On Moving (Again)

I hate moving. I hate packing and unpacking. I hate hauling furniture, and the stress involved, and living in chaos. Because whether you move 1 mile or 100 miles, it will be chaotic. In my lifetime, including all the moving I did in college, I figure I've lived 15 different places. So when we moved into this house, I said we'd be here for a while, and I meant it. I really did. I love this house (except don't put your kids' bedrooms right off the living room ... you can't watch t.v. at night if you do that ... that's free advice right there).

And yet, I find myself looking at the very real possibility of moving once again. As much as I hate moving, I'm 100% on board with this move. When we bought our first house in this neighborhood (just around the block from where we are now) it was pretty undeveloped. We had neighbors join us on both sides, but for the most part, our little subdivision stayed quiet and relatively undeveloped. When we built the house where we currently live, on the backside of the subdivision, there was no one around us. However, within a year, a new construction company came in and started buying lots, and more houses were built. Still, it was all pretty okay. Things have stayed relatively quiet.

But our little town is growing quickly, and before long, it looks like there will be multiple subdivisions being built around us. While I don't mind living in town, I've always appreciated the "rural-ness" of where we live. I love that when I go running, I run past pastures full of cows and farmland planted with corn, cotton, and maize. Soon all of that will be gone. There will be more traffic, more people, just more. And that's all great for our little town. Progress and growth are important and necessary, but I want and need just a little space to breathe. So when we were given the opportunity to buy a few acres of land a little ways out of town (and slightly closer to Andrew's school), it was hard to pass that up.

But of course that means moving and building ... again. If you've moved, you know that's stressful. If you've built and moved, you know that's even more stressful. Right now we are in the house planning phase. We are trying to figure out how to build what we want without going overboard. Without going into numbers, because tmi, we want to put a good chunk down on the new house, and we don't want to finance more than a certain amount. Which leaves us with some choices to make. We either have to cut some things (which we're definitely looking at), or we wait longer and save more which is also fine except right now we live in a seller's market. If you're going to sell your house, now is the time. Will our house lose value if we wait? Not a ton, but it might lose enough that it cancels out the benefits of waiting.

But enough of all that boring stuff . . . that's where we are right now. Moving, building, buying, selling . . . I guess I should be grateful I'm married to a realtor. At least that relieves about .000001% of the stress factor.

First Day of School ... Two(ish) Weeks Later

So I'm a little behind. It is what it is. Blogging isn't exactly on the top of my priority list at the moment. I think it falls somewhere between having a root canal (woohoo!) and brushing the dogs' teeth. So yeah, do with that what you will.

The first day of school was over 2 weeks ago, and Andrew is in the 3rd grade. How do
I have a 3rd grader?!? It's now a rapid and slippery descent into Junior High followed by High School followed by driving and dating and college. I'm going to look up one day, and he's going to be married with kids. And I'll be a grandmother. Third grade is just the beginning of the end of childhood.

On that pleasant note ...

Hope everyone's school is off to a fantastic start.