We have been so busy around here lately that I haven't had much time for blogging (well that and I don't have internet), but I am finally getting a minute to sit down and give all of you an update. The week after we moved in we packed right back up and headed on vacation. After packing, Matt said, "I think I just packed up all of my clothes." You did, honey. You did.
We usually go to the beach, but this year we decided to go to Austin, TX. Here is a brief recap. We packed everything we had just unpacked. We drove all day long. We rented a tiny house for the first two nights. We went to Krause Springs. We went shopping. (the kids loved this) We swam. We moved to a hotel where my college roomie and her family met up with us. We went to TopGolf. (I am AWFUL.) We ate salsa at every meal one day. We went to see UT. We went to South Congress. We shopped some more. We got rolled ice cream. We moved hotels again. (Matt loves changing where we are staying during a trip. Loading and unloading the car is his FAV!) We went to Schlitterbahn. We drove home to a HOT MESS at our house. (more on that in a few)
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And you better believe that when someone has gas in the new house, everyone knows about it. The phrase- take it outside- has an entirely new meaning. Anyway, let me get back on track. Gas. We have propane gas at the house which means we now have hot water and are fully operational. Three days of living in the tiny house with no hot water was challenging, but thankfully we still had access to the awful house during that time so we just packed up and bathed there. We survived. Barely. Isn't it lovely? Just what every homeowner dreams of... a big grey tank in the backyard that obstructs the view of the water. Maybe I am being a bit dramatic. Really- I will take the tank because it means I have an endless supply of hot water for showers!!! Well, an endless supply until it unexpectedly runs out which I am sure will be on a school morning when one of the kids wakes up vomiting and we all need showers. But you know...until then. We finally managed to get all moved out of the awful house. Matt made a gazillion trips to the donation center because I was just too tired to be garage selling. Or lazy. You can call it lazy if you want. I call it tired and it is my summer break so I should be actually breaking. Many times Matt would drive up to the donation center right at closing time to drop a load. (of donations, people...come on!) The worker would always say, "This ain't getting sorted today." Matt always replied, "Fine by me." Eventually the worker told him, "Man, you are killing me one car load at a time." Now, this is a beautiful sight...an empty awful house! Matt even cleaned it. I wanted to pay someone. Matt said he would do it. Whatevs. I am really gonna miss that wallpaper though. This morning, I made our last drop off at the donation center. You know your house is small when you can't even have a laundry hamper. Those laundry hampers have held unmatched socks for eight entire years. Today they were empty. I told the spare socks that I was sorry I had failed them in life by not finding their solemates (take a minute...laugh...). Then I threw the socks away. Gasp! Freedom is having only matched socks in the house. Try it. In every load of clothes all the socks have had matches. And then we fold them and put them up. Y'all. I haven't experienced this in a long time. I may have to wait in line to pee at my house, but by golly I don't have a hamper of socks anymore! (And I have only had to wait for the bathroom one time. So far.) So we have lived in the tiny house a little over week now. How is it going you might ask? The first five days were awful. I was stressed and I yelled a lot. At the kids. At Matt. At the low ceilings in the bathroom. At the dirt in the front yard. At the dirty dishes left on the counter. It was bad. I was retraining everyone in this new lifestyle and my patience was gone after the first night. Since we have gotten unpacked, things have been much better. I have tried to be sweet and patient when reminding the kids to bring the dirty clothes to the washing machine or when reminding them to wash out their dishes in the sink. The one major difference in this house is that cleaning can't wait. Everything has to be picked up immediately. That is the one thing we are all adjusting to right now. The kids would tell you that not having wireless internet or cable tv hooked up yet is their main adjustment at the house. You know. First world problems. So we are surviving. We cannot wait for you all to see the house at The Tiny Tour! If you would like more information on that, please message me. After the event, I will do a room by room tour on the blog! Until then I will keep you posted on our survival in small spaces. (They are happier than they look. I promise.) It has been a while! At the end of my last blog, I was worried we were going to be homeless. I have good news, friends. WE ARE SLEEPING AT THE TINY HOUSE AND IT IS OFFICIALLY OURS!!! God is faithful!
Just to catch you all up... a couple of days after I thought we were going to be homeless, Matt called LOTS of people and had the water line tapped and the electricity turned on by the end of the week. The boy doesn't even like to call and order pizza, but by golly he took care of making sure we had a home to move into. My last few days have been spent in New York City. New York has lots of mosquitoes, too. Who knew! I learned that twenty-four times. They love me.
While I was away, it rained. And it rained and it rained and it rained some more. Do you know what that means? That means no work happened at the house. Sad days. I was able to extend our current lease until the end of June, but that is it. Our landlord has been showing the house to potential renters. I feel like I am selling a house. I do not like that stress. Keeping the house clean and the laundry done is not my strong suit. Thankfully I have been in NYC so my dear husband Matt has had that responsibility. But I am home now. I hope it rents soon! There was one huge delivery while I was away! Cooper's basketball court arrived! Cooper was on vacation with a friend, so today when he arrived back home we were all set to assemble. Soooo.... a couple of days ago I got a call saying the house was going to be delivered to the lot the next day which also happened to be my first day of summer vacation. We were so excited!!! I couldn't sleep and although it was my first chance to sleep in for the summer, I was up bright and early. The kids, on the other hand, are on summer sleeping schedule already so I had a good four hours before they would be awake.
Now when you tell me something is going to happen on a certain day, in my mind that means at 8:00 am the process should be underway. I patiently waited until 8 before I drove to the lot. Nothing was there except a squirrel and 1,394,642 mosquitoes. And that is not a lie. It was time for stalker mode to commence. The day we have been waiting for almost eleven weeks finally came. The house arrived! No, the house is not on our lot yet, but the house arrived in our city! Next step... schedule a day for it to be taken to the lot, run the electric, put in a septic system, go to the bank, and then move in. All of that should be done in the next three to four weeks. Go ahead. Sigh with me. Three to four weeks feels like an eternity at this point. Anyway, here are some pics of OUR house. We will keep you posted on the move. And no worries, when we are finally moved in (and have all the IKEA pieces put together) we are having a party so you can all come and check it out! You know. It will be kind of like the DMV. Take a number and when yours is called you may enter the house.
Soooo...let us revisit the trip to IKEA. The trip that lasted five hours or so and was filled with meatball burps. The thought alone makes me nauseous. The truth is my unusually daring idea to try something new at the IKEA Cafe turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Let me tell you why.
"Has the house come in yet?"
I have heard that question approximately one hundred times over the past couple of weeks. My response is always the same. "Naw, girl." Last night it happened again while I was eating out. As I was walking by, I heard a friend say, "Has the house come in yet?" So the habitual response came out of my mouth- "Naw, girl." Except as I was walking back to my table I realized that I had been speaking to a male. And I called him a girl. Oops. My friends, it is getting close. Really close. In fact, we are taking a trip to IKEA this weekend to buy things. Small things. Storage things. A couch. Why IKEA? Because it makes you feel super hip and cool just to enter the door, and when you get hungry you don't even have to leave to eat. Stores with built in cafes win me over. So do bargains, and IKEA has some cheap stuff! I mean where else can you get a barstool for $4.99?! So we will make the trek that many have made before us. Frisco, here we come!
What else has been going on? Let me fill you in. Well five weeks have come and gone and we still don't have a house. Actually, it has been six weeks today since we ordered the tiny house. I am really hoping that it arrives by the end of next week; however, I know better than to get my hopes up. We have seen some progress this last week. Dirt was brought onto the lot for the house pad (on the left) and for the driveway/ concrete slab (on the right). Some progress is better than no progress.
Life lately has been like a really long game of duck, duck, goose. Boring, boring, boring, boring, BAM! And everything happens all at once. Just in the past few days, we have started to have hope again. Y'all probably were starting to think we were punking y'all about this whole tiny house thing. Nope. We are still for real. We still haven't changed our minds. So in the past few days...
In December, Matt and I celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. It is crazy how fast those fifteen years passed by. To celebrate, we planned a trip to the beach. Alone. It has been SO strange. I really didn't imagine a trip alone would seem so foreign to me, but all day long, I have noticed the differences between an adult only and family vacation. You know what I am talking about.
It has been one week and one day since we officially ordered the house. They say it will take five weeks for it to arrive. Five weeks. It seems like such a short amount of time especially considering someone is building my house. But the time is going by ever so slowly. My nights have been plagued with dreams of what will actually arrive in four weeks. In one dream, I arrived at the lot to find a doublewide tiny house. Two of my tiny houses were sitting side by side on our lot and there was a door cut in the side of each one to connect them. In another dream, I was about to walk in the door for the inspection and as I peered in and cringed my alarm went off and disrupted what was bound to be a horrific discovery. I wanted to go back to sleep and find out what they did wrong so I could email the company and forewarn them, but that going back to sleep to finish a dream thing never really works out. And we all know how weird an email sounds that begins with the words, "I had a dream about some mistakes you made that you need to fix on my tiny house you are currently building..." Yeah. Ok.
Life has been dragging along as it always seems to do this time of year. There is a lull between the usual activities, the holidays have passed, and the weather...well the weather makes me want to sleep and eat. We have had lots of opportunities to spend more time together at home the past couple of weeks and it turns out we really like each other! Good thing!
One night I decided it would be a good idea to conduct some pre-move interviews to see if going tiny will live up to our expectations. I made sure I interviewed everyone separately and no one knew the questions beforehand. Look at it as research if you will. First up...Callan. |
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I am Chamie, wife to Matt; mom to Callan (14), Cooper (11), and Archives
September 2017
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