Home Again

I've been meaning to write a blog post for a while now, but things have been busy.

First off, Eden's still waiting for an appointment with an eye surgeon in Dallas. She's doing well with her eye patch wearing, though she still resists it quite a bit. We're bribing her with water color painting and tv shows.

We moved into the Orange street house on May 18, so we've been here for ten days now. We got everything into the house in 2.5 trips and about 6 hours. We got the kids' rooms set up as much as we could that night, though of course a lot more work was done over the next few days. Our bedroom took a while because Austin couldn't find the bolts to put the bed together, resulting in our being up until about 11pm while he searched for, located, and assembled our bed. That doesn't seem TOO late but I'd been awake since 5am and we'd moved so I was exhausted. My body definitely didn't appreciate it and I was sickish for the next several days. I'm still recovering.

In spite of all that, though, I'd say we're about 95% done unpacking. There are filled boxes in the garage, sure, but those are things in long term storage. We're passing along our empty boxes and once we've got those down to a manageable number, we'll (I'll) work on organizing the storage areas a little better. There are still things around that need a permanent home, but we'll figure that out as we go. We've turned the dining room into a temporary gathering place for everything that's left, just to help me keep my sanity. After two months of living surrounded by boxes, I'm really glad to have the majority of the boxes confined to one room, and it's a room I can avoid easily.

The kitchen is unpacked and usable. We've cooked quite a few meals, though we've also ordered in and picked up a few times because hey, we just moved and we're still unpacking and we're tired.

The last room started was the first room finished. The library has books on the shelves or in the cabinets, art on the walls (made by me), comfy chairs for reading, and a desk chair at the desk. Not all the books would fit because of course not, but each kid has shelves in their room with books on them and my Book of the Month books are in my sitting room. Of course those shelves are almost full with the ones I've already got so that's definitely not a long term solution. I'll likely be donating more of the books Mom left behind (there's already about 11 boxes of books she left that we're not keeping) to make space for our books. We'll need to get a library ladder because we can't reach the top two shelves without one, and even then it's tricky. Needless to say, the books we don't use much (or ever) are up there.

I'm absolutely loving how some of the rooms look, namely the girls' rooms and the library. I'm taking pictures as we go and I'll eventually post some before and afters. I'm just waiting until rooms are done before I take pictures of them, and since only a couple of rooms are actually completely done (or as done as they're going to get for now) that's slow going. The family dining room is done but my kids are super messy eaters so I'd have to clean and sweep to get a decent picture. Maybe after the next time the house is cleaned I'll snap a picture before the kids come in. It doesn't look all that different from how Mom had it, it's just got our stuff in it.

Mom and I went on Friday and did the official signing and transfer of Orange street, so the Caldwell House is officially, legally mine. I did have to pay for it, but it was a reasonable amount. I don't even have to sell a kid. The last step to get Mom free of this house is June 1 when the bills go into our name instead of hers.

It's interesting to live in my childhood home as the parent. Walking into the rooms, they're so different because of paint and use, I kind of feel like I'm living in two worlds at once. I can see how the rooms were when I was a kid and how they are now. I can remember the things that happened in those rooms and imagine the things that will happen in the years to come. Eden is in my childhood bedroom and Asher is in Caleb's room. Rebekah is in what was Dad's office and Elijah is in the craft room. Austin's office is the music room where I spent hours practicing the piano as a kid and once in a while when I'm in there, I remember Dad making faces at me through the double glass doors. I'm remembering the quirks of the house and learning new ones.

The kids seem to love being here. The only complaint I've heard is from Elijah who said this house is so big. He still likes being here. He's torn between wanting to still be in the Mulberry house and being here where there's so much more space and he's got his own big room. Asher is enjoying having his own room, his only complaint has been that it's "small" which is silly because it's a large room. Though in his defense, it is the smallest bedroom in the house. That's what he gets for having a bedroom on the first floor away from everyone else.

Rebekah mostly stays away from the stairs, though she likes to pull up at the top of the stairs and give me a big grin as she bounces. She's very cautious, though, carefully sitting down and backing up. I'll eventually get around to bringing a gate upstairs to put at the top when we're all upstairs relaxing and she's roaming free. She's loving having so much space to explore. She was let loose in the downstairs on Thursday while I did some unpacking in the dining room and she managed to find a paperclip, two screws, and two plastic pegs from a game. She was very unhappy when I fished them out of her mouth. If you want to find things that shouldn't be on the floor, get a baby and she'll find them for you.

So things are going well as far as the move goes. There's a few little tweaks that need to be done. Austin's still unpacking because he hasn't been home as much as I have plus he's been doing things for me around the house, like hanging things up and taking empty boxes out to the garage. When he gets done with the things I've asked him to do, he's usually tired and ready to sit and do nothing for a while.

Elijah asked me last week how long we'd have boxes all over our house. I told him to give me two weeks. I feel like I can safely say that after 10 days, we're pretty much out of boxes. This is my superpower.