This Old House

Warning: Sentimental and way-too-long post ahead.  Read on at the risk of losing 10 minutes of your life you'll never get back....or just fast forward to the pictures. I had to take some time to write this stuff down so I don't forget. =)

Tonight is the last night we'll spend in this old house (it was built in 1911 and turned 100 years this year!).  Because of the way it looks like the cookie is going to crumble over the next few days, the Hubs and I are thinking it makes the most sense to pack up our every day items and move in with my parents tomorrow.  Sunday we're hauling out boxes.  Tuesday we're signing papers, moving furniture, and bidding our very last farewells.

Maybe that's why I squeezed a couple Christmas CD's into the grocery budget when Newbie and I were out yesterday.  I'm feeling a little sentimental.  It hit me yesterday afternoon when Newbie got up from his nap and we sat at his big bay window watching the first snowfall powder the ground with big, fat fluffy flakes that this would be the last time.  The last time I would watch snow fall from the big white window in his room on the quiet rooftops and streets outside.

My breath caught a little in my throat.  This house has been good to us.  This home has been good to us.

All day some of my favorite memories here have been floating through my head...

The first time the Hubs and I came here after he got the house.  We were in collage, dating, and had run to the grocery store to buy the SpongeBob Life board game (a very mature choice, right?).  We came in the back door, just the two of us and spread out the game on the open floor in the dining room.  We sat there playing Life and talking about all the fun we would have in the house.  The Hubs was dreaming up bachelor pad ideas (surely involving video games and loud drums) while I thought of what I would do with the place when it was my turn to move in (curtains, paint, babies). It was such a good night.

We hung out here a lot while we were dating.

He had various roommates, but my favorite times were when his brother and Mr. E were living here with him.  They were just good guys and fun to be around.  Also, one of his other roommates burned through the Christmas stove cover I had given the Hubs from the Dollar Store, so he was instantly removed from the Good Roomie list.

A month before we got married, I kicked all his roommates out and started moving all the fun stuff in.  Our shower gifts, the queen size bed, the curtains.  It was such an exciting time.  A week before our wedding, the Hubs moved out and I moved in with my sister and my bestie from Texas and we hung out for the week.  I was sure to have the place geeked out with Christmas decorations in time for my bachelorette party, which we celebrated here.  Such fun times.  At one point we got a little cold and a little freaked out and finally moved out of the place the last couple nights before my wedding because I wasn't a big fan of staying in the house without a burley man around.  I'm still not. =)

(image created by http://www.trudyholtzphotography.com)

Two days after our wedding, we spent our first Christmas Eve here together.  We were unwrapping gifts after the Christmas Eve service and our neighbor knocked on the door.  He invited us over for a bonfire and a beer in his backyard.  I think he thought a bachelor and his roomies still lived here.  We passed under the explanation that we had just gotten married and this was our first Christmas together and we're actually opening presents right now, man.  When we went to bed that night, the guy's fire was blazing bright in the cold outside our window.

The semester following our wedding I began my student teaching.  I did a lot of lesson planning and stressing out under this roof.  The Hubs was always great about a good frozen pizza on those busy days and nights.  He's such a good sport.

We brought Opie home the following summer.  He was as small as my foot and the most adorable thing.  We snuggled him and he pranced around the living room.  He was so low to the ground, we could never figure out if he was just chilling out or boycotting his potty training program.  Apologies to the buyers....Stanley Steamer is probably not a bad idea before you get to cozy around here.  We're over due on our carpet cleaning this year.  Just keepin' it real, folks.

I'll miss the radiators that I hate so much.  They are hard and huge and dusty on the inside, but I love the cozy vibe they put off at Christmastime and the way Opie lays in front of them through the winter.

Our second winter here we made an ice skating rink in the backyard.  It involved a huge plastic paint drop cloth, an embarrassing taping and cutting endeavor in the middle of the Home Depot, and a ridiculous water bill.  But we did get to skate on it.  Once.  It was rockin'.

The windows.  Oh, the windows.  Every single window in this house is sparkly and new thanks to a generous gift from my in-laws.  I wish I could pack them all up in a box and take them with me.  Especially our three HUGE bay windows.  I'm mourning the thought of not having bay windows wherever we end up.  I love me some bay windows.

 

In the summertime we walked to Dairy Queen.  Heaven help me, what a dream.  I hope our next house is near some kind of frozen treat establishment. We also spent our summers watching people come and go outside.  Its been fun to be in a packed neighborhood where there's always some people watching to be had.  Newbie and I watched lots of people come and go yesterday afternoon while we admired the snow from his window.  However, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that our next neighborhood just might have less people and more deer.  I could go for some country livin'.

When I was pregnant, I spent many a day walking in the backdoor and praying my huge self didn't go tumbling down the basement stairs.  The stairs are open and literally directly to the left of the backdoor.  I call it the death trap.  A little morbid, sure.  But I came up with it to keep the threat of imminent danger always at the forefront of the Hubs' mind when he comes in and out the backdoor.  You can never be to careful around those steps.  I will be so happy to say "see ya suckas!" to that flight of stairs.

We brought Newbie home to this house.  We brought his little carseat in the back door, (past the death trap) and settled into the living room.  At the time, the house was overflowing with all kinds of baby stuff.  It was everywhere.  The dining room was gushing with gifts, the kitchen over flowing with bottles and pump supplies and the living room coffee table was cluttered with feeding notes and hospital numbers to call, and binkies.  I loved those days.  Sure, I was a crazy, anxious mess, but those were sweet times in this house with that little baby boy.

The Hubs and I stumbled through the hallway upstairs in the dark.  A diaper, a rocker, a swaddling blanket.  We were always looking for something or carrying something or changing something.  What a crazy, crazy time.  Sleepless nights, sleepless days.  No wonder I was completely off my rocker.  But again, such precious memories of caring for our sweet baby here.

Then Newbie started to roll.  By Christmastime he was scootching to wherever he wanted to go.  The Christmas tree was his favorite, and I learned quickly that I couldn't leave that little pea anywhere if I wanted to keep him away from the tree.  He also loved the decorations.  I go all out around here every year.  Garland in the doorways, lights and holly up the banister in the stairwell, snowflakes hanging from the chandelier.  I'm going to miss decking the halls here this year.  But you can bet I'm hauling my favorites to my mom's to pull out and set around our two rooms in her house this Christmas.  And she's blessing me with the task of decorating her house this year.  Can't wait!

Newbie played in his first snow in the front yard of this old house.  He loved it.

We celebrated Newbie's first birthday here in all kinds of circus style.

 

 He started officially walking long distances the day of his party.  He walked through the living room, then the playroom.  I'm so thankful our other kiddos will be going home to our next house so I can capture some of those milestones in our new home.  It is so fun to picture the place where all those things happened.  With Newbie, I'm bottling up the memories and carrying them with me- probably in a weepy sobby mess when we officially lock the door and leave Tuesday.

Are you ready for this?  I'm going to miss our squirrels.  Dang it.  I never thought I'd say it, but Newbie has taken to watching them from his window and talking to them in the morning.  And doggone it all, if he hasn't met a few buddies who come all the way up to the window screen to chat.  They get so close and then start munching away on maple seeds.  I'm going to miss those little rascals if for nothing more than the entertainment and amazement they provide for Newbie.  Chet, you done good.  I'm just glad I don't have to wake up to the sound of you gnawing your way through who knows what in the attic each morning.  Keep going, buddy.  I'm sure you'll break through the walls one of these days, and oh, what a day that will be.

Tearful goodbyes will be said to the curtains in the dining room and Newbie's nursery.  To the sillouette of a tree I painted on Newbie's wall when I was 8 months pregnant.

To the fancy tile and white vanity and awesome bathtub in our remodeled bathroom upstairs.  To the mudroom because a mudroom is a luxury we have not seen in the other houses we are looking at.  To the screened in porch/three seasons room because there has never been a better place to blow bubbles or play at a water table in on a rainy day.  To the backyard where we grilled out so often and Newbie splashed in his pool.

 To the kitchen island my in-laws gave me for Christmas a few years ago.

To the plastic teal and purple carpet I hate upstairs and the spot where the Hubs dropped a dobble of grape jelly that is still sticky and the quarter size spot of melted carpet where I set the iron when it was too hot.  To the new fluffy carpet we put in up in the hallway and Newbie's room. Oh, the blessing of new carpet!  To the tulips that bloomed each spring in the flowerbeds.

 

To the hours playing on the floor in the playroom or the nursery in our jammies.

I'm so grateful that we can take our selves and our earthly treasures and memories along with us when we go and that we are moving on to another new adventure. But a little piece of my heart will squeeze at leaving the place where we've made so many memories in the early chapters of our lives.

I'm so grateful for all the ways God has provided for us in this house.  However, there are some things I will not be sad to see go.  I will tear up with gratefulness and heartache for the bits and pieces of this place that I love.  But then.  THEN I will salute, and exclaim, "It's been real, man.  Hope I see you again never!" to: the mice and their poo.  The steel, super shady front screen door.  The locks that don't unlock from the outside on the front door.  The driveway.  The garage.  The basement and all its creepiness.  The uneven floors.  The dust underneath the furnaces that I can never vaccuum up.  The death trap stairs.  The drop-off cliff at the top of our upstairs steps.  The questionable stench when the weather warms up and the rain falls in the springtime.  The bats.  The random knocks at the door at 2 o'clock in the morning.  The stray dogs wandering through our backyard.  The lack of a fence.  And last but not least, our neighbor's dogs.  Good riddance, you yapping nap ruiners!

We've been blessed with some good neighbors, but we don't know them very well.  Several of the houses around us are rented out and people come and go every few months.  Most work throughout the day, and there aren't many kids.  We've had a hard time finding our niche in the neighborhood, and we're looking forward to putting down roots somewhere and being intentional about getting to know our neighbors more on Round Two than we did this time. 

That being said, I think we're ready to go.  I know we're ready to go.  I'll be weepy when we leave, probably, but mostly because of the memories we made here and my desperate attempt to carry them with us as we go.  Also because of that white trim and those bay windows.  *sigh*

Lord willing, Tuesday we'll sign the papers, come back to the house and move out what's left after our big haul on Sunday, and then we'll wave goodbye and step into the next new adventure.  I'm ready for a new adventure.  And I'm so grateful to have my two boys at my side while we turn to the next chapter.

Fare thee well, Old House, thanks for all the memories. And happy 100th Birthday!

 

(Oh yes,my little mountain goat was in so much trouble for this!)

PS- Entirely unrelated, but while I was digging through old pictures I found this.

 First of all, you can tell I was pregnant with Newbie and didn't have any kids yet because check out that hair.  I can't remember the last time I had time to curl my hair.  Second, this totally happened two years ago on opening night- matching candy and all.  And I can't promise it won't happen again next week. I can't explain why I watch these movies.  It just happens.