the nomads have landed

*** i wrote this on wednesday...but haven't had time to edit it until today -- sunday -- and that's only because it's mother's day and the family forced me to sit still! so if the timeline in my writing seems somewhat skewed...that's why!  everything gets a little skewed when you move... everything! oh...and happy mother's day!

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so it's been one week and one day.  and tonight is the first night since moving that i haven't fall into bed whimpering in total exhaustion.

you think i'm kidding.

i'm not.

moving is hard stuff.  and i think for a personality such as mine, it's especially hard.  i don't pace myself all that well. surprise. surprise. i want to do everything right away. immediate results. this week has been an 8 day sprint of unpacking boxes, situating stuff, painting random things, figuring out sheets and towels and pillows, measuring for rugs, hanging a thousand pictures, buying a kitchen table, hunting for chairs, planting flowers, organizing closets and cupboards and shelving.... yadda yadda yadda....

the people who bought our house in georgia last year also wanted our kitchen table set and for some reason we thought that would be a good idea.  so we sold it to them.  i had kind of forgotten that we were in need of such a basic necessity.  so, for the first few days we ate our dinner in odd places:  on the sofa.  standing at the counter.  sitting on the kitchen floor.  i ate a sandwich one day on the back steps.  you do odd things when you move.  you improvise a little.  you even comprise a bit.

but i don't want to comprise, i want to control.  i want everything all lined up and all things perfectly in place.  and i want it all done in a day.  God created the world in a week and then rested.  yet, somehow, i think i can set up a new house in less than 7 days and not need to rest.  wrong!  God was pretty clear on that topic: "and on the 7th day He rested."  well, for me, in my fallen, headstrong state, on the 7th day i didn't rest and instead ended up getting the flu.  yes, the flu. just another reminder that God's way is always better.

i know some of you clicked on my blog post tonight to see some pictures.  you'd like a little glimpse into our new home.  well, there's no lovely slideshow put together at the moment...because there's still lots and lots of unlovely disorder.  some corners are coming together...some have yet to be tackled.  i'll include a few pictures though...because, i get it, i like pictures too!

here's a view of the family room.  i really, really love this room.  aren't the ceiling beams cool? the family who built this house had a great love for all things southwest.  so, some of the design elements go in that direction. but my knock-off pottery barn decorating does a decent job meshing with it all.  thankfully our stuff works well with this house and some things were able to just come in and sit themselves down like they had always belonged here.  i like it when that happens, but it didn't happen everywhere, i assure you.  the magic moving wand never showed up this week, but, but better yet,  a few friends came to help unpack boxes.  some brought a meal.  some picked up my kids.  and all that worked together to lessen this wild woman's moving mania.  attending sarah's two day volleyball tournament out of town last weekend and getting slammed with the flu didn't help, but i am digging my way out and the good news is i

feel better today than i did yesterday.  and the really good news is we can find things today that we couldn't quite locate a few days ago.

it has taken me no less than 8 days to sit down with my computer.  there was just no way i was writing a single word one minute sooner.  not when we couldn't find the spoons or the sheets or our underwear.  not when our closets were just a tangled heap (and i do mean heap) of clothes and shoes and belts (but alas, no underwear). not when we couldn't remember which way to the basement or which switch turned off the foyer light.  not when we were still running into giant walls of cardboard boxes stacked high full of who-knows-what.  it takes time, and it takes lots of it.  acclimating to a new home is different for each one of us.

of course connor wanted to figure out how his bike felt on the slope of the new driveway. that was his priority upon moving.  tyler was enamored immediately with the creek in our backyard.  day two here he scooped out a large carp with his fishing net.  first fish of the season and it happened in our new creek. hooray for him! (i have no pictures of this event because i couldn't find my camera on day two...the camera showed up somewhere around day four). emily has spent the entire first week holed up in her bedroom decorating and redecorating her new space.  (she has the most awesome new room --

emily's curtains!

eldest child privilege, i suppose). she's like a young woman setting up housekeeping (on her parents' dime).  i think she has been to every target in minneapolis trying to find the perfect window treatment (that means "curtain" for the domestically challenged).  sarah has spent the week gone.  yep, she's barely been here.  between a 3 day volleyball tournament in rochester and then a class trip to camp forest springs, it seems she's barely slept in her own bed this week.  but her room is coming along too.  my plan is to hang pictures for her before she arrives home tonight.   bella is bella.  she embraces everything she experiences with great joy.  she is thrilled  with her new blue and yellow toile room, even though it matches none of her stuff....she doesn't care.  she's just thrilled to have all her toys out of storage.  i wish you could see her as each box opens -- it's like this crazy, intense christmas for her. toy after toy after toy. "oh mom, i forgot about that!"  that stuffed animal, that doll, that puzzle, that game, that book, that barbie doll....


and i felt exactly the same way as i opened boxes which had sat in storage for this past year.  as each item was brought in by our team of movers i marveled at what i had forgotten we owned. actually i marveled at how much we owned!  i stood at the front door as they carried things in making snap decisions on where each thing was going to go.  "take that to the master bedroom, please."  and "that one goes to the basement..."  and "oh, this, this can go to the office." on and on and on it went.  it was like christmas for a while, but then it quickly turned into a halloween nightmare.  there was so much stuff i wasn't sure what to do with.  we had everything arrive to this new house on the same day.  two separate teams of movers.  one team moving us out of the lake house and a second team moving all of our items from the storage facility.  that equalled something like 12 or 13 men working in our home all day tuesday.  can you say chaos?

this armoire was in our bedroom...
now it's down in the family room!

it has been a crazy week to say the least, but it's also been a fun one.  thankfully, i kind of like "playing house."  i mean as a mother of five, i don't have to PLAY house, i really have to seriously RUN a house.  but with a move of this magnitude, i do have an excuse to just stay home (sort of), hunker down and decorate to my heart's abandon.  i like that.  i like figuring it all out like some kind of giant puzzle.  new picture groupings and furniture used in new places.  it's fun to mix it all up and see what comes out in the end.  a mirror from the family room now up in a bedroom.  a lamp from the bedroom now down in the dining room.  that kind of thing.  it might stress some of you out, but i like it -- well, for the most part i like it.

and then of course there's the oodles of stuff that can't be used.  items which don't work in this new house.  i cannot bear to see it all sit unemployed in our basement storage...that bothers me.  it bothers me that we have too much stuff.  it is staggering to see what we've accumulated in our (almost) 23 years of marriage.  i will spend my summer sorting through it and taking countless trips to goodwill.  i did that when we left atlanta last year, but there's more to do! there's always more to do. it is usually about this point in the move when i start toying with the idea of selling it all -- or giving it all away -- and taking to the open road.  me, my family and my camera.  maybe in a gigantic RV.  one which would comfortably hold 2 adults, 5 children, 2 large dogs and a cat. we could homeschool -- or RV school -- and travel the great states of america.  visit the grand canyon, the liberty bell and niagra falls in one fell swoop! after unpacking the 700th box of random stuff, i begin to dream nightly of such an adventure.

but as much as i'd love to view myself as an adventurous woman with a gypsy heart...i'm not. i'm just not that brave.  somehow, at some point,  i think rick would have to return to work (kids are expensive) and i'd end up with those 5 kids, 2 dogs and cat behind the wheel of that giant RV somewhere near reno.   and that image alone causes me to chicken out big time on this particular american dream.

but oh the things which moving shakes free!  even after all the stuff came through the door on tuesday, more stuff has kept coming. because that's life.  back packs are emptied, a volleyball medal is brought home, flowers from a neighbor, much needed groceries are carried into the kitchen, new curtains and finally a kitchen table arrive.  the stuff keeps showing up.  every day new stuff walks through my door.  this weekend bella attended a princess birthday party at an art studio and came home with a giant purple painted clay crown.  "where should we put it mommy?"  she asked.  oh, that question.  i stared at her dumbstruck.  i had no answer.  i was in the process of "where should i put it?" with a zillion and one household items.  where should i put this picture or that plant or this candlestick or that canister....where oh where does it all need to go?  i just simply couldn't add a giant purple painted clay crown to the list at the moment.

but slowly we are figuring it out.  we are figuring out what needs to stay or move or shift... and what needs to go.  what needs to be given away.  what needs to thrown away.  it's a fascinating business this moving thing.  and by the way, i really do think i could start up a consulting business on how to pack and move a home in 10 easy steps. it occurred to me last week that in our 23 years of marriage, rick and i have moved 11 times.  that breaks down into moving every 25 months or so.  some of those moves were just after college and really, really quick.  and some of those moves were local.  we moved in order to get something with a better yard or a bigger basement or something.  we've only moved for business 3 times.  once out of college.  once from ohio to georgia.  and last year from georgia to minnesota.  so, the bottom line is, i really do know how to do this.  the poor packers and movers we used found out right away what a bossy cow i am.  when i was explaining to one man how i wanted him to pack something specific, he said, "you've clearly done this before." i just smiled.  rick would add to that "don't mess with her."  i think he told the kids that one night at dinner this week.  "don't mess with mom right now."  and they haven't.  they've been good little soldiers as i've asked them to carry this or move that.  each of us has made a million trips up and down the stairs as we've shifted life from one house to another.

the good news is, we have found our underwear...and everything else is coming together.  of course we miss the lake.  the very day we moved away it was finally clear of ice -- at least from our vantage point.  and with our arrival at this new home, spring has also finally arrived.  i kind of like the tidiness of that timing.  one chapter closes and another opens.  we have some beautiful woods out back with a creek running through them.  the lake is gone, but i do get to watch the lime green of spring sneak out from the trees in this next week.  even since we've arrived here i've noticed smooth bark begin to bud and then leaf.  a few days ago i found minne in the backyard sitting and staring at the creek, as if she was thinking, "where did the lake go?"  it feels like that a little bit right now...leaving one home and setting up another.  and all of it pretty quick -- even for this impatient woman.  but regardless of the setting or the city or the color of pain on the kitchen walls...we're the same mcnatt family. we're together. we're thankful.  and we're home.

now for a little glimpse of the new digs...

the foyer -- welcome!

the office.  in shambles now...but lots of potential.

my desk nook off the kitchen...this is as clean as you'll ever see it.

a collage of pictures in the basement...did this last night!

but here's where most of our pictures are...along the baseboards...still trying to figure out where to put them.

i am really enjoying this kitchen...pretty and functional. 

the much needed kitchen table.  those ladder back chairs belonged to my parents first dining room set.  i love them -- my parents and the chairs!  now...just imagine two distressed blue-gray arm chairs on either end.  i'm on the hunt!

i added new pillows to our old, brown couch...an inexpensive way to freshen things up!

 

i love seeing how our old things work in new ways...in new spaces.  

another angle of the family room.  see that mantle?  beautiful, but i'm struggling on what to do there...any ideas, send them my way!

i have big plans for this wall.  photos and words.  it runs between the kitchen and my office.  and i can't wait to tackle this project!

one of my most favorite items to come out of storage -- my piano! it had accidentally gone into storage and i've missed it terribly.  this is the same piano i learned to play on as a child.  (it's old).  =)

the screened in porch.  empty except for the picture i plan to hang out there.  empty and waiting for some wicker furniture.  maybe mother's day??? hint. hint.

a nice big mud room for minne!

the long, winding driveway back to our house.  one of the best things about this house is the wooded setting and wrap around creek.

 here's a bit of normal:  ty's soccer/lax net set up in the backyard.

glad to have our patio set back.  really, really glad to finally see some forsythia blooming! (that's the yellow stuff).

finally...a flower pot by the back door.
i put these there before i had finished unpacking.  just had to. the orange makes me happy. the fact that it's warm enough to plant something makes me even happier.