Category: Home

We celebrated our girl and our house

We enjoyed some family time to celebrate Paige’s Sweet 16. Everyone signed a book for Paige and she received many thoughtful gifts. We filled the house with people who love her. Aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, parents, and grandparents were all there to cheer as she reached this milestone.

For entertainment, we gave house tours and the girl cousins tried on Paige’s ballet costumes. The boy cousins played in the moving boxes.

Paige’s license will be delayed a bit because of our move, but at least somebody can drive around in our yard. These are some of Paige’s cousins. Too cute.

Reflection

Moving is like birth and death, full of mourning and celebration, vulnerability and sentiment. Our life story has been replayed in the packing and unpacking of objects, pictures, and books. Our furniture has been on parade into and out of a moving truck. Our family has been watched as we made our exit from our desert home, neighbors lining the street to wave teary goodbyes. In our new neighborhood, we have been watched through the windows of curious neighbors and welcomed from driveways and across church pews.

I’ve handled objects I haven’t touched in years. My babies’ blankets, old photographs, and high school yearbooks tell pieces of our story. The textbooks from eleven years of homeschooling tell a bittersweet story from which I am walking away (gradually). My dusty violin case scolds me for the neglect I promised I would never allow. My Texas years, evidenced in seminary teacher manuals and church books remind me of another part of my life which I hope to awaken in our new place.

Our Texas years were times of expansion in ideas, friendships, and in family members. Our Arizona years were a time of retreat; they were a time for our family to focus on one another. I’m grateful for each home and every experience. I come back to Utah ready to watch our family grow into who we need to be here.

Have you ever adopted a theme song for an important time in your life? This has been my theme song during this past month of transition in our lives.

01 – Home

I’ll share photos soon.

Projects

Mornings are the time for work in the garage and errands. Afternoons are the time for quiet projects.

Two of my recent projects are dish towel goodbye gifts and new fabric on the kitchen chairs. I enlisted the kids to help me with the chair disassembling, cutting, and cushion testing (Mark).

I pulled out my embroidery machine to do the towels and made this card with our new address and tucked it neatly into each towel. I can’t wait to deliver these. It will feel a little bit like Christmas.

A List

Mark and Timothy’s room

This week…

we sold our house.

we signed 6,000 documents.

we endured our third week in a different state than Richard.

we reupholstered the kitchen chairs.

we watered our new flowers and watched them die anyway.

Richard got his first paycheck from his new job.

we took down many things from the walls. One little friend came over and told us our house sure looked plain.

we have some family visiting us!

Next week…

we hope the buyers still want our house.

we will be with Richard!

A House, the Frog Pond, and Sparklers

We had a great Independence Day.

The sellers accepted the offer we made on their house in Utah. Here is a sneak peak of what it looks like. I’ll post more pictures when it’s really ours.

We went to the annual Troop 54 breakfast and visited with old friends. We went to the parade, Spring Lake, looked at new lambs, ate fried cookie dough and cheesecake, participated in Tank Wars, and watched the fireworks from Fox field with a pile of little kids.

Here are some photos of the kids playing at the frog pond at Spring Lake.

Daniel has a mouse in that container. Mark’s smile is so charming.

Daniel is showing everyone the mouse they caught.

My sister’s kids are so cute.

Grandpa and his namesake enjoy some time in the shade. It was hot!

It was such a fun family day. It makes me happy that we will live so close to our people. My kids love their cousins.

Home life

Lately, life’s been a list of tasks, most of them involving boxes, tools, and paint. I’ve appreciated so many kind gestures from friends, from meals to spontaneous trips to the movies for my kids, flowers, phone calls, and books.

Thanks for checking on us. I appreciate the moral support I receive from you who read this little blog.

 

Hobby Room

We had free cable television in the home we rented 7 years ago. I spent a lot of time watching home improvement and cooking shows. Some of my favorite shows were about how to stage a house to sell it.

I scoffed at some of the inexpensive things that people were told to do, such as throw a white sheet over the kitchen table so it looked extra clean, or change the light bulbs to be clear or simply hide all counter top appliances from view.

But then I remembered why I fell in love with our house plan. In the model there was was the hobby room with a wall of shelves and a table in the center. And that room chanted in my head, “Buy me!” There were other good features in the house, but the dream of a hobby room was a big factor in my “yes” vote on the house.

This week I have been staging photos of our house for the time when we decide to sell. Even after we move, I want people to be able to visualize themselves in a hobby room like mine. Of course, my hobbies are not crafty. They’re educational. I took down most evidence of that so it looks more universal.

Goodbye, hobby room. Don’t worry, I won’t do a post about every room in the house, although it might be funny to see what poetic things I could say about that marvelous coat closet in our entry.

I just need one person to think it’s great and they can buy our house and pursue their dreams. It’s been a great room for us, although it NEVER looked this good when in use.

The Bunker after battle

This is a picture of what I saw when I walked into the school room this morning. It’s such a messy, useful room! I keep meaning to take a picture of it when it’s clean, but it doesn’t happen very often. I’m okay with that. I’ve discovered that most of us in this family like to arrange our projects about us and hunker down for battle within our book bunkers.

I have one person who has abandoned the school room altogether. He does his work in his bedroom where it’s quiet. He wears his pajamas while doing his math facts, his pillows arranged carefully behind him. What a life.

I had $100

Richard received a bonus from work last month. He said that we should have fun with some of it. It was decided that each of us would take $100 and spend it any way we wanted and without guilt.

I bought a shop vacuum to power my hovercraft and (ahem) clean our house.

I also bought this desk and hutch at a second hand shop. It’s an Ethan Allen piece and the paneling will probably be painted a beautiful robin’s egg blue or papered with some delightful pattern. Most likely it will stay as it is until one of my sisters makes her way down to help me finish the project.