Hawaii is Calling My Name

Today starts David's weekend and also our week (or two) of moving.  We don't close on our house for another two weeks, but we are happy to get a head start on moving out so that we don't have to feel so rushed.  Turns out moving, while caring for two preschoolers, while being 5 months pregnant, is not quite the trifecta of fun it sounds like it could be.  Strangely enough.

what happened in the living room while I was cleaning ceilings, light fixtures, and washing drapes

what happened while trying to get out the door on this hectic morning

And yes, because clogged pipes on inspection day isn't enough, a chimney fire on moving day is a definite bonus.  Fortunately the chimney itself is apparently built to withstand a nuclear attack and held it's own; besides some smoke and ash in the house, all is fine.  Just no more fires in the woodstove until the chimney can be cleaned, which is pretty exciting since this morning our furnace was disconnected in order to decommission the oil tank.

I tell ya, unless you are going to be making big bucks on selling your house, don't move!!!  Between inspections, repairs, closing costs, moving costs, 20% down on a new place, and random things like chimney fires and pipe issues, it seems wise to just stay put unless there is cash aplenty to cover all those costs.  Goodness. 

But at least we found a good rental!  And at this point we can't get in there soon enough.  It hurts my heart to pay more on a rental than we do for our mortgage (sheesh...renting is expensive!) but since we have a dog we were limited in where we could go.  We're moving to SE, and not even 'cool' SE like Hawthorne or Laurelhurst.  Lents.  Yep.  Probably won't be long before Christian will be hauling his wagon around the neighborhood collecting scrap metal and every time we go to Target Daphne will be trying to steal a shopping cart to take home.

Before you get nervous about safety in visiting us at our new place...it's not like you'll have to dodge bullets as you run from your car to our front door.  More like, don't stop at the ATM first, pull out hundreds of dollars and then leave the cash in the front seat of your car while leaving the windows rolled down.  On the other hand, if you want to get rid of some metal, just leave it in our front yard.  I'm sure it will be gone in a flash.

David did some good background checks of our neighborhood, and no police calls have been made there in over 2 years.  The little dead-end street we're on is actually really cute, with nice neighbors who all know each others' names. (The next door neighbors have 7 kids; Daphne will be in heaven. The neighbor we met this morning gave us pen/flashlight combos with his and his wife's names on them.  How cool is that?)  Our house was built in '05, the owner and his family having lived there until this past summer, and now he's completely fixed it up with new flooring, paint, appliances, etc.  It's really quite darling with a good backyard for Lola and the kids.  It will be practically vacation-like with no house projects to work on, no yard work to do, and only 1100 square feet of house to keep clean.  We'll probably all get really fat and lazy in the next 8 months. David mentioned that he may take up scrapbooking. 

so cute!  lovely front porch!

first thing we moved in was a drying rack

The next two weeks will probably make my hair turn gray, but then it will be over!  I kinda can't wait.