2012 House

As my most avid readers know, our story began in a house built in 1895.  A charming, Victorian, pink brink house.  We spent the first 8 years of our marriage there, restoring it and beginning our family.  When we outgrew it, reluctantly we moved.  Our new house was large and spacious!  And we'd moved forward a whole century, to 1999.  But it was almost entirely lacking in interest and character.  Well, we recently moved again.  This time we're in a smaller house than our last, bigger than the first, newer than the last and almost as charming as the first.  We like it a lot.  It suits us.  It's comfortable and fun and light and NEW.   But it's temporary.  We're going to build our dreamhouse soon.  This is just a jumping off point to OUR house. 

Moving sucks.  Packing takes FOREVER.  Trying to pack while taking care of three kids is maddening.  And then there's all the lifting and carrying and sneezing from the dust and trying to sort through stuff and decide if you really really need it or not and then giving up and just throwing it all in a box so you can ponder over it again as you UNpack it.  It takes over your life. 

Most definitely the best part about moving, though, is unpacking.  I totally LOVE unpacking.  Getting into a new house and deciding where everything will go, making order out of chaos, getting a fresh start with your drawers and cupboards...it's very very appealing to me.  I actually might, hypothetically, let someone help me pack, although the control freak in me would have a very hard time with it.  But I would be downright FURIOUS if someone tried to unpack my house for me.  It's just one of my favorite things.

The other best part about moving is re-decorating.  I didn't do much redecorating on our last move.  We did buy some new furniture since we went from one common area (a living room) to three (living room, family room, media room).  This time, Big Daddy told me I could keep the money we made from our garage sale for redecorating.  We didn't sell 1/10 of what we had.  I was very disappointed at how much stuff we ended up giving to good will or taking with us.  But I still got $420 out of it, and I have had a BLAST spending it! 

Back when we first got married, we were too poor to afford anything nice.  All our furniture was hand-me-downs and thrift sore finds.  Slowly we replaced all that junk, a thing at a time.  But the things we did buy didn't always speak to me.  I don't know if I was trying to please my husband by picking things I thought he would like or if I just didn't know what I liked.  But we ended up with a lot of grey and black and beige.  And I don't know if I was ever crazy about it, but I know I'm not now. Looking at my living room decor is just depressing. So moving offered me the chance at a fresh start.  The chance to find something I really really liked.  And I have!  I la-la-la-LOVE my new living room!

Tune in soon to see what I've found!

Maybe A Come-back, Oh, And Thoughts on A Daughter.

Three miracles happened today. Miracle One: I blogged. Am blogging. That in itself is miraculous. Considering that I have a 1 year old who not only walks but runs now, climbs, is very adventurous, not at all shy of people or new places, it is a miracle that I have blogged. But also considering that I've just moved only two weeks ago and am already finding time to blog...well, no one can doubt the existence of miracles NOW, right? And I have this really ambitious intention to begin blogging again. Regularly. Readers or no. Because I like it.

Miracle Two: We bought Daphne school shoes. On the FIRST try! If you don't know Daphne, then you don't know that she is quite...strong-willed. She has a definite mind about what she wants and it seldom if ever includes input from anyone else, especially her parents. She also has a sensory disorder where everything must be soft, flexible, comfortable, lacking in seams, buttons, snaps, rivets, or anything else that "feels weird," which most everything does when you have a sensory processing disorder. Last summer, the ONLY shoes she would wear were a pair of Crocs. This summer I bought her the exact same Crocs, but they "felt weird" and she would not wear them. I have literally 8 pairs of completely pristine, unworn shoes I've bought her over the last year that she has rejected on one ground or another. They're too small, they're too big, they're too shiny, they pinch, they fall off when I run...the list goes on. So imagine my extreme surprise when we took her to Target today and the first pair of shoes we picked out and tried on her she accepted! I don't chalk it up to the shoes. I chalk it up to her new meds. Whatever it was, I was overjoyed.

Miracle Three: Daphne slept in her covers. Regular sheet and blanket covers. I think the last time this happened was two or maybe three years ago. For some reason (related to her sensory disorder as well as her majorly active imagination), she decided a while back that she had to have her soft blankie (a fleece blanket she's had since about age 3) tucked into the bed between the sheet and her. She liked the feel of it, I suppose. She put it between herself and the sheet so often that it became ratty. I really REALLY wanted to 
throw it awayaccidentally misplace it in the wash. But then, in a miracle of its own, for Christmas a year ago, she got a new soft, fleece blanket from her teacher at church that she liked BETTER. The old one was replaced. But the new one only lasted a couple of months until she fell asleep with silly putty on it one night. We bought her a new fleece blanket and that lasted a couple of months until, one night, she had a dream about spiders in the bed. And from that day forth, she wouldnt' sleep in the covers at all. Only on top with her fleece blankie. She always kicked it off in her sleep and woke up cold, but nothing we said would convince her to get back in the covers. It's been at least 9 months that since that change. And then, for her birthday 2 months ago, she got an owl towel from her Auntie Sara. Little did I suspect this would become her new favorite bed cover. But it did. A big brown towel with one corner made into a hood the shape of an owl's head. And that's ALL she would sleep with. No sheet, no comforter, no fleece blanket. Nothing but this owl towl wrapped part way around her. Until tonight. Bizarrely, when I went to tuck her in (i.e. put her owl towl on her head), and told her it was in the wash, she said, "It's OK, Mom. I'm going to sleep in the covers tonight." That's it. No owl towel, no fleece blanket. Just IN the covers--sheet, comforter, girl. Period.

But still two pillows, a box of tissues, two lights on, and 25 stuffed animals.

Sometimes the small miracles are the best ones of all.