I don't know exactly what is in there but it is one of my most prized possessions and I am about 2 seconds from throwing it out. Or not...

I'm back. Sometimes you have to vent before you can let it go. And since I did that (in a little under 4 pages of craziness at 3 am for everyone to read and ask about) I am now back and ready to tackle new craziness (that I'm sure I will or have somehow brought upon myself).

As many of you may (or may not) have heard...We Found a House!!! We put in the offer and the inspection went great. We got the financing and have figured out how stressful it is to stop spending money so you have 20% plus closing costs to put down at closing. But it was all worth it, because we close on Aug 14th and get to move into a very nice house that will actually be all ours (in 30 years when we finish paying the bank). While living in the duplex has been OK, I will not miss the noisy night activities of the neighbor or his dogs recent decisions to poop everywhere in the yard (or their owner's decision not to clean it up). In all of my excitement and stress over actually finding and getting the house I managed to overlook the fact that must now pack, AGAIN.

You would think that this is not such a big thing due to the fact that our garage is stuffed to the point of exploding with junk we didn't bother unpacking when we got here the last time. We have spent the last 7 months feeding our family of 7 with 8 plates, 8 bowls, 8 spoons, 8 forks...(you get the idea. The reason for this is that WalMart sells their junk in sets of 4 and we need 7 so we bought 2 so we wouldn't have to unpack the dishes that were so carefully packed from the first move this year. I still have no idea if they are still in one piece or smashed to smithereens, and I'm really happier that way.)

It truly amazes me that even with everything that is still packed, I have so much more to put back in boxes/baskets so they can make the move 10 minutes eastward (as in Eden cause the new house rocks). I find myself wondering if I really need all the crap I have spent the last 11+ years accumulating or should I just chuck it all (and start over because you know I will. Once a pack rat...).

So what if I've had to convince my kids that sharing towel is normal, and that shoes are not considered gender specific (even if they are pink). So what if I have repurchased pots and pans (because apparently I need them to cook even if I don't want to dig through 15 boxes marked “Kitchen” to find the perfectly good ones I already had). I think it is really a matter of deciding what you can and cannot live without. For instance, I can live without opening the 6 boxes of my children's toys because we just didn't have the room, but I cannot live without my cell phone (which my children have decided is a toy because there is nothing else to play with and, has had to be replaced once already). I guess the decision there has been made for me. The toys serve the greater good so I have to not only keep them, but unpack them. On the upside, my kids now know that I am serious when I tell them that I will throw all of their toys away if they don't pick them up.

What really irks me is the fact that I have not unpacked all of the clothes/shoe boxes. What that means is that I have 4 closets full of clothes and a mound of dirty clothes (perpetually) in front of the washer, but there are still more. I have to get rid of quite a few things because I can't stand the idea of moving dirty clothes to an new clean house. Maybe it is time for a compromise (I'll make my husband move them. He is sort of a germ/dirt-aphobe and how he has managed to live with me all these years is still a mystery).

In the end all the stress is totally worth it, because we will be moving from less then 1500 sq feet to almost 3300 and there will be plenty of room to hide all the junk so that I can live another 5 to 10 years without ever having to open half the boxes if I don't want to. I could just leave some of them packed and make sort of a game about moving boxes full of who knows what, from place to place until finally I break down and open them to discover that they have become priceless antiques. I think we have found a winning plan that will enable me to make it through the next few weeks until we finally settle into our new wonderful house.

I didn't realize how much I took space for granted (or maybe it is just that I am missing my beautiful blue kitchen that my husband tiled perfectly, exactly the way I asked him to. Or maybe I am missing my girl's room that my sisters helped me paint with pretty flowers that coordinated perfectly with the comforters that I got for their beds. Or maybe it is the high ceilings with crown molding that Danny and I spent months putting up while trying to pretend the piles of molding waiting, lined up in the entry hall, to be installed was an interesting decorating piece and a conversation provoking design choice. But sill there is the office that was built from scratch using instructions downloaded from the internet by my sweet husband with a little help from my dad and his and the skilled texturer that lived next door). Maybe it's not the space alone I missed.

I think the reason I am so happy is that I will finally be able to settle in and make it a home of my own (by painting and making my husband spend all of his free time on pet projects that require hours of backbreaking manual labor). Once we get settled, we will have more then enough room for visitors. If there are any of you out there who are longing for a fun filled vacation in beautiful and exciting Andover, KS (a suburb of Wichita) then give us a call, and we'll make sure you feel welcome.