The House that Built Me

The latest big life change in our lives has been our move from our home of a decade a couple of weeks ago. Many of you know that selling our house has been quite the process.  We got it ready to sell when I was pregnant with Caroline, but the market took a nosedive and we couldn't get what we wanted to for the house, so after staging it and cleaning out, painting or aka "killing ourselves" we didn't list and instead had a wonderful wee one that spring!

We put the house on the market for the first time in the spring of 2012.  We had our first contract in November, but that ended up falling through.  We took a break and got ready to list it again in the spring of 2013 - fixing all the things the inspection report turned up - and the market wasn't quite where we needed it to be again, so we decided to sit it out a bit longer and list in the fall.  

The house was shown several times between December and May - but nothing came of the showings. Finally in July a friend of a friend - thank you Christian! - was looking for a house and not finding what they wanted, so our friend mentioned it to us and we said why not!  We showed our house to the Lees for the first time in July and by August it was under contract, passed the inspection and we were officially selling our house. 

It happened pretty quickly - we went from hoping and praying we could sell our house in the spring (CE needs a good school district next fall) to suddenly selling it out of the blue!  We looked at well over 100 houses and none of them were what we were looking for.  So into a rental we've gone.  It's a cute little house, just a wee bit smaller than our old house and in the same area.  We're so thankful it worked out because it means we got to stay in our area of town and keep the puppy dogs that we love so much!

The week we moved was a rough one - I waited until the last minute to pack, David was in crunch time on his project at work and couldn't be off and of course the girls both ended up with the stomach virus three days before we were due to move:)  But, we survived.  The house got packed up, the movers moved our things carefully and quickly, we closed on the house and lived to tell about it.  There were times I thought it might not ever happen!

So, it really hit us that last night after the closing when we went back to clean out the fridge and gather the last few items.  Turning the lights out for the last time was bittersweet.  I cried big ole crocodile tears (David did too) - that house built me and certainly built us.  5609 saw me as a single 24 year old, then married me off to the love of my life, welcomed two wonderful puppy dogs into it's fold, next up was our first-born and then our second born.  It held almost a decade of sweet, cherished life-changing memories.  Oh how I will miss her. She was the house that built me.

Now a few weeks later I can talk about it without crying - and we're looking forward to finding the perfect house for us in the coming months!  We're thankful we have a roof over our heads and a landlord that has done everything in her power to make this season in our life smooth.  Gods plans are always the right plan:)