Big Dreams
Our big dream of owning our own home is finally a reality. We signed the papers and got the keys on Friday. Throughout the years we have gone through the steps to buy a home several times, only for God to shut the door, and move us somewhere completely different. We have learned first hand through these experiences that God always knows what is best for us. My husband and I, thankfully, are the type to see God’s hand at work when things don’t go our way, just as much as when they do. Even in our big dreams of owning a home. We knew every time the door shut that it was God telling us to wait just a little longer, and that we needed to just trust him.
We knew that we would never go wrong trusting God. So, when he would uproot us, and move us away from where we thought it made sense to put down roots, we were ready. He always knows what is best. He has blessed us tremendously in every place we have lived. We have lived in our current house longer than any other since we’ve been married. We have had three children born in this house, and made lots of memories. Some great, and some not so much, but a lot has happened here. It will be bittersweet when we leave for our new home.
Still Preparing for the Big Move
I am very thankful for the desire God gave me a couple of years ago to downsize and jump on the minimalist band wagon. A lot of my inspiration has come from Dawn from The Minimal Mom, Joshua Becker from Becoming Minimalist, (I have also read all of his books), and Candice from Simply This Life. I am thankful to all of these folks for their influence. Minimalizing our life has made the packing of our entire home very easy. In years past we have had to move an estimated 100 boxes of just little nick knacks and décor. This has been drastically reduced to about six.
We are still preparing for the big move in other ways, though. I’m still working through packing up everyday items, and staying on top of cleaning and laundry here. We are also working on getting things done at the new house, too. Aaron and I spent some time there for date night doing paint prep. We went back and finished up prep work Saturday, and spent way too much time at Home Depot. Yesterday Aaron and the two older kids went back and started the painting process. They got all but two small areas primed. This evening some of us will be going to finish up the priming, and hopefully start painting.
Once the paint is done on the one side of the house we will be installing new carpet. We are trying to do as much of the work as possible ourselves. This is for two reasons: 1) we really enjoy working together, and watching the labor of our combined hands turn into something beautiful. 2) At the end of these projects we still have 7 kids to feed and a new mortgage to pay. In short we need to save money.
A bit More than we Thought
There is a bit more than we thought that needs to be done at the new house before we move in. We spent 10 hours doing prep for paint. I was not expecting it to take that long. There just ended up being a lot of little places that needed to be mudded or spackled. You then must, of course, wait for that to dry before sanding and painting. There were also a lot of hand rails and hardware on the walls that needed to be removed. I guess I didn’t notice all of that before.
We also now have a commercial fire detection system, complete with water sprinklers. We thought that it was not monitored. That is until Aaron set it off with the paint sprayer last night. He thinks that one of the sensors mistook the primer mist for smoke. The system sounded and lights were flashing all over. He silenced the alarms and everything seemed fine. That is until he heard the sirens. He looked at the kids and said, “They are coming here.” Of course they thought he was messing with them, until the fire trucks pulled in the driveway. He explained the situation to them, and they seemed to understand. We will be doing our best to make sure that does not happen again.
Our Time Schedule
We know that our time schedule doesn’t actually matter, but we still have one. Ideally for us, we would like to be moving our belongings in this Saturday. What does this mean? Well, in a nutshell, it means we will be working hard all week. The kids and I will be working here to finish packing, doing laundry, and staying on top of more deep cleaning than usual. Once we get our stuff out it will all pay off. Since we are deep cleaning as we go we won’t have to do it later. I do deep cleaning once a month anyway, so this isn’t too much more on anyone.
We are installing the carpet ourselves since it will take a month if we have someone else do it. Also, as I said before, we really do enjoy working, and learning new skills together. We are planning to replace all of the flooring eventually anyway so if it doesn’t turn out right it’ll be okay.
There is still some other cleaning that I haven’t gotten to there yet also. It’s the easier stuff, though, so it should go pretty quickly. As far as we can tell right now we are on schedule to be all moved in by Resurrection Sunday. If that changes, though, it will be okay. Things don’t always go as planned and that is just fine. I am excited to be on track.
