Staying.

You could say that I know a thing or two about leaving – we have moved three times in the last five-ish years, including a three-month stint in a camper and a six-month period living in a different hotel or vacation home on a weekly basis. And let's not even get started on the fact that I have moved a total of 18 times in my life, not including my college years. So leaving, I'm good at that.

Staying. Staying is much harder for me. I'm trying to make peace with it. I want my boys to grow up in a place where they will hopefully have friends that last a lifetime. But I may always feel the tug to move on.

This transient side of me has learned to make friends almost anywhere, but more often than not, the people I connect with are also the moving type. I guess we gravitate toward each other because we understand what it is like, this impermanence. This year I have already said goodbye to a new friend who moved to Idaho, and last week I dropped by to see a friend who is headed to Montana soon.

I'm excited for them, but it's hard to be the one on the saying goodbye side of things. I'm sad to see them go, and also a teeny bit jealous perhaps. Jealous of their new adventure? I don't know. I guess I'm just in an antsy phase. We have been in our current town for three years now which is enough time to feel settled, but also historically this is about the time that life uproots me...

Moving

Moving Day was exactly one week ago. I feel like I have been treading water for the last two weeks, trying to stay afloat in the craziness of it all.

We closed on our house last Thursday without too much hassle. 

Since Daniel has been working very long hours and was sick on Valentines weekend, I requested that we have a family date on closing day. Daniel took the day off from work and we started the day with breakfast the BlueGrass Grill in downtown Chattanooga. 

This is one of our favorite breakfast places and eating there in the middle of the week meant no wait. Jack liked it as well – he helped finish off Daniel's stack of strawberry pancakes.

After breakfast, Daniel dropped Jack and I at the Creative Discovery Museum for some playtime while he went to get stuff from one of our two storage sheds. He also had to get our check for closing that afternoon.

Jack had a blast playing. On this particular trip he was most focused on the art room. It's interesting to me that when he went to the museum with Daniel a few weeks ago, they mostly played with the water tables, working the dams and locks. 

This time it was all about drawing and clay – of his own choosing.

When Daniel picked us up, we hurried back up to Signal Mountain to drop Jack at our friend's house. Moving without some kind of support system would be a nightmare (especially with a toddler). We are so thankful for friends and family that have helped us out.

After dropping Jack off, Daniel and I went to the final walk through at our new house. Thankfully everything that we requested to be done had been completed.

While Daniel made sure things were in working order, I did a quick run through and made notes on where I thought furniture should go. Moving into a new house with a new layout takes a lot of mental gymnastics.

Once we were satisfied with the walk through, we headed across town to the actual closing. Closings are kind of weird. You sit face to face with strangers and talk about your finances. At least the seller seemed nice. In a strange twist, the couple we purchased the house from was moving next door to the cottage we have been staying at since the first of January.

As soon as closing was done and we had our keys, we thanked our realtor profusely for letting us drag her to so many houses and then we found a Starbucks. We were both exhausted and felt like celebrating with caffeine. I realized later that night that Daniel and I completely missed lunch.

With coffees in hand, we made a stop at Home Depot for paint... where we had the following experience:

Daniel and I split up. I headed straight for the paint samples while Daniel went to grab other paint related items. While looking at samples, a sales person approached me and asked, "Are YOU GUYS homeowners?" Since I was by myself I ignored the sales guy. He tried again, "What kind of projects are YOU GUYS doing?"

I looked up and realized there was a guy next to me, also looking at paint. Feeling sorry for the sales guy, I made eye contact and said something along the lines of, "Well, for starters, our projects are at different houses."

The sales guy was a bit embarrassed for assuming me and the other guy were together. But not to be deterred, he asked again if either of us were homeowners. The other guy copped out and said, "No." I said, "yes" and waited for the inevitable sales pitch... "You planning on doing a kitchen renovation any time soon?" I had a good answer to this question: "Actually, no. I just bought a house and it has an amazing kitchen!" The sales guy immediately told me, "Congratulations."

At this time Daniel walked up behind me and the sales guy proceeded to say, "Oh, I know about you, you just closed on your house 2 hours ago! Again, congratulations." And he walked off. His comment surprised me because I didn't share that level of detail. It turns out that the guy had already talked to Daniel.

Upon leaving Home Depot and heading back up to Signal Mountain to get Jack, we stopped to pick up pizza to share with our friends. 

Jack had had a wonderful afternoon playing and it was nice that we didn't have to worry about him while we took care of business. We are so thankful to have good friends that live close by that could share our special day with us.

When we finally got back to our rental cottage, Daniel put Jack to bed and I changed clothes and headed over to the new house where I started painting Jack's new room. I wanted to get the walls primed before the movers showed up with our stuff, so I painted until the wee hours of the night.

It has been a trying week as we work to get settled. There are so many boxes to unpack and work to be done, but we are incredibly grateful that we are starting to feel settled in our new-to-us home. I think I am going to mark #79 off my life list (own a cabin in the woods... I think this house basically fits that criteria, though definitely not a log cabin).

We Closed

Our last night together in our house.

We officially moved out of our house the weekend before Christmas but we didn't close on selling the house until Saturday. And today we received the official confirmation from the relo company that our part of selling the house is done. Yahoo! Here are a few pictures of our last day at the house as a family.

 Jack's choice for his last breakfast at the house was peanut butter from the jar. 

Jack had fun with his birthday train while the house was packed up.

 Jack is practicing with the tape measure while his Daddy 

works on adding a rail to the stairs on the front of our house.

 Watching his Daddy work on the steps.

 Daniel working on adding the necessary stair rail so that we can close on the house on time.

Our last time riding our four wheeler on our property.

Packed up. Everything will be in storage through February 20. 

Hopefully we will find a house by then!

Our last family photo at our Hollywood house. 

Sad to say goodbye, but looking forward to our next phase of life 

in whatever home we end up buying.

Goodbye House

I don't think that moving will ever be an easy thing. I have moved more times than I care to count and it is still a difficult task. And I'm not talking about the packing and unpacking.

It's emotionally difficult, even if you know it's time to move on.

When we moved from Charlotte, Daniel and I made sure to visit our favorite restaurants one last time. We also did any activities that we could squeeze in that we knew we wouldn't get to do again for some time. It was therapeutic and a good way to say goodbye to the city where we officially became "adults."

This move has been of a different sort. This time we are leaving the house where we became parents and the process has been rushed and crazy. There has been no time to feel like we are "saying goodbye" to this home. We started the goodbye process in June, but that dragged on until we abruptly sold our home over Thanksgiving.

The week of our move (last week), we kicked off the crazy by being in different states. Did I mention it was also our anniversary? Daniel was in a hotel in Chattanooga and was lucky enough to get upgraded to a room with a great view of the Tennessee River. Too bad he was alone. I, on the other hand, was home in Alabama with Jack. We shared Japanese take out. Not exactly romantic.

Tuesday was a flurry of house hunting. We were generally disappointed by the search. We also received a phone call from the realtor selling our home informing us that we had to add a rail to the stairs leading to our front door. As if we didn't have enough on our plates...

I had hoped that we could have a last dinner as a family at our favorite local Mexican restaurant but with everything we had to do, we ate leftovers instead.

To make a long story short, our packers showed up on Wednesday morning. I finished packing the items we will need for the next two months while our belongings are in storage and Daniel worked on the new rail and figured out what he would be responsible for moving aside from the movers.

After the rail was in place, Sophie, Jack and I left town. While the movers packed and loaded our belongings, I hung out at my sister's house. Meanwhile Daniel stayed behind to oversee the move. Hopefully everything will make it to whatever house we end up buying, unscathed.

Daniel and I have barely seen each other in the last couple of weeks. We briefly had time to ride the four wheeler with Jack before Jack and I left. I found myself crying on several occasions during the last day at our house. Leaving is always sad. There is also the emotion of not really feeling like we are experiencing Christmas, basically skipping our anniversary, and not knowing where we will be living in February. 

To say there is a lot on our minds would be an understatement right now. To top it all off I have had the joy of a wisdom tooth making its painful appearance. It's been a rough couple of weeks to say the least.

Preparing to Say Goodbye to Our House

Today was the last day in our house as a family... 
  

which is feeling more bitter than sweet right now.

Daniel took Jack out for a last ride on the four wheeler on this property. 

We have no idea when we will get to this kind of thing again. Based on the property's we have looked at, it's unlikely there will be ATV rides from our back door...

After a very cold ride, they took a hike into our woods.

When we bought this house, the 3 acres with woods was a big selling point. 

We didn't have kids yet, but we knew that once we grew our family, the woods would be an integral part of their youth. 

We have looked forward to Jack getting to build a tree house in those woods and now those dreams are going to stay dreams (at least at this home).

We really do love our house and are sad that this is period of our lives in coming to a close.