In Transition

I can't get life to slow down!  Some days, I really really feel like it needs to, and others, I look back and am glad it all went by so quickly.  October was one of those - plenty of highlights, but also full of stress and hard work as we finished packing up our lives in North Carolina and moved across country.  Intense.  I think that was the hardest, most labor intensive move to date.  So so many details and To Dos this time around.

We packed up the entire house into two shipping containers and one Uhaul trailer, rented out the house, bid goodbye to good friends, and set out with the kids and the dog on the four day drive across country.  The drive went pretty smoothly - thank goodness! - and with all the fall leaves out, the drive scenery was gorgeous.

We arrived at my parents house on a Friday, stopping just long enough for a potty break then running to the school to get the kids enrolled before they closed the doors for the weekend.

It's been a little over a week since we arrived.  The kids have started school, we took over half of my dad's shop and set up the tools to start working on drying rack orders, helped with some pre-winter farm prep and "fixin' fence,"

celebrated Halloween by watching the elementary school's costume parade and Trick or Treating in our old neighborhood (fun fun!), experienced our first snow of the season (not the first storm here, but we weren't here for that)

 and have been steadily chipping away at the million-and-one things we need to do to get settled in.

We aren't done yet!  Not by a long shot.  The shipping containers will be dropped off today and I'm excited to get our stuff here and put away.  Most of it will need to go into storage.  Did I mention we are living in my parents' house while we build a house on our family land?  Yeah.  Lots of hard work ahead.  Thus the title of this post, "In Transition" - because life is just one giant Work In Progress right now.

Moving!

 I've alluded to it a couple of times on the blog but I don't think I've said it straight out.  We're moving!  I'm oh so excited!  And nervous.  And kinda overwhelmed.

Any move is a big life event but this one feels like a giant leap since we made the decision to move not based on financial reasons but because our priorities have changed.  We really feel that the most important thing is for our kids to grow up close to extended family and in a place we know will be good for them.  I am not knocking the reasons we chose to go active duty four years ago and make the move out here.  It has been an adventure full of valuable experiences and lessons, fun times, new friends and definitely new perspectives.  I wouldn't go back and change that.  However, the longer we were away from "home" the more we knew that was truly where we wanted/needed to be.  And now we are finally taking concrete steps to make that happen.

The house is up for sale (or rent - spread the word please if you get the chance!) and the paperwork is turned in for the husband to go back to the Reserves instead of full time active duty.  We have made plans with my parents to start building a house on the family property and to live in their basement until the house is finished (yikes!  That's going to be an...adventure in and of itself).  And here I sit with a notebook full of To Do lists and an ever-growing pile of stuff in the playroom full of items that won't be making the move with us.

Wish me luck!  We have just over two months before moving day!  That doesn't feel like enough time to take care of everything while the other part of me wants to be on the way right now.  Funny how that works.