That Was Us; This Is Us

With our closing fast approaching, I have been walking up and down the stairs at our house almost non-stop for the past couple of weeks, going through all the closets and storage areas--of which there are many, let me tell you.  Lots of nooks, lots of crannies.  I never could have complained that this house didn't have enough storage space!!  In fact, it might have been better if there had been less, because then we might not have accumulated so much stuff!  I mean, we've had 26-plus years to amass all of it...but really, there is SO. MUCH. STUFF!!  I cannot stress this enough.  And I know I could just let the movers box it all up and deal with it when we get to our new place, but I feel strongly that it will be less stressful for me in the long run if we get rid of what we don't want or need on this end.

So life has been very busy indeed.  Every morning I wake up and it's the same thing: I go from basement to first floor to second floor to attic, then back down again, only to repeat the process about a hundred times during the course of the day.  These treks up and down the stairs are broken up by quick trips to the recycling center and Goodwill.  Fun times!

I must say, it has been interesting looking into boxes and bins that have languished, all but forgotten, for ten or even twenty years--and sometimes longer.  And it has also been exhausting, both emotionally and physically.

A little while ago, I met up with my husband in the family room on the first floor.  While I've been relentlessly culling through the flotsam and jetsam of a long life well-lived, he has been busy working on all kinds of projects that we promised to complete before closing, such as the renovation of the master bathroom.

But I caught him as he was sitting on the couch.  Not resting, mind you; he was making one of the countless phone calls one needs to make in order for a move to happen smoothly.  I dragged myself over to my overstuffed chair and plopped down, and when he got off the phone I channeled my inner Jack Pearson and complained (somewhat pathetically), "This house is breaking me.  I'm broken."  (Please tell me that you watch "This Is Us," and that you remember the scene where Jack tells the OB/GYN who delivered their triplets that the babies have broken his wife Rebecca.  If you aren't a fan of this show, I'm not sure that we can be friends...)

As I go about the business of separating the wheat from the chaff, of trying to decide what to keep and what needs the old heave-ho, in an effort to be as ready as possible to pack up and leave this home where we raised our five sons, these words keep popping into my head: "This was us."  So many of the things I find are reminders of who we were in the past, when it was just seven of us (just my husband and me and the big five--another "This Is Us" reference, sorry about that), living together under this roof.

Things like this backpack that belonged to our oldest son, for instance, which I found yesterday in the attic.  In one of the small zippered compartments, there were a bunch of empty fun-size candy bar wrappers.

Along with the evidence of his trip snacks, there was also still an airline bag-check tag attached, showing that when he last used this backpack he'd been flying to Chicago in January of 2002.

That was him, back then: he was a seemingly incurable chocoholic who was flying back to the Midwest to start the second semester of his freshman year at Notre Dame, after coming home for Christmas break; but it's not him anymore.  Today, he's a super-healthy, organic-eating adult, married and the father of four young daughters.

In the attic I also found our old baby bathtub (bought when we had our first son, in 1983, and used for all five of our boys), a baby carrier/seat, and a walker, each coated with dust after spending more than two decades stored in the rafters.  These items (which are going to be heading to the dumpster once it gets delivered to our driveway tomorrow) reminded me that when we moved into this house, we were the parents of young children who hoped to have more babies--and we did have one, three years later. We were fresh-faced babies ourselves, just 32 years old (which is younger than our firstborn son is now!).  That was us.

But that's not us anymore.  These days we're the much-older parents of four married sons and an officer stationed overseas, and we're "Papa and Grammy" to seven grandchildren and counting.

But to look around our attic, you'd think we had a houseful of little fellas living here still.  I found the metal tray we used to serve our boys breakfast in bed on their birthdays.

Pac-Man?  Really?  Does that date us, or what?

I also found plastic bins of legos, complete with the step-by-step building instructions.

Judging by this plywood sign, you'd think we still had kids at the local Catholic grade school, wouldn't you?

But no, that's just something that I painted a couple of decades ago for the annual carnival fundraiser at their Catholic school and never got around to throwing out.  They loved that carnival, which was held on the tarmac recess field right next to the brick school building.

Perhaps you'd think we had a passel of teenaged lacrosse players living in this house as well, judging by the bins of old equipment still carefully stowed away in the basement.  (Those are old heads ready to be re-strung, lying on top of some stringing materials.  I guess the boys never got around to fixing them up.)

Lacrosse was a huge part of our lives.  That was us, for so many wonderful years.

We used to ski a lot back in the day, too.  When our four oldest sons were young, we would take a yearly ski vacation over their winter break with some of their Pearl cousins; and during the five years that we homeschooled our youngest son, he participated in a ten-week program where he skied in NH every Monday with a group of homeschooled friends.  That was us, and we still have ski equipment in the attic to prove it.

Aside from all the sports gear, we sure had a lot of old-school gadgets and technology. (In fact, my husband just took a collection of floppy discs over to Best Buy the other day for recycling!)  That was so us; we were a land-line, flip-phone, and desktop computer family, before the days of smart phones and iPads.

The times, they have been a-changin'.  Because all of this stuff--all these reminders of the activities we shared and the good times we had together--isn't really who we are anymore.  That was us then.

This is us now.  The big five has multiplied, and we wouldn't want it any other way.  It's like we're "new and improved."

It really has been hard weeding through and tossing out so much of what feels like our history, the story of us. But the whole point of this move is to live closer to our boys and their families.  Because staying in this house surrounded by memories cannot possibly make us anywhere near as happy as being able to spend more time with the people we love.

Okay now, before I sign off: it's Tuesday, and you know what that means, right?  "This Is Us" is on.  (NBC, 9:00.)  I'm going to just ignore the bare walls, the empty shelf, and the boxes of files on the family room floor and enjoy it.  Join me, won't you?

My Sunday Best: Earrings, Band-Aids, and Other Accessories

I'm joining Rosie today for the "My Sunday Best" link-up, one of my favorite places to be on the Lord's day.

It was a sunny, brutally cold day here in NH on this first Sunday of Lent, and I decided to dress (mostly) in liturgically-appropriate purple.  I wore one of my favorite knit sheath dresses, bought at a Talbot's after-season clearance sale a few years ago.  I couldn't decide which color I liked best (they were all so pretty!), so my husband encouraged me to get three of them, in shades of Kelly green, bright red, and deep purple. (Did I mention that I love it when he goes shopping with me?) I chose the purple one today and topped it with a black 3/4-sleeve cardigan, a recent TJ Maxx bargain find, and my favorite Walmart opaque black tights. 

As you can see from my much-too-awkward fashion photo there, we have begun the process of taking pictures off the walls and boxing up our books, CD's, etc., in preparation for our coming move to VA.  But I decided to hang the Papal Blessing back up for this photo, so JPII could do one last "My Sunday Best" photo-bomb in this house.

I love the bow-shaped rhinestone buttons on this cardigan.  Let's see if we can't get a better look at them, shall we?

Photos just don't do them justice.  (For Mass, I also wore my beautiful lavender veil from Veils by Lily, a gift from my husband a couple of Christmases ago.  As you could probably tell from the picture, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.)

Moving on to other fun accessories from this week's Mass ensemble: I actually wore earrings today, which is something I rarely do; and they were dangly ones, rarer still.  But these beauties were a gift from my oldest son and his wife (for Mother's Day or my birthday a few years back), and I just love that they have not only pearls on them, but Miraculous Medals as well.

Aren't they lovely?

I wore another not-so-lovely accessory today: a collection of Band-Aids on my arm, to cover a long , narrow burn I got from the edge of a hot frying pan the other day.  (I'm a fairly decent cook, but I'm an accident waiting to happen in the kitchen.  I should really never go in there.)

After Mass, as we shook hands with the pastor on the way out, he said he'd heard through the grapevine that we were moving soon.  He wished us well and said that he would give us a blessing before we left, and needless to say, the waterworks started. I am so easily brought to tears these days!  But it's hard to imagine that we will no longer be parishioners at the church where our boys received their sacraments, served as altar boys, and attended Mass with us for so many years.

On our way to the car, we stopped at the Mary Garden not far from the church entrance.  I love this little garden.  When I set out to write Erin's Ring and decided that my heroine would find an old Irish Claddagh ring with a mysterious past, I knew right away that she would find it poking up out of the dirt in this garden.

It's prettier when things are green and blooming, obviously; but even on the bleakest days of winter I love this spot dedicated to Our Lady.

Speaking of Erin's Ring, I am hosting a giveaway over at Instagram (#erinsringgiveaway): I will be giving away a free signed copy of the book, with the winner to be announced on St. Patty's Day.  If you'd like to know how to enter, click on the Instagram icon on the sidebar and it will bring you to my home page.  I have been advertising the giveaway using pictures of my adorable grandchildren holding copies of Erin's Ring.  Just "like" one of those posts and you'll be entered to win (and if you tag a friend, he or she will be entered, too).

That's it for me.  Happy Sunday, everyone!  Now head on over to Rosie's for more Lenten fashions.

I'm Hanging Out over at Instagram These Days--and Running a Giveaway

I am the worst. blogger. ever.  It's like I'm never here anymore.  But I have a really good excuse, I swear!  You see, after more than 26 years, we're moving from what we thought might be a "forever home" for us; and it's happening so much faster than I ever imagined it would.  (We decided we might want to sell in late January, and we will be closing on March 17!  And the house never even got listed.  It's a crazy story.  If you're new here, this recent post explains the whirlwind that is our life right now.)

It's really hard to get ready for a big move (from NH to VA) when for so long, you never thought you would leave your beloved house--and therefore you didn't do a lot of purging through the decades.  Especially if you have an enormous walk-up attic that conveniently fits a whole lot of packages, boxes, and bags, making it easy for you to procrastinate and say, "I'll get to that later."  And especially if your five boys--who are now ranging in age from 24 to 33, with four of them married and having families of their own--also had the mindset of, "I'll get to that later," leaving almost all of their boyhood memorabilia behind (figuring, and rightly so, that Mom and Dad had a lot more room to store it than they did).

This process is feeling like a bit of a Lenten sacrifice for me, going through all of these precious and even not-so-precious things.  (People say, "Just let the movers box it up and worry about going through it when you get down there."  However, the idea of having to spend the first few months in our newer, smaller house culling through all of this junk is so stressful to me that I'd rather take care of it on this end. )  But it's undoubtedly been good for me.  I'm a saver, particularly when it comes to items that tell the story of our boys' history and our life as a family in this house.  I gotta say, this experience is making me realize that I keep a whole lot more than I should...and it's making me want to live my life clutter-free (or clutter-reduced, anyway) from now on. 

For instance, I kept every single trophy my boys ever received--even the participation trophies from youth sports.  Last night, I FaceTimed with son #2, going through each and every one of his awards to see which I should keep and which I should toss, and we both had a good hearty laugh.  Apparently, he's okay with not holding onto his t-ball participation trophy from kindergarten!  Huh, who would have thought? In the end, there were very few items that he felt strongly enough about to hold onto. After we spoke, I decided to do a brutal clearing-out of his brothers' trophies, too, without bothering to FaceTime each of them (I don't even know who I am anymore!!), keeping only the ones that said "MVP" or "Offensive Lineman of the Year" or something equally noteworthy.  (Full disclosure: my youngest son's trophy collection has not gone through a weeding-out yet; I just can't get rid of anything of his until he gets further along in his grown-up life.)

So now there's a box containing evidence of my four older boys' football, lacrosse, and basketball glory days in our garage, awaiting disposal (as soon as we get a second dumpster--yes, we've already filled one!).  Kind of sad--but kind of freeing, too.

And these old decaying football pads, chin straps, gloves (and jock straps--ew!): you know what I said to them?  "Buh-bye."  I did.  I'm so proud of myself.

These old presentation boards from grade school science fair projects?  Buh-bye to them, too!

Why did I keep them, I wonder?  I never even liked the science fair--it involved too much stress, and too many car rides on school nights to connect our boys with their study partners!  (Don't even get me started on group projects for school--I think all kids should have to work individually!!  That's my personal takeaway as a "been there-done that" mother of grown children, and I hope you don't mind that I shared it with you.  If you are driving your kids all over the place during the after-school hours so they can work on their group projects, you have my sympathies, mamas!)

I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that in my travels in the attic, I found a large plastic bin filled with folded-up old calendar pages.  We used to hang a huge calendar on our ginormous bulletin board in the kitchen, in order to keep track of all of our boys' activities and our family events.  I remember not being able to throw them out, my excuse being that sometimes I jotted down phone numbers on them, and I might need to refer to an old page someday.  In truth, I thought of them as a sort of journal of our family life, and I couldn't seem to get rid of them.

I am proud to report that these precious-to-me-but-to-nobody-else-on-earth pieces of paper are now in the recycling bin.  But I did take photos of a few random pages before I tossed them in there; it was the only way I could make the break.  (Picture me sitting here with a sheepish look on my face.)

Here's another find that should make me feel pretty sheepish.  In my youngest son's trunk, I was going through all the treasures to make sure there wasn't anything in there that would be better off in the "toss" pile, and I found a ziplock bag with a splint and two finger casts in it, from when he hyper-extended his pinky in a football game in high school...and kept on playing!  This baggie was right next to a sweet collage I made as a memento of our homeschool classroom, when he graduated 8th grade and went to the same Catholic high school his brothers had attended.  I asked my husband for his advice regarding that ziplock bag ("Toss it out!" he said, without hesitation), but then I didn't take it.  Why do I even ask him, if I know what I'm going to do already?

I found my oldest son's LL Bean backpack from high school, with his initials embroidered on it.  It's still is pretty good shape, actually, considering its age.  (LL Bean is the best!)  And inside I discovered the suede and leather saddle shoes that I got him on clearance before he started his freshman year and which became a bit of a trademark for him.  He literally wore them throughout high school; I replaced the first worn-out pair with another exactly like them so that he could make it through until graduation!

In spite of keeping lots and lots of things (oh my, those boys sure collected a lot of football cards!), some of them as ridiculous as those little finger casts, I have managed to get rid of a mountain of useless clutter.  I have made countless trips to both Goodwill and the recycling center.  And you cannot even imagine how many empty large plastic bins I have now, after four straight days of working like a dog up in that attic!  I wish I had a Fitbit; I'd love to know how many steps I've taken and how many stairs I've climbed.

I still have some work to do.  Such as boxing up these precious T-Rex and St. Patrick Halloween costumes worn by my youngest boy back in the day.

My husband has been working so hard, too, getting all of our plumbing issues resolved, going through mounds of filed paperwork, finishing bathroom renovations, prepping walls so I can do the touch-up painting that we promised to do.  And yesterday, he had the sad task of taking down our boys' football jerseys in the "new room," our garage-turned-man cave/sports room.  That was a tad painful.  A few days earlier, I'd taken down over 100 framed pictures on the walls of this room, many of them photos of our boys in their football, basketball, and lacrosse-playing days.  That was tough.

I've been chronicling our move over at Instagram if you'd like to follow along there (because unfortunately, for the foreseeable future I'm probably going to be 'gramming a lot more often than I'll be blogging).  Just click on the Instagram icon on the side bar and it'll take you to my home page, if you're interested.

Now about that Instagram giveaway I mentioned in the title of this post...I'm giving away a free signed copy of Erin's Ring, and the winner will be announced on St. Patty's Day.  If you want to know how to enter the contest, look for my recent Instagram post with this darling image of Princesa reading Grammy's book, and the directions for getting your name in the hat are in the text under the picture.

May you have the luck of the Irish!  (And I hope that we will as well, as we go through this difficult transition!)

See you over at the 'gram, dear readers.  :)

Staging Our House: the Blue Room

I told you in yesterday's post (about what we like to call "the Irish Room") that we have names for all of the bedrooms in our NH house, which we are in the process of selling after 26 years.

The smallest of the four bedrooms was originally occupied by sons #3 and 4 after we first moved into the house.  There was really only enough space in there for a bunk bed and a dresser that they shared, and also a little bookshelf filled with books and toys.  But it was cozy and they loved it.

Once son #5 came along and then graduated from sleeping in a port-a-crib by his mom and dad's bedside, we moved his crib into that small bedroom.   Sons #3 and 4 relocated to the big room across the hall where the two oldest boys had been sleeping, and sons #1 and 2 moved into what eventually became "the Irish Room."  (I forgot to tell you yesterday that before it was decorated with a Celtic flair, it was all boy, with shelves packed with trophies and other sports memorabilia--and you could hardly ever see the carpet, because there were usually piles of clothes all over the floor!)  But the switching around wasn't over yet.  Our baby didn't like being the only brother without a roommate, so as soon as he was old enough to sleep in a bed, he moved into "the Triple" with sons #3 and 4 and his little bedroom was from that point forward a dedicated guest room, kept ready for occasional visits from grandparents or other friends and family.

Once it was deemed a guest room, I painted this little bedroom a vivid Wedgewood blue color and we purchased a queen-sized bed for it.  For many years, it had a sponge-painting effect (everybody was sponge-painting in the 90's!) over the blue paint; but not too long ago, I repainted it with what I thought was a more subtle-looking shade of blue.  So here it is, "the Blue Room," before staging to sell.

And here's the "After" version, with the new wood laminate floors, a fresh coat of cream-colored paint, and considerably less clutter.

I think making our house--which was once a rather busy, and very colorful, canvas that chronicled our life as a family--into more of a blank slate must have helped the buyers to see its potential and to imagine themselves moving their own things into the rooms.

I have more makeovers to share.  Stay tuned!

Staging Our House: the Irish Room

We're like the White House around here in our NH house: we've given our bedrooms names. There's the Master (but everyone has one of those, so that doesn't really count).  But there's also the Blue Room, cleverly named for the paint color I put on the walls shortly after we moved in; the Irish Room, named for the theme decorating I did in there once our two oldest boys hadn't occupied it for a few years and it became a dedicated guest room for married sons; and then the Triple (now called our youngest son's room, because for many years it was shared by three brothers, but in the end it was his and his alone).

Also, we've always had lots and lots of stuff on the walls of every bedroom (in fact, on the walls of every room, period) in this house.  I was into the "gallery wall" idea before I even knew that was a thing.  I think I invented the gallery wall, if you want to know the truth.  Or I think my mom did, and then when I grew up and got a house of my own, I decided I would try to take her penchant for plastering the walls with family pictures, decorative plates, and assorted memorabilia to a whole new level.

For example, check out the walls of our dining room (before we got the house ready to sell).  Not only is every bit of wall space occupied by framed family photos, but there are also wallpaper borders-- not only above the chair rail, but up near the ceiling, too, for double the dated fun!

Anyway, after finally getting on board the HGTV train just a couple of years ago (and learning about things we'd never heard of before, like shiplap, travertine, and subway tile), we realized that if we ever decided to sell our house, we were going to need to make a whole lot of changes so that it would appeal to today's discriminating buyers.  (Because one man's "Isn't it neat to walk around a house and see a family's entire history displayed on the walls?" is another man's "Oh my goodness these people have a problem, and I think we need to call the producers of 'Hoarders'!")

So the order of the day was to pare down and simplify every room.

Today I'll show you our Irish Room makeover.  Here's the "Before" shot, with the old gray carpet, the knickknack shelves filled with Irish-themed bric-a-brac, and the Irish flag window toppers.

My favorite detail in this room: the flying squirrel I painted on the window

frame, after we had one sneak into our house one night via the chimney and

I ultimately corralled him in this bedroom until animal control could get there

the next morning to remove him!

And here are the "After" shots, with the new laminate hardwood floors, simple white sheer curtains, and considerably less clutter.  (The room has lost its Celtic flair, but I have to admit that it is so much prettier.)

Note that the flying squirrel is still perched over that window;

I haven't had the heart to paint over him just yet!

Unfortunately, getting your house ready to sell means stripping it of most of its personality, of most of the items that make it uniquely "yours."  But perhaps that's a good thing--because even though it looks more HGTV-ready now, this room doesn't look like our Irish Room anymore; and that will probably make it easier to leave it behind.

I'll be back with more room makeovers in the coming days or weeks!  (Teaser: the Blue Room is no longer blue!)

What We All Wore Sunday (Princesa's Get-up Takes the Cake!)

I'm blogging for the second day in a row, which hasn't happened since...since I can't remember when.  This is cause for a celebration, I think--so OPEN THE CABINETS!   (Sorry, if you are not a Pearl you will not get that reference; but here's a very old post, written back when I was a newbie blogger, that explains why we use that phrase in place of, "Woo hoo, time to party!"  It's a short and kind of humorous post, if you're interested in clicking on over to read it.)

Anyway, today I'm joining Rosie at a blog for my mom, for one of my very favorite blog activities: the "My Sunday Best" link-up.

I don't have a whole lot to show you as far as my Sunday fashion choices.  Today, I wore what has essentially become an almost daily uniform for me: a black skirt that I've had for eons, purchased at TJ Maxx; black opaque tights (great varicose vein hiders) from Walmart; and my favorite comfy black leather flats.  On top: a hot-pink cotton twinset from JC Penney (which I've also had for eons), accented by the gorgeous silver Celtic cross that my youngest son bought when he was visiting the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland last fall and gave me this past Christmas.

You don't need to see the bottom part of my outfit in this awkward selfie snapped in the kitchen of my husband's childhood home.  There's just a lot of black going on, per usual.  I am a creature of habit (a nice way of saying that I'm a bit on the boring side).

You know who really did make a splash this Sunday with their Mass ensembles, however?  That would be son #2 and his little namesake (and virtual mini-me), who were looking extremely dapper in matching powder blue.

When my daughter-in-law Ginger texted this picture to us a couple of hours ago, I thought, "Oh, this is too good not to share!"  So with permission, here he is, our adorable Junior, wearing a John John Kennedy-inspired romper and round-collared shirt.  I love it when wee lads are dressed just so, in delightfully vintage-looking styles; I think my grandson looks like a little British prince in this get-up.  I also love it that his dad has recently made a commitment to wearing a suit to Mass every Sunday, complete with a button-down shirt and tie.  My hubby and I decided years ago that we wanted to get dressed in our Sunday Best every week, and he started wearing a suit coat and tie while I started wearing a skirt or dress.  We are big fans of the idea of putting on your best outfits to attend the most important event of every week, Sunday Mass.

Another one of my VA grandchildren was sporting a priceless outfit last Sunday, when we were down visiting so that we could attend a big party in honor of her first birthday.  Princesa, the daughter of son #3 and Preciosa (and the younger sister of G-Man), wore the best thing she could possibly wear when it was time to dive into her smash cake: she wore her birthday suit, accented by a sweet felt crown made especially for the occasion by her mom and her maternal grandmother.

Princesa had a lovely dress on earlier, before this picture was taken; but I think this outfit is the real winner.

The smash cake was a bit of a winner, too.  It was my one contribution to the birthday festivities, and I was determined to get it right. 

My first effort was a Pinterest fail, as you can see.

But I posted the photo of my epic failure on Instagram and got some wonderful advice about Wilton icing tips from one of my best online buddies.  So the second try was much more successful.

Just looking at the above photos of two of our little VA darlings convinces me that, although it won't be easy to leave our home in NH, we are doing the right thing by moving closer to them.  The next time one of them has a birthday, we won't have to head to the airport and spend half the day getting to the party; it'll just be a short drive by car.  Another reason to open up those cabinets, folks!  (Also, being able to let your little one eat her cake while stripped down to a diaper, sitting outside, in February?  There are going to be some very nice things about living in a southern climate!)

Okay, before I go I just have to share one more picture of Junior where he's absolutely killing it fashion-wise.

I can't take it.  I can't.
  
And now if you'd like to have your cake and eat it too (am I trying too hard to make this post cohesive?),  head on over to Rosie's for more Sunday fashion talk. 

Serendipity, and Letting Go

I'm dusting off the old blog today.  Lately, I've spent a lot more time over at Instagram, where you can snap a quick picture and add a mini-post and be done in a matter of minutes.  Easy peasy. (As I've said before, I can see now why so many bloggers have made the switch to being predominantly 'grammers.)

But as archaic as blogging might seem these days, it is still my favorite form of social media.  It is still the outlet that gives me the most pleasure, writing-wise.  And I am determined to keep this blog of mine up and running, as long as there is even one reader out there who cares to stop by.  (And I know there will always be at least one: hi, my better half!)

If you've come here before, you probably know that after 26 years of living--and raising five boys--in our NH home, my husband and I have been thinking about selling it and moving closer to some of our kids and grandkids.  We have three sons who have settled in VA with their wives, two in one city and another one just a couple of hours away from them.  They have been not-so-subtly hinting for a while now (there might have even been a power point presentation created for us, complete with heart-tugging photos and declarations of love; but I digress) that they would sure like it if we moved close-by--and reminding us that if we did so, we could see 3/5 of our children and 1/2 of our grandchildren on a regular basis without having to get on an airplane.  It does make sense: it would cut our travels down considerably, if we didn't need to fly to see the VA gang; and it would make it so that our other two sons (one in WI, the other currently stationed in Germany) could see more of their family members when they come home to visit dear old mom and dad.

We went back and forth on this, even though it did seem to be the logical next step once all of our boys grew up and it was obvious that they wouldn't be returning to settle in New England.  We were constantly traveling to see all of them and were hardly ever home anymore anyway, we rationalized, and they were only able to get home on rare occasions.  What was the point of keeping this big house for the two of us?  However, one stumbling block has been that we are mightily attached to the cozy white Colonial that we thought might be our "forever home" and into which we have put so much blood, sweat, and DIY tears over the years. Intellectually, we know that this house doesn't fit our lives that well anymore; but emotionally--well, that's a different story.

I mean, we were slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that we would sell it; but we thought we might take six months to a year to make the break.  We started the "getting ready to move" process by ripping out the 26-year-old builder's grade gray carpet that was original to the house shortly before last Christmas, and replacing it with beautiful wood laminate flooring throughout the upstairs.  We also decided to update the extremely dated upstairs bathroom that our boys had shared growing up.  While these projects were being completed, we rented a dumpster and started the arduous process of tossing out all the construction debris and lots of other junk that when push came to shove was not going to make it into either the "keep" or "donate" piles.

Stuff like this.

Away with you, ratty old carpets, broken Adirondack chairs,

and crusty, mildewy baseball gloves!

So much junk!  (But I admit to being a little torn about tossing

those stinky old lacrosse pads on top.  Sniff!) 

We pretty much filled a huge dumpster, so you would think that afterward we would find ourselves clutter-free and junk-free, would you not?  Well, you would be wrong!  (But more about that in a future post.)

ANYWAY--

So in preparation for a sometime-in-the-near-but-not-too-near-future move, we started getting a whole lot of work done around the house.  We had those glorious floors put in upstairs; I freshly painted most of the rooms and removed the last of my 80's-era wallpaper borders.  (Yes, I liked wallpaper borders once upon a time, I admit it!  Don't judge me!)  And my husband went into handyman mode, doing demo work on the bathroom, tiling the floor, and putting in a new vanity, mirrors, and light fixture.  (We also had a new tub/shower unit installed.)

Our house was starting to look almost pretty enough to put on the market, but we weren't really there yet. We were looking at a lot of VA listings, but just for fun, with the vague idea of buying a house there sometime down the road. But you know what?  If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  Because some really crazy things happened to us--things that can only be taken as signs that we were meant to move, and meant to do it now.

We flew down to the DC area on inauguration weekend to visit son #2 and his family, and that Saturday, on a lark we went to look at one of the houses that had caught our fancy online.  Our son and his wife (and their one-year-old boy) drove over to look at the house with us, and we just loved it.  The price was right, it was located exactly in the middle of the two cities where our children live, less than an hour from each...maybe, we thought, we should make an offer?  But was that insane?  We weren't even ready to put our house on the market yet--how could we buy a new one?  Could we rent the new house out until we were ready to make the move south?

We returned home to NH and went through the mail that had been delivered in our absence, and there was a letter from a local real estate agent in the pile.  She said she had clients who were longtime residents of our town but had always wanted to live on our street, and she wanted to know if we were thinking about selling.  (Also, these people were ready to pay in full.  In cash!)

Everyone on the street got this same letter; but still, it seemed like some kind of sign to us!  So we called the agent and arranged to have her come and look at our house.  She gave us a few suggestions--pare down the books and knickknacks (especially the porcelain dolls!) on the shelves, put away the countertop appliances in the kitchen, and give the dated master bath the update we'd been planning to give it.  She told us that if we could do this as quickly as possible, that would be best, because if we waited too long her clients might start looking elsewhere.

Meanwhile, we decided to be bold and put in an offer on the VA house.  For a while, it looked like we wouldn't get the house; we were outbid and decided we wouldn't go any higher, so we bowed out of the race.  But the sellers ultimately accepted our offer, because they were in a hurry to move and ours was the only one that came without contingencies.  Okay, we thought; we must have been meant to get that house.  But what were we going to do if our NH house didn't sell?

Well, we went into hyperdrive getting it ready to show.  I cleaned and painted and purged and staged.  Here are photos of the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace in our living room.  (They're still pretty busy shelves, but can you see how much worse they were in the photos on the right side?)

While I was playing (poorly) at being Joanna Gaines, my husband was busy tiling our master bathroom floor and putting in a new vanity.  We got the house looking showcase-ready in record time, and we arranged for the potential buyers to come over and see it on a Saturday morning (last Saturday morning, to be exact) when we were going to be--where else?--in VA, for our granddaughter Princesa's birthday party.  That same day, we drove over to our new house with sons #3 and 4 and their wives, as they hadn't seen it yet.  As we were getting close, our real estate agent called to say that the people who'd been shown our house definitely wanted to buy it--and not only that, they wanted to offer us the full asking price!  So without even listing it, our house has been sold.  We got out of the car at the new house and told our kids the news, and we all marveled that things were falling into place so beautifully.  Serendipity is what I think they call it.

So life is good, but my head is spinning a little.  We've had to do so much work in such a small amount of time; and yet there is still so much to do.

Perhaps you can see why I've had trouble blogging lately.  Not only have I been very busy, going through my attic and storage spaces and trying to figure out what we will take and what I must finally let go of, but I have also been somewhat emotionally overwhelmed.  There have definitely been tears.  Although I know that this will be the best thing for my husband and me and for our family, it's really, really tough getting ready to say goodbye to a house that has nothing but happy memories in it.  It contains so much of our history as a family within its walls.  For instance, there's this.

If you look very closely, you'll see a faded ink stamp on one of the bricks of our family room fireplace.  When we were just down in VA, son #4 reminded me about it and said he'd looked to see if it was still there when everyone was here for the holidays. He told me that he remembers that they got Jurassic Park ink stamp kits in their stockings one year, and that the brother just above him in age promptly stamped the brick with that picture of a velociraptor's head.  I LOVE it that that mark is still there, and that our 29-year-old son looked for it the last time he was home.

I have so many blog posts in me, you wouldn't believe it.  Great renovation posts, with "before" and "after" pictures of our bathrooms (they are gorgeous now!).  Posts about preparing your home to sell.  Posts about the angst a mother feels about tossing out any item from her children's past that has a happy memory attached to it, no matter how useless that item has become.  Posts about finally learning to let go, and to feel peace about it. 

The other day, I was finally able to let go of some of my boys' lacrosse helmets.  (Some, not all; I'm not crazy, you know.)  I brought three of them over to Goodwill, along with a load of other stuff.  But you know what?  Goodwill doesn't take old used sports helmets.  They aren't up to code anymore, their integrity might be compromised, they might have hidden cracks.  It's too bad that I didn't just donate them a decade ago, when some young lacrosse player could have put them to good use.  But unfortunately, I didn't.

Note the floors: aren't they awesome?  They sure beat the worn-out carpet we

used to have!

So we had five of those helmets in the attic.  Now we have two, and three of them are on their way to the dump.  But at least I have this picture to remember them by.  And I'm taking pictures of other sentimental items, too--a technique for holding onto things without holding onto them, which I've found to be really helpful while going through this painful process.  So that's another post I'll be working on, too.

I have so many things to share here.  I will be back.  Hopefully sooner rather than later. (But in the meantime, you can check out Instagram for more about our house projects and our move.)