The Winds of Change

So... guess what?  Just when I thought my life was a little bit busy, things suddenly kicked into hyperdrive.  You know in Star Wars when all of space suddenly turns into smeared lines and your head gets yanked back into your seat?  That would be my September.

First, we decided to sell our house.  There was lots of discussion and waiting and making decisions and waiting some more.  We've wanted to do it very seriously for 8 months or so.  Then very quickly the time was right.  Like BAM.  So we packed up some things to reduce the clutter and I began to clean like crazy.  I even hired a sweet friend of my sister's (who works as a housekeeper) to come do my floors and baseboards.  My back just wasn't going to handle all that squatting/bending work down low; I'm so glad I made that decision!

I dusted blinds, I took down curtains and sent them through the laundry, I gutted closets, we touch-up painted, Jason did small repairs, I scoured every single surface..... ohhhhhh so much work.  About 13 trips to Goodwill later (no joke) we listed the house.  It was so pretty!

We were nervous that the asking price would be a tad lofty.  Things in the area were beginning to rise, but maybe not quite there yet.  We immediately started getting calls for showings.  Luckily, with all the kids in school full-time, managing that part of it went pretty well.  By the end of day 2, we had an offer for FULL asking price.  They were the 2nd people to see the house.  Whoa!!!

With my head spinning from the hyperspeed launch, I began to pack.  Inspection went well, appraisal came through for the exact amount we need (hallelujah) and all that "pretty" house went bye bye.  It became a house of mass chaos.

We pushed all the living room furniture back and used our living room as the staging area.  

Here it is about half full:

And in a few more days it became VERY full:

Last Saturday Jason, his brother, and some friends helped us put all of that into storage.

And this week we are loading it back up AGAIN!

(There's soooo much more you can't see.)

My kids are sleeping on mattresses on the floor.  We are all living out of suitcases, and everything but the bare minimum is gone.  Into storage.

What I haven't mentioned yet is through ALL of that, for the past 2+ weeks of really intense packing, I caught a cold.  Then 2 of the kids got it.  Yayyyyyyyyy.  :(  So I'm basically dragging myself up each day, work, work, work, crash for an hour or 2.  Work, work, work, crash.  Work, work, fall into bed at night.  I just have no choice in the matter.  I am the ONLY one doing 98% of the packing, simply because I am home all day.  Jason does what he can in the evenings, but they are often taken up with other types of projects.

Then what I STILL haven't told you is that we found a new house.  Kinda caught us by surprise.  We weren't going to be able to make any offer on a new place until this one was fully "closed."  (Otherwise we would have had to financially qualify and potentially pay for both mortgages, which.... isn't going to happen.  OR, the new house would have to accept a contingency on the old house selling or all would fall through.  Most people really aren't accepting contingencies right now because the market is so hot, you'll simply get out-offered by someone who doesn't have one... make sense?)

So we were only BEGINNING to go look at some places, thinking "Oh, we won't be able to make a move for 2 more weeks until our place closes..." just casually looking.  Well, as luck would have it, we found a FABULOUS place and the seller was willing to accept a contingency.  HOT DANG, you'd better believe we made an offer.  So we literally have 2 houses pending at the same time, overlapping this whole process by 2 weeks.  We are right now in the middle of the whole inspection and appraisal crap over at the new place, crossing our fingers.

And yes, space is zooming by in blurred lines.

And I'm still blowing my nose like crazy.

And I'm so very very very tired.

But grateful.