We are going to be embarking on a whole new adventure! In a few months, we will be packing up and moving from Texas to Washington state. I am pretty sure this makes move # 7 since I have been blogging, but all those moves were within a few hours drive, so this is a big one. All of my collecting and most of my furniture will be going bye bye. Which is interesting, because we have been in this rental house for one year now, and my lovely plate and gallery wall items never came out of the moving boxes. We have only a few things on the walls, ever since our last landlord turned crazy-town on us, we kept this place pretty nail-hole free.

It will be exciting to have a totally clean start. I have been watching episodes of "Clean House" on Netflix to mentally prep me for letting go of stuff. For our last move, I had a huge garage sale (even though  was 9 months pregnant), than took a truckload of goods to Goodwill. Funny that out of all of that stuff we got rid of, I only miss one thing. My three lantern light that my husband mistakenly sold for a single dollar :(

Since my mom is also moving with us, and she also has to storage units full of furniture 6 hours away from us, so that is going to be the most stressful part. Somehow hauling some of her stuff here and trying to get rid of the rest. During times of stress, I just tell myself that in a few short months, all of this headache will be behind us, and we will be enjoying a brand new life, in a beautiful, new place. And even though we will miss some very dear friends here, they will always be a part of us.

These last few weeks have been crazy. I got very, very sick about 3 weeks ago. Basically bedridden for several days, I went to the Dr and was put on a round of amoxicillin. They weren't working. After 9 days, my husband took me back to the Dr. They said, "Take your wife to the ER right now, she has a bad case of pneumonia." So, I was hospitalized for 2 days, should have stayed a few days longer but I was worried about money. I felt horrible, it was the day of the Colorado Batman shooting and I felt like I was a baby for being in the hospital when others where there for more serious reasons. I still feel very weak, dizzy and faint. I walk crazy like Captain Jack Sparrow. But I have lots to do because while I was in the hospital, our landlord decided not to renew our lease because she wants to move back into her house, and she basically said, "You have 30 days to get out." Just when I was starting to redecorate and get it cozy in here.


So, I'm still sick, and recovering, and we have been going crazy trying to find a place to live the past few days. Our area is in high demand. Homes are tiny, old, falling apart and dirty, and people are asking for $1200+ to rent homes that are worth way less. Realtors don't always call you back. Then they get all offended when you have to call someone else who will call you back. It's sickening and depressing. So, we finally found a place, that we can semi afford and that is mostly big enough and the bathtubs aren't rotting out... they got over 100 calls for it and almost bumped the price way up... but we got it through our own determination... even though I'm still sick with pneumonia. I almost fell over of weakness at the bank today getting the cashier's check for it. So, we will be wild with packing and cleaning and moving these next few weeks. Good thing I purged a lot and had a garage sale a few months ago when I was 9 months pregnant! I still want to do more de-cluttering though. Hopefully, I will recover from this pneumonia quickly. It seems I'm always sick on the weeks we move.
 
*Our landlord went crazy on us, and tried to pull a lot of illegal bull crap on us, even though we have been awesome renters and actually left her crap hole house 10x better than it was when we moved in. She tried to charge us like a crazy amount of money for simple nails holes. It was nuts and I threatened a lawsuit stating all the points in our contract in which she breached, so she backed down.  Win for us.

Our move went well, 6 helpers per side and only 2 hours of loading/unloaded each side. Had I not been sick, I probably would have everything unpacked by now, but given it's only been 6 days, we've accomplished a lot, only about 2 boxes left! I have 4 boxes and 2 chairs given to Goodwill already and a few more to go. Of course, that probably should be done before the move, but sometimes, it's easier to have an objective eye when you are unpacking.

I had planned on showing the home before we started Christmas decorating, but a lost camera prevented that. I added 2 red pillows to tie in the Christmas colors, otherwise they will all be the black/white/charcoal combo. I painted that wrought iron circlet above the couch a shabby textured aqua and white, but am thinking of doing a lot more white since my aqua decorations are put away for the season.

We are really trying for the crisp, white, uncluttered look in this new (temporary) home. It's nice refreshing and airy with the large windows and archways. So, of course, Holly's all white and ebony wood floor home is in large part an inspiration. Eventually, we are going to paint our furniture white and the table black, but that won't be until well after Christmas, when I get my orders all made and shipped. Right now, I'm loving our Pottery Barn slipcovers, I haven't had to bleach them yet, but they have been cleaned and toddler spots come out quite nicely.

It's funny, our little 4 foot Christmas tree was *too big* in our last place as the only room for it was on our table, but now it is dwarfed by the windows. I'll put some garland up there on those windows soon. We still love the trees and the boys had fun decorating it too. Maybe daddy will surprise us with a real tree, hmm?


 I'm contemplating hanging something from our archway. A couch sits right below it, so the void is kind of interesting as you can see in the photo, and a little room divider coupled with the couch would be nice. I thought that this contemporary white  wooden chandelier from uncommon would be beautiful there, maybe I can add some vintage chandelier crystals to the bottom, or just leave it plain, what do you think?


(less wordy posts soon, I promise)