Moving! Food! and Exhaustion. . !!

Some of you know by now, we are moving! Thank goodness! When we moved into our little duplex a year ago, we knew it wouldnt be for longer than the lease term. We quickly outgrew the space and after a long and emotionally draining search, we found a great house to rent nearby! Still a great commute for B, and waaaay more living space for all of us.

Ever since we signed the lease, and really, since we agree to put in our application (the day we saw it!!!) B and I go to bed talking about the house. We are both so excited for the life this house promises us. Now, we are cramped, dont have room for what we've got, and we got rid of a LOT! Its hard to have company, and we really dont very often. We are in a great playgroup and Ive never invited them here because theres just not room for the kids to have friends over, let alone their parents.

I dont like to keep things unnecessarily. Im not sure Ive always been like that, but I definitely havent kept extra stuff for close to 10 years. One night while B and I were dating, I was over at his house, while he still lived at home, and somehow ended up working with my mother in law until 2 in the morning cleaning out closets. throwing things away, and creating piles to be donated. Yet, while I would like to call myself a chronic purger, we still had a lot of extra in our house back in Texas.

Around my 27th birthday, we listed our house for sale. Our pretty 2000 square foot house. The lot we picked, across from a soon-to-be park that would surely prove useful with the family we thought we might raise there. The floor plan we picked. The fire place we moved according to the size of the tv B was going to get (which he got, and sold before moving back to LA) The house we built. Where our friends and family wrote and mailed in prayers that will stay in the house, but with us wherever we go. Funny anecdotes, stories and heartfelt wishes are written on the wooden boards holding up that house. Blessings over bread and wine written in the kitchen above the windows - part of what made us fall in love with the floorplan. We had 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a huuuuuuge yard, a lovely dining room and a kitchen that flowed and that I actually cooked in! We painted and decorated that house with friends. We filled the house with friends, family, love, parties, and STUFF. Its the stuff that drowns us.

The night we decided to list the house, the culmination of 4 years of trying to make Texas 'home', the stuff weighed us down. What will we do with all our stuff?!!? I didnt care. I wanted out. Out of the house we built, out of Texas and back HOME where I knew I fit. I have to say, after 4 years, I gave Texas a good shot. I can still appreciate the financial value of living there, but it was just never right, for me. I went through 4 jobs there, met some wonderful people, and some not so much. But in the end, I just couldnt swing it. I spent the first year going from nervous break down to nervous break down, spending countless nights on the computer looking up cheap one-way tickets for me and the cat to get the hell out of there. I even left the sites up sometimes so B could see how serious I was, or thought I was. Would I have really left him there? I dont know. . . I didnt in any event though. During this time, we saw several marriages fail the test of the strain of relocation. We missed family birthdays, dinners just because, hospital stays. . . we spent thousands rushing home for 'what if' hospital stays - all of which turned into nothing, thank goodness. We also made wonderful friends, and reconnected with old ones just by chance. We had the chance to define ourselves as 'us' without too much familial input - which as well meaning as it can be, has a limited space. We grew up, a little anyway. We saw places we never might have seen otherwise.

We made a decision and the real purging began. We sold and donated a lot of the stuff. Plenty of that ended up in storage because lucky us, our house sold very quickly! Some of the stuff came into our little apartment with us. I got pregnant, placed on bed rest, and more stuff accumulated. E and N were born, we went through hell with hospital stuff, and more house stuff accumulated. Finally, B got a job, at HOME! The question presented itself again. . .what do we do with all our stuff?!?!?! More selling, more donating, and a move back to LA. We spent a few weeks living at the inlaws and paying out the @$$ for animal boarding, and we found a place to put our stuff. . . our family too.

Finally, we are moving to a place that will fit us more appropriately, but we still have extra stuff. Its harder to get rid of it with kids around. Not that the attachment changes, but the time does. Its got to happen, and soon though. The new place, while it has great living space, does not have any extra storage. We thought we might have some of a one car garage, but that proved to not be the case. What do we do with the stuff?!?!!?!? We have a good amount set aside for donation, but there are still things we have been meaning to sell and havent, and other things we have been keeping 'just in case'. Not really an option anymore.

Im really glad to be getting rid of more of the extra. It satisfies my inner purger.

Im really just so excited to get the space back and have life in our house again. Im excited to use my new kitchen! Ive never been excited about cooking before. Ive fallen in love with my crockpot and I cant wait to rekindle things with my kitchen aid mixer!!! I havent used that in about 2 years and thats just sad really. I used my new hand chopped yesterday and my boys ate veggies without even knowing it!! I have that Jessica Seinfeld book, and maybe Ill use it! I did puree AL of their baby food anyway. One of the things Im most excited about is making challah. My husband and I befriended a Jewish family in Dallas, and the wife taught me how to make challah. Like, really make it. For a while, I made it pretty often. It was soooo good, and it was an event when we had fresh challah in the house. We even had Shabbat dinners, with guests!!! After all, we HAD to share the challah:)

I think for a long time I tried to not be excited about food. Its a strange thing. On the one hand, you're not 'supposed' to center your life around food, or constantly think about when you might eat again, or what you might eat. . . but, if you dont, then you might end up eating poorly, or too much, too soon or too late. Theres a happy medium I think we need to find, where we arent so focused on food that its all we can think about, but that we think about it enough that we take good care of our bodies. Like, responsible excitement?? I dont know. . . Im really tired. . . .

A couple months ago, the boys came down with colds and ear infections - horrible!! N had a lingering cough, so we had a lot of interrupted nights of sleep. He was clearly not feeing well, so one if not both of us, would get up with him. Sometimes E too. This is seemingly normal enough, but in my head, if it happens once, its the new normal. We had hardly any sleep for the first 10 months of the boys lives. We hallucinated - literally. Naps were my new addiction, and I didnt have nearly enough access to my drug. The night wakings have continued, and though I want to fight them, and re-sleep train him, now, the poor kid is teething. They are both teething, but it seems N has a harder time lately than E. To N's credit, Ive looked in his mouth, and hes getting molars in a baaaaad way. It looks like hes getting at least 3 of them, and his gums are puffy, swollen and one of them looks like it could pop at any second. I want to just pop it for him so he can move forward! (dont worry, Im tired, but not crazy, and I would never ever do that) Last night specifically, was a bad night. Though we went to bed early, at 930!! we were awakened 5 times by 3am. Once was spurred by our fire alarm! A bit of google research showed that it was likely caused by the cold temperature making the battery voltage low. The heater is on tonight. . .

Pardon the babble, I felt the need to catch up a bit with myself, and I am of course, exhausted.