Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

moving

What we've been up to

So, it’s been two weeks since this called “moving” happened to us.

And I say it that way because that’s how it feels. Like it happened to us and we didn’t have much to do with any of it.

Early on a Saturday morning, a bunch of people showed up at our old house to load up our big stuff.

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Okay, who am I kidding? They loaded up most of our stuff. And did it with such skill and precision that I was left speechless. (Our front lawn looked like we were having the world’s largest garage sale, yet I was assured by our new friends that it would all fit. They were right.)

In two hours we had cleared the old house and most of the stuff we wanted to take with us and were on our way to our new place, where a couple more friends met us and Phil’s boss brought Chick-fil-A sandwiches. (I don’t think it was my imagination that the crew worked a little faster when they heard the CFA was coming.) Such a blessing. In less than an hour at the new place, all the vehicles and the trailer were unloaded and by 12:30 Phil and I were on our own at the new place. Tired. Overwhelmed. And so, so thankful.

See, these people who showed up, most of them we barely know. They’re from our new church and while we know names and faces and Phil has spent some time with some of them, they still aren’t close friends or anything. I was so humbled by their willingness to drive up to our old house and spend a morning helping us move. I didn’t feel like we’d earned that. (Like we have to earn kindness.) They just totally knocked our socks off.

So, we’ve been unpacking. And cleaning. And donating. And decluttering.

And loving our new place.

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Our second night there, we saw this lovely sunset behind our house. Swoon.

We’re slowly making it a home.

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The week after the move, we cleaned up and cleaned out the old house and turned in our keys. A few days later, Phil and I left for Nashville for a marriage conference. We had a little free time.

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We walked around the park where Nashville’s replica of The Parthenon is. And we ate dinner at The Loveless Cafe.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This is the face Phil makes when he’s eating the best piece of ham he’s ever had in his life. Southern soul food at its best. And totally worth the two-hour wait to be seated. (Which nearly caused us to have a “loveless” marriage as we disagreed over what to do when faced with that long of a wait.)

And on our way to breakfast Sunday morning, we walked downtown, which smells like beer and urine after what I assume was a typical Saturday night. It’s quieter on a Sunday morning but the smell is something I won’t soon forget.

We passed the Ryman, which reminds me that I know little to nothing about music history. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And we stopped at the river to take a picture of us, something we rarely do right now, especially when life has been so busy and full.

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And after a rendezvous with my parents, we got the kids back after two weeks and made our way back toward Pennsylvania.

We stopped at the rest area, just across the border and took this picture to remind us of how far we’d come.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAFive years ago, it looked something like this.

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So. Much. Has changed.

That’s a little of what we’ve been up to. I hope to be back to blogging regularly in August. (At which time our daughter will be going off to kindergarten. Because we haven’t had enough change this year.)

Thanks for sticking with us on this crazy rollercoaster journey we call our life.

Moving, Week 2: the highlights

Oh, how I wish I could say that after last week’s progress, this week we’re on the verge of being completely moved.

I feel like I made almost no forward movement on the move this week. I packed some boxes. We took another van load to the thrift store.

And we made the decision early in the week that this move wasn’t going to be completed while my husband is working a 50-hour week, with 10 hours of commuting, and two kids in the house who think we’re moving tomorrow and just want to play outside with their friends.

So, on Monday, we’re meeting my parents in Ohio and sending the kids to Illinois for extended family time. In the meantime, I’ll be packing every.last.thing in the old house and moving it to the new house. It’s a decision that seems selfish and mean sometimes (get these kids out of here!) but really, I know it’s for the best. Because Phil and I are basically walking zombies right now, fueled by caffeine. (One day this week I found a loaf of bread in the drawer where we keep the sandwich bags. At least it wasn’t the lunch meat.)

But the kitchen at the new house is getting unpacked and the more time I spend at the farmhouse, the more inspired I am to be creative with the arranging of the furniture and what we’re going to put on the walls. I’m ready for us to be in one place, not two. This week, we’re planning to make great strides toward that goal.

And, oh, it was hot this week. If I’m ever going to move again in summer, I’m going to find a way to have air conditioning in both places. I don’t know if it’s the heat or a plague but we saw three dead birds on the ground this week and I learned what the phrase “dropping like flies” literally means. Flies were dying in and around my kitchen sink all week. Grossed. Me. Out.

So, what keeps me sane, or maybe it adds to my insanity and I don’t know the difference, is the stuff my kids say.

Here’s a sampling.

While packing boxes and marking them with a Sharpie, Izzy comes into the room. “Is that the marker that smells? That smells better than a hundred elephants.” Later I’d find her with purple dots on her nose because she was sniffing it.

One day, while she was doing her business on the toilet, she unrolled half a roll of toilet paper. I asked her not so nicely, “Why did you do that?” She shrugs and says,  “Well, there was a full moon yesterday.” Way to pass the buck.

We snacked outside one day and when I asked Corban what he wanted he said, “Can I have cheese curls so I can have white pee this morning?” Besides the fact that it was already afternoon …

And on our way to Chick-fil-A for breakfast on Friday, he was telling us a story about a tractor that went down our street. “I’m serious!” he says in all seriousness. “There was a tractor on our street.” Okay, we believe you.

One night at dinner, just before we prayed, Phil asked Izzy why we pray. She shrugged her shoulders and said she didn’t know. The next night, I asked the same question. She said, “Because we love Jesus.” Then she let out a breath and said, “Whew. That was hard.”

It was a week full of ups and downs. Izzy took clothes off the line by herself without being asked and put away dishes all on her own, surprising me with her helpfulness. But there was also a moment when all was quiet. Silence, in this case, really was golden. The kids had used gold glitter glue on their window sill, convincing me that we will probably never be able to restore this house to the way we found it when we started living here.

We’re tired. We’re stressed. But so thankful for the option to send our kids to their grandparents.

It’s almost over. And it’s almost just beginning.

Pray us through?