When the Living is Easy

(Okay, I actually wrote this a week and a half ago, so it's a little out dated... but I'm just going to post it anyway.)


This week, and the last couple of weeks, have been really busy. I finally feel like we belong here. Yes, in fact, I know this is where we are supposed to be. We moved down to Lehi into Jared's brother's basement and have been digging ourselves out of a mess of boxes, furniture and packing material ever since. Mostly me, because Jared has been getting up to speed at his new job and trying to get used to the commute. There is way more traffic here than there used to be, by the way, not that we are helping any by moving back. Anyway, it has been a little like Christmas, in a way. Because we didn't pack ourselves, we get to unpack all these mysterious boxes with unknown items in them. Great fun. Granted, it's all our stuff, used and worn, but it's still exciting. "Hey, it's our rice maker!" "Yay, we have silverware!" "Oh, it's... a container of baby food... wrapped in 4 pieces of paper." And our baby doesn't eat baby food any more. Totally my fault on that one. Should've gone through things better.

After unpacking all the boxes I realized that we were definitely missing a few things, like plates and bowls, the can opener, cheese grater, peeler, etc. Luckily, we found that box, marked wrong, in the front of our storage unit. There's more that we are missing (like all the piano books--we have a piano but no books), but for the most part, we have everything we need. It is great to be able to sleep in our own sheets, and use our own dishes. So comforting. I am happy organizing this place, even though we will have to undo it all in a few months. It's got a kitchen, bathroom, three smallish bedrooms and its' own laundry room. Really, everything we need. It even has a clubhouse, which is actually the pantry under the stairs that the kids have called as theirs, partly anyway. I even put one of them in there for quiet time the other day and there were no complaints (think Harry Potter's room under the stairs, only more fun).

Our front door opens onto the back yard where there are usually at least 6-8 kids roaming about at any given moment. There are 10 kids living here, which has been a dream for them all I think. They all have someone around their same age to play with. They disappear on me all the time and spend hours on the trampoline, on the play sets, or catching bugs. What a fun back yard! The weather is perfect for the kids to play out there without getting too hot and the grass is so soft on the feet. I laid down in it for a while today. I never realized what a luxury this grass was until I had crab grass for 9 years. We even have a view of the mountains from our basement windows because it is on a hill. This place will be great for us until our house is built, and it just may be one of the best summers of our kids' lives.

In a matter of 8 days our kids have seen and played with every one of their cousins but one, their one year old cousin who is in Maryland--7 on one side and 13 on the other. How they love their cousins. Oh, we love their parents too, it's just great to see our kids with instant friends. Family get togethers are great because we don't have to do anything for our kids--they totally entertain themselves.

Next week, all of the out of state relatives will be gone, and we will be almost all the way settled. I really hope to get into a routine of some kind, so that I can feel like I am doing something for my kids, as opposed to sending them outside to catch bugs for 12 hours. The plan is to do 7 things every morning/day and to call it "Kid Camp" (totally stole your idea Lamar, but my kids named it). It will include: 1. Post-its (with their daily chores), 2. Be Like Christ (talk about a Christ-like attribute, one per week), 3. Reading, 4. Writing, 5. Math, 6. Piano and 7. Exercise (which should be easy with the yard and trampoline and such). This is Kid Camp, and I intended to do all of these things as well, until Marissa informed me out of the blue that I am not allowed at Kid Camp because I am not a kid. Little does she realize that Kid Camp is just a spiffy name for mom making the kids do things they wouldn't normally do. You know, like learn and stuff. Boring. We will see how this goes. After all the daily things are done, we will try to go out somewhere or do something fun... or, they can just catch bugs for the rest of the day and we will call it good.

Thursday was a good day. Jared and I finished picking out everything for our new house and got the final total. We are one more meeting and a construction deposit away from seeing our house get built. Very exciting. The more I drive by the neighborhood and look around, the more I feel like this is home. Beautiful, mountainous home. And one with nobody else's fingernails in the carpet either. The same day we got an offer on our house in Florida. We had lowered the price again the night before, and the offer's not exactly what we wanted, but it's an offer and we are very happy to not have to worry about it so much anymore. Hey, I guess anything will sell at the right price, right? We decided not to respond until Monday to see if there is any more activity this weekend with the lowered price. I think there were two showings scheduled. So, this is all very good news. It makes me feel better knowing exactly how much 20% will be and knowing that with this sale we should be able to hack it. I feel extremely blessed indeed!