Life Lessons...Building a House

It's almost over. Feeling stressed. Worrying if we made the right decisions. Being displaced. Finally, it's coming to an end. In just about a month we should be closing on our new house.

I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm grateful. I'm overwhelmed. I'm happy. But mostly, I'm relieved. The 15 month process of marketing and selling a home, taking up temporary residence, and building a new home has been one I don't want to repeat anytime soon.

For all the badness I've felt during this turbulent time, I think I've learned some important lessons as well. At the very least I hope my struggles can help someone else going through the same process, but I hope my "life lessons" will be inspirational for anyone in a difficult situation.

1. Never forget what you DO have. When you are moving and 75% of your personal items are packed away it's easy to feel discouraged. I'll be very happy to have my own couch, family photos, and extensive kitchen supplies back, but living without them reminded me to appreciate people and moments over "things". We tried really hard to take a time out whenever we started to get too wrapped up in the process. My advice: just be present with each other and let that be enough.
2. Trust your instincts. My husband stressed himself out over every single detail when we were picking out carpets, cabinets, tile, siding, etc for our new house. After the initial stress of choosing each item, he continued to worry about whether it was the right choice until it appeared in the house months later. In the end, things came together beautifully and he put himself under tons of unnecessary stress worrying. My advice: make a thoughtful decision, have confidence it's the right one, and move forward.
3. If it doesn't seem right, it might not be. When our siding went up, it was not a good day. It did not look the way we expected from the samples. It wasn't "us". How could we have picked these colors?? My husband looked back at all of our records and was confident something was amiss. He contacted the designer, foreman, and saleswoman. Somehow an error had been made and an old color scheme had been ordered. It was an honest mistake, but wasn't what we chose. They quickly fixed it and everything was back on track. My advice: Don't be afraid to ask questions when things don't seem right.
4. Channel your stress into something positive. Unlike my husband, I didn't really stress much about details. My stress was worrying about the "big picture." I spent a lot of time feeling guilty about what the moving process was putting our girls through and bad for myself that life was on hold. For awhile I let my stress impact me in really unhealthy ways - indulging in sneaky trips to Starbucks, eating unhealthy foods, being grumpy with my family, etc. Finally, I started taking my stress and laying it on the line each time I go for a jog. I tell myself I can't stop until I let go of the previous day's frustration. It's amazing how well it works. My advice: Find a positive outlet and use it on a regular, scheduled basis.
5. Put it in perspective. It is a huge pain to move with little kids, only have a fraction of your belongings, live in less than ideal housing (too small or too crowded), and have an unclear endpoint to the whole process. But really, in the grand scheme of life and the world, these are pretty insignificant problems. Babies get cancer. Kids go to bed hungry. People are murdered for their beliefs. Natural disasters claim thousands of lives. Those are problems - what we dealt with were minor inconveniences. My advice: Whatever your struggle is, pick two or three things that are going well and focus on those instead. I used to repeat to myself, "We're healthy and we're together" whenever I was having a bad day and it kept me sane.

Sleep Deprived

I really should be on a treadmill right now preparing for the 5K (my first ever) I am running tomorrow. Clearly, that is not the case. Instead, I'm using the three hours I've been up (thanks baby bear, thanks a lot) to place orders on Vistaprint, browse Pinterest and pin a few dozen more pumpkin recipes I won't have time to actually bake, make strange obsessive party lists for baby bear's upcoming first birthday party, and (duh) post here. Unless I leave the house (and then I would have to go to the gym, and I'm obviously trying to avoid that), this is really all I can do.

As all of my "work space" (living room and kitchen) is so close to the bedrooms I will wake the monsters if I do much else I've been contemplating whether I can get away with brewing a cup of coffee for the last 60 minutes and have, thus far, decided against it. I am enjoying this little tiny bit of peace and responsibility free time too much to risk disrupting it.

I've annoyingly and repeatedly pointed out recently mentioned a few times that things are busy around here. Guess what? It got SO MUCH busier in the past week. Here's the breakdown:

• The situation with the monster children is no different - the bug is still sweet 50% of the time and an irrational, maddeningly defiant creature the other 50% of the time and the bear is a wonderful baby with the exceptions that she rarely sleeps through the night and tries to aspirate small objects at least a dozen times a day.
• Also on the family front, my little sister had her baby (I'm in love!) and I'm trying to make time to see him as often as I can because he is growing so fast already! 
• Work continues to get busier by the day as we enter cold and flu season. As soon as the kids go back to school the office visits for congestion, sore throat, pink eye, etc pick up.
• And the ongoing house selling process! The good news about the house is that I can finally stop cleaning 24/7 because we have a buyer, but the bad news is that they want a fast closing and (pending the official closing date from the bank) we need to be out by the end of the month.
• As I eluded to above, baby bear's first birthday is fast approaching and I am also planning her party. I had already agreed to scale back my usual party planning/crafting/cooking, but it's getting even more scaled back now. This makes me sad.
• Finally, our Disney vacation is fast approaching and all I can hope for is that the warm weather clothing makes it with us through the move and we can find it when I need to pack.

So while much of this increased business is due to GOOD things, it's still insane. Even though I am SO tired, I can barely fall asleep at night because my head is so packed with plans, ideas, and concerns. Last night my husband and I drank a bottle of champagne to celebrate the house selling process and it was the first time in weeks I've fallen asleep effortlessly. Of course, I've been up since 4 am because the baby bear wouldn't want to let me get in a full 8 hours...