Moving Along

Sorry that I've been so lax on posting anything new, but we've been quite busy around here.  Somehow, an innocent conversation back in January has snowballed into an entire new chapter in our lives.  A weekend road trip looking at vacant lots, lead to talking to our realtor, which lead to talking to a builder, which lead to a kind of temporary insanity that has yet to subside.

After Alex finished up school, we spent three months laboring feverishly to finish every project around our Jewell House that we'd intended to get to over the past 8 years.  No small feat, let me tell you.  When we were satisfied (not really - but at some point you have to know when to quit) we put it on the market, and VOILA! eight days later it was sold.  We have every indication that the couple buying our home is in love with it, and that is how it should be.  We've loved it, and it is an exceptional house.  But...I'm still suffering with a bit of PTSD from last November when my car was stolen right in front of me at home, leading to a disenchantment with the direction the neighborhood is heading.

We closed on our new lot yesterday afternoon, and let me tell you how excited I am about our new neighborhood.  We'll have a bigger yard, much quieter streets that are safe for Anna to learn how to ride a bike on, sidewalks everywhere, a screened porch that looks out the back yard onto tall trees, more nature -- the first time we ever drove past this lot there were wild turkeys on it, a nice guest room with its own bathroom (we'll leave the light on for you, Hugh & Pat!), and a floor plan that is designed well to keep us both tight-knit AND give us more space where we need it.  The house plan is called "The Skelly".  You can Google it.  So... barring any catastrophes, we move in with our good friend Liz in a few weeks (The Gogolski Boarding House for Wayward Souls), close on the Jewell House on August 28th and break ground on the Bent Tree Lane house the first part of September.

One of the best things about making this move now is knowing this will be the house that Anna grows up in.  This will be the space where she has sleepovers, learns to cook (she tells everyone that she wants to grow up to be a chef), plants a vegetable garden, camps in the back yard, and makes wonky arts and crafts for me to hang on the walls.  While we could do these things pretty much anywhere, there's something about this space in the world that we're moving to that feels a little more perfect to my mind.  A little more hopeful.  A little more peaceful.  A little...more.