Unpacking. And Stuff.

I spent the first few days furiously unpacking.  Now I feel like I have all the things I need to function unpacked, and that's wonderful.  The kitchen is mostly set up, my bedroom is good to go.  The kids have most of their clothes all put away and after opening way too many wrong boxes, I finally located Bentley's and Kendra's bedding and got it all washed and made up onto their beds.  Since they'd been in sleeping bags since Phase 1 of the move, that felt like a huge accomplishment to me.

Unfortunately, my garage (and most of the rooms in the house) still have SO MANY boxes left to be unpacked:

Which begs the following questions:

-Why do we have so much stuff?
-Do I really need any of it?
-How much can I get rid of?
-Is any of it worth trying to sell?

These are the things I am pondering.  Having just read the book Stuff is either helping a lot, or not at all, depending on how you feel about hoarding vs. throwing stuff away.

This is what my living room and dining room look like right now (sorry it's not cleaner-- what was I thinking taking a picture when it wasn't clean???):

There's another chair in the other corner closer to the camera that you can't see.  We need to get a couch for this room, but that's going to have to wait for a bit.  I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to have another leaf in our dining room table and still have it fit in the dining room.  The buffet is there, too, and you can still walk all the way around the table.  Such space!  Also, I love the rug that I bought off some friends right before we moved.  Craig and I had said we'd need a rug for that room, but that was just going to be on the (really long) list of things we should buy whenever we have some money.  So it was nice to get that item right away!

We finally got an offer on the house, so that was a relief!  It was a bit lower than we hoped, although it wasn't terrible.  We have countered and they came up some.  We had a few other people look at the house today who seemed to really like it, though, so we'll wait and see if either of them makes an offer before we counter again.  It will be awfully nice to have that all said and done and know what we'll actually be taking away from the old house, money-wise.  It will be even nicer when it's finished and we can stop worrying about things like our Whomping Willow tree (or, as Jen nicknamed it, the Swamping Willow) falling apart in last week's thunder storm and needing to be taken down (suddenly my neighbor is quite certain that it's on our property and not her's).  Things like that are a pain no matter when they happen, but it's much worse when you're living two hours away...

Craig starts his new job tomorrow.  I start my first summer with kids and without Craig.  Wish us both luck.  I think I'm more nervous than Craig!

Making an Impression

We officially moved to Charlottesville last weekend. True to form, we did it in a weird complicated way, loading the moving van up Friday night and unloading it Saturday morning. I could explain all the reasoning behind that decision, but it probably isn't that interesting to anyone other than us, so for now I'll skip that story.

Kendra had her ballet recital back in Manassas that same Saturday at noon, so we knew we would need to hustle back the moment the truck was unloaded.  For her recital, I had decided to put mascara on her. I'm not a believer in little girls wearing make-up, but this was a special occasion, and a lot of the other kids were sporting full-on foundation, eyeliner and blush, so I figured a little mascara would help Kendra's eyes to pop, and that would be fine. (A friend who also had a daughter in the recital told me she briefly considered putting foundation on her little girl, and then realized that the purpose of foundation was to make it look like you had the perfect skin most little kids already have! So she decided it wasn't necessary.)

Anyway, the point of all this is to tell you that I was sitting there brushing mascara onto Kendra's eyelashes while men were still running around putting our (very heavy) furniture into the various rooms where they now belong. I felt a bit ridiculous, and worried that they might think I was a really weird parent who was into Toddlers & Tiaras or something dreadful like that.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I managed to get some in Kendra's eye, and as I sat there apologizing and trying to fix her watering eye, she loudly exclaimed, “That's okay, Mommy-- anything for beauty!”

I wanted to die.

NO, I have NEVER said anything like that. I really hope these men don't pass this one along to their wives....

Hidden Treasure

There is so much I'm supposed to be blogging about.  I never even managed to blog about my Grandma's 100th birthday party (I still will!  I promise!!!).  Kendra's dance recital.  My other kids' portraits from months ago. 

But we're moving on Friday.

And still trying to sell our house (hoping for some offers soon!).

And things are just plain crazy at the moment.

But I have one quick story I have to share or else it will be forgotten in all the craziness.  So here goes...


We've had a two-part move here.  We moved everything we didn't need for a few weeks into the new house three weeks ago, in order to clear out this house.  We were hoping that it would show better then (and I think it does, even if it hasn't sold yet).  So that was exciting, to say the least.  We picked out which furniture we didn't need (the kids' bunk beds, Craig's dresser, Grandmere's desk, the love sack, a couple bookcases, one of our couches...  stuff we use, but could manage without) and I packed a TON of boxes of winter stuff and toys.  And some friends came on a Friday evening and helped us load it all onto a truck.  After they left, Craig and I continued to raid the house for things we could live without.  When we finally finished, that moving truck was STUFFED FULL.

And we went to bed absolutely exhausted.

The next day we drove it to Charlottesville, where people from our new ward came to help us unload, and then we had to race back to Manassas in time for the kids' piano lessons.

Done!


That night, I tried to clear stuff off the dining room table so we'd be able to eat breakfast at it the next morning.  One of the bookcases we'd moved hadn't been completely packed up, so everything on it had been moved to the table, so it was a huge mess now.

As I cleared, I came across a small flat box.  It was about an inch square, and maybe a quarter of an inch thick, so pretty small.  Inside, was a cheap, plastic looking thing with the name for a jeweler in New Jersey on it.  It was sort of like a disk, with sun rays coming out around it, if that makes sense.  I managed to pry it out of the box, and when I turned it over, it looked like there was a ring inside it.  And it looked like it was gold.

Craig called his parents, and sure enough: we'd found his grandmother's wedding ring!  Her initials and his grandfather's were engraved on the inside.  I'm not sure where it had been: inside her desk?  Or the buffet which we'd moved?  Both had belonged to her, so either one is possible.  Mostly, I'm just so relieved that we took the time to really look at it instead of just throwing it away!

It is safely in Craig's mother's keeping now.  Hopefully she'll find a good place to keep it.

But we were glad to have found this little treasure amidst all the chaos!


That's it for now.
Wish us luck selling the house!