September 2021

My anxiety about Charlie, and doing the right thing by him, even if that meant giving him to another family, was super high this past month.  One of the toughest parts about this move was not knowing where we were going, and also knowing that we couldn't make real estate decisions based on our outdoor cat.  But I feel like by calling Charlie our outdoor cat somehow lessens the relationship we have with him.  As if he was indoors with us, he would be a more valid member of our family.  I have so many insecurities about his life as an outdoor cat but he IS a part of our family, and that is why my anxiety about him was so very high.  My allergies are so bad that I can't have him indoors, but that doesn't stop me from spending time with him every day and worrying about him 24/7.  And he loves us.  When we are outside, which is as much as possible, he is with us like a faithful and loyal companion.  A friend of mine, not yet aware of my anxiety about Charlie, told me a story about how she and her family obtained their cat.  Come to find out, he started as an outdoor feral cat and on the journey of him becoming their indoor cat, they found a heated cat house for him to put in their sunroom.  A lightbulb went on in my head - if I could get Charlie used to a heated cat house, when we move he will know this is still his home and even if the next place isn't as luxurious as the giant barn/garage he is used to know, at least it will be warm and familiar to him.  So, I bought the cat house and Will built it for me and this eased my anxiety from a 10 to a 6.  Here Will is below, with a little help from Opal, building Charlie's cat house.  In the bottom photo, Charlie is keeping me company while I work in my garage office.

The Friday of Labor day weekend, we found a newly listed house.  Keep in mind, we were looking multiple times a day as the clock was ticking closer and closer to our impending homelessness.  A family of six doesn't just crash on someone's couch in a pinch.  So when a new listing came up, we were one of the first to know.  The first thing that caught my eye about this house was the towering white pine trees in the yard - it had a decidedly up north look to it.  This house was in a perfect location, perfect lot size, perfect inside square footage with the right number of bathrooms and bedrooms and all the photos online looked good as well.  Plus it had air conditioning, something that we knew we needed in our next house with Violet's inability to sweat.  And, it wasn't as old as our last house either - 65 years instead of 101 years old - old enough to still have the character we love, but new enough to be less of a money pit.  AND - it would be a safe and lovely place for Charlie.  We decided to check it out.  Once we got to the house, we started noticing how run down the exterior looked.  When we opened the front door, a terrible smell greeted our noses and we could see (and smell) right away that the house was in a neglected state.  Opal could not get past the smell and so I ended up waiting outside with her while Will and the realtor walked through the rest of the house.  Will seemed unusually excited, but in my mind, the smell was a deal breaker.  Will talked about it all the way home, and I definitely could see his points - it was priced low enough to fix up and everything else about it was perfect for us.  That night I told Will that we would be crazy to buy a smelly house in need of so many repairs so I suggested we go to bed pretending we are not buying the house and see how we feel in the morning.

Needless to say, we went to bed in a depressed state and tossed and turned all night.  If Will hadn't been so excited about the potential of that house, I would have never thought about it again.  But because he was thinking about it, I was thinking about it and I really did love the location and the giant white pine trees towering in the backyard.  White pine trees are my absolute favorite tree, and the scent of sun-kissed pine needles on a summer afternoon are one of my top favorite scents.  So, Saturday morning after a depressed night, we decided to flip the coin of decision, and now pretend that we were going to buy the house.  Oh, the excitement that unfolded!  We went to Home Depot with pen and notepad and started pricing out exactly how much it would cost to make the house livable.  It was like Will and I were walking on rainbows as we skipped through The Depot (as I call it) and started to realize that this house could work for us.  We called our realtor with our thought process and she suggested we go back and see the house.  We took my dad with us on Sunday and I wore a respirator in case the smell was mold.  I was fully aware of the ridiculousness of the situation with me wearing a breathing apparatus in a house we were seriously considering buying, especially since we were leaving our last house due to mold.  Opal refused to be set down in the house and had major anxiety the entire time we were there, which made it difficult for me to really look at the rooms and determine how much work there was.  My mom text me after hearing about what my Dad saw and asked me, "Where are the matches?!"  I just had to laugh, because she wasn't wrong but here we were, considering the craziest thing Will and I have ever done.  My dad's opinion of the house was that we would need several lifetimes to fix it up.

The reality is when certain opportunities are presented to you, the decisions you make are a combination of the events in your life leading up to that moment (our desperation of not finding ANYTHING suitable to move to in three months) combined with a spark of joy that I have to believe can only come from God.  I believe the spark of joy means you are on the right path.  Even if everyone around us thought we were crazy, we had a certainty that we were at least meant to make an offer on this house.  After some serious bartering back and forth, our offer was accepted and we were now in the process of purchasing a house.  In the above photos from top right in clockwise order: a photo of the roof in need of repairs, us finding the piano of my dreams at a very affordable used price shortly after going under contract for the new house (keep in mind I had been looking for about eight years and nothing fit in the budget yet), a new to us car that we ended up buying on a cash loan from Will's parents so it didn't mess up our pre-approval to buy a house, a graph paper floor plan with cut outs of our furniture to start planning where our stuff will go, and my secret weapon and the reason we felt confident buying a smelly house despite my mold sensitivities - Molly the Mold Canine.  Our friends own a company with a highly trained dog who can sniff out mold through walls, tile and carpet.  I felt confident that with Molly, I could be sure the house I was moving to was safe.

We had spent the entire summer with only one car, and we were running out of time because we needed a second vehicle in September to get Violet to her newly starting vision therapy twice a week.  But, we couldn't make any large purchases since we were pre-approved to buy a house.  Will's parents' elderly neighbor could no longer drive and decided she wanted us to have her car, and would sell it to us within our budget.  This was a huge, huge blessing as during the summer, used car prices rose over 26% due to a chip shortage in new cars.  To make things even more doable, Will's parents floated us a cash loan so that we could purchase the car before buying our next house.  The first few days that the girls and I had wheels again, the feeling of gratitude and freedom were hard to explain.  Bless Hilda, the neighbor who had it on her heart to help us out, and bless God's timing, because he really does make sure that you get what you need when you need it.  In clockwise order from top left below: the girls and I enjoying donuts from our favorite local donut shop at the park on our first official school day, Violet with her first pair of real dentures and her proud smile, my first official sale to a non-friend or family member for Wildflower Moon, tomatoes from our garden, pickled green beans that I can every year late summer, and finally, Hickory, Dickory and Dock - the neighbor's goats who escaped from their pen and were looking for food at the end of our driveway.

Violet's dentist is a dear woman who has taken Violet under her wing.  Will took Violet in for her new dentures that we had been waiting all summer for.  Getting dentures is a multi-step process and one that insurance does not cover for kids unless they lost all of their teeth due to decay.  Because Violet was born without most of her teeth, insurance does not cover dentures for her.  For seven years, Violet has not been able to eat apples, raw carrots, a piece of pizza without it being cut up, and many other foods as well.  Teeth are not cosmetic, and I hope one day that insurance companies revise their policies.  When Violet was being fit for the dentures, the dentist took Will aside and told him that because she had never made dentures for a kid before, this one was on the house.  Will, who is not an emotional guy and definitely not a hugger, ended up hugging the dentist and holding back tears.  The price of this gift for our girl is equal to the price of the car we just bought.  Again, gratitude and humble awe filled our souls and we couldn't help but realize that as much as what we are going through right now is scary and filled with unknowns, God's got us.  He really does.  And then, seeing Violet smile with confidence and pride - priceless.  We would have paid whatever it took to give this to her, but God put on this dentist's heart to gift it to us.  Amazing.  And then, seeing Violet learn how to chew for the first time at seven years old broke our heart and put it back together at the very same time.  Because she has a few teeth, but they are in random places, it never occurred to Will and I that she is unable to chew like you or I, because none of her teeth line up.  God bless it, but teeth are not cosmetic!  Insurance currently pays to break her jaw and reset it so that her jaw lines up for implants but won't pay to proactively give her dentures so that she doesn't need to have her jaw broken.

In the picture below in clockwise order from top left: hosting the girls' yoga class in our backyard, Opal "shopping" with her new backpack from friends, doing school with Violet while making bracelets for Wildflower Moon, a hilarious headline combining the loved children's book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with the current real life bus driver shortage, Violet's school bin that we had to unpack for the start of school because I mistakenly thought we would be moved by the time school started again, and finally, Violet doing a math preschool program with Opal.

We got our last, COVID-safe haircuts in before the weather turned cold again, and we enjoyed playtime with friends outdoors as well.  With another COVID winter coming, we embraced as many outdoor get togethers as we could.

The girls had fun in the backyard with sidewalk chalk, Lucy did photoshoots with her sisters as models, and we enjoyed snacks outside as well.

Lots of indoor play happened as well this past month.  We kept Legos, Barbies, and our favorite games and books out of moving boxes since those are used every day.  Opal was playing the game of Life with her sisters and drew a police man for her career card.  She started laughing and pointed out that the police officer had chest hair all over him.  Big sisters started laughing and Violet said, "that's not chest hair, that's donut crumbs!"  I never heard chest hair being confused for donut crumbs before, but this is just a typical conversation at our house!  The below photos show Lego play, Barbie play and Violet and Opal putting on a play for me with their stuffed animals.

More playtime fun below, in clockwise order from top left: Opal snuggling her daddy, Opal using the potty - she needs to be completely free of clothes and a good book to do the job right, some bead art Violet made me, the girls playing "Drawing Shop", me trying on Lucy's glasses, and Opal wearing a pair of glasses that Violet made for her.

With my preoccupation of moving and all of the tasks related to that, the girls had a lot of time to themselves.  While I would have rather of spent more time with them than on moving, I have to say that a silver lining of them being left to their own devices is extra time and space for creativity.  I found them in their playroom hosting an American Girl doll party, complete with invitations and a handmade piñata.  In the below right hand photo, Opal is feeding her kitty cat a bowl of cereal (Perler Beads from the kids bead art that I would have never let her play with).

The girls did tea parties, complete with homemade cookies that they made themselves, and put on fashion shows as well.  I absolutely love to see what they do when I step out of the equation.  Creativity at it's finest!

The below photos show my favorite tree on the hiking trail across the street from our house.  I am going to miss this tree, and the trail.  The very bottom photo shows the girls on a new hiking trail by our new house.  It isn't right outside our doorstep, but it is close enough for us to bike to.  We stopped by this trail one night after driving by our new house.  The house wasn't ours yet, but the sale was pending, and so we took a drive just to see it from the street.  Afterwards, we took a walk on this trail and realized that everything was going to be okay.

We were definitely going to miss our house that we turned into our home and our suburban farm, but we had excitement now mixed into the sadness and we could feel hope beginning to heal our hearts.

August 2021

Remediation of our house finished at the end of July, and so we wasted no time in putting our house up for sale directly afterwards.  We contacted our favorite cottage rental up north, and asked him if we could stay there for a week while our house was shown.  We were so happy when he said it was available, and hoped that our house would sell the week we were up north.  It would be priceless to not have the stress of strangers walking through our house during a pandemic and having to keep it constantly clean with four kids living there.  So, up north we went and we left the sale of our home in the hands of our very capable realtor.  

Packing up for a week vacation for six people including food is a feat in itself.  Getting the house ready to show potential buyers while also packing up for a trip was something I hope to not do again, any time soon.  When we got to our happy place though, it was all worth it.

My family of six is happy at the beach.  A peace settles over us.  It is blissful.  The youngest two in our crew feel this same peace and bliss at playgrounds.  So, we tempered the begging for playground time with a few visits to our favorite up north playgrounds.

The oldest two of our crew (Will and I) feel this same peace and bliss on hiking trails.  Since we have the driver's licenses, we tried a hiking trail each morning.  At this point, we just rotated through our favorites as we have been here enough to know which trails we love best.

The youngest four of our crew do pretty well for the most part on hiking trails.  It helps that they each have their own interests to discover when hiking.  In clockwise order from top left: Opal loves drawing with a stick in any sand or dirt she finds, Violet loves holding my hand, Lucy loves finding amazing photo opportunities, and Emma loves any physical challenge she can find.

I myself am looking for views, and the hikes we love have plenty to offer.  I think it's safe to say that Will enjoys it all, and takes one for the team with our heavy backpack and carrying Opal for the majority of it.  All of us enjoy the picnics.

Every evening we were torn about whether or not to watch the sunset on the sand dune or at the cottage fire pit.  Talk about vacation problems.   Here we are below, on the evenings we chose the sand dune.  We usually brought cookies with us and enjoyed the view and the giant sand box as we watched the sun set.

 Enjoying the sunset at the cottage campfire is also a wonderful time, and the s'mores make it even sweeter.  The below photos I will title: "S'mores and Selfies."

It was difficult for Will and I to relax completely, knowing which dates and times our house had showings, and waiting to hear the potential buyer feedback.  Before our trip was over, we had accepted an offer on our house.  Our prayers had been answered, we would't have to keep the house in showplace order when we got back.  Or so we thought.  We didn't realize all of the other events needed including home appraisal, home inspection, walk throughs, etc. for selling a house, but still, the fact that we had an offer in place still cut down on the foot traffic immensely.  The photos in clockwise order from top left below: a little toad we found when we arrived at the cottage on the first afternoon, a monarch greeting us upon arrival, the girls picked up flower petals from the ground and decorated the porch swing while we packed the car on our final day, Will and Lucy deflating the inner tubes on our final evening, Will popping out a homemade chicken pot pie we had brought for one of our meals up north, and finally, the sunset in front of our cottage.

We had mixed feelings as we drove home.  We had mostly sadness at selling our house, and we knew we were one step closer to saying goodbye, despite the good news of having a buyer.  In clockwise order from top left below: my gratitude at seeing the hand sanitizer and masks our realtor had set out for all the people who walked through our house, Will putting the strawberry runners into pots so we can take some to wherever we are going, Will trying to breathe when we find out that things are not going smoothly with the selling process (attic insulation tested negative for asbestos but there was an asterisk that said O.05% was still possibly present and now the buyers are demanding thousands of dollars to remediate or they will walk away), our favorite maple tree in our backyard lost a huge branch in a storm, narrowly missing our house and we couldn't help but think it was symbolic to our move so I gave the tree a hug.

The girls did a lot of bead art this past month, which has easy clean up.  Emma did a huge Harry Potter square with some help from Lucy.  It was like performing an operation to iron that one into an adhesive unit, but I pulled it off.

Kids will be kids and although we had some moods about moving, for the most part they played as usual.  In the top, middle photo below I found a hair tie in the fridge.  I don't even ask why any more, but I am certain that no matter how carefully we clean when we move, the new owners will be finding hair ties for years to come.

Opal loves having tea parties, and in the below photos she is enjoying them with sisters and me at different times.

Lots of outdoor play happened this past month.  In clockwise order from top left below: enjoying an after dinner ice cream cone, trying to decide if spilled potato chips are worth crying about or licking off of the pavement, some American Girl doll furniture that Will and Violet made, and a drawing by Violet.

The fireflies were out this past month, and watching my kids catch and release fireflies is one of the most magical things I've been lucky to witness.  Here Opal is below, giving some love to a firefly she caught.  I think God made fireflies slow on purpose so that kids could interact with them so easily.

We have perfected the rotation of pens for our chickens so that they always have grass to free range on.  Below they have been just let loose on fresh rye and clover.  Once they turn this pen into mud, we will block it off and plant more seed for them to do the rotation all over again.  Rye grows in just a few weeks and it took us a few years to learn an efficient combo.  One of the reasons we were happy to accept the offer of our buyers, is they loved the suburban farm and asked to keep our chickens in the sale.  We will miss the chickens, but since we don't know where we are moving to yet or if we will be living with family for a while, it was a major stress relief to know they would not be homeless and can continue to enjoy the home they've always known.

Next up on what I will miss includes my wildflower meadow and my peach tree.  I was grateful to know that this would be the last harvest of peaches I would enjoy from my tree.  At least I got to say good bye and savor the peaches to the fullest.  Peaches are my favorite fruit, and this little peach tree produced so well for us.

We went to a sunflower field with friends this past month.  It was super hot with no shade, and a little too hot for Violet but thankfully we brought an umbrella to provide shade for her.  Being unable to sweat takes away the carefree feel of summer for us, as we need to be sure there is always available shade and water for Violet or it could become a medical emergency.  In the beginning of the trip, Violet was embarrassed to use the umbrella as no one else had one, so she opted to use her jacket as a shade covering.  But the jacket just made her hotter and as she started feeling worse, she begrudgingly took the umbrella.  Kids just want to fit in, and it hurts my heart that she doesn't have that choice.

I think she still had a good time, and it was nice to do something that was COVID safe with friends.  We are still cautious of COVID, and any time we get to spend safely with friends is such a happy occasion.

My longest-time friend, from fifth grade, came for a visit from Chicago this past month.  Oh the joy of this reunion, as we hadn't seen each other since pre-COVID.  We kept the visit outdoors and put masks on to hug the heck out of each other.  A silver lining to COVID is we would have never spent that day outside if it wasn't for the pandemic.  It was super hot and humid and sticky out.  But, we made the best of it with the slip and slide for the kids, a cold couscous and veggie salad for lunch, the girls homemade lemonade and watermelon and I think it was way more fun and festive than if we had stayed inside in the air conditioning.

We had another playdate with friends we hadn't seen since COVID, and despite rainy weather, utilized our covered front porch for a lovely visit.  In between rain showers the kids played in the yard.

Seeing our friends this past month were definitely the highlights in an otherwise sad month as we moved closer to saying goodbye to our beloved home.  In times of trouble, it helps me to have a written list of the simple things that I can do every day to bring me joy.  On my list after connecting with friends is making gemstone jewelry and cuddling Charlie.  In the photos below from top left in clockwise order: when the necklace you made your friend and your own necklace break at the same time, you fix them at the same time, me snuggling Charlie and then us both disinfecting ourselves afterward - me with a wardrobe change so my allergies calm down, and him with a spit bath.  The next photos show what happens when little hands get into the beads I am using.  Oops - some landed in Opal's oatmeal!  And finally, a pattern I am making for another friend's necklace.

August launches the busy season for the math posters we sell, and we ended up needing to order more.  It is our first reorder since we started the business in 2012.  This time we ordered a smaller amount, since we didn't know if we would have the space to store them at wherever we were going to next.  We will miss our huge garage with the upstairs storage.  The girls helped us collate the posters and cap the tubes.  The center photos below show me making the last payment on my new business so I am now debt free from the start up costs, and me working on my new business website.

We are trying to remain hopeful that if God told us it's time to move, that he has also prepared where we will go next.  It's hard to not feel discouraged though, as now it has been two months and we still haven't found a home to move to.  So many unknowns and just sadness at having to say goodbye without any concrete hope for the future.  This past month was perhaps the hardest month yet mentally, emotionally and physically as we walked the walk of faith and wallowed in our proverbial desert and my mold symptoms (severe exhaustion, brain fog, crazy sweating during sleep or any physical exertion, insomnia, anxiety, severe sensitivity to chemical odors to the point where I can't go into stores or Will wear deodorant around me, allergic reactions that leave me sipping Benadryl and terrible facial swelling) as well as Lucy and Emma's continued to get worse.  The remediation company told us that cross contamination was a real risk when remediating with the method that they use, and I believe that is what happened in our house.  On top of which, we found out that they didn't use the proper safety protocols.  We tried fighting this with them, but it was our word against theirs and we decided to drop it.  We were leaving after all, and the new homeowners would have an 18 month guarantee with our paid receipt so they could fight this battle if they so wished.  Sadly for this company, we have many contacts in building biology and they definitely burned a huge referral bridge when they messed up and misused the thousands of dollars that we paid them.  I know as I type this how the story unfolds from here and I wish I could say that it gets easier.  What I can say is that without fail, every time I feel stuck in the desert with God, he reveals to me at a later time that every moment was bringing us to our next chapter, in the best way possible.  I can say after this month, that the irony was not lost on me that despite this being one of the hardest summers of my life, I also spent the most time up north I ever have in one summer in my happy place.  For that silver lining I am thankful!

July 2021

We look forward to the month of July all year because Will has the entire month off of work.  This year, July was stressful and underwhelming after happily anticipating it for so long.  But, as I collaged the photos for this post, I am reminded of the good times that we still managed to have, and how life continues to move forward, no matter what you are struggling with.  Most of Will's time off was spent getting our house ready for remediation.  I can't even imagine pulling this off if Will was working, and for that we are grateful.  I've known from the day I met Will that he is a hard worker.  This past month he worked harder than I had ever seen anyone work, all to make things safe for me and the girls.  We are fairly organized (I used to work for a professional organizing company!) and that helped us so much.  Much of our items in the basement were already in plastic bins, and so they just needed to be hauled up out of the basement and the plastic bins disinfected.  However, my entire business for The Bees Weeds, Harding Honey and my new Wildflower Moon are all in the basement.  That was a time-consuming task to disinfect what we could save and set up my work room in our garage as we awaited remediation.  Will's workroom was also in our basement, and so every tool, piece of hardware and paint can also needed to be thoroughly disinfected and brought outside.  Thank goodness we have a huge garage, as the garage became the holding pen for what used to be in our basement.  In clockwise order from top left below: facial swelling due to mold, dancing in the basement wearing a respirator as the basement has not been remediated yet but there is a tornado warning, putting plastic on every thing on the first floor that we didn't take out since our floors are old and there is high risk of cross contamination when the basement is remediated, the rafters after remediation looking like brand new wood, our basement during remediation, and finally, our garage stocked with our pantry, my workroom, Will's workroom, kids toys, all the hand me downs we store in the basement, and any other manner of stuff that we had to take out of our house for remediation.

During this past month as we awaited remediation, we grappled with whether we should stay and try to fix the root problems of our house or look into moving.  We started looking online at houses and were floored by how expensive everything was.  In clockwise order from top left below: Lucy sent me a chain of texts with links to houses she found and in that chain was a drawing she made and a fake link to go with it, Violet made a drawing of a blue house we found online, a flow chart for Will and I to try and figure out what to do from here, and finally, Opal with a list of features we would want in a new house.

After some serious prayer, sleepless nights and many conversations, we asked God to give us a sign as to how we should move forward.  Our prayer was answered the very next day when Dave, the Building Biologist that Will works with in the summer, shared his opinion.  We are grateful he was brave enough to be honest, despite how hard it must have been to tell us that he believes we should move.  Will and I looked at each other and knew this was our sign from God.  We trust and value Dave's opinion, and you can't find a better expert in safe homes.  So, we started packing and called my cousin's wife who is a realtor.  Our first goal needed to be getting the house ready to put on the market.  This is no easy feat with four kids and a house still awaiting mold remediation.

Our realtor hired a professional photographer to take the photos of our house, and we were given a checklist of items to take care of before the photo shoot to ensure our house looked it's best.  This was almost as much work as getting the basement ready for remediation.  On the day of the photo shoot, we had exactly 61 minutes left until the photographer came.  I came downstairs after declaring victory on the upstairs, ready to tackle the first floor knowing I had only an hour left.  I then discovered Opal in the living room with a pair of scissors and tiny triangles of paper alllll over the living room floor.  Agh!!!!  She told me, "Look mama!  I made stars!"  Oh, sweet baby!  Yes, you did!  Then, the photographer arrived 45 minutes early!  We ended up just shoving all the last items into our car.  Picture driving to my parents house for dinner (we couldn't be home when the photos were taken) with soap dispensers, random jackets, extra shoes, a toilet plunger, and other random stuff just rolling around in our car.  As Will and I are catching our breath and realizing just how sweaty we are, Opal pipes up from the back seat and proclaims, "Isn't moving fun?!"  All we could do is laugh.  Here is Opal below, this time making the phases of the moon.  She did this all by herself and fortunately we weren't showing the house at that moment.

It was six weeks from discovering the mold in our house until the remediation company could fit us in.  We could not live there while remediation took place, and it took a week.  So we moved in with my parents, into my childhood bedroom with two kids in sleeping bags on the floor, and another two kids in sleeping bags in the living room.  I have no pictures from that week besides the two below.  My parents fed us so well while we were there - three from-scratch meals a day and breakfast was even to order.  Our friends lived down the street too, so we got to see them several times by just walking down the street to play, which was a bonus.  I brought rhubarb from my garden and my mom and I cooked up lots of rhubarb at her house.  My mom even made Will a lunch that was fancier than he's ever had packed before while he worked at our house during the day.  Each day we drove to our house to take care of the chickens, Charlie, and for me to do shipping for my business.  It was strange to feel like we were living between two houses and stressful as well.

After spending a week at my parents house, we went up north and spent a few days with Will's family.  For Christmas, Will's brother gave us all a trip up north together with his family.  The timing couldn't have been better, as it was during our time of being homeless.

It was cold and rained every single day we were there, which was a bummer.  We still made the most of it though and took hikes in between rain showers and dressed warmly to explore the beach.  One evening, family friends who have a cottage nearby stopped by for a bonfire.  Their youngest daughter is just a year older than Opal, and the two of them hit it off right away.  It was so cute to see, especially since Opal really hasn't had a chance to make friends of her own with the pandemic around for half of her life.  By the time the night had ended, the girls were calling each other their requested nicknames of "Fluffy" and "Flower" and I hope to get them together again soon.

Of course the last day we were there, the sun came out and warmed the beach.

It was time for us to go home though, and hope that remediation went well.  When we got home, our goal was to continue sprucing up the house so it would sell.  We love our home, and never planned on leaving it.  Our gardens alone were something I had never thought of giving up.  Our asparagus bed, apple trees, peach tree, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, rhubarb and herbs not to mention our wildflower meadow and all of the bulb flowers we planted that come up in the spring.  Our hearts were breaking and yet we still had a peace in knowing that we were meant to leave.

We absolutely love our front porch that looks out onto green space, and the space for a porch swing and just general warm weather living.  I wanted to enjoy every minute we had left with our porch.  In the below, right hand photo below, we are enjoying a thunderstorm, one of our favorite things to do on our amazing covered porch.  Opal is wearing noise canceling headphones so that she can enjoy the storm too.

There was so much work to be done this past month, it really forced us to move through the depression of moving.  Especially since we were moving without the excitement of a new place to go to.  And it seemed like every house available on the market was either too expensive, too moldy looking, too far, too small, or too ugly.  Nothing could compare to our adorable bungalow in walking distance to a beautiful downtown, green space across the street and close to our friends and family.  This was a true leap of faith we were taking - to trust the message that God had given us, even though we had no idea where we were going to end up.  It's interesting how something can be so incredibly difficult, but under it all you have a peace and certainty guiding you.  

Despite these hard challenges, looking at the photos below reminds me that we still smiled, we still laughed and we still lived this past month.  In clockwise order from top left below: Will bringing all of us to check on things at work and Opal setting herself up at Will's desk, acting like she owned the place, running into our friends at the grocery store and chatting for a while, commiserating with my sister via text as she tried to find comfortable shoes for a wedding she was standing up in (seems like the Hines sisters were born with triangle feet but if you see the diagram below, our triangle feet are facing the wrong way for stylish shoes), a train track Violet and Opal built at the chiropractor's, and Violet showing me that she brought healing salve on our evening walk for the mosquito bites.  The mosquitoes have been SO SO BAD this summer.  The worst I ever remember them, and probably because we have had so much rain.

My kids were not happy about moving, but seemed to take it in stride.  They were very unmotivated in helping pack and at times it felt like they were living their best lives while Will and I worked harder than we have ever worked before.  At one point, as Will and I were trying to pare down their over abundance of toys, Violet asked Will if she could go online and shop for Barbies.  Um, read the room Violet!  Read the room!  We are currently trying to pack all of your toys and you are asking about buying more?!  And don't get me started on Legos.  How do you move Lego sets that the kids are insistent on keeping built?  I swear half of our boxes were filled with built Lego sets.

The kids took advantage of Will's and my distraction this past month with more freedom in the pantry and with screen time.  I came downstairs one afternoon to them watching TV with a giant homemade snack bowl filled with all sorts of things I would have never agreed to.  Look at those guilty grins in the top photo below.  Lucy is offering me some, to try and win me over.

I like the above photo of all four girls on the couch watching a movie with Charlie watching in the window.  I will miss this.  Will our next house have a window for Charlie?  Will our next house even be safe for Charlie to continue his outdoor cat life?  My heart hurt about how this move would affect Charlie. More so than it hurt to think about the impact on my kids.  Obviously we would be making real estate choices with my kids as number one priority.  But could we afford to make real estate choices that were the best for our outdoor cat as well?  Oh, my heart.  Plus, what about moving our chickens?  We had fortunately decided in the spring when our bees didn't make it through the winter to take a year off from bees.  It was getting too dangerous having the bees so close to me and having to sit in my backyard with an epi pen was no way to live.  That tough decision definitely made moving easier - having to move bee hives or try to find a place to relocate them would have been just more stress on an already stressful situation.  Plus, we were also worried about what to do with our chickens.  I told God that I could say goodbye to the chickens, but please Lord, I cannot say goodbye to Charlie.  Please.

Will and I kept reminding ourselves that although we are grieving the loss of our beloved home, at least we are all staying together and that home is wherever I'm with you.  We can overcome anything, as long as we are together and healthy.  And the point of the move is for us all to be healthy again.  This amazing man found a slip of paper that I don't remember writing when he moved my workroom.  It read, "Write a well-written book that will help save the earth."  He kept it for me and here he is below, showing it to me through our kitchen window.  He has never looked more handsome to me than he did at that moment.  A man who is willing to move heaven and earth for me to be healthy, and who also supports me in following my dreams.  We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this month, and although I don't remember what we did to celebrate, I will never forget how Will and I handled this past month together. 

My finished journal arrived in 12 boxes this past month, and although it is self-published, it is pretty close to my dream of writing a book to help save the earth.  Here I am below in my new workroom.  The printer is plugged into an outlet in the ceiling, and the best part, is Charlie keeps me company while I work.

My First Period Kit was finally complete this past month, and it was exciting to see everything come together after 14 months of planning, creating and producing.  Will was there every step of the way and is an amazing example of an evolved male.  The perfect guy to raise four daughters.  The bottom, right hand photo below is the front passenger seat of my car, stocked with online orders ready to go to the post office.

After our house was remediated, our new fridge showed up.  Will put in new trim in the kitchen and although we were excited to have a real fridge again, it was bittersweet knowing that we would be moving soon.

When you get married young, it is hard to comprehend just how much you and your partner will go through together.  There is no way to understand just how brutal life can be until you have some life under your belt.  While I am grateful that Will and I didn't know what the future would hold when we got married 17 years ago, I would do it all again, as long as he is by my side.