One of our home's best features.

I have no new room (or part of a room) to show you today. Today was my first day without help and it was obvious by the amount I accomplished. So you don’t think I wasted the day….Joel and I did make bread in the bread maker, I did 3 loads of laundry, got the dryer repaired (I wrote the check, didn’t actually fix the dryer – but still), bought a stroller and went for a long walk with an old friend. ( J. and I met when I was in grad school and she was doing her Clinical Fellowship Year in audiology. We hadn’t seen each other in 16 years! I now live within walking distance of her home and I hope we can do more walks in the future.)

Although I don’t have a new room completed, I can show you one of the best features of our new home…The Court (FYI Matthew could not be photographed because he was in preparing for his big presentation tomorrow, more on that later.)

Another area complete

My kitchen desk:
I like that the desk is away from the rest of the kitchen. I hope to keep my "paperwork" items here and not on any other counters. Wish me luck in being much more organized this time around!

My "reinforcements" are gone (meaning my parents left today), so my rate of room completion will probably slow considerably, but I don't care! It is fun to see all the things we have not seen in the last 5 month (like Christmas in April). Of course there is way too much junk and too many toys. I hope we get rid of much of the junk and at least control the toys until some of the items are "grown out of". There are toddler toys of Matthew's I don't want to get rid of because Anna hasn't even had time to have fun with them yet...but it makes for alot of toys. I do know Anna is not getting "toys" for her birthday (from us at least). Maybe a little picnic table (is that a toy?).....our original finally gave up, but was well loved (thanks Aunt Mary)!

Couldn't have done it without ya!

Ken and I were VERY BLESSED to have our parents come to help with the move. Without their help we would still be surrounded by boxes. (We still have boxes, just not surrounded by them!) We can’t thank them enough. They helped with the kids and “the dirty work”. The house was left vacuumed and with a clean fridge and microwave….then the sellers moved to their new home without cleaning anything else. Luckily, cleaning an empty house is pretty quick work and I had great help [thanks Grandmas + Grandpas (that’s what I call my folks and Ken’s folks when the kids are around and sometimes when they aren't)]!

I decided to motivate myself to get rooms finished by putting completed areas on my blog. [Plus I know many people will never actually see my house (although again, you are always welcome).]

Welcome to “The Ankeny Tour of Homes (I mean Home)“!

Here is my kitchen, you wouldn’t be seeing it for a few days if it weren’t for my mother’s encouragement (“get it put away, you will feel much better”). She was right!
Here is my laundry room, which has already seen a lot of action. (again thanks to Grandmas) I am just happy to have a room completed (and no dirty laundry).Here is one of the storage units my father-in-law and Ken built this weekend. The other one is even bigger! Glad to report both are full of totes! They bring me such joy that Ken is going to build some moreI promised my Mom as she and my Dad drove away, that I would finish the desk in the kitchen today, so I better get to work!

We are in!

No details.....just we are here....the apartment is ready for new tenants (ie. clean as a whistle and empty of all things McCleary) and the movers brought everything we own to the house today).

Two things you must know:
1. professional movers (and the nice college boy we hired to help us move out of the apartment and of course my wonderful husband Ken) EARN THEIR MONEY! We have had such hard working people help us with each part of this move it has been wonderful.

2. We have way too much stuff!

A scanner is a wonderful thing

In packing up the house, I have found a few things I didn't want to throw away, but felt ok about it if I "kept the memory".....

Some good advice from Carolyn!

I had to keep this tribute from Carolyn to her Dad.

Joel colored and used thumb-prints to create this at pre-school this year.

My own joy.

1 way I am bringing about my own joy is to have my children help more in keeping up with the house. I want them to learn to be hard workers and I don't think I have been teaching them this. Sometimes it is just easier to do things myself. 2 problems....lazy kids and a resentful mom. Here is one of our cleaning adventures. (trying to make it fun)

A 2nd way is that I am trying to be joyful.....when I am overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff I need to do, I try to remember that something is better than nothing, then get started.

The Joy Diet

I have started once again on the Joy Diet. It has nothing to do with food and exercise. As author, Martha Beck, of the book states, (and I paraphrase, but am close enough I will use parentheses so as not to plagiarize) “it isn’t about your physical body, it is for your inner self”. I have found myself needing to “get happy” with living in a new place, especially when Ken is sometimes gone several days at a time. I bought the book, The Joy Diet, many years ago and have come back to it several times. The book is still in a storage unit somewhere in the greater Des Moines area with most of the rest of my stuff. Since I have read the book already, I can get started without the book.

The book gives a 10 step process toward happiness. One step I remember vividly is that every day you should do at least one thing that might otherwise make you uncomfortable. I started doing this yesterday at Carolyn’s soccer practice and again today at Joel’s T-ball practice. Both times I made sure to introduce myself to the parents at the practice and made friendly conversation. It is not atypical for me to make friendly conversation, but it is hard to take that first step and start the ball rolling.

Another thing I did to make myself happy was to do as much work as possible getting the apartment ready for the move. Celebrate with me…..Here is a picture of the girl’s closet, which is stuffed with totes and boxes that are ready for the big day. I have gone also gone through the girl’s clothes, getting items ready for Good Will or to pass down. A lot of the sorting was related to toys (that always are getting mixed up) and paper-work (which comes out of the wood-work when you buy and sell a house and prepare taxes and work from home).

I feel very joyful. Not unrelated to the fact that Ken arrived home tonight! Yeah!

A little comic relief….here is a picture of Anna, who in addition to dumping out boxes of pick-up toys, enjoyed covering her face with Triple Paste diaper ointment while I cleaned. Luckily it is really good stuff and it smoothes right into the skin. Her face was as soft as a baby’s bottom :) Another note….today Anna said, “I potty” and when placed in the right place, got right to business. The idea of easy potty training (which we haven’t started) certainly makes me joyful.

Commiserate with me

Today I decided to pack up the family computer (not my work computer). I went to our storage closet, which is just outside of our apartment, across the deck. Unfortunately when I opened it up I smelled gas. Of course I did, there were our gas tanks for our lawn mower, that the movers wouldn't ship. I would like to blame my husband - why aren't they in our apartment garage? However, I knew the gas tanks were in there, so can't blame him - I still put 2 bags of clothes in the closet 3 1/2 months ago. (things Carolyn had outgrown or been given by a cousin to grow into since we left Newburgh in December) Also in there was Anna's birthday quilt from her auntie and 2 dry clean only coats.

I hate laundry and now I have 3 more loads. I am hoping to just air our the coats! The only thing that gave me any comfort was sharing my pain.....so here I am blogging it. (Joel doesn't have school today and Anna is sick, so we are staying in, so there was no one else to tell. Plus I probably wouldn't whine to the preschool crowd anyway.)

More Indiana Thanksgiving

I am so thankful that through my children's friendships we have met many wonderful people.

The reverse is also true. My children have had the blessings of getting to know many children of my friends

Happy Easter

Anna had Easter Egg hunting completely figured out this year. She picked up the egg, dropped it in her basket and moved on. It helped that she wasn't aware that there was candy in the eggs until it was all over!

We were able to go visit Grandma and Grandpa McCleary for Easter this year with ease. It takes a little over two hours, compared to our 8 hour drive previously! Yes Anna stayed in her P.J.s all day. She acted a little funny yesterday and today had a full blown fever. Motrin did the trick and she felt fine 30 minutes later. Of course it is wearing off now....gotta go.

I give thanks for....

The M. family was a fantastic addition to the Newburgh community. Miss T. was the only person who ever babysat my kids so I could work. I always felt comfortable when the kids were there, knowing she cared for them a great deal. Her daughters often pitched in as needed and the kids loved them too. Her hubby always had a smile and was a great help getting our apartment's necessities on the UHaul, so we could join Ken for the past 4 months.

K. always had a word of support and an appropriate CD to listen to! It was wonderful to share KinderKountry, Mother to Mother and even girls softball events with her and her family.

Miss D.B. was my Daisy scout buddy and my fellow-new mom. Her little guy and Anna were keeping us up at nights in 2007, so there was alot to share. Her hubby P. was friendly from day one - nice guy!

H. is a role model for living Green and living in God's love.

I want to be a blind leper.

Ok – I wanted to have a funny title to jump out and grab you, but stay with me. There are many references in the Bible to people who DO or DO NOT thank God for all they have been given. I want to be like the leper that went back to praise Jesus after being cleansed or the blind man who gave praise for his sight.

Upon leaving Newburgh, it seems like a good time to think of all the blessings we received during our time there. There won’t be a particular order, but today’s entries would be right on top if I was doing a TOP 10!

One good thing about leaving a town is that you never have to worry about “growing apart”, if you don’t keep in touch – you can just blame the move! I hope to never forget the joys we had in Newburgh, especially all the great friendships we developed.

Maria was a great support when I was in Newburgh – her three children matched up in age to my three youngest, so we had a lot to talk about and sometimes commiserate over. Maria has helped me survive the transition to Iowa by keeping me posted about the new babies and happenings re: our shared friends. She writes a hysterical blog that makes me laugh, even when Ken is away for the night and her correspondence is the only adult contact I have had all day! We have a lot of similarities, except she is much neater – not sure that will rub off 750 miles away, because it didn’t seem to rub off when we were across town (unless you count when my home was “show ready”).

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The Usual Suspects – It was wonderful to have a set of friends who regularly gathered at each others homes to share laughs, meals, Euchre and of course Bud Light. (ok , I didn’t drink any Bud light, since I don’t drink beer, buy I had to support the local distributor (who is one of the usual suspects below)!) Anyway I think this was the first time Ken and I had a group of friends, who were couples that we got together with often, where we knew both people in the relationship. Rather than “my friends” or “his friends”, they were “OUR friends”. It was great to have people who cared enough about you to get to know your husband and kids as well as introduce you to theirs! It was nice to get a call that said, “What are you doing Saturday?”

M.F. asked us over to dinner the Thursday we were packing up our house. It was a welcomed invite that was made even more wonderful when the rest of the Usual Suspects showed up to join us (except for the local distributor, who was working that night). It was a school night/work night so we were really touched that everyone made it out to see us.