I've been MIA from this blog for most of this year. Extended vacation? Not really. I didn't get much R & R. Earlier this year (shortly after my last post actually), we decided to sell our house. Since hubby works shift, it was me who had to get the house ready to sell, while still doing my regular duties. But I got it ready and we put our house on the market. By the way, it sucks trying to sell your house when you have 2 small kids, a shedding dog and a husband who can't help out too much because of his work hours. I also discovered a new OCD, which is always a nice surprise. If you've ever watched any real estate shows, or sold yourself, you know that the better a house shows, the more interest you can generate. That means you stage your house (to the best of your ability) and you try to keep it clean. It's amazing what can turn a potential buyer off. So I worked my butt off to keep the house always neat and whenever we had a showing, it almost literally shone. Apparently this was my new OCD, my realtor kept telling me I didn't have to stress about it being perfect, as long as it was neat, but the house had to sparkle. And it did. I would have bought it if it was me. Luckily we sold after only 2 weeks on the market. Thank goodness! I was so stressed. Trying to keep the kids from making huge messes, constantly cleaning dog fur because of course, why wouldn't our dog start to blow her winter coat right as we are trying to sell, and a husband who had to work nights while we had people wanting to see the house the next morning did not make for much fun for me. But sell we did, and then we had to start on our hunt. I lost count of the number of houses we looked at. One beautiful one, but something never felt right. A bunch that had potential, but weren't what we were looking for, then of course there was the scary house. Gave us all the creeps, it was like something out of a horror movie. Then we found our home. We had seen the listing, but had initially discounted it because it didn't meet one of my criteria. Finally we decided, what the hell, let's at least look. We loved it. It's small but the rooms are good sizes and while it needs some work, we can make it ours. Not to mention the land. 3 acres. Hubby loved that part! There was more stress though, the home inspection revealed multiple issues, some bigger than others.
Eventually we got everything ironed out and while we dealt with everything, I had to start packing, by myself. We of course moved on the 1st really hot day of this summer and what ended up being our 1st heat wave...into a house with no A/C. To top it off, there was a horrible smell in the house that I can only describe as smelling like an outhouse, which we finally realized was coming from the carpet in daughter's room. Luckily we discovered this before we moved the furniture in, but after realizing how bad the carpets were, and that they would need to be changed sooner, rather than later, we ended up living in the basement for the 1st week, which was actually cooler. We did have to tear the carpet out only to discover that it appears they had left their 2 small dogs in the one room and the dogs had used it as a toilet. Awesome! We did get our new carpets early the following week and got a good deal and great service through a local flooring company, then it was finally time to start moving into, and setting up the bedroom. The unpacking went slower then the packing did. Apparently I don't like unpacking....I learned a lot about myself this summer. My mom was a huge help, during that 1st crazy week, she helped set up the kitchen and look after the kids while we ran around getting other things done.
Then we had to adjust to the move. I had spoken to a friend who had mentioned that it took her kids about 2 months to adjust and settle after they moved. She was right. The kids weren't sleeping great anymore. They were either taking a long time to put down, or waking more often. And the long, hard fought road to get daughter potty trained had just hit a sink hole. She regressed, and hard. To top it off, we were trying to adjust as well. We had gone from living in a city, however small, to living in the country. I've never lived in the country. I went from living with all the things you don't think twice about, to having to worry about what went down the drain so it doesn't affect the septic, how much water we use in a day and the quality of that water since we now had a well and of course, especially now that it's gotten colder, watching how much oil we use since gas lines don't come out this far. But adjust we have. Some things may have taken longer then others, and I'm still learning, but some things went smoother then I expected they would. It doesn't hurt that it's like living at a cottage and it can be so beautiful and peaceful here, or that our closest neighbor is awesome as well as the other neighbor we've met so far.
Once we settled, it was time for more change, daughter started school this year. We've been talking it up since the spring. We wanted her to WANT to go. But we've been nervous. All those things I'm sure most parents are worried about when they send their first born off to school. But she's loved it, hasn't had a problem. Even her 1st day, her teacher had to tell her to say goodbye to me since she was so eager to get started. We've all now settled into a routine for her going to school and now I'm looking for more change. We weren't expecting to have to change carpets and put in an A/C unit so soon after moving, and there's always a need for extra cash around here, so I've decided to try and go back to work. I've already applied to a few jobs and done interview, which I'm hoping works out, and I plan on continuing the search until I get something.
I could sit here and say I'm only going to work for the good of my family, to ease some of the financial strain on hubby, always have a bit of extra cash so the kids can start other activities, dance, swimming, ect., but that would be a lie. It's also for me. I've been home for almost 5 years now and I'm ready for some more adult interaction. I also want to be able to help out financially, I hate not having money of my own.
This has been a busy year with a lot of change, and more to come, but it's also been a good year in many ways. I apologize if I take another LOA, hopefully not as long as the last, sometimes change comes with its own adjustment period and sometimes, you need to focus on that for a bit.
