Reflecting

I've been doing a lot of driving recently-- trips to Charlottesville, driving a friend to the hospital in Arlington and back, going to the temple in DC, and then just driving all over town for various reasons-- and when I would usually use this time to listen to music, lately I've found myself just cruising around lost in my own thoughts.

When my parents drove me to Provo to begin attending BYU, my Mom told me that from now on, my heart would never be in just one place again.  "You'll always have a part of you wanting to be where you aren't," she told me.  It seemed like a strange thing to say at the time, but I've learned that she was completely right.  My heart has never completely left Seattle, let alone my beloved Bainbridge Island.  I still think back on my BYU days with great fondness and look forward to a time when I can visit again.  And now Manassas will be added to that list.

The thing that's so crazy about Manassas to me is that it is an incredibly transient city.  Some friends and I recently decided to compile a list of all the families we could think of who had moved away.  The list was over 80 families long.  EIGHTY!  That is SO many people!!!  (And I'll include the list at the end of this post so all of you who are on it can see the shout-out to yourself and know that we remember you here!)  So many people I've said good-bye to.

What's even weirder, though, is that when we moved here, Craig and I had every intention of being just as transient.  Our plan was to come here, stay for two years so Craig could get his master's degree, and then move somewhere we could actually afford to live on a teacher's salary (hint: this place does not actually exist.  At least, it didn't in 2006).  We joked that Judges 6:15 was all about our family.  If someone would have told us that we'd stay for 9 years and have five children while we were here, Craig and I would have laughed at the notion.

But the housing crash of 2008 changed a lot of that.  Suddenly it was (barely) affordable, and we were buying a home here.  And suddenly there didn't seem to be any good reason to leave.  In fact, the longer we stayed, the better friends we made and the more comfortable we got, and the happier we were.  As Craig began looking for a new job, we kept saying to ourselves that while we certainly could go anywhere, we sure liked it here and would be happy staying put.

But obviously, that wasn't how things worked out.  And when you find your dream job in a lovely town, where the cost of living is slightly lower but you'll be making more money, you really can't say No just because you're already content where you are.  And the truth is that I am incredibly excited for our next adventure-- I'm excited for Craig's new job.  (I might be more excited for him to earn a few more bucks.)  I'm excited to live in a college town again with some of the perks that entails.   And I'm head-over-heels excited for our new home.

But still, it's incredibly bittersweet leaving Manassas.  Just like my Mom told me, a large part of my heart will forever be here.  And the fact that it will probably buried underneath all the traffic doesn't make it any easier.

Who would have guessed that Manassas would be so good to us?  Who would have guessed that we would come to know so many wonderful people here?  Who would have guessed that we would be so sad to leave?





And now, the list of people we've said good-bye to while we were here, including people who just left (marked with one *) and those slated to leave this summer (marked as **, and including ourselves), and also including a few who left and then came back again (marked with a #)....

Ahrens
Atkinsons
Beall
Blakely
Bott
Bowes**
Bracebridge
Brower

Butler

Cathro

Cardenas (Becky)

Cardenas (DJ)

Conley

Corbett**

Cotrell*

Cotton

Cramer**

Crouch

Curley

Davis*

Dickson

Dong

Duvall**

Dyal

Emfields

Evans**

Fillerup#

Fluckiger

Ford

Gardunia
Gepford
Gilbert
Goodson
Gray

Hale

Hamblin

Hansen (Amanda)

Hansen (LeeAnn)

Hansen (Lindsey)

Hart

Heiner

Hill (Shaunae & David)

Hill (Bonnie & Ashlon)

Holly

Horner

Howard (Jodi)

Kartchner

Kilmer#

Larson

Losee

McKay

Minster

Morgan

Oakeson

Olson

Okada

Parker

Pearson

Pennington

Peterson**

Phelps

Rook#

Ross

Rowe (Lindsay & Chris)

Salas

Sandstrom

Simmonds

Skousen**

Smith (Christine & Taylor)

Smith (Alanna & Craig)**

Spilsbury

Spittle

Stevens

Taylor

Tennant

Turner (/Gilbert)

Voss

Wall

Walquist

Willyerd

Wilson**

Woodruff

Worth

Wright


So many people who have shuffled through this little town of ours...

This'n'That

I have so many stupid things to mention, that I think I'll have to resort to list format here.  Sorry if that's annoying or boring...

-The other day, when we got home from church, a robin was sitting on the stroller which I'd left on the porch (because there was no room anywhere inside the house).  Its' back was to us, and I was surprised that it didn't fly away as we all ambled up onto the porch.  We all looked at it for a moment, and then Bentley reached out and just picked it up.  He set it back down gently and it flew off.  Does anyone else think that's the craziest thing ever????


-And speaking of birds, the chicks are getting HUGE!  They've been in that awkward adolescent state, and are just starting to grow out of it and look like actual chickens.  They're also being kind of stupid and keep knocking their water over, so all their wood chips were wet all the time and, since they're sitting under a heat lamp, the whole thing was starting to smell TERRIBLE.  We decided to just move them outside, and also switch to a water container they can't knock down.  Then Craig decided to list the chicken coop he'd built on Craigslist and someone actually came and bought it for $200!  So then I ran out and bought a smaller one (also for $200).  That may seem like a really dumb thing to do, but this new one is very small and charming and easy to move, so we're hoping it will make our new neighbors less likely to complain about us breaking HOA rules.  Fingers crossed!  During that in-between time while we're showing the house and still living in it, our friends the Losees have agreed to keep our chickens for us.  Where would we be without them???


-Camille discovered her hands and spent quite a bit of time staring at them in fascination.  I love it when babies do that.  (I also always wonder if it's anything like people do when they're high, or if that's just in the movies?)

-Camille is also in that fun stage where just seeing my face makes her get all happy and excited.  Her grin is so big she ends up with slightly crazy-looking eyes.  I haven't managed to get any decent pictures of her smiling though because as soon as I start waving my phone in her face, she stops.  I have to admit-- it's pretty fun to be someone's favorite person like that!

Only slightly crazy eyes...

-Colton is suddenly talking non-stop.  It's super cute, but can also get annoying, especially when I can't figure out what he's saying, so he just keeps repeating himself over and over (with increasing volume), hoping I'll catch on.  I keep reminding myself that he probably sounds like how I sounded on my mission.  A typical conversation with him sounds something like this, "Fish!  Chair!  Fish eat!  Fish eat chair!  Fish!  Chair!  Eat!  Fish eat chair!"  But with me repeating everything along with him or else he gets mad.  At least I didn't get mad at people when they didn't understand my Japanese...


-Bentley is also constantly mad at me, but that's just because he's going through a grumpy stage.  I suspect our impending move isn't helping, but who knows with that kid.  It was bad enough this weekend that we had a family home evening lesson about how to deal with our emotions and we discussed how yelling at mommy was not on the list of appropriate ways to deal with anger.  And then we assigned a punishment for the next time it happens.  We'll see if that helps...  Through all this, I keep telling myself that I'm doing this for his future wife.  Some day, if he's (hopefully) not the kind of guy who yells and screams at her, she'll have me to thank.  Not that she'll ever know that...



-The kitchen is done!!!  There are still a few little things to touch up, but that's the case for every room in this house.  The actual remodel, though, is done.  Here's one picture I took late at night:

It's not a great picture, but you get the idea.  I really like how it turned out-- too bad I'll be leaving it so soon.  And even worse, we're too busy trying to get the rest of the house ready to really cook anything and USE it.  So that's a shame.  But doesn't it look pretty?  I'm not sure how well you can tell here (this picture was taken at night), but the walls are a light grey, and all the trim and cabinets are white.  And I love how that looks.  So calm and clean!



-Speaking of busy, Craig has been working his tail off getting the house cleaned up.  Saturday he tackled the front yard and was edging, mulching, power washing and tidying everything.  Monday was the back yard, and today he was touching up the paint on all the outdoor trim and (at my insistence) painting our porch.  The house is looking so good!  I only hope I can get the inside as clean as he's getting the outside!  I have to admit, though-- every time my kids make any sort of mess, I get a little ill inside wondering how I'll ever be able to keep it spotless once we're showing it.  That feels like quite the Herculean task...

The Verdict

We had our home inspection yesterday.  This is kind of a big deal no matter what, but it was especially important because it was the first time Craig got to actually see our new home.  I knew he would love it, he trusted me he would love it, but we were both pretty anxious for him to finally see it, walk around inside it, and figure out if he did, in fact, love it.

So we were a tiny bit keyed up about the whole thing.  Craig couldn't even sleep the night before, he was so nervous. 

Craig had to stay in Charlottesville after the inspection to interview staff members, so we took separate cars there.  Craig got there a few minutes before me, and we talked on the phone as he was approaching it, giving me the play-by-play of his impressions of the place.  "Yup, driving by the jail right now...  Lovely barbed wire...  Ooh, I like the HOA pool, even if it is a little small...  Nice neighborhood, gorgeous view of tree-covered hills..."  Stuff like that.  Then he actually arrived and the home inspector and the real estate agent were there, so he got off the phone.

When I got there five minutes later, he greeted me with a big grin and a kiss on the cheek.  "You did really good finding this house," he told me.  "The rooms are a little smaller than I thought they would be, but I really like it."  (I wasn't lying when I blogged that the pictures made it look bigger than it really is!)  As he went upstairs with the inspector and got to see the plethora of bedrooms, the grin got wider and wider.

It took well over an hour before he finally made it to the basement (we had a very thorough inspector, which is a good thing!).  And the finished basement blew him away.  The rec room down there is really big-- it's the one room the photos didn't lie about.  And there's another room with a door to the outside that we have decided will be his workshop, and that was really the only thing he thought the house was missing.  Craig has declared himself officially sold on the house.  (Good thing since we already have a ratified contract!)

Last night, Craig again found himself unable to sleep.  But this time it was because he was so excited about our new house.

I knew he would love it.  I totally knew it.

But it's still a relief to be so right.

Granite

Some guy came and measured our countertops on Thursday for the (absolute cheapest) granite we had picked out.  He thought they "might" be able to install it Tuesday, which we interpreted to mean probably Wednesday.  And then, lo and behold, they called Craig and said they could have it in today, between noon and 1:30.  He notified me, and everything was all set.

But because things always have to be WAY more complicated than I'd like them to be, and often as awkward as possible, the men actually showed up at 11:45, and I had just gotten out of the shower and was in my bathrobe.  Classy.  I also hadn't cleared Craig's tools off the counter space, so I had to run around doing that in my bathrobe.

I threw on some clothes, but that woke up Camille, so then I had to feed her, and by then I was convinced that these men must think I'm some sort of exhibitionist.  (I'm not.  Just for the record.)

And then, THEN, they informed me that the cook top we'd bought wouldn't fit.  Or rather, one of the men tried to inform me of this fact, but I couldn't quite understand what he was saying.  And even once I was beginning to get an inkling of it all, I still didn't know what he wanted me to do about it, and I wasn't about to let him leave without getting Craig's opinion.  I texted Craig, but all he wanted to do was ask me questions to try and clarify it all, but since I hadn't understood what the guy was telling me, I couldn't answer any of Craig's questions.  I just kept repeating my initial text: "I don't understand.  CALL ME."

I really hate it when I can't understand people.  In this case it was because of his accent, but I feel equally awkward when people try to mouth things to me across a room (DO I LOOK LIKE I CAN READ LIPS???  BECAUSE I CAN'T!!!!!!!) or when they think I will understand gestures that aren't making any sense (how is you pointing at nothing supposed to convey any sort of meaning to me??).  I'm pretty much a word girl, through and through.  That's how you communicate with me.  And it needs to be in clear English that I can hear and understand, otherwise I'm completely lost.

Anyway, eventually Craig called, agreed that we'd need to buy a different cook top, and that was it.

I went to go pick up Camille then, and she got poop all over me, which necessitated changing my shirt (not that I did this in front of them, but still, I felt like I was back to being an exhibitionist all over again) and changing her.  But with the water turned off, I had no way to wash my hands or scrub our soiled clothing clean.  Ew.

So here's where we're at, missing cook top and all...

It does look really nice, I think.  Even the cheapest granite is really quite lovely...!

Still Whirling

So Craig got that job offer on a Monday.  And the following Sunday he began ripping out our kitchen.  He'd wanted to redo it for years now, and had gone through several different plans for it.  But with us moving, we went with Plan C or D, which basically boiled down to: replace everything as fast as possible for as cheap as possible.

Ryder liked helping Daddy scrape up all the old linoleum

Ever since he began, I have been living in squalor.  The refrigerator has taken up residence in the dining room, crammed up against a counter that also doesn't belong there (and which is now impossible to open and use any of the things inside it); there are boxes with all my kitchen things piled in the middle of the living room floor; my computer table, Grandmere's desk, and a la-z-boy chair have all been displaced.  The dining room table is crowded with my knife block and all our plates and glasses.  And there is a fine layer of sawdust on top of everything.  It's so awful and gross.

Living the dream right here

But in Craig's defense, for only doing this after work and on the weekends, he's been working wicked fast.  (Much credit goes to his parents for all their help, both with the kitchen work and with buying us meals while we can't cook!)

Laying the tile

Look!  New cupboards!

And more new cupboards!

But.  I HATE it when my house is messy.

So this has been challenging for me.

What's worse, it seems to have inspired a "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude within myself, because I've pretty much stopped cleaning the rest of the house, too.

So, yes, squalor.


So instead of sitting around my disaster of a home, I did what any normal American would do, and I went and bought a new house for us!

I noticed it on Zillow last Saturday, obsessed over it Sunday, drove down to look at it Monday (bringing my amazing friend Tracy with me for company!), made an offer on it that night, and found out we'd been accepted Tuesday.  Whew!

All this, and Craig still hasn't seen it.  Poor guy!  (He'll see it this Thursday when they do the home inspection, so until then, feel free to live it up by teasing him about this!)  You can see the listing here, but I should warn you that the information isn't very accurate.  For example, there are 3.5 baths, NOT five.  And the rooms aren't quite as big as they look in the pictures.  And we did NOT pay what the Zestimate for the house is.  But other than that, I think the house is pretty perfect.  Especially for our family.  My favorite thing about it is that it has five bedrooms UPSTAIRS.  None of the houses we'd looked at had that-- it seemed to be some rule that the most bedrooms you could have upstairs was four.  But this one has another bonus room over the garage, and I loved that about it.  I can have all my children sleeping nearby!

Anyway.  We've been stressing out trying to get paperwork rolling on this.  And stressing out trying to figure out how to sell our own home.  And still remodeling the kitchen.  And taking care of the chicks.  And also taking care of Camille (who is three months old today!!!)...  It's a busy, busy, stressful time for us.

I have to keep reminding myself of how good I really have it, rather than focusing on the stress and the squalor.  Because really, we have it so good.

And I mean, who doesn't think that really, a fridge belongs in the dining room?

Chicks!

Because we always manage to do things in the most complicated way imaginable, the day after Craig got his job offer, our chicks came in the mail!  I considered canceling our order, with everything we had going on, but I really wanted those chicks.  I told myself I didn't want to disappoint the kids, but the truth is that I didn't want to disappoint myself, either.  Who can resist baby chicks?  And I'd been looking forward to this day since I placed the order back in November!

I knew they'd shipped, so we already had their "brooder" (ie, the downstairs shower) all set up and ready to go.  I'd been out running errands when the post office called, so we rushed right there to pick them up.  They were so tiny and cute, cheeping away in their little box!  Mypetchicken.com recommended that you not let your kids see them until you've checked to make sure they're all alive and well, so I did a quick head count inside the post office before marching them out to the car to show off to Ryder and Colton.

We let each kid name one, so in order from right to left, we have the Buff Orpington (the yellow one) which Ryder named Happy, our Silkie (the white feathery one) which Bentley named Marshmallow, a Welsummer (the brown one) named Eileena (not sure about the spelling there) by Kendra.  And I named the Silver-laced Wyandotte (the black one) Quicksilver.  They're super cute, although they're getting a bit wild because we haven't had time to play with them very much.  I have a hard time leaning over the shower wall to catch them, because they beat their wings hard enough to fly a bit away from me.  But I always get 'em eventually!

I brought them to the kids' classes and let everyone have a turn holding and/or petting them, so that was a good way to spend an afternoon.  It's nice to be the fun Mom every now and then!

The weather's getting warm, so I'm hoping maybe today we can take them outside and let them experience that for a bit!  Should be exciting!