We decided where a shed needs to go and these lillies were in the way. Anna said people would love them and to offer them for free. So we did. And now they’re gone with no work on our part! Yay!
Goodbye lillies!
Category Archives: House & Home
This. Is. Us.
Solo stove fire going. I’m drinking. Tom is cutting wood from our trees with a chainsaw. Katie just put on an Elena princess dress. Owen is talking about mages and normal knight boots?!
There’s still so much left to do.
My goal might be to get one single room done. But then it quickly gets filled again when you start working on another room. So every room is a hot mess.
I was talking to a friend on the phone and she was like it can’t be that bad so I took these photos. Ha. Proved her wrong!!
My body told me to stop.
Apparently working multiple long days unpacking boxes and squatting to load cabinets and going up and down our stairs 18 times a day took its toll on me…and both my knees finally screamed STOP. As in I pretty much couldn’t walk. I powered through yesterday because it was just mostly annoying—and I tried to take it easy—but today I was totally out of commission. Thankfully Heidi came to my rescue with a great ice wrap (all of our stuff is packed somewhere) so I spent my whole day on the couch. Fun times!
Note: After two days of rest, ice, and elevation the pain is gone but towards the end of the day I can feel it starting to hurt so now I have a brace!
She loves to watch the world go by.
Katie learned cleaning does not equal shoving.
So this is what happens when you “clean” your room by shoving everything into your closet after mom clearly says that’s not the solution—mom dumps it all in the middle of the room!
No, they don’t need immaculate rooms, but it also shouldn’t look like a garbage pit less than two weeks after moving in. It took her ALL DAY yesterday to do about an hour’s worth of actual work (because kids) but now it’s at least decent.
And honestly, it was this or it was all going in the garbage. That’s where I’m at with all their crap.
We weren’t expecting this…
I found this couch for CHEAP on Nextdoor and knew it would be perfect for the basement…but the basement was FULL of boxes. Like floor to ceiling in this room (I can’t believe I forgot a before pic). So yesterday it was my mission to clear out enough space so we could get the couch. I busted my ass (the kids barely helped, of course) and Tom helped move what I couldn’t finish into the corner and voila!
If you like amaretto, try this.
Our first bonfire at the new house.
I also threw out a random invitation to a bunch of my new friends that if they wanted to come over they were welcome… No one could make it, but then one couple was out on a walk and saw my message and stopped by to meet us! This is definitely the kind of neighborhood I want to live in.
A well-deserved break.
You guys. I am at a standstill.
You would think that I would’ve been completely overwhelmed before this point in the move but today I think is it. I just can’t get started on anything and I have so much left to do.
The office is kind of picked up and I have things randomly on shelves but nothing is how I want it and my printers aren’t hooked up so I couldn’t even ship something out if I wanted to. So you would think that would be the first thing I needed to do.
But I really want the kitchen to be put together because it makes me crazy to walk in there and I can’t prepare a meal because there’s stuff all over the place.
And I really wanna get my bathroom set up because that’s where I need to work and do lives but it doesn’t feel comfortable yet and so I feel like that’s the most important thing.
I could go on and on but I’ll stop there.
I just need to get back into my groove and I know that it takes time after moving but I’m kind of going crazy feeling like it’s taking too long AND I JUST WANT TO GET BACK TO NORMAL.
The Tupperware is under control!
A few pieces went away, a few are in the fridge, and some are awaiting their matches (and if we don’t find them, out they go). Not too bad. This will all get rearranged when Tom cuts these apart and puts in pull-out drawers. (I can’t wait because it kills me that there is so much wasted space!)
The attack of the Tupperware!
Anna didn’t believe me when I said I had A LOT of kitchen stuff. Today we tackled the plastic storage. She also couldn’t believe we use all of this and I assured her we use the majority of it. (We were matching lids so these will condense but it’s still a lot.)
So I admit it’s a bit frightening to see ALLLLL your plastic storage out at one time…. But that’s what happens when you move and have to find a new home for everything!!
- Rubbermaid
- Lock & Lock (looooove these)
- Tupperware (can you spot the vintage pieces?!)
- deli containers (good for stackable freezing and food prep)
- take out containers (great for sending home food after a party)
- OXO pop containers
Yes it seems like a lot, but we really do honestly use most of these. I freeze a lot of food and we’ve been eating out of the freezer to prep for the move so most of these will go back in the freezer once I start cooking again!
Are you a storage fiend like me? Or am I insane?
Can you see all three through the clutter?
Hanging out in Owen’s room.
I have no idea how this all fit before.
My vanity is easily 5x the size it was before but I’m having problems figuring out where to put everything. It’s overwhelming to have more storage!! It will get figured out in time.
Picking up our plants from the sitter!
Anna and David watched our buckets o’ plants while we were moving so we wouldn’t have to remember to water them! So tonight was the night we finally went and picked them up!!
Invitation to the pool!
The kids got invited to a friend’s pool (technically the neighbor’s parent’s pool) so they had a grand time while we were unpacking the house and all that fun stuff.
I might have gotten a little bit emotional because the same neighbors who invited the kids over today (so we could work on the house in peace) were the same neighbors who took the kids the first day we moved in three years so (so we could unpack in peace). Kind of bookending our time at that house. (In fact I’m even getting choked up a bit writing it now.)
Tom blew up the furnace.
Kind of.
He had to switch out our Nest and so he had been smart and took a picture of the wire setup…but for whatever reason his phone screwed up and he didn’t actually get the picture… So he was watching YouTube and winging it and it wasn’t working and the next thing he tells me is that something blew up (?!) or was burned or something in the basement.
WHAAAA—?!?!
I guess it could have been completely random but the timing was too perfect. So we had to call someone to come check it. So the poor cleaning lady had no AC for most of the time so it was probably 85° in the house (though it could have been much worse considering how hot it was). Thankfully the guy could come in two hours and it was just a $70 blown transformer and a $70 service call.
Good times.
Yes, I placed an ad for friends!!!
So I might have just posted a “We just moved in! Who wants to be our new neighborhood friends?!” get-to-know-us post on Nextdoor and Facebook (in a local Mom’s group). YIKES! A TOTALLY Jen thing to do though, right?! I had no idea what to expect… but (fast forward) it has been amazing!
Well it went over smashingly! By the time I was able to check back in I had four Facebook messages waiting for me and a bunch of comments saying what a great idea it was and they wished they’d thought of it, etc.
I think I added at least 10 new Facebook friends today. We have a socially distant park game planned for Sunday night with two families and someone is coming over for a driveway drink tomorrow.
A FEW DAYS LATER…
I was TOTALLY blown away by the responses. They just kept coming and coming. I think I’ve friended about 20 people now and have met probably 10 people in person thus far!! This might have been one of the best things I’ve ever done! We’ve felt so welcomed in this neighborhood it’s been amazing!!
Our first night in our new home!
The kitchen (and the whole house!) might look like this…
But at least I found bedding so we could sleep in this…
Sooooo… the few things about the new house that I don’t love.
Yes I know these are totally first world problems. And compared to things about our last houses we didn’t like, these are NOTHIN’. But I figured I might as well tell you everything.
The dishwasher is TINY. Like ridiculously tiny. Like I’d be happy to sell it and get a new one tiny. Yes it’s newer and fancy (it’s practically silent) but what good is that if nothing fits in it? Tom is like F@$& THAT IT’S A BOSCH AND IT’S NEW. And while I get that, it’s also an appliance we use daily and if it’s annoying me it’s going to be a constant source of frustration. So we’ll see what happens.
Our shower. It’s gorgeous and totally fancy, but not great in application. There are no towel bars or hooks in a place to easily grab a towel from inside the shower. We can’t put our showerhead on it because of the style…and it seems to be at a weird angle and consequently the bench doesn’t seem to be in the best place (I kept backing into it during my first shower—I’m sure I’ll get more used to it but right now it’s not love). There are also only two tiny shelves and no good room to put a shower rack (and I don’t want to clutter up the bench). And it’s quite disconcerting to be able to see yourself in the mirror while showering!
It takes awhile to get hot water anywhere. We are actually used to that from the rental but we were sure it would be better anywhere else. That said, there’s plenty of hot water! (Ack! No good things posted in this post!!)
There are also a bunch of little things that we can fix eventually…like no hand towel racks in the kids’ bath, Katie’s blinds are missing the rod to tilt them, none of the ceiling fans have lights but there are no lights in the rooms (so it’s still lamps for us), I can’t find which outlet the guest bedroom light switch goes to, and Katie’s carpet has a stain that goes away and magically reappears every time.
So overall pretty damn awesome. Stay tuned for the list of amazing things about this house…
The movers are amazing.
Aside from the fact that they bust their asses all day every day, they can do magical things like make this huge cabinet …
Fit into spaces you wouldn’t imagine.
Needless to say we tipped them well after this.
Soooo much junk left.
Just two of Katie’s walls after her room was emptied. Unbelievable.
Today’s moving breakfast of champions.
It’s just missing a homemade dill pickle.
I kind of lost it today.
I was being so good planning what to keep out, which food was here and there, and packing some pans and plates and stuff for the new house…
Totally forgot about here.
I kept plates but nothing else. I was thinking the dishwasher had clean dishes in it…but I forgot we unloaded it. So it’s been a scramble…and we went to Anna’s for dinner.
We have two spoons and bowls for the kids’ breakfast, we’ll order food for lunch (we always do for workers), and then Chinese take out for dinner.
And so our last moving adventure begins.
Also? Just 12 minutes in my mask and I’m past being done. No way kids are going to last all day in school.
More Adventures in Moving, Dinner Edition
More Adventures in Moving, Dinner Edition:
So today we moved the refrigerators around. Our fridge from the house went to the new house garage. The rental fridge came back in from the garage. So this necessitated a bunch of coolers and rearranging of food and trying to decide what to keep here and what to take over to the new house. I have done this MANY times, but today…well.
So it comes time for dinner and I had found a package of what I thought was taco meat. I mean, I even tasted it and my tired brain thought it was taco meat. It was Italian sausage. So then I dug through the freezer and found enchilada mix–perfect for nachos! Except it turned out to be potato soup (I didn’t take off the last label).
Not to be deterred I went back to the freezer and found ANOTHER package of meat that looked like ground beef – but it wasn’t my writing but I couldn’t really make it out… Yeah, more Italian sausage.
I GIVE UP. So we were gonna have Italian sausage nachos.
Except guess what? I had NONE of my other ingredients! No green onions (missing), no mexican cheese (missing), no guacamole (missing), no salsa (missing). WHAAAAAAT?????? I knew I had all that stuff which is why I picked nachos to start with! But by this time we were all starving so it was just meat and cheddar cheese nachos.
And guess what? Miss Picky Eater herself said they were the best ever! WHAAAAAT?!
And then while we were eating…we were discussing all the missing foods and how I swear I didn’t unpack them at the other house…and we discovered there was one cooler that got pushed aside in the other room. So now we have a full fridge.
What shall tomorrow bring?
Moving fun #31 —Refrigerator move day.
A simple thing like unhooking the refrigerator turns to shit because the water valve doesn’t turn off to the fridge so we had a mad dash to find buckets and we had to turn off the water to the house and it still leaks. Only then did Tom remember from three years ago that there’s ANOTHER valve in the basement. What next?!
This is what some meals/snacks look like when you’re moving…
and emptying the fridge and pantry—necessity is the mother of invention. Crackers, cheese spread, and balsamic onions. It’s delicious. I might also have soup going on the stove with the last of the baby potatoes and some leftover sauteed onions.
