Lately

Here's some pics of our life lately. Nothing really of the house. It's still in a state of disarray - I expect it'll be this way for a while.

Swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's

Our amazing moving crew!

Chaos - beautiful chaos

Family wedding

Super awkward family picture - this is where we're at, folks. (Happy 6th anniversary, love!)

Little Miss Coy

Finally - Someday!

We're in!

On Monday, we had 11 wonderful men unload our trailer in 1 hour and 15 minutes. AMAZING!!! My Mom and wonderful sister-in-law lined our shelves. We dropped the kids off at the baby-sitter and went hard the next day figuring out where the heck to put all our stuff. We slept in the house with the kids on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, we sent the kids back to the baby-sitter and organized/assembled some more.

Now, we're sorting and assembling while playing and checking out all the parks in our new neighbourhood (found 3 so far - another one's being built).

Trevor heads back to work tomorrow and the kids and I return to our regular summer stuff (play dates and parks). We still have a pile of boxes to go through but, we've got most stuff in new homes.

I feel like we live in our own little resort. I keep pinching myself and gleefully giggling. I never want to move from here!

Today's our 6th anniversary. This house is a pretty good gift that we gave each other.

Transition

We've almost completed our "transition time" (read homelessness). Now that we're approaching the end, I can say that it's been good. We've successfully lived inter-generationally with Trevor's parents.

On the building side of things, it'll be good to be done. I've enjoyed the process of making decisions and picking my finishes. I have not enjoyed the poor customer service from my builder and the delays. I know that the finished product will be amazing and that, in six months, all those things I've been irritated about will be long gone.

We move in next week. It'll be good to have our own space. It'll be good to turn our "Someday House" into to our "Always House".

Today

Today, I celebrate my beautiful grades 6/7 students. I am continually blown away by their sweetness, their energy, their giggles, their stories and their spunk. I am so hoping that they wind up in one of my high school classes in a few years. I would love to teach them again!

Today, I eagerly anticipate summer. One more (full) day and then, I am a full-time Momma for the summer. I am ready to snuggle more in the morning and have adventures with my babies. Play dates are welcome - if you want to hang out, I'm excited to do that! This is our first no morning-nap summer in a while and I am pumped!

Today marks our one-month anniversary of being "homeless". I am still very, very thankful to my in-laws for allowing us to "holiday" here. I am also crossing my fingers and toes for an accurate possession date.

Today, I will go to my staff party and awkwardly mingle with my co-workers. I suck at this! I work with fabulous, kind and caring people. It's not them - it's me. My introvert side takes over at staff parties and I spend most of the time feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.

Life in Transition

Simon - "Mom, I don't want to sleep in this room anymore."
Simon - "I am sad about missing my ____ Street house."
Simon - "When do I get my new room? I would like it to have dinosaurs."
Simon - "Why are we moving?"
Simon - "Where is our box trailer? Who is with my toys?"
Simon - "When will I see S_____ (neighbour) and talk at the fence again?"
Simon - "Does my new house have tulips? I would like a tulip."

This is Simon's perspective of our temporary life in transition. Claire is a little more clingy and a little more demanding. I am trying hard to keep their routines and the food the same. I am trying to snuggle them more and reassure them the best I can.

I have very similar questions, Simon. I feel a little like a fish out of water without my own "home".

This Old House

Six years ago, we moved into this cute little bungalow and made it our own.
I learned about flowers and compost and painting and cleaning.
Trevor learned to drywall, build a porch, rip up carpet and clean gutters.
We became happy home owners here.
Fergus came into our lives and ate our baseboards and snuggled at my feet every night.
We brought home our sweet, sleepless little Simon.
We spent many nights pacing the hardwood and bouncing in the bathroom.
We brought home our sleepy, silly little Claire.
We hosted friends, neighbours, parties, play dates, birthdays, daycare, dedication days, game nights and wedding showers.
We danced with each other and with our babies in the living room.
I baked my heart out in my little alley kitchen.
I marked over a thousand assignments here.
This old house has allowed us a home in which to live life to the fullest, and we have!
Tomorrow, we move out.

We're a family in transition. Our "Someday House" is still for someday... whenever the builder finally gets it done (mid-June, fingers crossed). We'll be at Trevor's parents' place until then. It's kind of home. We're telling the kids it's a holiday at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Boxed Up

Our move to our "Someday House" is becoming a fast reality. We move out of our little bungalow on May 26th. This gives us time to clean up and have things settled for the new owner to take possession at the beginning of June. We get possession of our "Someday House" on June 16th. Hmmm... those dates sure don't line up, do they? Our builder has arranged to store our stuff in a secure lot in a storage trailer for our "homeless days". We plan on moving in with family for a short holiday. Currently, my house is beginning to look like a collection of box piles. (Mostly liquor boxes, which I find deeply amusing!) It's on odd feeling to pack the tangibles of my life away. I know that it's just stuff but, it's my stuff. It'll be good to be in our new house. I guess I should begin to embrace the unsettled feeling that will be my life for the next month.

A Cat-astrophic Decision

We adopted Fergus almost 5 years ago. I think he's been a delightful little man. However, he has also been a crazy little tyrant. He's an alpha male so, he thinks he should be in charge and he's not afraid of letting people know this. Most times, he kowtows to me because I like it when he sleeps at my feet and he knows that it's me who feeds him.

Owning a cat has had it's frustrations. When left alone too often or kept inside too much (read cold, cold winters), Fergus takes out his pent up energy on our baseboards. We have chew marks along most of them. Also, he likes to jump as high as he can to catch the reflection of lights that shine on our walls whenever a car drives by. This has led to surprisingly high scratch marks on our walls. Our love seat is currently in the repair shop for some basic warranty work and we figured that, since it was in there, we'd get it the leather fixed. Good old Fergus happens to scratch it with his back claws whenever he jumps up to see out the window and our loveseat is a mess.

Unfortunately, small children and a grumpy, alpha male cat are not the best mix in an 1100 sq ft house. My own kids are pretty good at reading Fergus and his moods. Fergus also knows them and can predict them. Other people's kids are not so good for Fergus. Most of them want to touch him (he's really beautiful - and fluffy). They chase him and reach their hands out to him and try to touch him. If he can hide or if I can catch him and put him outside or shoo him to the basement, things are okay. If a kid corners him, he hisses and bats at them. This action sends most small children into hysterics and puts most visiting Mommas into Momma-Bear mode. I'm usually left defending Fergus or, after calming him down, putting him outside or shooing him to the basement.

I won't even begin to lament about cat hair... oh wait, I did that here.

When we move to our Someday House, we have an option to let Fergus move to my parents' farm. He'll be able to roam the countryside and have a nice, heated garage to take shelter in. I'm sure he'll catch his share of mice and birds and romp to his little heart's content. We're probably going to take them up on this option. My little gangsta is going to be movin' to the country.

It makes sense.

However, I'm really sad about it. As much of a pain as he is, I'm going to miss my little fur ball.

Clutter

It's that time of year again. The time of year when I feel the urge to de-clutter my home. Also, as our "Someday House" inches closer to completion, the reality of moving our entire household becomes more certain.

Today, I went through half of my teaching stuff. For you teachers out there, you know the importance and the hours of your life that has gone into the close to 100 binders filled full of developed classes. Today, I purged. I threw out my daybooks from my first years of teaching (eeekk) and I pitched ALL my university notes and memorable projects. I threw out documents related to a variety of extra-curr activities, staff meetings, provincial iniatives, etc. and I readied old university texts for Salvation Army.

I still have a collection of binders. With an uncertain future, who knows what I'll be teaching next? I'd rather not have to redo all my work if I can just store it. (Movers - beware of the crazy binder pile; it is precious!)

As I look around my house, I see it with different eyes. I think the next month or two will be a frenzy of pitching and purging. The recycling guys are going to wonder about our paper piles for the next little while.

A Matter of Space

We have the kind of basement that would cause nightmares for small children. There are spider webs, a noisy furnace, and light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. As an adult, I think it's pretty handy. It's a clean, somewhat organized storage area. That's close to 1100 square feet of storage. My Dad made these nifty storage shelves that are awesome and hold a lot of totes. I've been storing A LOT of stuff. There's the stuff that we got for our wedding that I'm still not so sure about but, couldn't regift and couldn't figure out where to return it. There's the regular stuff that a person stores. There's a collection of childhood stuff that both Trevor and I have. There's our seasonal clothes and my fancy dresses. There are at least 11 totes of kids' clothes/shoes/jackets/Halloween costumes. I don't even want to talk about the entire section of our basement dedicated to the plethora of paper, books and precious binders that is my teaching stuff. Lastly, there is this pile of baby gear.
With our upcoming move, I've decided we need to downsize. I don't need to invest time or money hauling unused stuff from one basement to another.
I'm selling the baby gear.
Gulp.
No more babies?
Maybe two is just right for us.
I'm also throwing out the boxes marked "internship". I haven't opened them since my first year of teaching and that was 10 years ago.
I'm also taking some large trips to our local Salvation Army.
I refuse to move some of this stuff. I need to see it go. I have 5 replies already to my ads on the local used stuff website.
It's a matter of space.

Tresspassing

Last night, we went exploring with the kids. We drove out to our "Someday House", climbed into the frame and toured the main floor and peered into the basement. Trevor and I drove away feeling so pumped. We both dreamed of the house in our sleep. I know it probably won't be until next summer when we make our big venture to the north west but, it sure is fun to see our dream becoming reality.

Dreams

Ensuite, corner pantry, rooms with views, play room, etc.

Last night we met with the drafts person who will be designing our house. It was a lot of fun. It was also overwhelming. It's crazy to think that our dream house is coming true. My mind keeps turning ideas over and over and over again. All I dreamed about last night was blueprints.

Our Someday House

As I've already written, Trevor and I have been looking for a new nest for our chickies. We thought we found the most perfect house (it was) in an artsy area of town. We were pretty sad when it sold to someone other then us. I've been glued to MLS since Simon was about 5 months old and I hadn't found anything that I liked in areas that I liked (sauf the home we never bought).
We've finally decided to give in and build. We've looked into building before but, we just didn't feel comfortable with any of the builders we'd talked with. Until now. We've met with a great, little building company who will take their time, answer our questions, let us customize what we need and let us do a few things on our own.
Yesterday, Trevor gave them a deposit (gulp) and we now have a pretty little lot in the northwest area of town. Our lot backs a beautiful environmental reserve (and future bike path) and is a hop, skip and jump away from some good friends.
There are a ton of pros and cons about building. There is a piece of me that feels guilty because we're just expanding our environmental footprint. I also feel a little selfish to have something so good just for us when we could be using that money to minister to others. I think about friends of ours who live and work in NorthCentral and still others who have traveled half way across the world and I do feel a little guilty.
However, I'm also super excited.
I'm excited to have a play space for my kids.
I'm excited to sit on our deck at night and see stars (and nobody else's backyard).
I'm excited that we'll be near green space.
I'm excited for a walk in pantry, kitchen island, fireplace, ensuite and kid's rooms with closets.
We don't expect to be in until just before Simon's 3rd B-day.
Our next step is to talk with a drafts person.

Know anyone who wants to buy our cute little bungalow? It'll probably be on the market by Christmas.