It's Time - My Dirty Little Secret

It's been a few weeks since Techy and I moved to Georgia, and in all that time, I have cleverly dodged telling any of you about our living arrangements.

Partly because I should be embarrassed.

And partly because I don't care to talk about it.

But the honest to goodness, dirty little secret is that we are living with friends.

I know, right?

Who does that?

What's worse?

We are living with friends who DON'T HAVE KIDS.

Oh, did I mention, we happen to have a kid?

Who is seriously contemplating the Terrible Two's.

And momma's cooking baby #2....

In my defense, it's only been a month.

And we have had absolutely no free time to shop for a place to rent.

Nevermind the fact that we have been holding out for something - ANYTHING - to happen with our house.

I know you are probably loaded with questions.

Don't you miss having your own space?

What happens when the baby cries all night?

Do you get on each others nerves?

And my personal favorite...

Aren't you afraid that it will ruin your friendship?

My answer is, to be honest, I have no idea.

But I can tell you this, you know how much you value your home?

How important you think your personal space is?

Ever wondered what would happen if that were all taken away?

And I'm here to tell you that you quickly learn what matters most.

And it's not your beautiful rugs,

Or your amazingly designed rooms,

Or your gorgeous dining room.

Nope.

It doesn't take long to figure out...

As long as I have these guys, everything else is good.

Helpful How-To: Staging Our House

No, it hasn't sold yet.

But I still thought I would give you a little insight into what we have done to set it up for a long winter on the toughest real estate market in the history of mankind.

P.S. Anyone wanna buy a house??

I know, I know. 

But you can't blame a girl for trying...

Anyway, back to the house staging situation.  (Does anyone feel like they are talking like a cop when they use the word "situation"...just me, right?)

In order to get the place ready to be abandoned to the cruel environment that is the real estate market, we followed the rule of 3 R's - Reduce, Repair, and Recycle.

1.  Reduce.

We moved stuff off of counters.

We pulled stuff out of the corners.

Admittedly, in some rooms, the reduction went a little overboard....

Like when we pulled everything out of our guest bathroom.

I completely forgot to add towels.

Or decorations.

Or anything decorative.

FAIL.

But overall, the idea was to reduce the clutter in our home.

And that we did....

2.  Repair.

See that far wall over there?

A few weeks ago it was more pock marked than a 14 year old boy's face.

And filling in those holes and sanding down the walls took more elbow grease than an oil change.

Yeah.

But that wall wasn't the only room that got some repairing....

The curtain rods and tie backs in the office were also in need of some serious help.

And the back yard?

If you were a Facebook follower a few weeks ago, you saw my desperate pleas for yard help. 

Repair doesn't even TOUCH the work that had to be done there....

3.  Recycle.

This is possibly my very favorite part of the house staging process.

The kiddy room wall art - from Goodwill books.

The bed in the master bedroom that used to be in our guest room.

I could also file this under the reduce category...since we used to have a king sized bed in our bedroom.

And the full sized bed was added a significant amount of real estate to our bedroom.

What you won't notice in this picture is the repurposed outlet covers - that were repainted to match the fixtures in this bathroom. 

This once builder's grade cabinet got a makeover with a quick coat of "Polystain" in "Ebony".

And our back bedroom?

Well, you've already seen the headboard that was repurposed from some leftover plywood and a dropcloth....

But the desk was also a space holder in our basement...

That found it's home as a space holder in our guest bedroom.

It helps potential buyers envision living in the home and writing letters at that desk.

Does anyone actually write letters these days?

Well, other than my boss?

But you get it, right?

If not, I apologize.

I've given it my best shot.

At least you got to see my house, right?

And you got to read some cleverly alliterated steps to a ready-to-sell house.

What you didn't get to read about was my favorite room in the whole house...

My foyer:

Which really didn't need much work at all.

No reduction, repair or recycling here.

Who knew my foyer was so gorgeous, right?

You sure you don't wanna buy a house???

*WINK*

The Long Road "Home"

I realize that we've lived in Georgia for almost a month now.

And I have completely failed to tell you about our trip.

I mean, obviously, you know we survived it.

Which totally ruins the punch line of my story, but hey, give a girl some slack....

I can't always have a punch line.

So, forgive me...

And listen to my story, pretty please...

We started our journey on a Thursday around noon.

Just a few tearful and extremely stressful hours after this photo was taken.

We were only driving 6 hours on that first day...

And yet, when we arrived at our destination that first day, you would have thought we had traveled months in time.

As it was practically snowing when we arrived.

But that didn't stop my boys from enjoying a little outside fun.

And it certainly didn't stop Little Man from enjoying some quality time with his cousins...

Admittedly, momma did have to make a trip to Target since all of our "Fall" clothing was in storage, but thankfully, Targets are almost always close by....

Note to self, one should most definitely check the weather before packing ALL of her cold weather clothes away - Never just assume that because you are moving 800 miles closer to the equator, that it will be warmer.

This is, indeed, faulty logic.

But I digress....

Because, despite all the fun we were having with the cousins...

It was only a matter of time until we had to hit the road again....

And seriously, do you know how difficult it is to take pictures while you are driving?

I had such high notions of taking a picture of all the scenic spots we passed along the way for our memories....

But then, I tried it...

That's North Carolina's state line....

That you can almost see over there in the blurry right hand side of the picture.

Oh wait.  The whole picture is blurry.

Just trust me that one of those green blobs is a sign welcoming us to the state of North Carolina.

And since I enjoy nothing so much as my own personal honesty, I completely MISSED South Carolina's state line due to some rather vigorous singing and dancing to Pit Bull's "Give me everything".

I think that line could pretty much be an excuse for all my failures in life.

Leah, why didn't you make it to work on time?

Leah, why didn't you balance the checkbook?

Leah, why did you forget to pick up your child from daycare?

You get the picture.  It's pretty much the best excuse ever.

But only because everyone else is doing the same thing to Pit Bull's songs.

Whether they admit it or not.

And did you know that Georgia's state line sign is about a half a mile past the actual state line - I was completely unprepared for it!

Which is ironic considering I should have been MORE prepared at that point, rather than LESS prepared....

Ok, let's just be honest, it's all Pit Bull's fault again.

BUT

or should I say...

BUTT

I got the important stuff...

Like THIS:

South Carolina's Peach Butt...

Man, I love that thing...

The teenager inside of me giggles a little every time I think of this thing....

But you would only get that if you are a 15 year old girl on a very long volleyball trip....

Forgive me....

What I'm trying to say is that it was a long and exciting journey.

And by the end of the day, we were all looking for a way out of the car.

And when we finally got out of the car, we all looked a little like Gizmo when is chasing a squirrel.

Wild abandon.

Extreme happiness.

Relief beyond belief.

But we made it "Home".

And we have managed to make it 3 weeks and 2 days without any major catastrophes.

Well, except for the day I spent in the Emergency Room....

But that's a story for another day...

Weekly Weigh-In: Pregnancy Update Edition

Well, ya'll, I had great expectations for this pregnancy.

High hopes of working out the entire time.

And keeping the weight off.

And then life threw me a curve ball and moved me to Georgia.

With my elliptical packed in storage and little to no motivation at the end of every day.

Sounds motivational, right?

I know.

Don't you wanna go out and get knocked up?

Or move 800 miles?

In reality, it hasn't been all that bad.

And all the bending, lifting, sorting, and packing was kind of like working out.

Which is probably why I can say that at 21 weeks and 3 days, I currently weigh...

158.8

Which, thanks to my previous pregnancy weigh-in and my last pre-pregnancy weigh-in, I can proudly say is just 20.4 lbs. over my pre-preggo weight.

Admittedly, this is not really remarkable for OTHER people.

I mean, 1 lb. per week weight gain???

But for ME????

This is like the equivalent of Lindsey Lohan staying sober for more than a week at a time.

It's ground breaking.

And I happen to be very proud of it!

My Honest Opinion: I Gotta Get Back In the Southern Swing of Things

I have been living in Georgia for 2 weeks and 4 days.

(Approximately....  It's not like anyone's counting, right?)

You know what I noticed almost immediately?

Everyone...

And I mean EVERYONE...

Says "Yes, Ma'am" or "Yes, Sir" when they are talking to you.

No matter who you are.

Or where you come from.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that the people in Delaware are rude....

But I forgot what this level of respect and politeness was like.

I hope I catch on again soon.

Cause right now, I feel downright rude, ya'll!

Helpful How-To: Packing Your Life Away

For those of you who were able to follow our move via Facebook, you probably saw this picture...

And to be honest, I may have posted it here, too....

But since my brain is completely fried, we are going to revisit this moment.

Because (other than the fact that my kid is stinking ADORABLE in this pic) as fun as it {doesn't} sound, it was seriously complicated to pack our short term possessions, vs. long term possessions AND stage our house to sell (anyone wanna buy a house??).

And it takes a lot of planning to make it happen just so.

But I thought I would give you a run down of what we did....

In case you should ever run into a similar situation...

Step 1.  Decide what you can live without.

In our case, we left behind a house full of furniture and decorations that we won't be needing until (unless) we buy a new house here in Georgia.

Yep.  It was painful to leave behind some of our prized possessions....

(Can we say $15 Bombay mirror anyone???)

But we knew what we could live without, and we both made painful sacrifices to make the move happen.

Step 2.  Determine what you need sooner rather than later.

Because of the nature of our move, we had a Packrat (yes, we all remember my obsession, right?) delivered and our plan was to have it stored until we move into our someday (aka. Georgia) home.

That meant that the entire time we were packing, we had to pack with the mindset of, "Do we need this anytime in the next 6 months to year?"

Anything that was a NO went into the Packrat.  

Anything that was a YES had to fit in my car or Techy's car along with a dog, a baby, and as many diapers as possible.

It was tough, but we packed our china.

We packed our silver.

We packed Little Man's toys.

We packed my skinny clothes...I'm pregnant, remember?

We packed Techy's wires....

And we packed every bath towel we have ever owned.  (Stupid move, right?)

All in the Packrat.

Step 3.  Divide and Conquer.

Once it came time to pack the items going into my car, I realized that I needed to determine a real plan for dividing our stuff up, while ensuring I could still see out of my windows.

And my secret?

Credit

And for $2.78 each, it cost me less than the cost of 1 suitcase to buy 10 of them.

The upside is that at a glance I can see what each container holds.

And any that were unused could easily get tucked anywhere to be used later.

Like when I am doing laundry at the laundromat at 2 am any random Saturday night.

All in all, we made it from Delaware to Georgia without any mishaps.

And with a buttload of stuff in the back end of my car.

And I know exactly where everything is....

If you believe that, I also have some oceanfront property in Arizona for you....

But I know where the important stuff is.  

And that's all that really matters.

My Blogging Hell

I'm still here.

Just stuck in the zone between insane high-speed FIOS and crappy wireless DSL.

But on the upside, there has been hours and hours of Netflix and Hulu Plus.

When I can actually get on the internet.

On the downside the best joke I've heard lately goes something like this...

What do you call a bear without socks?

"Bearfoot".

All in all, Georgia is great.

Aside from the traffic.

And the crappy wireless internet.

And the amazingly hilarious jokes.

But back to the upside, The New Girl is on.

And I'm pretty sure that Zoe Deschanel is the awkwardness personified that I thought that only I could actually achieve.

This is why I love her....

So I am going to find solace in the happy place that is "The New Girl" and forget about my internet from the dark side....

Bye ya'll!!!