The New Dining Room gets Character

Some two years ago friends gave us a Christmas present of a wall decal, and we saved it for "when we move." At that point I think I hardly believed that we actually were going to move; really, it wasn't until last fall that we actually got serious about moving. Anyway, amazingly we did move and the decal was in one of the first boxes to go.

However, we didn't get around to putting it up until this week. It wasn't complicated to do, but it did take a while to get the paper backing off.

Many thanks to our Texas Friends for our new dining room decor.

We really ARE moving!

The reality of moving house is sinking in. Meltdowns are becoming all the fashion here. Today I am trying desperately to get a handle on packing all over the house, evaluating what needs to be packed when and what will need to go to the new house first.

It boggles my mind to think of how many boxes it will take to transport a middle class family of eight one hour south-east. There are eight of us living here now, and with Grandma it will be nine at the new house. Each of us has our own hobbies and interests(Dad: church study, Louis Lamour, and yard work. Jennifer: Ballet and shoes. Caleb: cameras and computers. The rest of the boys: junk). I myself have a full closet of just historical costumes, and twelve plastic tubs of material, two(soon to be three) sewing machines and a huge file drawer of patterns and sewing miscellanea. Jennifer and I together have three whole bookshelves of our own libraries, which comes out to about fifteen boxes of books. It's overwhelming.

Our moving schedule is also very ambitious. We take possession on a Tuesday; we plan to paint, tear out carpet, and buy appliances from Wednesday through Friday. On Saturday we plan to rent a truck and move the furniture and most of the boxes. The following week Grandma will move in with us.

Is that even humanly possible?

So... We're Moving?

Yes, we're actually probably officially and in all likelihood moving. The papers are signed and the closing date is May 15th. I was five when we moved in to our rural acreage home, so I'm not really sure: how does one move? What does one do?

One Long Tea Party: an update on our moving situation

Two months ago my family made an offer on a house closer to Omaha. The house(named "Tea Party" for various reasons) is larger and newer than our current beloved home, but also largely unfinished(and thus affordable).

We've been learning a lot about Short Sale, which is actually not short at all. Short sale takes forever. Apparently it's a family tradition to move slowly, since it took us five years to find a house and make an offer. However, two months waiting for an answer is growing to be a long time, and the suspense is becoming painful.

The bank was supposed to give an answer this week. There's been nothing so far.

To Move or not to Move?

I haven't posted about our thoughts on moving for quite some time, and since some people have been asking what's going on I thought I might summarize it here.

Our moving saga of four years continues to grow in drama. It was four years ago that we decided we needed to move closer to our church and Dad's work in the city. Since that time we've considered almost every living condition under the sun, from building our own house to erecting tepees. Then when the price of building materials went up we started actually looking at houses. Jen went for the ones with tall white pillars where ladies wear evening dresses, and Dad went for the unique ones like the $800,000 western movie set.

With Grandma's growing need for in-home care we began to seriously consider the few options open to us. All the houses on the edge of town within our price range are either small compared to where we're living now, or in need of much repair. It's a hard choice to make: is it worth it to move and go into debt if we will be moving to a smaller or needy house?

Just last week we made an offer on a beautiful old house, much smaller than our own but fifty miles closer to Dad's work. The family in residence is a really sweet family that decided to move because the Dad lost his job. We're waiting now to hear if they will negotiate with us, since they thought our offer was too low.

So that's our current state: we may buy this house. We may move. We might also stay where we are, and if so, turn the library into a bedroom for Grandma. Either way, life is changing.