barf, closing, demo, and easter
my goal when i started this blog was to produce at least one post per week. seeing that my last one was march 5... well. tomorrow starts a new week.
i've been a bit preoccupied lately with work, buying and selling houses, and bina. i don't know if we've been this busy yet. and in the midst of it all bina has been getting fun doses of sickness to make things a little more interesting. like the diarrhea she had the week of my once a year recruitment event at work. and then this last week.
thursday we flew to michigan to close on our house there. wednesday at 10:30pm i heard bina wake and fuss a bit. not to the extent that i would normally go in there to check on her, but for whatever reason i decided to. and found her soaked in vomit. on the wall. on the crib. on the floor. thankfully, not on the rug (go bina!). then she proceeded to vomit every 10 minutes for the next hour. long story short, i was up with her until 3am thursday morning. we were flying out later that afternoon. i thought i wasn't going to be able to go, which would mean i wouldn't have seen the house in person until we moved in. thank god bina didn't barf again after 3am thursday morning until friday morning at 7am and we were able to travel without any problems. no more barfing after friday at 7am, which means we were able to go to church on sunday at our new home church and she was able to wear her sweet easter dress from great grandma.
all that to say. thank you, jesus, for working that out. even though it didn't go as planned, bina stopped barfing long enough to allow us to travel to michigan. we didn't have to be anywhere friday morning because we didn't close until 2pm. she was a rock star and handled the whole trip well, even napping more than usual while we were doing demo weekend. kid slept through my husband and brother pounding things out with crowbars and such. further, david and i haven't started puking yet (i just asked god to let it hold off until we got home if we were going to get sick too). praise god. praise god.
one thing i wanted to do while we were at the house was to meet our next door neighbors. as we were doing the final walk through before closing, both sets of neighbors came out to introduce themselves. that was really special to me. i'm excited to get to know them more.
we got to meet the original owners of our home at the closing. that was special. they're a couple in their 80s with one son, who did a TON of work on the house prepping it for sale. like, a million times more work than we had to do. and that saga began last july. it's been almost a year. bless him. the father had a stroke a year ago and is in assisted living. he was a hoot (would it be weird to go visit the owner of your previous house in assisted living, whom you've only met once? david and i both kind of want to visit him). he called his room a "cell" (apparently he's in the nicest assisted living place in the area). ha. and the mother is the one calling the shots. she's all business, but she cared enough to ask us questions about our lives following up on the letter i submitted with our offer. that was nice. i'm so glad we were able to meet them.
so this is our new (to us) home. built in 1968.
we were eager to get started on some projects. before we move in we want to have the original hardwood floors refinished. the living and dining rooms, the staircase, and upstairs hallway all had carpet that needed to be removed in order to prep for refinishing. my brother and david got to work on ripping up carpet first. the owners left a lovely cabinet of all cabinets in the living room (featured in a partially dismantled state below). once david and my brother hacked it to bits, we discovered why. the original original carpet was still underneath, and the original wallpaper was still behind it. oh so nice.
the floors are in decent shape though, so it's all good. can't wait to see them refinished. debating on the stain color still. we may go for something between medium and dark.
bina was super excited about the stairs. loves carpet too. looking at a stair runner from dash and albert. we shall see.
then i wanted the wood valences over the windows in the kitchen removed. brings the space up to date a tad. hoping to install new counter tops and replace the oven and cook top before move in. we shall see. before on left. after on right.
lastly i wanted the railing separating the eat in area and family room removed. david had fun with a sledge hammer while i covered bina's ears.
much better, amiright? already feels so much more open.
bina was a huge help along the way. we took a trip to ikea together and got a few essentials. i brought her toys from home to play with but she was more interested in the cord to our new floor lamp and the frames to our new chairs. well then.
on easter (he is risen!) bina wore her special easter dress from great grandma, complete with bunny slippers and oh so adorable headband. the out takes are my favorites.
it was special for me to be able to attend the church before our move. i'm eager to get plugged into the mops program and to meet other mommies. most of our friends here are ones we have met through church. living life in community with other believers is of the utmost importance! also, it makes life oh so fun - even when things suck. ha.
and now we are back in austin with our current home under contract. i cannot believe we have 5.5 weeks left here. on the one hand that seems like forever, and on the other it seems like no time at all.
the night we arrived in michigan we were driving to my aunt's house (where we were staying during our visit) and it finally really hit me that we are actually moving back. well, i'm moving back. the rest of my family will be moving there for the first time. i had a flashback to high school since that was the last time i lived in michigan on a permanent basis. high school was an interesting time. so much has changed since then. it has been 12 years almost! it's quite surreal thinking about actually returning to michigan. it's still hard for me to believe we actually own that house. we're actually going to live there in may. we will spend our 8th anniversary there. sabina's first birthday will be (weather permitting) out on the back deck. this new house will hold our memories for years to come.
that night i had lots of different feelings about the decision to move back. i know it's the right one for our family and for our goals. it was so nice to have my brother there to help with demo. as he says, "family first." love that kid. there is so much good that will come out of this major life change for us. there will also be a lot of hard things because major life changes are always hard, just by nature. and that's ok. it will take time for us to get used to our new normal in michigan. but we will! and we're excited about it. i can't wait to stay home with my crazy little babe. vomit and all.
now, back to life in austin which in the immediate future includes me waking at 5:20am tomorrow morning for work. we press on!
