I am a Future Mother-In-Law

When you are this cute of a couple

 

Do you have any choice but to get engaged?

My son got engaged last week to his girlfriend of 3+ years.

It wasn't a surprise.  For her, or me or anyone they knew.  Just like John drove out to Virginia, where I was going to school, to give me an engagement ring, Jake flew out to Boston, where Jade is going to school, to give her a ring.  And just like everyone in our lives saw my engagement ring before me, we had all seen Jade's ring before her.

However, unlike John, who during a commercial break turned to me and said, "here, want this?",  Jake managed to plan something a little more romantic.  Could it be because his dad said to him, "For the Love of God, DO NOT say, 'here want this.'"! Apparently it is the sort of thing that is hard to live down.

Jake went with a plan.  A gondola ride in Boston, a message in a bottle slipped into the water for her to find as they are floating along and a ring presented on one knee.  I wasn't there (obviously) but it sounds very sweet.  And she said yes.

So now I am a future mother-in-law.  The journey here has been a bit of a challenge.  I have had my concerns at times with this relationship.  But when Jake left for Boston with a ring in his pocket I was able to tell him with all honesty that I was excited for him.  Excited for them.  Excited to welcome Jade into our family.

So I am a future mother-in-law.  Hmm, well, what is that like?  

Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth.  After her husband and son (Ruth's husband) died, she told everyone to call her "bitter" and for Ruth to leave, go save herself.   Not sure this is the mother-in-law model I am looking for. (Although Ruth comes off well if Jade is looking for a daughter-in-law example.) 

Peter's mother-in-law died but then Jesus brought her back to life and she immediately began serving dinner.  That might be a better example but let me be honest...if I have a near death experience, am sick or just have a long day, I am not going to get up a serve anyone.  I am going to ask someone to order a pizza and lay down on the couch.

Who else you got?  

How about my mother-in-law, John's mom?  She is a pretty good example.  I mean sometimes she annoys me, says weird things.  Sometimes I look at John's whole family and wonder what on earth they are thinking.  I mean, that is not the way my family would do it.  But sometimes my own mom annoys me, says weird things and makes me wonder what on earth she could be thinking.  So really, pretty normal.  

I don't think I appreciated my mother-in-law and our great relationship until Jake started talking about getting married.  I never appreciated how hard it is to be a mother-in-law.  Hard to keep your mouth shut (really, really hard for me because I like to share every thought I have.)  Hard to trust someone else to take care of your baby.  Especially at a young age.  John's mom did it with grace.  And whenever she would say or do something that bugged me I would just remind myself that she loved me, is not trying to hurt me and maybe I was over-reacting.  And maybe, just maybe, I said and did a few annoying things in the early years of our relationship and marriage too.  Unlikely but I throw it out there...

So I am a future mother-in-law.  And I am excited.  Now that the detail of the proposal is take care of we are on to more important questions.  Like, what color should my dress be?  What should I serve at the grooms dinner?  And, will I get invited to go dress shopping???? (pleeeeeease).

Congratulations Jake and Jade.  I love you both.  Welcome to the family Jade.

(I've been saving this one since last Christmas. Today seemed like the right day to bring it out.)

The rebel and the good girl

Why does the good girl marry the rebel?

Growing up I was definitely a goody two shoes.  I am a quintessential oldest child.  I followed all the rules and never deviated or questioned the path I was on. I wasn't a rule follower because I thought I had to be or was afraid to disobey or disappoint.  I truly never secretly wanted to rebel.  I really was just a "good" kid.  I am one of those kids that meets Jesus at a young age and never looks back.  Really.  My faith has directed my actions since I was 4 years old.

So obviously being such a good girl I would desire to meet and marry the good boy.  You know the one.  The boy who also makes the right choices, follows the right path, met Jesus at a young age and never felt compelled to rebel.  Starts bible studies at school, leader in the youth group at church, prays with you on a date.  Only one problem, those boys bored me.

Recently I had lunch with a new friend who gave me the words I never had before.  She talked about being the good girl in the dating world.  Like me she was also the first born, rule following, good girl growing up. She even ended up in seminary she was such a good Christian girl.

What she described of her dating experience was exactly what I could have never expressed before about why I chose to date and marry the rebel.  She said when she would date the good boys they always seemed to be playing a part, doing what was expected, what they thought a seminary student would want them to do and be on a date.  It never felt genuine.

Looking back that is exactly what attracted me to John.  He was so real.  He never tried to be something he wasn't.  And that meant I too got to express myself with more freedom than I ever had with anyone else.  While I was the good girl I didn't want the pressure of  keeping up with that title, I wanted to make mistakes, try new things, express doubts without fear of judgement.

Over the years I have come to realize that while I didn't want to rebel in big ways, I don't always like to follow the rules.  John gave me permission to consider the idea that I didn't have to just accept everything but could ask questions and find answers.  I have become a version of myself that I love, a person I never would have had the courage to become without John.  I needed someone willing to push boundaries but who was content to let me stay safely on the "right" side of all the lines.

Be careful if you are a good girl looking for a rebel.  My rebel was really a good guy that thought outside the box.  He was willing to let me ask questions or express doubts but he never led me astray, never led me to make choices outside of God's will, never asked me to question my faith in totality but simply to understand it more.  He knew the Lord and together we have been on a journey of following Christ.

This past weekend we celebrated 23 years of marriage. Even after all these years, when I wonder what it would have been like if I had married the "good" boy, I get bored.  Our life might be a bit untraditional but it has never been dull.  I have loved every minute of it and wouldn't change it for the world.

The Hardacker's Big Move

A few weeks ago the drama here intensifying, I was feeling a little battled scared and bruised but all hope was not lost!  Stay tuned to see if the Hardacker's sell their house, get moved into the parents, stablize their schedule and are able to buy a new house!

Well you have stayed tuned long enough so I thought I would write up the latest chapter in this continuing saga.

Since our last installment we have indeed successfully closed on the sale of our house.  We are officially homeless.  It was sad but we still feel confident it was exactly what we were supposed to do.

My car which was last seen at the repair shop, was returned to the shop the following weekend and is now running wonderfully, new brakes, fresh oil (and all other fluids, apparently every fluid level was low), tightened coolant lines and a new thermostat.  Almost immediately upon getting my car back from the shop John's truck started leaking coolant.  One new water pump later and his truck is also good as new.  No more coolant leaking on the driveway.  And with that this story line fades into the background.

After 3 weeks of avoiding the realtor and ignoring her calls and emails, the people in charge of selling the house we had an offer on finally answered the phone and agreed to look at them and pick one.  Unfortunately they did not pick ours.  While we were sad, because of the amount of work the house needed and school starting in a couple weeks it was probably for the best.  In the mean time we find ourselves wondering where we should look and where we will end up.  Stay tuned for more on that continuing drama.

John attended transfer student orientation and is officially registered for classes at the University of MN.  After mapping out a couple options with the counselor, he now has a plan to get a BS in psychology in 2 years.  It was the only option he had that would be done in 2 years.  Despite telling all the students that they would be separating from their parent/guest after the opening session because they wanted the students to start developing a relationship with their counselors I still got up and followed John right out the door.  I am not his overbearing mother!  I am his overbearing wife!  The counselor took one look at the 40 something student and his wife, reached over and gave him the form to fill out giving me permission to all his records and got right down the business.  We fully embrace our non traditional status and don't play by the rules.  After the meeting we sat at a computer to do the actual registering.  A student helper was there to assist people in understanding how the system works and find the classes.  We laughed at ourselves through the registration process and as we left I told the poor kid working there, "this is what it would be like if your parents were here.  We have a son your age."  He managed to give us the exact same, "why are you talking to me, I do not care" look that our son would have given us.  A good day. We realized the U was designed for younger people when we couldn't read a single word on the map they printed on the orientation book because it was so small. I believe a pair of cheaters will be on John's school supply list this fall.  This story is still being written and there will be many more chapters before it is over.

Isabelle spent 4 days/3 nights at Trout Lake camp.  John had gone to Trout every year of his childhood, Jake attended from 1-5th grade and I grew up spending summers at a cabin across the lake. Even Isabelle's birthparents attended this camp. It is a great camp that we love.  She had a wonderful time, became best friends with all the girls in her cabin, and can't wait to go for a whole week next year.

The following week Isabelle and I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  We had gotten a free ticket because she attended camp at the theater earlier in the summer.  This show has a unique feature in that they choose 2 kids from the audience at every performance to be part of the show.  The whole thing.  Isabelle desperately wanted to be chosen.  Honestly, I think a big part of why she even wanted to go to the show was for the chance to be on stage.  I was worried what would happen if she didn't get chosen.  I worried unnecessarily because she was chosen!  I sat alone in the audience as she carried props, wore costumes, and tried to follow along as the other actors danced and sang.  It was an awesome opportunity.  They even had 2 built in photo ops in the show and sent me the photos.  A star is born.

Overall the transition out of our house and to my parents has gone quite well.  I am finding ways to organize ourselves, enjoying getting my whole "house" cleaned in 20 minutes, have found a lovely trail to run in the mornings and enjoyed a couple afternoons at the pool.  Plus my parents have been helpful and gracious hosts.  As comfortable as it is and as easy as it would be to stay, we are quite a ways outside our usual sphere and while the area is lovely, we are finding ourselves doing a lot of driving.  With Isabelle starting school soon I am preparing to drive 20+ minutes back to our old neighborhood each morning to drop her off each day.  And John is an hour or more away from the U.  Not an ideal commute.

So Stay Tuned!  Don't touch that dial!  Another exciting episode of the Hardacker's big move is coming soon.

What do you talk about on date night?

John and I have had a regular date night for many years.  It started as a little accident.  We had signed up for a class at our church on Thursday nights.  After the class we wanted to discuss what we had learned but realized we wouldn't have time to sit down together again until the next class.  So we decided to get a snack before going home.  Once the class was over we just couldn't give it up.  Here we are about 7 years later still loving date night.

The first few months we had plenty to discuss with our class.  We had taken Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and had to decide how to work his ideas into our life.  After the class we still talked budget and other family issues during our date night.  Often other topics would come up but we broke the dating rules by talking about kids and finances quite often.  Yes, there have been fights on date night. You get through.

We also talk about work.  For a while every date night seemed to end with a conversation about the crazy guy John was working for, then I started working and it became the crazy lady at my office, then back to John again.  There are no shortage of crazy people in our lives to contribute to date night conversations.

Since John is a talk radio fan and I get all my news from facebook, John often ends up filling me in on the details of whatever hot topic I only vaguely caught in a friend's post.

Once John started school we had a whole shift in date night conversations.  Suddenly we went from talking about our children, our jobs, our lives, to more intellectual topics.  He was taking a history class and so there we are discussing the finer points of war and social structures in the first few centuries.  Then there was psychology discussions about human behavior.  Plus conversations about books and articles he was writing papers on and the scientific understandings of chemistry, biology and the human body.

It is fun to sit and talk about our life, check our budget, dream dreams, make plans, and get frustrations about the people we work with off our chest on date night.  I love those nights.  But, I must admit that adding conversations about history, science and current events has actually deepened our relationship and made our date night conversations even more productive.  We have gotten to know and understand each other on another level and solidified the path we are walking on together.

This summer we have been busy with the events of our life. When we have managed to get away for a few hours we have been all business.  Where will we live, what do we need to do, will any money be coming in soon, what is happening with our children?  Last week with Isabelle at camp and Jake working we got away for dinner alone.  That day I had read an article which led to an entire evening conversation on the topic of late 20-something culture.  It was refreshing to get off the topic of our life and engage each other in a fun social topic instead.  I had forgotten how important it is to occasionally not talk about your own life.

I have read dozens of date night articles which suggest you should not talk about kids, work, schedules, etc while on a date night.  And I often think, well then what do we talk about?  And if not then, when do I get to talk about those things?  Frankly that was the whole reason I wanted a date night!  There is no other time to cover it.  So I say, go out to dinner and discuss your life, you need it.  But then linger over a cup of coffee and share something you have learned or read or heard recently.

I have come to realize that as we work to improve ourselves, read books, take classes, even reading blogs, we enrich our relationships with others as well.  I can't just go about my day to day life reacting and surviving and think my marriage will take care of itself.  As John and I continue to learn about ourselves and share our interests we are able to grow and strengthen our relationship during this very busy and rarely together school/career/family stage of our life.

Some day instead of getting just a few minutes together between jobs and a couple hours a week on a date night, we will spend our days sitting in the sun room reading our ipads while worship music plays in the background (this is just a for instance, it isn't like this is what my retired parents spent the day doing.)  Until then I am cherishing the short spurts of time we have together and all the things there is to talk about.

What is our normal?

So my parents are taking us in for a month.  In my mind we are a normal, dull family.  We are so dull and normal they will barely notice we are here.  They will start to wish we would come upstairs and interact with them rather than wishing we would go downstairs and leave them alone.  But, in the 3 days we have lived here we have had one crazy thing after another happen and I am starting to think maybe crazy adventure is actually our normal.

Day 1:  Our house does not close and it looks like our entire sale is going to be canceled.  We enter the house feeling despondent and unsure what our future holds.  We do not unpack any boxes but do make a big mess.  We drink.  I still go out with neighbors.  I get home late.  We go to bed.

End of day 1

Day 2:  We still have to work.  John and I leave in the morning and Grandma and Isabelle spend the day together.  I have a full, busy work day.  I do find out our buyer was approved for a loan to buy our house without selling her house and we will now close in 2 weeks.  Hurray!  I end up working until after 8pm.  I send a quick message to my mom around 5:30 during a brief lull in my meeting saying I will be late but I assume John will be home any moment.  As I start heading home I call John to discover that he too is just heading home.  He arrives a few minutes before me.  I walk in the door to parents who are still in a good mood but wondering what they just got themselves into.  My sister laughs and says, "suckers!" when she hears we have left Isabelle with them so late and they have no idea where we are.  After a quick dinner I use what little energy I still have to hop on my mom's bike for quick ride with Isabelle as I had promised in the morning.  About a mile into our ride through a nature path I am totally unfamiliar with the tire goes flat.  Not just flat but off the rim flat.  AND the brake locks up. (I swear I am not making this up) I send Isabelle back to try to get help. In the mean time I drag the bike forward.  Unfortunately Isabelle was the one telling me where to go.  Now alone I take a wrong turn and end up in a totally different neighborhood and realize have no idea where I am or how to get back. How will anyone find me?  I see a nice woman bringing her trash to the curb and do the only thing I can do, I ask if I can use her phone to call for help.  She is really nice, welcomes me to Chanhassen, her husband brings me a bottle of water and ultimately she ends up offering to just put my bike in the back of the car and drive me home.  I arrive home and everyone is sitting watching TV as if my crisis were of no concern to them.  They barely look up when I walk in the door.  I don't think Isabelle properly conveyed the situation.

End of day 2

Day 3:  Despite getting home after 8pm I somehow have the nerve to tell my parents I need to be at work by 8:30 the next morning but will be home after lunch.  I promise pedicures for the girls in celebration of the fact that we are back on track to sell the house and do not need to move back in and find a new buyer.  I have a good day at work, a good lunch meeting about women's ministry at church (they want me to chair women's ministry and I really want to!  But I resist.  Sort of...)  I return from the meeting, sit at the pool with mom while Isabelle swims and then we go get our pedicures.  Life is starting to seem normal.  We get back to the house and I start unpacking and getting organized while my mom makes dinner.  After dinner I had scheduled a 7pm showing of a possible house and think we could hit Target for a couple things while we are out.  We decide to take Isabelle with and head out.  The house is lovely and definitely something worth considering although we don't love it as much as the house we put an offer on earlier this week.  We are about 2 blocks from the showing when suddenly John realizes our cars temperature is in the red.  We are overheating!  He pulls over so quick you would think it was about to  blow up! Maybe it was.  Good thing John was driving, I would have driven until it did!  Tomorrow I have an appointment to get the car fixed.  It is leaking something quite significantly, I was thinking coolant but had no sense of what that meant.  A few things that have been happening lately are starting to make sense.  Prior to moving in my parents have commented on the spots on their driveway when I would visit so I thought I would get it fixed if we are going to live here.  One less thing to worry about.  Since making the appointment 3 days earlier I have also started to realize the brakes are going bad.  Anyway, we have friends who live a block away and so we drive there and John hoses the engine down enough to get us to a nearby car shop where we buy some coolant and we hang out at the neighboring Goodwill for about half hour while waiting for the engine to cool down a bit.  It turns out when you are homeless you truly don't need anything no matter how cheap it is. Back in the car we start heading home but the needle is getting precariously close to the red zone.  Since my mechanics shop is closer than my parents we decide to drop the car off tonight night instead of in the morning.  I call Jake to come rescue the 3 of us from the side of the road. Although one might think we deferred maintenance too far we decided we timed it perfectly.  Brought it the night before it would have blown up. Nailed it! Finally we arrive home at 9pm.

End of day 3

So, here is the thing.  As we were arriving home from yet another day of crazy I realized something.  It didn't feel crazy to me.  It felt normal.  Sitting on a curb in the middle of an industrial park watching Isabelle play hopscotch on a board John drew with a white rock he found was a totally normal, natural way for us to spend an evening.  Walking in the door it felt like just a typical Thursday at the Hardacker house.

Its not that we don't spend our fair share of evenings sitting in front of the TV and/or computer just hanging out doing nothing productive, we do, I promise, but somehow when we do get up from the couch, something exciting always happens.

Perfectly normal.

Watching the darkness

My word for this year is "watch".  I am watching what God is doing in my life.  "See, I am doing a new thing!"  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" Is 43:19 New thing! God is doing a new thing in my life this year and we are watching and following along.

Yesterday we were supposed to close on the sale of our house and were anxiously awaiting word on whether our offer on a new house would be accepted.  2 hours before close I watched as God unraveled the whole thing.  The sale of our house would have to be canceled due to the denied mortgage of our buyer's buyers.  The domino affect in real estate.  I was forced to withdraw our offer on a house we love.

As I relayed the conversation I just had with the buyers realtor to John I watched as God appeared to drop a veil over our entire future.  We were in the process of unloading a trailer full of tools into John's mom's garage so we could rush back home and clear out the last bit of mostly garbage left in our garage.  We had less than 2 hours until the new owners would be moving in.  I realized I didn't have a clue what to do next.  Do we keep emptying the trailer?  Do we still toss the garbage in our garage.  It all seemed pointless now.  And I am supposed to start living at my parents that night because I am homeless but, now I am not homeless, yet I am stuff less because all our furniture and favorite possessions were in a storage container somewhere in the state of Minnesota (at least I assume it is in MN).

And what else?  Do I really have to put the house back on the market?  Find new sellers?  Do we move back in the house?  Do we stay with my parents for what could now be 2 months or more waiting to sell while a perfectly fine house sits empty?  Do I have any energy left to even comprehend what has just happened after a week of packing, loading and grieving leaving this house.  I was exhausted and totally blank, no idea how to go forward, could not see my hand in front of my face our future had gone so dark.

"I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."  Until this moment I didn't feel like I was living in a desert or wasteland but suddenly my life is feeling like a very, very big mess.  A desert or wasteland, I could see nothing ahead of me, the total unknown darkness of my future.

Last night I went to hang out with my neighbors.  Because when you are down these ladies can always make you feel loved and good.  One of my neighbors told me when things like this happen she looks for the good in them.  She assured me I would discover many ways that this canceled sale is a good thing.  It reminded me of my word of the year Watch.

God is good and He has never failed me.  I have seen him turn many disappointments in my life to joy.  Our failed In-Vitro was devastating and had me feeling lost and directionless for days.   But God had a plan and what followed was many, many blessings, one of which is Isabelle.  Today I can't imagine our life without Isabelle and her birth family but I really don't think we ever would have pursued adoption if we hadn't first pursued and failed to get pregnant with In-Vitro.

So I am back to Watching God in my life.  Watching to see what he does.  How this disappointment is redeemed.  My neighbor indicated that I could probably come up with a few ways that this was good right away.  Honestly last night I really couldn't come up with any.  But this morning I have come up with one good thing.  I did not have to sleep on the hard floor of my house last night, I did not have to move furniture back off a truck that I had only rented for one day.  We were able to just stop what we were doing and come to my parents house where our clothes, toiletries and my favorite chair were waiting for us to relax, recover and begin to figure out what to do next.  Actually that might be more than one.

There is a glimmer of hope that we could still close soon.  Our buyers are going to try to qualify for a mortgage without the sale of their house.  We should know in a day or two.  If not we will be getting our container back and moving back into our house this weekend and resuming our attempts to sell it.

I often think of people who praise God in the midst of a storm.  Stories I hear of strong Christians who will praise God after a diagnosis of cancer.  I always think I want to be that person, I want to be able to sit in a doctors office, hear a bad diagnosis and praise God for a trial that will bring me closer to Him.  I don't always think about praising God in day to day trials but want to be ready to be a big testimony should a big negative like cancer and impending death come to me.

All day yesterday I kept thinking about that and how this feels a little like a cancer diagnosis at the moment.  And frankly, I did not feel a thing like praising God yesterday.  I mostly was just questioning why, WHY, this would happen and what good could possibly come out of this.  I did not feel one bit thankful about a single aspect of this, was not thankful for a trial, did not care to grow in this way, do not want to be a witness to people around me.  Not happy.  Not praising.

Today while I am still confused, still lost and still can only come up with that one positive thing to say about the situation, I know I would rather walk through complete darkness with God at my side than alone down a straight bright path.  So though my heart is torn I will praise God in this storm.

There is no such thing as an organized move

We have been in our house for 11 years.  And during those 11 years I spent most of them as a homemaker.  I am not a packrat by any stretch of the imagination.  I have a few boxes of sentimental items and admit to having a couple shelves too many of extra dishes but otherwise I would consider myself to be fairly streamlined.  It may sound strange but over the years as I have cleaned, organized and purged a future move was always on the back of my mind.  While I realize we have a lot of stuff in this house I wanted to feel like it could easily be packed up and ready to go.  An organized home would make for an organized move.  Right?

Wrong.

There is no such thing as an organized move.  No matter who you are I can't believe you don't  have a spot or two in your house full of "junk".  That drawer in the kitchen with pens, magnets, screwdrivers, felt pads for the chairs, misc small parts that I know go somewhere but can't quite remember where at the moment, the key to the bike lock, etc.  How do you pack that?  You just pour it into a bag or box and figure out what to do with it on the other side.

I thought I would bring a big load to the good will.  Sort as I go.  And I did put together a pile, but then you are looking at all this stuff and realizing now you have to pack it up anyway and stop the moving process to deal with this pile because it is in the way of further progress.  And suddenly you aren't sure if you are more motivated to purge or just get done with the packing!

When all the big stuff is out of the house and all the organized shelves have been packed up, what you are left with in the house is the chaos that was hiding under all your order.  Extra power cords, pictures you don't know how to pack, blankets, fly swatter, baskets, the food in your pantry, and all those gift bags and small boxes you save for wrapping presents, a random misplaced item or two.  Junk.

I wanted to keep all like items together.  Wanted all my tupperware in the same box with all the lids together.  Just seems like it is going to make my life easier on the other side.  But it turns out boxes need extra filler to make them strong and it is easier to just jam tupperware around fragile items than to give them their own precious container.  And after a long day of moving boxes into the new house I would love to be able to go to the towel box before I shower but there is no towel box.  Instead every box has a towel cushioning something fragile because you can only buy so much paper.

We had a container dropped off at our house last Monday.  My husband worked at a warehouse in his youth and was trained to pack trucks by UPS so I don't even bother to help load.  I have been packing boxes this week and he has been loading when he gets home from work.  The tetris song has been stuck in our heads for days.  And even though they say you can get 3-4 rooms in a container and we have 12, he has insisted we will get the whole house in there.  I didn't think we needed 4 of them by any stretch, John does have mad truck loading skills, but maybe 2?  We knew we would need to put our garage somewhere else, somewhere he could access several times a week to pick up his work tools.  Yet 3 days ago we did not yet know where that location would be.  So I packed and I panicked and I made phone calls.  You would not believe what they charge for storage in the twin cities!  We might as well rent an apartment!  So I called a friend who lives a little outside the twin cities that I knew rented a storage space.  For $37/month he helped me find a 5x10 space.  It's an hour away.  I haven't seen it and suspect it might be a little shed in a field somewhere but for that price I don't care.  Then, when John's mom found out how far away we would be keeping his tools she insisted she could push a few things in her garage aside and fit his tools.  Which is good because yesterday John admitted he might not be able to get quite everything in the container.  No gloating on my part though because he fit in WAY more than I thought he would.

So today I am sitting in my favorite comfy chair looking around my living room as I have done many times over the years.  My desk is packed, the table is packed and the bar stools that reach the counter are packed.  This is the last place to sit.  By the end of the day everything but my mattress, clothes and a few other things I am taking to my parents will be gone.  Packed up.  And when I will next see them is an unknown.  We don't close until Tuesday. John works this week so he wanted to get us out by the end of today.  I get he needs to pack everything up.  The container gets picked up tomorrow morning.   But, this has been my home for 11 years.  I have loved and cared for this home. Cleaned it, organized it.  Welcomed friends, family, strangers to this home.  Celebrated here.  Mourned here.   Raised children here.  And I assured him that if I had to sleep on the hardwood floors he would not get me out of this house one minute before I had to leave.  I will not be rushed!

The mess and disorganization of moving isn't just in our homes it is in our hearts.  While I know this move is right and I look forward to the adventure we are about to undertake, I am a mess.  Leaving behind all I know and love for the unknown.  And while it may seem that my grieving is a result of all the unknowns of our move, I still remember sitting on the stairs in our last house and weeping before getting in the car and driving to our new, bigger and better house.  I put more than stuff into my homes, I put my heart and soul, a little bit of myself into my homes.  And packing that back up to bring somewhere else is by far the hardest and most unorganized part of moving.

No more table

First totally empty room ready for cleaning.

Somehow when you start packing your clothes don't all stay clean until the move is over!

John's office.

Good bye office.

The living room has become the staging area for the rest of the house.

Empty Pantry

OK we may still have a situation in the garage...