Old house, New House

In the last 2 weeks, we closed on two real estate deals. We sold our first home in New York. It was bitter sweet leaving that home and passing it along. I loved that house. I worked hard on that house. That house was "done." But, I know that our friends who bought it will love that house too. Plus I'll get to occasionally see pictures of it. :)


A few days later, we closed on our new house here in Texas. And after all the issues we had with that closing, I seriously never want to have to close a real estate deal ever again. Or at least never use our terrible lender ever again...

Our new house in Texas is big, and beautiful, and we love it. Which is good, because it needs some love. Although the house is 8 years old, the original owners seem to have never, not once, purchased a can of paint or picked up a paint roller. Everything is brown or beige. Brown floor tiles, medium brown oak cabinetry, brick fireplace and hearth, brown granite, brown tiled backsplash (it matches the floor... no bueno) and super-flat, beige cheap paint on every single wall. Including the ceilings. Suffice it to say, I see paint in our future. Lots and lots of paint.

See all the brown? And empty cabinets? Still settling in here, but so much space in the new kitchen!

The day after we closed, Brian left town to attend his father's funeral. Which left me in charge of getting our family moved out of our furnished rental and 2 storage units that weekend. Luckily, our ward is big and helpful and we have a really big turn out to help get everything into the new house in less than 5 hours.

Once the help was gone, I found some of the kids toy boxes and got to work making an even bigger mess than I already had on my hands... because that's how moving in works.

Mt. Cardboard. In our main floor hallway. Impassable...

I went to bed exhausted... but everyone had an assembled bed to sleep in. With sheets on it. And blankets. I felt very accomplished, actually. So when Sunday morning came, and my kids woke me up too early, and I looked at the state of the kitchen and knew that I had NO IDEA where any of our dishes were, I packed the kids in the car, still in the pjs, for the nearest IHOP. It was Sunday, but I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father understood. 

Long story short, it was a long weekend. But we bought a new house, we had help, we got moved in, we broke the sabbath (kids gotta eat!) and then went to church anyway. Daddy came home. We survived... barely. And we keep wading through the boxes, trying to reassemble our lives here in Texas. It'll happen. Sometime...