's about 4 years old and apparently doesn't like us very much. Mark and I cracked up for 3 days after that.
I took the above picture out of Ellie's window one day when I was painting trim. I thought this was Frank because it was A.) black and B.) it was on our porch. After I met the neighbor and showed him the picture, he told me that it was their cat, Taco, that got out for a joy
ride stroll. I joke that we could be feeding a possum and we'd never know because we never see our cat, but the food is gone.
Speaking of neighbors, I've met 4 so far and they are extremely welcoming and kind. I thought that it would be hard to make friends with them because we're not right on top of each other, but they stopped by and introduced themselves and have been awesome ever since.
On Sunday, our immediate neighbor "Mr. Two Trees" (last name Woods, not Wood) took us to meet another neighbor who owns these beautiful horses. He has a garage that is like a museum with about a dozen refurbished carriages, most antique and he takes his Clydesdale's all over in every kind of parade and special event you could imagine. Funny enough, we've seen his carriages and horses in an annual horse parade held every December by our house. Now we are neighbors!!
Brooke and Stella mucked out their stalls and the earned $3 and chocolates even though Brooke firmly refused...money, not chocolate. 😋 Then he drove us all home because it was about 35 degrees. Yes, two days before it was 74 degrees and then suddenly, it was flurrying. I truly can't believe we get to live in this beautiful place with such friendly neighbors. Mike, pictured above, told me we live in horse country now, which we love.
I reconnected with an acquaintance I knew a few years back that boards her horse at a barn just down the road from us now. I took a few lessons on her cute little paint horse and then apparently left my riding helmet and saddle pad there about 3 years ago. I found that out when I texted her a few days ago. It was hilarious to "find" it after all this time and even funnier is that this woman is friends with Mrs. Seller!! I think this is what it feels like to live in a small town. Everyone knows everyone!!
Oh, my gosh, it is almost midnight so I need to be getting in the shower and off to bed. You never know when Ellie's going to wake up these days! I have about a hundred pictures from October that I will try to post soon. I just had to get this update up before Thanksgiving because it was starting to feel like too many "events" piling up that I could never get our story documented well. You can check back here next week or your can subscribe in the new box on the top right of my blog so you don't have to stalk. Don't worry, that's normal in the blogging world. 😜 Hope you have a blessed and peaceful Thanksgiving! God bless.
xoxo,
Katie
