Movin' and Groovin'

Moving is a terrible thing.

There's just no way around it. I've moved in town and I've moved out of state, and either way it's just a nightmare...plain and simple. You might as well just toss your entire house upside down, shake it up about 10 times and toss it all out in the yard. That's what the entire process feels like to me!

I think in some ways, in town moves are worse than far-away moves.  In town moves end up going something like this:

"Oh, we're driving near the new house, let's take a load.  Here, grab this baseball bat, set of silverware and the coats out of that closet."

No ryhme, no reason...just getting it all there in as few trips as possible.

But the beauty of our move has been that we've a had almost a whole month since closing to do lots of work around the empty house like...

Painting our bedroom...

 Painting the lamp post out in the front yard, along with the shutters and front door...

If we've learned anything, it's that a little bit of paint goes a long, long way!

Then there was the night when we decided to remove the fireplace cover and found about 35 pounds of dirt, leaves and other yucky stuff inside.  That was a major cleaning project!

 But the most major project to date has been dealing with the green wash that the original owners felt would be wonderful for covering EVERY surface of the living room and kitchen with...even the ceiling fan!!

As beautiful as it was...it had to go! :)

 This is Cerrando aka "Shorty", the man who took away the green...our hero!!  There were a couple of times that my phone would ring while out in public and it would be "Shorty" calling.  It's just not that often that I answer my phone(and if you know me, you know I don't know how to whisper) and say, "Oh, hey Shorty!!"

 We are so happy to be free of the green in the living room.  And yes, if you look above, you see that we painted our bedroom...green.  I don't know why it's different, but it just is!  The next big project will be freeing the green in the kitchen...all in good time.

We also did a mailbox redo...new box, new paint and new numbers!!!

Doug's most recent job has been cleaning out the gutters on the roof.  I'm pretty sure they haven't been cleaned out since...ever.

So, all of that happened before the move in....

On November 20th, after nearly a full month of working, cleaning, fixing and painting our house...we moved!

We hired two movers to help for the first two hours.  They moved all of the really big, awkward stuff, like our bed...

 We were also blessed to have some incredibly sweet friends help us move the rest of our stuff including the Goodyears and the Bowmans!! Thank you so much for giving your time to help us!! We are so thankful... 

 We even had some very sweet little helpers...

It seems, though, that no matter how much help you have you still end up with things looking like this...

and this....

But eventually, you start getting a few things put together...

and it starts to feel a little more like home.

Oh, and no pressure, but...

Welcome to the neighborhood and by the way...we're having a Christmas Yard Decorating Contest!

Hmmmm...wonder if they want to come help me find my underwear and then we can talk about yard decorations!!