Unpacking Update

I'm really doing SO MUCH better!

I've been looking forward instead of back and we're making headway with our morning routine.

Each morning we tidy...I keep adding an area, until we get to the point where everything is getting a tidy once a day. Today...the bar, the dining room floor and table and the tv room.

I have several projects that have been hanging over my head...I think I'm going to put them here to help me remember. It also gives me a place to celebrate the victory of finishing them!

-sew remaining napkins for friend
-crochet afghan 1, afghan 2, bed scarf
-put up hooks 1, hooks 2
-taxes 1, taxes 2, taxes 3
-put up heart frame on wall
-apply magnetic paint, edit & put up photos for photo wall
-Sarah's room00
-room measurements map for landlords
-sofa cleaning
-quilted table runner for friend
-sew kids' unfinished pillowcases
-put up wall decorations

These photos are from Sunday. Gramma came over for Mother's Day (I'm entertaining!) and brought the most awesome bubbles!

Industrial Strength Bubbles:
6C water
1C corn syrup
2C regular Joy dishsoap
Disclaimer: I noticed a big yellow dead patch of grass near where the bucket was when we did bubbles!

Come On Over!

Something that started to happen after we gots the cats in December (because the house was tidier), was we started having people INSIDE our house again. This is nothing short of surprising and miraculous. We used to have friends and family over all the time (in other homes), we love to entertain...but since we moved into the purple/yellow house in 2007, we haven't had it tidy enough to have guests and just stopped having people over. 

In December, my sister and Mom visited to see the kitties, along with a few other friends.

Once we moved March 1st, we've had my sister, Mom, Gramma and many other friends over to our new house. One friend wanted to bring us dinner and stayed with her two boys, which qualified as dinner guests (even though I didn't have to cook)! My friend Christi has been able to stay the night TWICE (!) [when was the last time we had an overnight guest!?] and her family came for the day, which turned into a friend fest with two other families joining us for a campfire later. (Not to mention Christi's sister-in-law and her two teenage boys who stopped by for a slice of pizza and some playing with their cousins before the campfire)!

We had over 20 people over in the backyard! What?! At OUR house!?!?

I just had another family ask if they could drop by on Saturday on their way down south, YES! Another friend wants to come visit in July, my friend in a nearby state visited on her way home a couple weeks ago...I would have never wanted anyone to come to our other house!

Being free of my stuff has opened a whole big, huge new life to us and I'm so grateful for all the Lord has been doing for us in this area! I'm soooo excited to get even more streamlined, just think what great things might happen when I do!

Revelation!

I've been really having a difficult time "getting back to our lives" since the move March 1st.

I feel like we've lived here forever, it so feels like HOME. And in the past, my HOME has been UNtidy! Here, we've been doing SO MUCH BETTER!

I have unpacked ALL my boxes. The remaining boxes are my husband's book/dvd/music collection. I have several areas which need some attention, but it is just fine tuning. Very exciting, but still much to do (pantry isn't quite right, need to hang coat hooks, need to move a table outside).

The Lord spoke to me (thank You Lord for this)...that I am not to be trying to "get back to my life or routine" because that life is "over". It is time to establish a new life/routine, instead of looking back to the old one. This now positions me to be listening, rather than trying to figure it all out (because I had it "figured out" before we moved). I've just switched tracks...

HOW FREEING!

This is just such a relief for some reason. I feel released to move FORWARD instead of looking BACKWARD. Life is NOT the same, our rhythms are much different and it is just a different lifestyle, but with a lot of the same things we need to do.

This weekend, we cleaned for our Mothers to come for the day to celebrate Mother's Day. I didn't realize how messy the house had gotten over the past few weeks!

We've been busy getting the garden prepared, tasks take so much longer than I really think they will.

Tomorrow...FORWARD!