So Much Progress

This is the house this weekend.  We have a garage door and quite a few bricks!  I assume that it will be completely bricked and stoned (maybe not the correct term...) by the end of this week.  The inside has sheet rock and is floated (?) and there are doors, shelves and rods in the closets, and trim. 

The back has the most bricks and it is neat to see how what we picked out looks all in one place.

I took pictures on the inside, but the things that we think are really cool (like the ginormous pantry) are very difficult to photograph.  You can see this view from the living room into the dining room to get an idea of what the style of the house is.

In the midst of the difficult move, it is nice to see progress with the house and know that time is really going to fly now that the girls will be starting school soon and the pace at my work will really pick up with the fall semester starting.  More pictures to come soon as I just happen to know that more progress has definitely been made this week!

Goodbye...

Goodbye to all of this "stuff" that we think we need so much.  Saying goodbye is never easy, but it is easier knowing that we will see you again in less than three months (at least I sure hope it isn't any longer than that!)  I am curious to see how we do without you and how much we decide we don't want to come back into our new house.  Our 10x20 storage until is so full that there is very little room to put anything else (although a taller person than myself could have).  We will see you before we know it and hope that you all survive your time in the heat of the Texas summer.

Move is a Four Letter Word

This move was T.O.U.G.H.  We tried to be prepared ahead of time, we started packing early, we hired movers to help move the furniture to the storage unit, and still the move was not easy.  As I said before, I am not a good packer.  I get very tired of packing and overwhelmed.  Although we had lots and lots of boxes packed (and used every one that we got from our sweet friends) we still had things that we didn't put in boxes because we just didn't know how.  My parents and mother-in-law were super helpful with finishing packing and getting things to both the new house and the storage unit.  The movers helped for about 3 hours and got most of the things moved to storage.  My co-worker Paul came over and helped once they were gone and we still needed some muscle (I am sure he will be thrilled with that title!)

In case you are not from or have never been to Texas in July, it is EXTREMELY HOT.  With Joe's MS, he has problems with the heat and he struggled both physically and emotionally as he couldn't do all that he felt he should be able to do to help.  It was hard to watch him try to do too much and he actually ended up at the doctor on the Monday morning after the move because he could hardly walk.

We got the majority of the moving done on Saturday then Joe, Jessica, Laura, and I went back on Sunday afternoon to move everything else to the garage so that the person we were paying to clean the house could do it on Monday.  I worked on Monday morning and then went back to finish the garage on Monday afternoon by myself.  I'm not going to lie, I was terrified I couldn't get it done.  I took Tuesday off also so that I could do some other house things and didn't want to go back to finish the garage.  Well, I surprised myself and everyone else.  By 5:00, the garage looked like this:

I should have taken a "before" picture, but I think I would be embarrassed to show it to the world!  I was excited to be done at that house and I know that this part of our "house adventure" was probably the most difficult part.  We have vowed to get movers for our next move since they will get everything from storage and take it to the new house.  I have already got a few people lined up to help pack our little house when it is time and I will try to be better about asking for help (not one of my strong suits).

And I just keep trying to remind myself that it will all be worth it in two and a half months or so...

Transitions

Way behind on posting this post that I started a week and a half ago.  More to come soon about the actual move and house progress...

I work with college students with Aspergers and have a family member with Autism and people always talk about how transitions are difficult for them.  Guess what... transitions are difficult for me too!  This last week has been full of stress as we get ready for our first move.  We have moved lots of times.  I recently counted and by the time that we are in our new house in October, we will have lived in 11 different houses in less than 19 years.  I should have this down, right?  Absolutely not!  We are moving to our "twin city" so I would like to think of that as moving out of town given how much stress I am feeling.  Then I think about my friend Jenn (author of www.hobwas.wordpress.com... amazing blog that you should all check out) whose husband works for the State Department.  They move every few years and mostly out of the country!  If she lived a little closer, I would put her to work helping me :)

Anyway, we have started transitioning at our old house.  We put all three girls in one room on mattresses on the floor and it is working out great (much to my amazement).  We have started crating the dogs again since we will be in a small house with newly refinished floors and couches that don't belong to us.  They are still adjusting, but it has been MUCH better than I anticipated.  We are eating all the food from the freezer (okay, we got fast food last night because we just couldn't face the choices we had left... lima beans, yuck!).  Our packing is somewhat under control, although I turn one way and think we are doing great and then turn around and panic seeing how much we still have to do.  I am working most of this week, so I am trying to concentrate all the while thinking... "When we move, I will need to put the dogs on leashes every morning and take them through the front door since the back door would mean crawling across the girls" and "I wonder what day is trash day" and "If the movers come at 11, when do we need to get the truck and when should I have my parents come to help" and "How are we going to get the girls to and from school given that we live no where near where they are going to be going to school" and... okay, you get the picture.

And here is the picture that I am trying to keep in mind:

This is the way the girls like to go to get to the new house.  The roads are all paved, but there is one dirt road you can take and they love to go that way since it makes it feel "in the country."  I just think of this as the long road home :)