The big decision

Over the past couple of years, Jeff and I have slowly come to the conclusion that if we stay in Washington, we will move to Sunnyside by the time Jay is in high school at the very latest. Lots of factors and lots of reasons apply to the situation. We live in Grandview, go to church in Prosser, and Jeff works in Sunnyside. That means we basically live stretched thin between three towns (Grandview is between Sunnyside and Prosser). After we got back from Paris last month, Jeff and I started seriously considering making the move soon. We have loved living in our big roomy split level house in Grandview for the past five years, but we would rather downsize to a cheaper house and use those savings for travel instead! I'd live in a hut if it meant we could travel the world!

So I started browsing Zillow for houses in Sunnyside. The market is pretty good right now, but there's not a lot out there. But the Big Decision felt better and better every day we thought about it. Jeff and I prayed about it and thought about it and even took turns going running around Sunnyside on weekends, scouting out good neighborhoods and for sale houses. Finally, last week, I emailed the realtor who sold us our Grandview house and asked him if he'd like to sell it for us and help us find a place in Sunnyside. He is a great realtor with TONS of experience, so he got the ball rolling at super speed.

Jeff and I did a major declutter/cleaning project over the long President's Day weekend and the realtor walked through and priced the house on Tuesday. He stuck a for sale sign in our front yard yesterday. Today someone came to see it and they want to buy it. Already. For full asking price. I mean, anything can happen with housing offers and all of that, but our house's online listing hasn't even posted yet and someone already wants it! Our realtor said it would probably sell fast, but...one day is lightning fast. It's not sold yet, and nothing has been signed. Time will tell, but we are house hunting and number crunching and in serious danger of falling in love with a cute little cottage of a foreclosure on a spacious lot with big trees in a good neighborhood one mile from Sunnyside High School.

Life is full. I have so many everyday pictures that I'm dying to post with captions for memories, but keeping a house realtor-clean with three kids running rampant is taking an unforseen voltage of my energy. I always love order and cleanliness, but as a mother I have learned how to suppress those desires into more realistic levels so I don't drive my family crazy with nagging. This week I have completely unleashed my organizational tendencies/mania on the White house and my wrath has been fearsome to behold. It feels almost bad to succumb and let myself pick up every scrap of paper I see every time someone drops one. But it is working! The place literally echoes with cleanliness. We filled nearly 20 boxes with books and STUFF over the weekend and stashed them in the garage to help our house feel more open, and it helped. The kids have been running around screaming joyfully among the echo-y walls and halls, or bouncing all over the big floors on their hoppers and Rody.

The family room before project de-clutter [above], and after [below]

While our realtor was taking pictures, I snapped a few quick ones myself with my phone, because I'm not sure my house has ever been this clean and I wanted to remember the occasion. I didn't take pictures of the garage or the playroom or the entry way or stairs, but those are too hard to photograph.

The family room--we took down all of the pictures on the wall and rearranged the couch back into the default position that we started with. I insisted on moving the recliner out of that corner after nearly a year's worth of sitting in it so sick, nauseous, and pregnant. Every time I sat down in that corner after my pregnancies, I immediately felt bored with everything--the view, the seat, the room--everything. So last year we moved it around. When we put it back in that corner and I sat down there this week, I was pleased to find that my post partum recliner PTSD had subsided and I was not bored with the seat anymore! That is just one story about one corner of this big house. Houses have so many stories to tell. I love that idea.

This kitchen has been one of my true loves. 

How do people ever sell houses when two year olds and milk are involved?

I didn't take a picture of the kitchen wall before we dismantled it, so these will have to do. We took down the entire bookshelf on the wall behind the kitchen table, and the computer desk and allllll of the stuff on the wall. It is so empty.

After

 [above and below] the girls' room. Although I spent a good amount of energy going against my mom-principles and cleaning my kids' rooms for them before the realtor pictures were taken, our realtor didn't even take pictures of the kids' bedrooms. He said pictures make the bedrooms look tiny. He was right. But I wanted to remember what their rooms looked like, even shrunken in a photo.

The chalkboard wall: awesome idea. 

Jay's room 

The master bedroom. We never got around to painting it. Cleaning my house with the knowledge that people will soon be walking through it and critiquing it was a vulnerable feeling. I suddenly wondered if they would judge my thrift store old-school chair or our complete lack of matching furniture. Then I shook myself and thought positive: less furniture makes the place look bigger!

My beloved book wall in the basement. 

Solution to the two-year-old issue: get out the Windex! Amber helped me clean windows for a solid ten minutes one morning. Then it was back to destruction as usual. 

We went on a trip to Home Depot for a few touch-up supplies like trim paint and light bulbs. Amber loved driving the cart. I love whoever invented that thing. 

 Our snow cave is shrinking daily.

Jeff and I spent last night pounding out drywall anchors and patching nail holes, and it made me feel so old and yet so new all at once.