Between Two Places

On Saturday, July 1st, we started hauling some stuff up to the rental. 

Shelves for the garage, couches, etc. 

We hauled some more things on Monday and even on the 4th of July.

Slowly home is emptying out (we currently have our outdoor picnic table in our kitchen, and most of our clothes sitting in boxes where dressers used to be), and the rental is filling in. (I've just been referring to it as "the rental". Surely it needs a more charming moniker than that if it's really going to become a home for us--temporary though it may be. Mike suggested we simply call it "the Young Ward house" to distinguish it from the home we will eventually be building in College Ward, but so far it hasn't taken. It's the two extra words, I think.)

It's sad to see home emptying out ... and simultaneously happy to see the rental (er, Young Ward house) taking shape. I fear, of course, that it will "take shape"/fill in far too quickly. After all, it only has three bedrooms and a grand total of 1,500 square feet (about 3,000 less than we've grown accustomed to)! (You can see, for example, in the photos above how our kitchen table has been reduced to its smallest size and still pretty much touches the back of the couch.)

I've already determined that the garage will need to serve as an extension of the house--an extra area for kitchen things that there's no cupboard space for, shelves for toys, etc. And nearly every day I think of something else that there is no spot for in the rental. ("Where can I put a vacuum?", "What about a laundry basket? What about laundry at all for that matter? There's no laundry room! Just a tiny, stacked washer and drier in a closet!", and "Won't we need to bring all the blankets people pull out for movies? Where can those possibly go?", "What do we do about kids' clothes since we can't fit most of their dressers?", "There's no pantry! Where does our food go? And if it goes in the cupboards, where do our dishes and pans go?", Etc. And already the kids keep clamoring for their boxed-up things--the ones I told them they would need to do without for over a year. And we haven't figured at all what to do about a piano!😪)

At times I've been on the verge of utter panic and full of sleeplessness over it all. 

On the other hand, I must admit that it's rather miraculous how well it actually will work! In some ways it feels like it was prepared with just us in mind. Had it been a bigger house, the price of rent would likely have been far too hard to justify at all (as even small rentals are charging more than our current monthly house payment). The garage at this house has a perfect room for all of our food storage. There's a "well house" out back that is much larger than any shed I've ever seen that we talked the landlord into renting us as a storage unit of sorts. (So things like Christmas decorations and boxes of kids' clothes they are growing into and out of can be nearby.) It even seems to have come with solutions to some of my minor worries like: "What do we do with all our violins? They can't just be put in a storage unit where heat and cold will ruin them!" But there's a little storage alcove over the closet in our bedroom where we can tuck them all. 

And it's pretty amazing that it came to be at all really. 

On a bit of a whim, when we still had no concrete idea of how we wanted or planned to arrange everything with selling and building, etc., Mike reached out to some of his family up there to see if any of them knew of any rentals in the area. Shortly after that Mike's uncle bumped into Chris (the guy that owns the rental ... though he wasn't renting it at all) and asked him if he'd consider renting it to his nephew with ten kids. And, for some reason, he decided yes, he would be willing. A little rental right in the area of all the correct schools for our kids. A rental that happens to be right between the houses of Mike's Aunt Sarah on one side and Mike's Uncle Jodie on the other. (Sarah stopped by two of the three days we unloaded over the 4th of July weekend; once with pizza, garbage bags, toilet paper, paper plates, and a willingness to haul loads of stuff; and again with several bags of lunch supplies, snacks and groceries. And Jodie dropped by offering his large, enclosed trailer for us to load the rest of our stuff into over the coming days. [We'd been hauling things up with our flat trailer.])

And I must admit, what it lacks in size, it really does make up for in just ... cuteness and charm! It's a really darling little place. And the view certainly isn't terrible. ...

This is the view from the backyard. (Also you can see the well house in the photo above.)

And this is the view from the front! Not the worst thing I've ever had to look at!

Anyway. We all keep having our fears and our doubts. I've had to remind myself a hundred times that things being not-ideal, and steps ahead still being unknown and not being fully clear, and good things being given up and left behind does not mean something is not the right step to make. And our kids with all their worries, and "why"s, and little losses have given me plenty of opportunity to speak that out loud--and, in the speaking it, my own anxieties and doubts seem to squish aside and make room for confidence that it’s true.

We are still a long way from done. We'll be gone all next week for a reunion. And then we will finish (hopefully!) moving up all the rest of our things over that next week. Beds. Kitchen stuff. Bathroom stuff. A ton of misc. stuff. I'm sure that final shove will bring a lot more chaos to the move than there has been in the orderly way I've tried to do things so far. And then we will still be left with this house needing everything cleaned and a thousand, million things fixed and the stress of hoping it sells quickly. (And I haven't quite worked out how any of that will happen with Mike pretty much out of vacation days and me trying to accomplish the things I can do while determining what to do with little kids.) But things are spiraling ever forward! No longer does going back even seem the smallest option. It's forward from here. That's the only direction.

And to end, a few photos from the 4th. We stopped at The Farm for awhile.

There were little frogs everywhere! It was so much fun. The sound of frogs is one of my favorite things about The Farm!

There had been some flood irrigating going on, so this is how Abe looked (even after removing his shoes) when he and his friend Kellie got a 4-wheeler stuck in (and then unstuck from) muck.

Daisy sneakily got a few pictures of Goldie--which is good because she will rarely willingly be in pictures and there is little evidence that she exists in our family at all.

And did I tell you about Mike's geese? He ordered two Toulouse Dewlap geese at the start of summer. They arrived at the post office (!) as tiny goslings, but have grown enormously in just the two months since getting them (and they are still far from grown). 

Mike assured me they were a friendly variety. So far that appears to be correct. They are so funny. They follow us around like little puppies. Truly. The minute they see any of us walking anywhere, they come padding eagerly along. I quite like them. 

The kids have named them James and Helen. Below you see the lovely wreath they made  to go around Helen's neck. 

(And then, realizing Helen might be James, they made a wreath for James' neck ... in case he is Helen.)

Although Daisy sneakily taking photos of Goldie means ... no photos of Daisy. 😪

Hans sang little songs to himself the entire time he tootled around on this 4-wheeler. Especially after we got him to quit holding onto the brake and the gas at the same time. 

Nice face in the background Anders. 

After the farm, we took a few more things to the rental. And then Mike went to pick up the trailer from Jodie and brought a bunch of the kids along to see the baby cows and horses at Jodie's place. 

I stayed back at the rental with some of the youngest ones to do some sweeping up, etc., but Daisy continued to get pictures for me. 

Look at all these young horses!

And this final picture makes me happy. When they got back from Jodie's someone mentioned how upset Summer had gotten over how bad the mosquitos were. I didn't think about it again till I saw this photo and recognized Mike's long shirt on her and knew that he'd given it to her to help with the mosquitoes. 💗