Grace, never in short supply.

Well, we moved out of our house last week. And by we I mean the kids and I, and a ton of amazing friends and family, packed up our stuff and moved it to storage or donation bins over the course of 2 or 3 weeks and then cleaned up everything and stuff while Aaron spent 2 weeks in Florida working. Yeah, he was actually working, and got home a day after everything was already finished.

But he did, after a long series of flight delays that had him actually walking in the door to his parents house around 6am, go with me directly to the walk through with the landlords, which was the kind of story so unreal I have to tell it another time all in itself. In summary, we were their first ever tenants, they have very unrealistic expectations, and their interpretation of the legal requirements for tenants was somewhat extreme. Like, “You are going to have to clean those tiny dots around the recessed light wells caused by flies or we’ll have to charge you to have it done.” It remains to be seen what they will return of our damage deposit and whether or not we will have to go to arbitration to get the rest back.

Obviously they are going to have to hire someone to get this place move in ready.

It’s such a pigsty.

Too bad we are such negligent tenants.

This room needs to be vacuumed again.

And of course something needs to be done about all the refuse in this yard. It has to be cleaned.

(It’s hard to stay away from the sarcasm you guys. It was really ridiculous.)

But then Aaron stayed behind and cleaned up said light wells and other things while I left and napped, then went into work for a few hours, went to a really fun going away party that our friends put on for us, and finally actually slept 36 hours after he had woken up Friday morning in Florida.

My MIL kicked me out of my house sometime around 8pm moving day and made me go and rest, because, “Your baby is more important than all this.” She and my sisters in law, and Ashley, and a few of my brothers in law as well, stayed behind and finished the clean up, and carted whatever was left back to her house later that night. They are awesome. Truly.

It doesn’t seem to matter how long you pack ahead of time, or how many boxes you ship to storage, or how many bags of stuff and pieces of furniture you arrange to give away, when the final day actually comes, and everything gets emptied and carried out of your house, it is shocking how much stuff you didn’t know you still had to deal with.

For the first 2 days after moving out of the house, I spent hours just going through boxes again and realizing I didn’t want or need any of it anymore. But you have to go through them, because something important might be in there somewhere.

I have most things sorted and packed in storage now. Not counting a guest room stacked horrifyingly high with laundry, and boxes of paper work I need to finish actually working with before I can store them.

We are adjusting to the next few weeks with my in-laws, how that affects our daily rhythm, and I am trying to convince my weary body to going back to working at night after the kids are in bed, but that seem harder here, or I’m just more tired than I have been up to this point, because I keep having involuntary naps that leave me feeling leaden and more tired when I try to get up than I was before. Tonight, I am taking a break from going cross eyed looking at receipts and spreadsheets for the reporting I need to finish before I get on a plane with the excuse that I haven’t blogged in way too long and I owe you an update.

Let me tell you about my friend Suzy, who threw this going away party for us.

Showing Bam Bam her turtles.

I’m always convicted/inspired/encouraged by the way this friend of mine serves her kids, and mine. They kept talking to her about what sorts of food they thought should be at “their going away party” and to my surprise she had all of those foods there for them. She also had a slip n slide and wading pool because it was a hot day. Her kids had a bucket list of things they wanted to be able to do with my kids before we left, so we did all those things, and it was awesome, and so, so sweet. The boys chopped wood, and they all rode down the hill in a go-cart, and played and wrestled, and when the day was over she thanked ME for coming and giving her family this day, which was a perfect gift to us as well. I tell you, inspiring and humbling at the same time.

They put together this little approximation of a bamboo hut for the girls .

This hen thought it was for her.

Aaron posing in the Go Cart, I missed getting pictures of the kids. our host and his son built it together.

It was lovely to see everyone who came and have a little bit of time to talk and say goodbye and all of those things. We are so blessed and rich in our friends and community here and the goodbyes are a little hard.

So after a weekend of goodbyes, and send offs, I am now back to work, and sorting through the final piles of take, keep, and giveaway, adjusting to bandwidth limitations that are almost as bad as dial up, (it took almost half an hour to load the photos in this post that’s how slow it is) while trying to keep track of a very adventurous 2 year old on 2 1/2 acres of property with dogs who have a tendency to fight with each other for affection from humans, even when the humans are caught in the middle, the possibility of snakes in the tall grass down in the lower field, ticks, and my dear MIL who is vey concerned about all of these things, and basically never being able to sit down and get any work done while he is awake because there are at least 10 doors out of which he can escape at any moment and take off straight for said field, dogs, snakes, etc.

Truthfully, it’s more exhausting than moving, which may explain the sudden need to sleep all the time. Anyway, I’m sure it’s all easier than the coming transition, so I am trying to suck it up and deal. Which doesn’t mean I haven’t labelled certain things in the fridge “Don’t use this or the pregnant woman will cry when she finds it gone.” Because I do. Blood sugar lows, plus hormones, plus transitions make the loss of the hummus you just bought, when you hadn’t eaten any yet, a tear inducing event. Hi, I’m Carrien, I like my own space, and the addition of 4 grown up human bodies, plus the bodies of all 4 kids, all in the kitchen doing different things at the exact same time I am trying to finish dinner makes me feel a little crazy. Especially if there is shrieking. Nothing like a good dose of a lot of people to remind a girl just how introverted she really is. Good thing I really like all those people.

I’m choosing to believe that this time is a gift that will get us primed for the next phase of living with even more people for a time, in even more challenging circumstances. (Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea?)

Two weeks plus 3 days until we get on a plane.

So in summary, people are awesome, at least, my people are, and helped in amazing ways and did such thoughtful loving things for us, and, I am having a hard time adjusting to being around people. How’s that for a walking contradiction?