We’ll Be Home for Christmas

 

It is OFFICIAL. We are HOMEOWNERS! We closed yesterday morning, but I couldn’t blog about it because as soon as we got in our car to come home, news of Eric Garner and all that madness broke. I’m going to try to keep it classy in this post, because it’s been a long time coming, but y’all, we as a country have GOT to do better. We have to. 

Getting Over the Habitat 3rd Trimester

If you read my post about the speech that I gave at the Habitat for Humanity annual benefit breakfast, you will know that I likened the process to being pregnant. These last few months felt like the last few weeks of pregnancy does. never-ending. So many people continued to ask if we had moved into the new house yet, and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand HOW they didn’t realize that I had not. I have been pretty open about the entire experience since letting the cat out of the bag in February, so to say that it frustrated me a little isn’t even explaining it right. We were supposed to close originally on September 30th. Didn’t happen. Then our closing date was supposed to be the middle of October. Didn’t happen. Then we got the Monday before Thanksgiving. Didn’t happen. After that last letdown, essentially the last time that I could go through labor pains of that sort again, Shomari and I just informed the people not to call us anymore with hopeful dates. Call us when something was set in stone, and we’d be ready to go. This kind of reminds me of my Prodromal Labor posts with the twins. 

The last week of November was when we got that call. I was still cautiously optimistic, because the way that things go sometimes, you have to be ready for a letdown. I was very reserved in my excitement, and didn’t share that we were closing until a week from closing day. I just didn’t want to cry anymore. 

Heading Into Closing

I’ll be the first to admit. When BIG things are about to happen, Shomari and I have a bit of a different reaction. While we are both excited, I tend to get irritated by really small things (so I attempt to keep it in check) and he becomes easily frazzled too. It’s odd, because he’s such a chill person. For closing, we weren’t like that. We were told that it would take quite a bit of time, so bring something to do, I brought more knitting (I LOVE that I have portable crafts now!) and Shomari just brought his WORK – ugh! However, because of the fabulous people in the room with us, we didn’t have much time to sit and pay attention to what we brought along with us. We had conversations about our favorite shows. Dr. Who, Grimm, Star Trek, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, BSG, Sherlock and others came up. We also had a young one in the room with us, so we did a bit of pop culture history for her. We taught about He-Man, Thundercats and other cartoon characters back in the day. 

There was LOTS of signing. Amazingly, I only had to sign two pieces of paper, and for once, I wasn’t dying to take the lead of something. My hand is lazy since I’ve left school. If it’s not being typed, it’s not happening. My husband is here looking all official and stuff. As an aside, does anyone else ever stare at the ring finger of their spouse and get all swoony? Is that just me? Because I totally got the hots for him as he started signing our lives away. 

 

As we went through all of the paperwork, the lawyer stated that we would be finished paying for our loan on December 1, 2044. I may have let out a groan. Nathaniel will be 44 years old when we’re done with our mortgage. The ladybug will be 36 and the twins will be 34. We’ll possibly be grandparents. I’m not ready. The entire process took a bit over three hours, and I will say that it wasn’t as stressful as I anticipated. We had a GREAT group of people working with us on that day, and I’m super excited about the entire event. 

We then had a mini ceremony right there in the office and we were presented with a card and this banner signed by awesome children. I almost lost my thugnificence, but I held it together for the people. Honestly, because sobbing like a mother who just birthed twins would have been four years too late. 

Fast forward to today, and Mr. Houseful couldn’t wait to start moving. He willingly woke up early this morning to take Nathaniel to school, and loaded bunches of boxes into our Traverse – I really love that car – I wouldn’t know the amount of boxes until I walked into the house later this evening with him. It was quite a bit that fit. We got to work unpacking, and cleaning a bit of the dust that was left, and just organizing pantries and cabinets. 

We moved the kitchen in almost fully. Lil Miss helped us way more than expected, and I started placing things around just to see how they looked on site. It’s weird to work in your home building it for so long, and then officially be there, at night, having dinner while sitting on the floor. It was awesomeness. 

For reference, the dutch oven is a Martha Stewart 6 quart in teal that I picked up during Macy’s One Day Sale. They’re on sale again, but not for the low price that I paid (sorry.) I also just picked up the 8 qt in the same color. I win at this thing called life.  The fish measuring cups are from Home Goods, and the yellow mixing bowl is from World Market. Let me tell you about that place. It’s as bad as The Container Store, and Ikea all rolled up into one. The list of stores on my danger list is growing by leaps and bounds. I have more stuff to showcase, but I kind of want to do it in a later post. I can not WAIT to share all of the decorating and DIY projects that we’ll be doing all over this house. I’m almost giddy. Okay, I am giddy, but it’s a subdued giddiness. Just trust me. 

Hopefully we’ll be all moved in this weekend, and then we’ll start our journey in the Nicholes Manor officially. I’m a little bit sad to be leaving our old place. It’s ceilings are HIGH and the rooms are huge, and I did a lot of growing here. Alas, it was time to move on, and time to give my kids a place to create memories not tied to a building that I built mine in. 

Until then let me leave you with this – WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! 

Check out how it all began

Check out how women build 

Check out our dedication