Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Old and New

We are all moved in and slowly getting settled. I have the tendancy to get overwhelmed quite easily, so I have worked really hard to focus these past few weeks and just get a little done at a time. Our main living spaces are mostly box free and I even tackled the garage yesterday. I will be posting photos of various parts of our wonderful new house over the next couple of weeks in a "Corners of my house" fashion (inspired by SouleMama). Monday night, Curt and I went back to the old house to clean and shampoo carpets. I got there first and walked around and took some pictures of favorite things. I try not to be sentimental about "stuff" but I guess I am, because I cried. I really love that house, but we were starting to outgrow it and I really believe that God wants us in this house. This is pretty much my dream house.

(Part of the murals painted on the walls in the girls' old bedroom.)


The little yellow cottage is the first house that we owned instead of rented. My parents helped us with the down payment and we were able to qualify for some special loans through the state to help renovate parts. I was able to have a brand new kitchen that I designed. Nothing fancy, but I really liked it. My Dad did the majority of the fixing on the house and he and I grew closer than we ever were when I was a child and there was a lot of healing in that for me. As I was shampooing carpets, I had a lot of time to think about all of the things that our family experienced living in that house. Emma was 9 months old when we moved there, she is now close to 6. Abi was born 1 year after we moved in and is now 4. Those years contain a lot of growing up and firsts. I also lost 2 babies and had a hysterectomy while living there. My love of gardening and quilting and all things creative hit full blast while living in that house. Really, as I think about it, I have done so much growing and maturing in so many ways in the 5 years that we lived in that house. I really started to discover who I am. So many lovely memories, and yet it is a little bittersweet. My inlaws bought the house from us so that we wouldn't have to go through the hassel of listing it and getting it ready to show, etc. This has been such a blessing and was completely their idea. Well, amazingly they have sold the house already! They close the deal on Monday. I will do a whole post possibly tomorrow about how this house came to be, the whole thing is amazing.


I leave you today with our Spring Wonderland (???). I was so bummed about it snowing in April, and the girls snapped me right out of it. They were so excited to get to play in the snow one more time. We had a ton of fun out there and the view of the river in the snow is awesome (in the true sense of the word, not the 80's version of it).








2 comments:

Jonathan & Sarah Ragan said...

What a cute "old" house! The best part is that you get to take your memories with you. Can't wait to see pictures of your new adventure!

Anonymous said...

I would have cried too! At least we didn't have to be the ones to paint over the murals. Did you take pictures of the rest of it...the girls' hand-flowers? The ugly butterfly you painted? The beautiful butterfly I painted? The Sun? BIG HUG to you and I hope your new house makes you as happy as the old one.