Just a little bit of the crazzy

At Matt's Grandmother's house, there was a picture that one of the cousin's drew that had a headline that read, "Slap Me, I'm CRAZZZZY!" Which is exactly how I feel at the moment.

Our house officially is under contract. The appraisal and inspection have gone through fine. We have a "domino closing" set for Friday, October 31st.

The house we are buying in South Asheville is truly from the Lord, but turning this whole thing around in the next 10 days is insane.

I have packed about 15 boxes and I have not even scratched the surface. And I feel like I have very little in the way of "clutter" as compared to most people I know. So, how do normal people move? I don't know, we are going to make it happen but not before we have a committee meeting, two YL clubs, work every day, two college life meetings, two soccer games, Matt is speaking next weekend at Windy Gap and as soon as we move into the house; I am leaving for a four-day trip to New Jersey to see my sister.

Fantastic. Why wouldn't I sit around for the evening watching the new Real Simple show on TLC, followed by a two-hour game of Settlers of Catan? It's not like I have anything to DO.

We're moving Out

No, that is not just a title of a really bad Billy Joel song, it is now my life.

We are moving up to Windy Gap tomorrow to begin our month at Young Life camp. Thank God we are staying on the east coast and I can just drive all of us into camp, 15 minutes from where we live. I feel no pressure to pack right or well. I will just pack what we need for the next few days and as morale drops at camp, ta-da! We at home where whatever it is that we need and are missing from our lives resides and we can pick it up and take it back to camp!

I am very excited.
I am also excited because it means I can stop working on my freaking house.
We are listing it for sale tomorrow morning, so we have been maniacs here. On Monday, I had Cindy McCandless come over and help stage our house. For those of you who have never done this, do it. Not because you need to stage your house, but if I had her come over when we first moved in, I might have liked my house a bit better.
She rearranged furniture, gave me design ideas and told us we had to paint our kitchen. Before Thursday.
I was the sane one and said, "No way. It's not even possible." Matt said, "Let's do it!"
So we did it. I had a minor panic attack selecting paint at Home Depot. It normally takes me several days and several test coat of paint before committing. I took 10 minutes.
After we left Home Depot, I took the kids to Target and spent a minor fortune on "home accessories". I know that some of you might find this hard to believe; but I suck at this sort of thing. I don't really do "chachke" I like clean surfaces, minimal wall hangings, etc. So to go and buy little tables, lamps, vases and pictures for my walls was a big deal. The bigger deal was telling Matt just how much money was spent. Yikes.

"but sweetheat, it is just a small investment to be able to sell our house." Does this line work? Cause I don't think so.

But he does love all of the changes and seriously yall, this woman knows what she is doing. In 10 minutes, she rearranged my living room, rehung pictures in my bedroom and got me to paint my kitchen. Whaaaaat?

I wish we had her come over when we moved in because then I would have loved my house for the last three years instead of the last 15 hours.

I will post before and after pictures tomorrow. Yay for tomorrow!!!

Moms

Since having children, I have learned that birthday are not all about the person having the birthday. It is more of a celebration for the mom that her kids have stayed alive and made it through another year! It sounds crazy, I know. But I remember when Asher turned one, I said to myself, "I made it through one year, he made it through one year. I did it!" Now that he is going to turn two in just four months, I can't believe that I will have made it through two years!

With that being said, my 29th birthday is tomorrow and I want to give a little shoutout to my mom for helping me make through these 29 years.

I mean, I was born in freakin' Las Vegas. I can't believe either of us survived that. You went to school, graduated and became a nurse all in the first year of my life. You set the bar pretty high for what I might achieve in my children's first years of life.

We moved all around the country and world in the last 29 years. Here is where I have been with you leading the way:

Las Vegas, NV
Woodbridge, VA (4 years)
Kansas City, KS (1 year)
Berlin, Germany (4 years)
Seoul, South Korea (2 years)
Burke, VA (1 year)
Carlisle, PA (1 year)
Staten Island, NY (4 years)
Fairfax, VA

this is where we parted:
Columbia, SC (4 years)
Asheville, NC (7 years)
And you moved to Albany, GA six years ago.

I remember feeling like I wasn't going to make it everytime we moved, yet you taught the amazing lesson of "bloom where you are planted" and to keep looking forward to what we have wherever we live. I haven't forgotten those lessons and I remember the biggest one that you and I thought through together: Although we have never had a "permanent home" to come home to, we have one in heaven through Jesus Christ and nothing else will ever satisfy. We will always long for that home above all else.

Also, another moving lesson...you get a chance at starting over everytime you move. Also, I know I can live anywhere and get through just about anything. And, that if I needed to...we could sell our house and I could move all of our stuff in a 48-hour period. If I had to.

I remember distinctly the time in the seventh grade when one girl broke into my locker and destroyed pictures of mine (my favorite one of Shellie and me, with ridiculous glasses from the Olympics), threw away my books and just trashed my locker. She also was making life a living hell and I didn't want to go to school anymore. You let me cry to you, you hugged me and made me feel like I was worth something. I have never forgotten that and it set my mind straight about the fact that stupid people will always try to tear you down, but we can survive. And, if it doesn't get better...we were going to move in a few months and so I could at least get through a few hard months and just start over.

You sacrificed every minute of spare time that you had for four years to drive me, Erica Leonardini and Elaine L. to Long Island, NY five times a week for soccer practice, games, tournaments and camps. I doubt that I could give my own children this gift because of the price that I would have to pay personally. Thank you for giving to me so selflessly simply because I had a dream and you wanted to make it happen if you could.

Thank you for collecting 5,500 Snapple labels with me in high school from everyone that we knew so I could get a Snapple refrigerator that I would later abandon at your house.

You helped to pay for college even though you gave up every spare minute you had while I was in high school (see above paragraph) so that I could play college soccer, but soccer didn't really pay for college. Gulp.

You helped me to see I would get past my relationship with Ed and that God had better plans in store for me. And did he ever.

You have been a great mom and have helped me to become the mom that I am now by just being you. We have made it almost 29 years so far. You did it! Happy 29 years of being my mom! I love you!

(BTW: this post also made me realize that I don't have any decent pictures of you and me together. Let's try to make that happen this weekend.)

Also, dad--you did these things too. I just can totally relate to mom on my birthday this year. Love you!

How about you out there in blogland? What lessons did your mom teach you? Send up comments!