Packing Day

We are getting close to the big (or small) move!  Next Saturday we get the moving truck from the storage place and load it up with all of our things that we won't see for the next three months or so.  We have been packing here and there for awhile, but today was a big push to get a lot done.  I think we were pretty successful.

 I am too tired to try to get better pictures.  You get the idea.  These are all boxes going into storage (along with most of the furniture).  I never knew we had so many books (along with lots of other stuff!).  We decided this week that we are going to have a moving and storage company come get the piano and store it, so that is one less thing we will have to move next week.  We also have several things on Craigslist mostly hoping to get someone to come get them rather than us move them!  We had great help from my mom, Joe's mom, and our friend Ms. Gracie today.  We never would have stayed motivated without them!

Along with packing, we decided to get the girls ready for the temporary house (or "wee house" as my mom likes to call it).  They will all be sleeping on mattresses on the floor in the same room, so we moved all the mattresses to Jessica's room so they could get used to it before we moved.  Here is their set up for the next week:

Wait, where are the girls?  They went to stay with Gram and Grandy tonight.  So much for getting used to the new arrangement!

As Promised...

So I felt a little bad posting my blog post last night given that we went to church on Sunday and Blake preached about gratitude.  In general, I think that I practice gratitude pretty faithfully.  I still have jealousy over things that I wish I had or frustrations about things I think aren't fair, but in general, I have a pretty positive outlook on life and try to look for blessings in every difficult situation.

It is actually easy to be grateful given our current living situation.  After I posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago about looking for a place to live, I had a response from a friend who told me about a friend of hers who was going to rent out their house.  I contacted her, but they were really looking for someone more long term.  However, she talked to another friend of hers who was interested.  It turns out that this friend is actually a sweet friend of mine!!  (Did you follow all that?)

I had gone to lunch with a wonderful group of friends a couple of weeks ago and my friend Carmen was telling me about her dad's house and how she was going to manage it and rent it out for home football games while her parents were in the North and then they would come down and live in the house during the winter months.  Neither of us thought about my family moving in instead of renting it out for football games until her friend mentioned it to her!  This is the house that we are going to move into in a little less than two weeks...   

What is so amazing for us is that Carmen's dad is just finished renovating the house.  It is incredibly cute on the inside and my girls fell in love with it when they saw it, even though all three girls will be sharing one bedroom!  Carmen (and her dad) are giving us a wonderful deal which will help us with our down payment and moving costs.  It is not in the right school district, but since we have a contract on a house in the new one, we should be okay.  The house is furnished and we will be moving in clothes, bedding, kitchen items, and personal things and that is about it.  Everything else is going to storage!  That should actually make our second move easier as there will be very little to pack.

I can't lie, I am a little nervous about all of us being in a two bedroom/one bathroom (!) house together for three months.  I have friends who did it, though, and said that there were things they missed about it when they had a little more room.  I think we will enjoy the house and when we move into a house over twice the size, we may miss the closeness a little bit (okay, maybe not too much).

And just to keep us inspired through the closeness, we will keep going to visit this house...

Rough Week

I'm having a little blogger's apathy here.  I was trying to be good at writing and there actually is progress on the house, but it has been a rough week. As a matter of fact, I started writing this a week ago, didn't finish, then left for a conference for work and am just now getting back to it. 

There have been a few issues with the design of the house and they are having to make some changes to accommodate some extra duct work (or something... I let Joe handle that stuff).  When there are changes, plans have to be drawn and approved and that takes time.  Time is not our friend right now.  The good news is that we are going to have an "architectural detail" in our game room because we have to put a column-like extension on the wall to accommodate the extra duct work.  This is Joe's drawing of what it will look like...

There is a reason he is not an artist.  I think it is all a scam so we will have to get a large screen TV to hang on the wall (the rectangle in the middle).

Anyway, our floor plan isn't a common one and they want to make sure that it is done correctly (which I appreciate).  I call this the octopus...

And here is where it comes out into the game room...

There has been quite a bit of work on the plumbing and electrical work and the roof was finished in time for the rainy week that we had this past week, so there are many things happening to get closer to the house being done.  Tons of sheet rock are sitting in the house and it will hopefully be time to put it up soon.  The rock and brick are both sitting in the driveway and I will blog pictures of that soon.

The biggest reason for the rough week had nothing to do with the house building, but the need for temporary housing.  We move out in two weeks and as of the time that I left for the conference last Sunday, we didn't know where we were going.  And to find out what is happening with that, you will have to read my next post...

Running the Race

I have never been a runner in any phase of my life.  I tried to do the Couch to 5K and gave up after a week and a half.  Never say never, I may do it again, but that isn't the point of this post.  If I had to choose cross-country or a sprint, I would choose a sprint hands down.  I am great with working under tight timelines.  I don't like projects that hang on for a long time (like my dissertation!)

So what's the point?  Isn't this supposed to be a blog about building our house?  Yes, but the house building isn't the cross-country part.  The packing is what I dread.  We are moving out of our current house in a little less than a month to move into our 3 month temporary house until our new house is done.  We have never been good at moving (although we have done it plenty of times).  This time we are trying to do it right.  We have already started packing and are having a garage sale next weekend.  But I HATE the packing! 

I found these two shoes (not a pair) in Emmalee's closet.  They have been there two years without us noticing!

I decided that I need an App like runners have on their phones where you can encourage them as they go.

 "Way to go, Kristie, three boxes packed!"  

"Wow, Emmalee's clothes are all sorted and ready for the garage sale!" 

 "You can do it!" "Just do one more box!"  

Those are the things I need to hear right now.  I am tired and achy and feel that there is so much more in front of me than behind me. 

My first box!

There isn't as much progress as I would have liked, but here is part of what I have done:

My big goal is to get as much done as possible so we can have a wildly successful garage sale and earn some money for the move! 

 "You can do this, Kristie!"

We're a little bit country...

Here is the sight that greeted us in our new neighborhood when we went to check on the house this week...

Did I mention we live in Texas?

My Christmas Tree Window

When we decided on our floor plan, we were most concerned with the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and the set-up of the kitchen.  We liked the layout of the living room/dining room and having a study was nice too.  After we chose our plan, the girls realized that we had a feature that we I always wanted: 

Isn't it awesome?  Okay, I know that it isn't that impressive right now, but come December, I plan on it looking something like this:

I know that it won't be quite so grand, but one of my favorite sights when driving around at Christmastime is seeing Christmas trees in the front windows of houses.  It looks so homey and welcoming.  Our window is in the study at the front of the house.  We should be able to put our tree in that room (and shut the door to save it from the dogs) and turn the lights on every night to welcome our friends and neighbors to the Christmas season.

If it weren't June in Texas, I might just make some hot cocoa and put the Christmas tunes on in anticipation...

A Solution to Homelessness (maybe)

You may remember (if you have been reading all my blog posts) that we have a little dilemma that is not too far away.  Our lease is up at the end of July and the owners aren't willing to extend our lease until the end of October.  The cyclical nature of renting houses in a college town means they want us out so they can try to get someone in before the semester starts at the end of August.  We will be ready to move out, but one small problem.  

Our house currently looks like this...

and won't be done until sometime in October. I just had to put this picture in because it is so fun to see the house changing.  The bathtub in the driveway isn't ours.  They delivered it to the wrong house.  Strange how it can sit out there for a couple of weeks and no one bothers it.

Anyway, back on topic.  We have had several different options for the time that we would be homeless.  The solution that we came up with at the end of last week is a great one.  Our good friends and former neighbors are moving to Ft. Worth for a job.  Their house has been on the market since March and they haven't had much interest.  They are moving out at the beginning of July and aren't really interested in renting it out, but they are interested in renting to us to cover their mortgage.  The house is bigger than the one we are in now, is in the school zone we will be moving to with the new house, and the rent is great for us.  We have talked about most of the details and feel really good about signing a contract at the beginning of July.

So where does the (maybe) come in?  Since we talked on Friday, they have shown their house THREE times!  Of course, we want them to sell their house and it will continue to be for sale while we live in it, but SERIOUSLY???  If they don't get an offer, we will sign the contract and move in at the end of July.  We will both be able to terminate the contract with 30 days notice so that they can continue to try to sell their house and we could become homeless again.

Although I am a little bit nervous, I am trusting in God's plan for us.  It is comforting to know that He knows exactly where we are going to be moving and it will all work out the way it is supposed to.

Now I just need to get serious about packing...