The new house

So did I mention we've moved? We got tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop with the old house and the mortgage, so we found a nice little house to rent.



That pic was taken back when we got a little unexpected spring snow.

Bonuses to the new house:

~Smaller, so our utility bills are lower
~Zoned for a different elementary school, one that should be better with Julian's ADHD
~A fenced back yard!
~Closer to daycare, closer to work for me, and not too much farther for Brian
~Closer to church
~The ice cream man comes through our neighborhood
~Within walking distance of a park with a good playground

Downsides to the new house:

~Smaller, so we're REALLY having to get rid of a lot of stuff. We've been making many a trip to Goodwill and Manna House to donate things. We're still moving some things from the old house, and we're going to be getting rid of some of the things we brought, thinking we'd keep, because we just don't have the room for them. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, it's just a challenge for me - I am the queen of stuff, especially kitchen stuff.

One thing I do know: Moving is a pain. Moving with two kids is a bigger pain. Moving piecemeal with two kids is an even bigger pain still. Next time we move, it will all be packed and sorted and ready to go on the truck, even if we're just going ten miles across town like we did this time.

We're hopeful that this will be a good move for us, though. I'd like to see us here at least three years, so that Julian can finish out his elementary years in the same school, and Rhys won't have started elementary yet. But that remains to be seen. For now, we're all moved out and trying to wind things up with the old house. Personally, I'm looking forward to having a weekend where nothing major has to be cleaned, packed, or moved!

Our garden and other weekend fun

Yesterday was a big day. I needed to get a taillight and headlight replaced on my car, and I'd called the Kia dealership for an estimate, but the dealership is far away and our local Kwik Kar is, well, local. So we dropped the car off there. Not only did they have it fixed within the hour (before we finished running errands), but they also fixed both the headlight and the taillight for less than the price that the dealership had quoted me to repair just the headlight. I love it when things work out like that!

We ran up to Dallas to pick up some firewood (found it free on Craigslist - if you haven't gotten into the habit of checking out your local Craigslist, I highly recommend it, you can find a ton of good stuff for free or cheap if you just keep an eye out). Then we went to Home Depot to pick up the rest of our supplies for our square foot garden. By that time, it was lunchtime and we were hungry, so we went to Chapps Cafe for a hamburger. It looks to be largely a north Texas thing, but if you're ever in the area, it's worth finding one and giving it a try. I love Chapps - I give them full credit for convincing my son that there are better chicken strips to be had than Chicken McNuggets! LOL Any restaurant that he'll choose over McDonald's gets high marks from me, and they make a fine hamburger to boot.

After lunch, it was home to garden! Brian had already made our garden box and the square foot grid for it, so all he had to do was mix up our dirt, put it in the box, and then we were ready to plant.

Here's our box with dirt in it, waiting for good things to grow there:



Here's our box with plants and seeds:



We're growing two kinds of lettuces (Bibb and a salad mix), four kinds of peppers (mild jalapeno, hot garden salsa, orange bell, and Cubanelle), two kinds of tomatoes (Roma and Celebrity), yellow squash, zucchini, sugar snap peas, green beans, golden beets, onions (two squares), and cucumbers. I hope our little garden does well! Brian also got really motivated and built a compost bin yesterday.

And today we gave church a miss. Brian woke up running fever, with a head full of multicolored snot, and basically feeling like a train hit him. Bless his heart, he looks awful. I've been puny for the past few days, and I'm still not 100%, but I'm doing better at this point than he is. He's been sleeping for most of the day.

I think most of my problem is allergies. When Julian and I went out to the store this afternoon, I realized my car was just yellow from the pollen. Ugh. Only a month until I can take my Allegra, only a month until I can take my Allegra....

In other fun, Julian is out of his Vyvanse. He's happy as can be, but Lord have mercy, he's wearing me out. When we went to get a refill on Saturday, the pharmacist said he couldn't fill it due to errors on the prescription form and due to the date of the prescription being written incorrectly and then marked over to change it. We're hoping to pick up a new prescription on Monday and get it filled Monday evening, so Julian should be back on the Vyvanse by Tuesday. I'm just vexed that the doctor's office wrote the prescription out with errors, and vexed with myself for waiting until the last minute to get a new one, and vexed that this is a prescription that they just will not call in - we have to go by and pick up the written form every month. School should be interesting tomorrow. I just hope he doesn't have a completely rotten day, because if he does, it won't be like it's entirely bad behavior on his part. We'll see.

Making Your Home a Haven, Day 5

We did have fun last night! We played lots of Wii, but gave the fire a miss - Julian decided Mario Kart was more fun. I usually lose and he almost always wins, so you know he had a good time. LOL

Today's theme for the Making Your Home a Haven challenge is Inviting & Giving. I think I've got that covered for the day. Brian's mom is coming for the weekend, so she's invited. We've been working to get the house tidy for her visit, and the challenge this week has helped. I found out my ex may be getting divorced from his second wife - he's talking apartments, and I'm not sure their marriage can be saved. So I told him that if he should need a place to crash for a few days, he's welcome to sleep on our couch. (Yes, my ex and I get along well enough that we could do that, and my marriage is secure enough that Brian wouldn't blow his top over it.) That's two invitations. And I guess that by having a garage sale tomorrow, we're inviting lots of people to stop by and browse and chat! Who knows, maybe someone who stops by will see a little bit of God's love shining through among the trash and treasures. :-)

Making Your Home a Haven, Day 4

Yesterday's challenge: I didn't manage it until the end of the day, but I did manage to take care of myself a little! Success!

Today's theme for Making Your Home a Haven is Fun. I'm really going to have to think about this. Some days it's hard to make room for fun in my life. I know my son does lots of things he considers fun, like playing with the Wii, but sometimes there's not much fun in my day at all. And with me not getting home until after dark, outdoor fun is right out (unless we go outside again and watch Brian start a fire with flint and steel - Julian thinks that's dandy fun!). Hmm, maybe tonight would be a good night for a fire, and maybe I can talk Julian into a round or two of Mario Kart. And perhaps other inspiration will come to me during the day.

OK, gotta get dressed, and I've got to find something "professional" to wear - we're having an open house at work this afternoon for our business partners. Let's hope that after eight years of business casual, there's 1) something in my closet that even qualifies as professional attire, and 2) that it fits. All I know for sure is, this pregnant lady is not wearing heels! LOL

Making Your Home a Haven, Day 3

Yesterday's Clean challenge was what I'd consider a success. We cleaned out a LOT of trash - I'm sure the garbage men wanted to go for an extra truck when they saw the pile on our curb this morning. LOL We've got a lot of good stuff ready for the garage sale on Saturday, and while the kitchen floor did not in fact get mopped and steam cleaned, the old table did get cleaned off and polished and moved outside, and we are now able to neatly organize things still left to go through in the empty space. So it was a good day!

Today's Making Your Home a Haven challenge is Cared For. While I've got lots of little extra things to tend to - shredding excess paper, going through Julian's old artwork and school papers and deciding which ones to keep as memories, steam cleaning a variety of things - one thing that gets shorted in the care department a lot of the time is me. And I know if I'm not feeling my best, and feeling put upon and run down, then I don't have a lot left to give to my family. So tonight, the thing I'll do to care for myself is a good soak and scrub for my feet (since a hot bath is right out), and a good moisturizing treatment. I feel so much better when my feet aren't sore and tired. When I feel good, I have a lot more energy and motivation to work toward making my home a haven for all who enter.

Making Your Home a Haven, Day 2

The theme for today's Making Your Home a Haven challenge is Clean. Boy, is that easy. Today will be nothing BUT cleaning! We're trying to get the study cleaned out so that it can be transformed into the nursery for the baby, and we're trying to get as much out for our garage sale on Saturday as we can. I'm off work today, so we are cleaning up a storm. By the end of the day, we hope to have the old kitchen table dejunked and removed to the garage, and the floor of the breakfast nook freshly mopped. The tea cart is already gone, as we started as soon as Julian got off to school. We may have piles of junk to contend with after the day is done, but the breakfast nook will be clean and ready for a new table and chairs, and progress will be made on the nursery. And at least the front part of the house will smell of Pine-Sol. :)

Making Your Home a Haven

Monica is sponsoring a Making Your Home a Haven challenge at her blog. Her challenge looks like it's for this week only, and my projects are so big, I'm not sure they can be completed in a week! But this is something I'm working diligently on, so I'm playing along.

Today's challenge theme is Tidy. My house has a LOT of stuff that needs tidying, so I'll have to pick just one or two things to tackle this evening when I'm home from work. So this is my evening plan to make something tidy around my house:

~Make sure all the dinner dishes are washed and put away before bedtime - no dishes left in the sink!
~Put up clean laundry.

Between work and homework and just plain old being tired, I reckon those will be sufficient tidy accomplishments for one evening. I've got to start somewhere, right?