Moving blues/news

Earlier this spring, my friend Corinna shared that her family was relocating to Tallahassee, Florida at the beginning of the summer. They leave next week, in fact. Corinna and her family live two blocks from me, though it seems farther than that because our neighborhoods are separated by Texas Avenue, the main and busy thoroughfare of our town. I only cross Texas Ave. by foot on parade days. Still, by car, we are one minute apart. This closeness has facilitated great closeness. We have carpooled to preschool, Vacation Bible Camp, dance lessons, Little League, basketball practices and more. Our children have some overlapping activities and Corinna and I often swap driving duties. Corinna has also been known to zip over to my house at midnight when she sensed distress. I have helped her clean out her pantry, she has helped me paint my living room. She even watched the first two episodes of "30 Rock" one night while sitting on my bed. At the time, my TV set was in my bedroom, so seating was limited. Corinna is a natural hostess as well & we have been the happy recipients of invites to holiday meals, summer BBQs, cocktail parties (me, not the kids) and afternoon playdates. I have called her in a pinch when I needed someone to pick up my kids from school. And just yesterday, I picked up her kids from school. We even managed a pretty solid nine-month stretch of being regular Gold's Gym workout buddies!

So her impending move is going to be a huge loss. I can't even begin to put it into words.

I will note that she thought they were going to move last summer. A different job offer came up and they were all set (meaning, they sold their house) to move to the west coast. But that job offer ended up not being a good fit and they stayed put, knowing time was limited. At the time of last summer's announcement, I was in an incredibly fragile place, emotionally and psychologically. I was limping along, having just realized that the name for my malaise was depression but still in the early stages of treating it. To say that Corinna had been instrumental during the rebuilding that followed my falling apart is an understatement. She took over all the details for our children's shared activities - ordering supplies, making arrangements, keeping track of dates, and so forth. She drove us to dance tournaments in far away cities and listened to me talk and talk and talk. She gave me something to hang on to: "Erin, you won't always feel this way."

She also helped keep me from holing up during the nights and days when my kids were with their dad. We went to movies and sang karaoke. I took her to a Spoon concert in Austin last fall and we had a blast. And there are few people I would be able to share that experience with. Bless her heart, she wasn't even a Spoon fan at the time!

So when Corinna told me they were moving for sure, I started thinking about what that move would mean for me.

I also felt for the first time in a long time (three years) that I might have enough energy to move to another house. For the past two years, I couldn't stomach the thought of packing up boxes and relocating. The whole process seemed so draining I didn't even want to consider it. When I moved back in 2008, the experience was physically and emotionally exhausting. I wasn't prepared for many months to think about doing it again.

But I finally felt like I might be up to moving. I mentioned this to my friend Ulrike, who is also a close friend of Corinna's. Within days, Ulrike located a home in her neighborhood that was available. That house didn't end up working out, but Ulrike was undaunted. She found another house - across the street from HER house - on the cutest block in the city of Bryan, practically. This little neighborhood is in a historic district near downtown Bryan. The homes are older, beautifully maintained, carefully preserved. I have long loved Ulrike's home and the neighborhood, and believe me when I say I never imagined I could afford to live in the neighborhood. But tucked in between some larger homes is a sweet 1929 kit house owned by a woman who loves the neighborhood but has to move because of her fiance's job. She doesn't want to sell, but she wants someone to take good care of the house and to enjoy the house's charming features. And that someone is going to be me!

I signed a lease yesterday. Amazingly, once I factor in the money I've been spending on an alarm system which I'll no longer need, this new home is only $100/mo. more than what I'm paying for the house I'm currently renting. The house I'm in right now has wooden floors, three bedrooms and a super convenient location, but it is hardly fancy. Modest is the right word. A modest home on a modest block. It's been a good home for us and it was available right when I needed it three years ago. But I feel a little bit like the Jeffersons ... that I'm moving on up.

Of course, a historic home isn't everyone's cup of tea. Thank goodness it IS my cup of tea! Even better? The new house has two bathrooms! We've struggled with one, mostly because Graham and Annie often need to use the bathroom at the exact same time (when they wake up, right before bed, as soon as we get home from school, etc. etc.).

But the thing I'm most excited about is that the new house has a dining room  AND a large kitchen. I will need to purchase a table for the kitchen, actually. I keep telling Annie that this means we will be able to get out games and puzzles and crafts and NOT HAVE TO PUT THEM AWAY before we want to eat. Truthfully, I am often so daunted by the need to put everything away that I don't even want to get those things out.

Other perks -
a working (gas) fireplace
wooden floors
a cat door
nice, shaded backyard with several spots for the hammock
a carport (with a cute chandelier)
great neighborhood where kids play basketball, build forts, ride bikes and spend lots of time outdoors
proximity to Ulrike and her family + several other wonderful friends I've met through her
proximity to a family with two diabetics - the mom and a 10 year old daughter. I am crossing my fingers that Graham can develop a friendship with this daughter & gain a diabetes buddy!
three bedrooms (we didn't want to lose one)
a utility area INSIDE the house (no more laundry in a 110 degree oven)
enough kitchen cabinet space that I won't have to keep my rice cooker, blender, crockpot, soup pot, cookie cutters, platters, paper goods and more in the GARAGE
great curb appeal

Only drawbacks -
the bedrooms have an interesting configuration - my room is in between each of the kids' rooms and doesn't have a separate entrance
the carport shed is smaller than my garage/giant closet, so I'll have to be smart about space
the location is farther from College Station (but closer to Blinn!)
I will have to figure out how to dismantle and remantle our trampoline. Sigh.

The moving timeline will be the last two weeks in July. Instead of the way I packed moving into two different but equally insane weekends back in 2008, I will move things over the course of two weeks/three weekends. The first two weekends/week of that window I will be kid-free, so I can work like crazy and not worrying about forgetting to feed them. :) My plan is to move every single non-BIG piece of furniture and all articles of clothing, dishes, mirrors, linens, decorations and appliances myself. I will get help for the washer, dryer, fridge, piano, couches, desks, dresses, table and bookshelves. And trampoline! But I hope to make the furniture moving day a pretty straightforward affair. I know that I have many ward friends who will help. I also know that many of those ward friends cannot have forgotten helping me move in 2008. We all gained some gray hairs during that experience. I figure that if I pay a couple of my students to do the trampoline, the actual pieces of furniture can be loaded onto a truck, then unloaded in an hour.

Of course, I also thought I could move my entire house in about 25 boxes back in 2008, so I've been wrong before. But this summer, I will have several weeks to get all the work done.

Nothing will replace Corinna and her family. (Did I mention that my children love to play with her children?) But I feel a bit more secure at the thought of being ensconced in a neighborhood of friends and future friends. I will miss Corinna beyond words, but I will also have some resources that will help make day to day life better.

p.s. the two windows directly to the left of my van are both kitchen windows. Having spent the past three years in a kitchen without ANY windows, I am going to love having a kitchen with 3 windows + a backdoor with a window!

"Yay! I want to mow the lawn!"

Do you see where the hammock could hang?

The light fixture and string of light bulbs STAY!