if these walls could talk

while pounding my 189th nail in the wall yesterday, i found myself humming amy grant's, "if these walls could speak."

i suppose when a woman begins to personify the walls of her home, it's officially {high} time to take a break.

but after two solid weeks of figuring out corners and closets and cupboards and paint colors ... let me tell you ... it could be a whole lot worse. 

if these walls could speak ... "if hallowed halls could talk these would have a tale to tell ... "

what these walls would tell you is that this woman is frantically trying to set up her home.

like, FRAN-TIC-LLY, people.

with the oldest girl heading off to college next month and the other four beginning school and sports and crazy schedules in exactly one month from last friday (OH.MY.GOSH) this woman is desperate to make sure we can locate lunch boxes, laundry hampers and every little last thing! 

a rush.

a race against time.

a reality tv show in the making.

confession: i've even found myself pretending (just a little bit, mind you, and at very late hours) that i was a designer in one of those HGTV home shows. 24 hours. 24 dollars. GOOOOOOOOO!

maybe not 100% socially acceptable to pretend like this, but i'm game for anything that helps hold me from the edges of homemaking insanity.

yesterday, as i was putting the finishing touches on emily's room, she said, "mom, you know you really missed your calling." i mean, seriously, how many rooms has my daughter watched me flip ... furnish ...  fuss-over and finish?

oh yes, if these walls could talk ...

but, here's the deal:  they can't. 

i know talking walls is a (kinda) romantic notion ... and i'm a (kinda) romantic woman ... 

but seriously, even beyond the incredibly creepy factor, talking walls would be (kinda) annoying. right?

and IF these walls COULD talk in these past couple of weeks i'm pretty certain i wouldn't want to hear the tale they had to tell.

no, i need no one -- not even talking walls -- to converse with me about our most recent case of crazy.

we bought this house from the nicest people -- empty-nesters who were ready to down-size. they were barely out the door when our super-sized family came rifling right through. a semi-truck followed and the serene, empty nest began to bulge ... the walls began to shake, the floors to quake and the roof, well i'm sure, it just shrugged its shoulders and sighed. 

here. we. go.

empty-nesters out. obscene-nesters in.

and as is the case with any home we have lived in, we cover it well. we fill all the rooms. we invade the corners. we seize the square footage. we occupy the space.
c o m p l e t e l y.

there is no unused air in our home (homes). there is nothing which escapes unruffled by my ruffly, riotous kind of crew.
n o t h i n g.

it's not a relocation, but an invasion.

and even though i'm pretty sure the walls don't talk, i wonder if my new neighbors might. there's a tiny piece of me which wonders what the neighbors are thinking as they peer out from behind their blinds.

in between spackling and sprucing, i'll be honest, i've been feeling sort of compelled to go and apologize to anyone within earshot.

because ... here. we. are.

and because ... we are THAT family. 

we are the cacophonous circus which showed up on this sleepy southern street with one cat, two dog-horses, three teens, four cars, five children, six bikes, seven people and eight thousand pounds of garbage each week.

did i mention my almost 17 year old son now drives a pickup truck. it's red. and  it's big. and it's everything nice, neat neighbor-people shake their heads and sigh over. 

and when he drives that big-red-thing up the driveway, these walls which don't really talk sure do shake. they do. and, i'll be honest, this mother kinda shakes, too. i wasn't all that sure about adding a truck to our automotive arsenal, but rick persuaded me it was a purely practical thing. "honey, think how easy it will be to haul things ... pine straw and mulch and costco stuff. honey, think about the FURNITURE you can fit in it." 

did someone say FURNITURE?

smart man.

man-ip-u-lat-or.

so, i now have a big red truck parked in my driveway. and ... (if you'll allow me to whine for one minute more) the shade of red clashes horrifically with my shutter color. the sacrifices we make as mothers ... 

just sayin ...

anyway, here we are. pounding on walls and doors and floors. arrived and arranging our new life in this new space. feeling a little bit like a tetris junkie as i fit old things into fresh facades. organizing cabinets and orchestrating projects. hanging pictures and clothing and curtains. hanging on to the brink of sanity while trying to set up and fix up and cover up. 

holding on, that is, with paint covered hands. i've been busy not only pounding nails in our walls, but also painting like a mad woman. i'm telling you, it's therapeutic for my kind of madness. we've knocked out the dining room, the laundry room, and emily's bedroom and bath.

"aloof gray" - sherwin williams

"palladian blue" - benjamin moore

also "aloof gray." we started with a color called "pensive sky," but it looked a little too um ... pensive periwinkle ...
and so we grabbed the leftover dining room paint and gave that a try! and it worked!
it looks gray in em's room and more blue in the dining room light. color is so very strange. 

emily tackled this old blue bookshelf her first week in the house.
changing it from her brother's navy blue to gray.

i assure you, the bulletin board won't remain empty for long!

painting and pounding ...
refining, recreating and repurposing ...

speaking of repurposing ... i have to share with you the story of the wine cellar. see, the previous owners did a bang up job creating a lovely wine room in the basement. like, i'm serious, four walls with floor to ceiling wine racks ... teak stained and climate controlled. it's like SO BEAU-TI-FUL. but even though this woman can appreciate a good bottle of wine (especially when she's pretending to star in her own HGTV show), i've got to tell you, i'll never fill an entire cellar with fine bottles. BUT ... i DO happen to have two furry beasts trying to acclimate from cool minnesota to the horrific-heat of georgia AND SO ... it just seemed too obvious a match.
wine bottles out and big dogs in.
cooper and minne now have their own refrigerated room to cool off in.  cheers!

oh, yes, if these walls could talk ...

they'd tell you a bunch of crazy loons have moved in on whitney valley walk (what a name, huh? just like a lot of southern children get multiple names -- so do southern streets). 

they'd tell you this family is loud and that they leave their bikes in the front yard and that a bunch of extra kids come and go. i'm sure the neighbors would like to know if we have five or fifteen kids living in this home.

they'd tell you the dog is often wet from the river and the children sometimes run wild.
they might tell you about how one morning they met the woman of the house when she - clad in strangely mismatching and rather raggedy pajamas - had to retrieve one of her big beastly dogs from their garage.

and if the walls were really being honest, they would tell you that sometimes the pictures hang crooked, the color is wrong, the furniture doesn't quite fit and the people aren't always patient or polite or even very kind.

because ... real life will be lived on whitney valley walk.

they might tell you the front door, even in the hot georgia heat, is often left wide open.
they might tell you there's sometimes some odd hooting and hollering, but hopefully even more laughter.
they might tell you there's plenty to watch and wonder about.
that there's some loose-screws ... some loud-living ...  and some life.

but, what i hope these walls would tell most of all is that in the middle of this lunacy, what there really is ... is some love.

if these walls could talk ... 

"If These Walls Could Speak"

~ amy grant

If these old walls

If these old walls could speak

Of things that they remembered well

Stories and faces dearly held

A couple in love

Livin' week to week

Rooms full of laughter

If these walls could speak

If these old halls

If hallowed halls could talk

These would have a tale to tell

Of sun goin' down and dinner bell

And children playing at hide and seek

From floor to rafter

If these halls could speak

They would tell you that I'm sorry

For bein' cold and blind and weak

They would tell you that it's only

That I have a stubborn streak

If these walls could speak

If these old fashioned window panes were eyes

I guess they would have seen it all

Each little tear and sigh and footfall

And every dream that we came to seek

Or followed after

If these walls could speak

They would tell you that I owe you

More than I could ever pay

Here's someone who really loves you

Don't ever go away

That's what these walls would say

They would tell you that I owe you

More than I could ever pay

Here's someone who really loves you

Don't ever go away

That's what these walls would say

That's what these walls would say

That's what these walls would say

one last thing, i'd like to give a quick shout out to my minnesota flowers for making the trek to georgia and surviving! i won't tell you my family didn't grumble about sharing vehicle space with the foliage ... but, grumbles or not, i am SO GLAD i insisted on fitting them in!

and while we're on the subject of flowers ... here's my deal of the week: i found these urn/planters at goodwill. five dollars, baby! gotta love the goodwill. they were a light shade of gray and looking a little rough around the edges, but spray paint works wonders and now i have two matching planters at my garage. (which also probably clash a little with the big red truck).

a few lessons learned in moving

three moves in three years. it sounds insane.
{it is}.

and it was only a week ago that we said our final farewell to minnesota --
to the beautiful place and to the beautiful people.

we traveled a thousand miles this week.
it seems more.
much more.


and just-like-that -- we are back in georgia.
or, well, sort of “just-like-that” ...
because, be assured, there’s a little more to it.

this morning, i sit in our southern house overtaken by cardboard boxes and confusion, impatient with the disorder and disarray. wishing wildly for that magical moving-wand which puts everything in its place and cleans up the chaos.

you’d think a woman who has moved her family three times in three years might have an extra shortcut or two tucked away in her arsenal.
maybe.
maybe a few shortcuts, but no magical moving-wand.
plain and simple, my friends, it takes a little organization, a hefty dose of perseverance and a whole lot of elbow grease.

like most challenges in life, the only way to dig out, is to dig in.

maybe you’ve moved before and you know the drill ...
the days when you can’t believe order will ever be achieved under this new roof.
the days so piled high with belongings and stuff you wonder where in the world it all came from.
the days when you fall exhausted into your sheet-less bed with a bare brushing of the teeth.
the days when you kinda want to meet your new neighbors but secretly hope to goodness they don't come calling while the house (and YOU) look "this way."

yeah, that.

yeah, those kind of days.

our second morning here, rick and i opened 11 kitchen boxes before 7 am in search of some sugar for our coffee. 11 boxes and no sugar. so we just had to give thanks for the coffee.

it’s been almost six days and though we are starting to see some progress, we still don’t have television, internet or a working washing machine and dryer … and, at this point, it's a toss up on which service is more important. the laundry room stinks to high heaven and the kids have gobbled up our data plan like a plate full of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. with three teenagers in the house, i can tell you, both laundry and internet are necessities.

but on the bright side, we have located our coffee, our tooth brushes, the dog leashes and our underwear.

oh, and yes, the sugar. the sugar has also been found. thank heaven for the sugar.

seriously, what more do we need?

there's no way around it, moving shakes things up a bit. not just in the house, but also in the woman. at least in this woman.  i’ll admit, i’m a gal who likes to sort of think she’s in control; a girl who likes to think she has a handle on it all (okay on at least a handle on a little).
but what i’ve learned in moving is: i don’t.

moving has a way of stripping you clean. there's something in the process which reveals a lot. and i’m not just talking about what we find when we move the sofa or pull up the rugs (though that’s disturbing enough to warrant it’s own level of horror). no, i’m talking about when we are stripped away of our false sense of control. when we are faced only with the option of surrender. there's something kind of crazy and confusing and humbling (oh, my goodness h.u.m.b.l.i.ng.) when a crew of people descend on your home, pack up your stuff, fit it on a truck and carry it off … a person quickly realizes that though she can say things like, "oh, be careful with that, please" or "oh, please put that here..." she is really at the mercy of many hands in a move. and though, as we experienced with the truck fire of 2012, that sometimes doesn’t end so well … i, ultimately (and somewhat painfully) think it’s a worthwhile lesson to learn.

lesson #1: we are not in control.

and yet the moving isn’t really about the moving. and it’s not at all about the stuff. as much as i like to decorate and organize it’s not about hanging pictures or assigning a cupboard to the pots and pans, it’s not even about finding everyone’s underwear.

it’s about people.

for us, it’s always about people.

the people we have to leave and the people we get to come back to.

because the exhaustion of physical moving doesn’t compare to the emotion of physical leaving and returning.

i feel it. my kids feel it.

the goodbyes a week ago were rough. brutal in some ways. heart-breaking. we have grown to love so many special friends up north.

and the hellos this week have been sweet. beautiful in lots of ways. heart-warming. we have always loved so many special friends, here, down south.

but either way – coming or going – the emotions are running sky high because we’re people and we love people and we are loved by people.

lesson #2: there are awesome people – forever friends – both in the north and the south! (i know for those of you who don't venture above or below the mason dixon line much, this might be hard to believe ...  but it's true)!

and guess what? we need these friends.

i found this out a long time ago, but i continue to be reminded of it with each new experience. when we moved to the north, i kind of half-hoped i'd have the chance to play the role of hermit. you know, the romantic recluse, holed up in her home out on the lake. i pictured myself curled up fireside writing, reading and feeding my naturally introverted spirit. i saw it as a hiatus from my reputation as an over-involved woman. i had made up my mind to limit my connections and to put the breaks on my busy-ness.

but then, hermit or not, people showed up.

friends came into my life, one by one. people that i desired to know better. people that i couldn't resist wanting to know better. people who i needed. yes, needed. here's a picture of just a few of the warm girlfriends God blessed me with in our two years in cold minnesota. these are some of the girls who came alongside me ... me the woman who thought she didn't need anyone's "coming along."
how thankful i am for them!

that was in the north and coming back to the south, i've found the same thing: this community has the same kind of love. it's the hands and feet love of Christ. after driving a thousand miles we arrived to find my (old) friends had stocked our refrigerator and pantry. it was amazing! my dear friend, karen, has done a couple of loads of laundry for me this week. she's also helped me (when i was still up in minnesota) with some interior design choices: measurements, light fixtures and cabinetry. this week we've had friends drop off dinners and pickup children. these are the very same friends who have been coming alongside us for the past 15 years. friends who were with us through babies and adoption and cancer. that kind of love is priceless.

north or south, what would i do without my friends?

lesson #3: we need other people.

friendship is good. it’s all good. even the sadness of saying good-bye. we’ve done it now two times. two years ago in georgia and now in minnesota. was it worth it?
yes. yes. yes. yes. YES! YES!

it was a risk.
i know people questioned us. “how can you pick up a family of seven and move a thousand miles away?”
don’t you know how hard this is for kids, for teenagers, for you?”

yep, people questioned it when we made that first big move.
heck, WE questioned it!

but it was so worth the risk. my emily summed it up beautifully last week in her instagram post:

this is the same girl who stood at the delta counter two years ago sobbing that she’d “never find friends like the ones she had in georgia.”
and now she (and all of us) shed tears to leave what we found in minnesota.

worth all this coming and going? worth all these tears?
 to quote a few northern people i know, “you betcha!”


lesson #4:  it’s good to take a little bit of a risk. even if it involves some heartbreak, headache and tears.

my wise friend, diana, texted me that we need to find “joy in the tears.” is that possible? yes. because, as a.a. milne said, "how lucky am i to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." 

our final night in minnesota, di captured our girls in this photo. her own beautiful form of photographic torture. what a picture! right? people who don’t even know us can look at this and want to cry!

it’s precious and it’s a precious reminder of God’s provision. because, honestly, that’s the other big lesson we’ve learned: God provides. always.

this little friendship between bella and emme is a perfect reminder of how God takes care of us whether we are moving or staying.

i mean it might be a little strange if i lined up all my kids with all their special friends, stuffed bears and balloons … so this photo is just going to have to represent the same thing for all of us.
(if you are big into being fair then just go ahead imagine the rest of my kiddos and their buddies lined up on the shoreline with the sunset and these props)!

but seriously, lesson #5: God provides. 

when we moved to minnesota two years ago, i had this crazy kind of prayer on my heart. well, let’s be honest, i had a lot of crazy kind of prayers on my heart. for that matter, i had a lot of just plain crazy. but one of the things i kept talking to God about was (and this might sound weird) a chinese friend for bella. not that i only ever want chinese friends for bella … not at all … but i wanted at least one. one. you see, for some strange reason, i had this vision that everyone “up north” was blond-haired, blue-eyed and named olsen. and though there are a lot of them and that’s cool, something in me desired a friend for bella who might share her story a little. sound strange? maybe it is. i don’t know, but God just laid that on my heart.  i mean it people, He LAID it on my heart. like i couldn’t escape that prayer request. and so i just kept praying it.

emme and bella's first play date

and then y’all know the story. first day of school at chapel hill and BAM! there she was, “little emme.” little emme AND her mama … right there waiting for us. like God could have just wrapped them up in a big red ribbon and said, “see jody. see, I provide. I heard you and I always provide.”

me and my pal, diana.

and we got not only a good buddy for bella, but i got a good buddy in her mom, too! crazy, right?

and isn’t this really just like God – to provide immeasurably more than we can ask or think up or imagine?

“now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us. to Him be the glory!” ~ ephesians 3:21

and that’s another lesson we learned up north: not does He just provide, but He provides in abundance. He didn’t just provide for bella and me, He provided abundantly for each of us. i could tell you more stories than just these ... because each one of my children is leaving minnesota with the blessing of dear friends.

lesson #6: God provides abundantly!

lesson #7: God hears our prayers – even the strange ones!

God is in charge of the destination and God is in charge of the details. He can go before us, come behind us and take care of everything all around us. we move (for some of us a lot). He never moves. He never shifts or changes. He is constant. and He is constantly with us.

lesson #8: God moves mightily, but He never changes.

and as i drove away from minnesota just a week ago, i found myself a little overwhelmed with the thought of what was ahead. the truck. the boxes. the stuff. the mess. but more than that … i found myself overwhelmed with the lessons i have really learned in moving three times in three years.

stuff is stuff.
people are important.
God always provides.
God is with us – whether we travel 1 mile or 1000.

and drinking your coffee without sugar (once in a while) is okay.

AND ... having a great friend who also happens to be a great photographer is an added blessing. these photos below also came from our last night in minnesota when diana whisked away our two littles while i was doing the final big pack and clean. i will miss diana's amazing photographs, but she knows, as much as i love her pictures, i will miss her 1000 times more.

so, i wrote this saturday morning ... and now, i'm posting on sunday evening. i should probably tell you the good news: after a visit from a tenacious (and super nice) plumber, we have a working washer and dryer today! still no tv or internet ... BUT. we. are. getting. there!

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!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.