One Year Frenzy-versary, Part Five: Moving In & Working On The Previous House

One year ago this week, we were sleeping in the "new" house on air mattresses. At least, Sam and I were. If memory serves me correctly, my brother-in-law had helped Sam move the children's twin mattresses and box springs over in the van. Does that sound right? Maybe it was just the mattresses and not box springs. Anyway - we were sleeping here and it was a crazy, crazy week of back and forth, loading stuff into the van and unloading it again at the new house.

We had received the keys on the evening of the 7th (a Sunday) and some of my friends and I had started cleaning pretty much right away. We listened to Christmas music and scrubbed our little hearts out. Friends are so great, aren't they? By Monday evening, we were starting to move things over, and we were officially in the nasty, nasty "transition" period in which neither house is home.



Let me give you a little tip. If you plan on making a move from one house to another house that's only 30 minutes away... you still need to pack as though the move were across 3 states. It doesn't seem like that should be the case, but trust me, it's the case. From Monday through Friday, we decided I would just go back and forth from the old house to the new house and take things as I could. I would just put them in laundry baskets and storage bins. I'm not kidding. Remember, now, Sam would be at work at this time. And my sister, although close, had a 6 week old baby and really wasn't available to help (plus, as my poor mom reminded me, she and Daddy had their own hands full an hour north - a flu bug had her in the hospital to get an I.V.!) So - the children and I were going to move the small stuff. What on earth were we thinking? I'm usually so good at visualizing details and working through a plan systematically in my head beforehand. Apparently, those powers failed me last December. It all went down like this...

We'd arrive at the old house, all the children would pile out of the van (then ages 7.5, 6.5, 4, and 22 months) and I'd hurry and put as much as I could into my various containers, load the containers and the children into the van, drive back to the new house and unload it all in the kitchen/entryway, and then drive back and do it again. With the driving, the loading, and the unloading, each trip took about 2 and 1/2 hours. I did that 2-3 times per day for those first 5 days. Friends, believe me, this is an insane way to move. Never, ever try it. Pack and use a truck like normal people. Good grief.

We did rent a truck on that Saturday, December the 13th. We brought over some of the larger furniture, but not all of it. We were planning on leaving some of it so the old house (which still wasn't quite on the market, yet) wouldn't have to show empty. I think we had chosen a realtor at this point, and we had still been working on the old house, getting it ready to sell. Remember my yellow paint swatches on the kitchen wall?



Well, they were in the family room, too.



Which meant we had some painting to do before the "for sale" sign went up. We planned on getting to it during the time Sam was taking off of work around Christmas and New Year's. While we're on the topic of getting the old house ready to sell, here's what I was doing the week before we moved...



Because our previous home was a new construction, we had had plenty of landscaping work to do after moving in five years ago. This little area was planted the spring of 2008 - we never even got to see that sweet redbud bloom. This was the first half of a pretty long bed. The second half curved around the corner of the house and met up with the deck. We planned on planting it the following spring. Woops - but then we bought a house. Better figure out a quicker plan.



So, while the little ones napped (you can see SweetP watching me through the window), I covered the area with weed barrier fabric, put some stepping stones down (which we already had - score!) and...



...filled in around the stones with pea gravel. Sam connected the area to the existing flower bed later on by filling in between with topsoil about 3-4" thick. There you go! Suburban Ohio landscaping in December, ha. It would certainly show better than a weedy, muddy mess, anyway.



So, the gravel project was on the 3rd, I think. We got the keys on the 7th, moved in the most inefficient way possible from the 8-12th, and rented a truck to move some larger things on the 13th. I don't have any more photos of the whole process until we get to Christmas Eve 2008. I guess we were busy or something. It was nuts. We made it, but it was nuts. By the time my in-laws were visiting on the 27th, I looked like this -



Let's just say that I am very thankful we aren't moving this Christmas :)

So, the next Frenzy-versary post will be a look back at our first Christmas in the new house and (finally!) putting our previous home up for sale! By the way, for those who are concerned, it did sell. We don't have two mortgages any longer, praise God. More on that later...

Hope you're staying warm!

~Jacci

P.S. When I write Frenzy-versary posts, I hope you know I'm not after some kind of weird pity. It was a wild time that, honestly, didn't seem nearly as wild *at* the time. Looking back, though, I wonder exactly how we did everything that we did. The answer, of course, is that the grace of God is sufficient. He is our Strength and our Song. We're the ones who decided to jump in with both feet. The Lord graciously gave us what we needed to carry us through and let us come out smiling on the other side :) Our One Year Frenzy-versary celebration is about looking back at this time last year and remembering all the craziness that went on in 3-4 months time, but even more than that, it's a testimony of the Lord's faithfulness and provision.


Thanks for celebrating with us!