{"id":496,"date":"2012-12-05T22:27:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wednesday-december-5-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-12-05T22:27:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T03:27:00","slug":"wednesday-december-5-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wednesday-december-5-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday December 5, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Me: “Knock Knock”<\/p>\n

Xanga: “Who’s there?”<\/p>\n

Me: “Smilesbymiles”<\/p>\n

Xanga: “Who is that?”<\/p>\n

Me: “I don’t know either.”<\/p>\n

Seriously. How do you re-enter after having been gone for so long. It’s the strangest feeling … like you jumped off the carousel and everyone else learned three new songs to dance to while you were gone. Or like someone said a joke and you are just way too blonde to get it and the party goes on. It’s just strange. And too difficult to figure out … do I try to catch up on four months worth of blogs (up until today I have probably read a total of five blog posts in the past five months. Posts, I said, not blogs.). This certainly sounds wierd to non-bloggers, but not to friend bloggers. Because they’ll get it … it feels like you haven’t talked on the phone with a friend for months. And if I write, do I try to recap a little of what’s been happening? Do I just randomly pick a subject? Or is it time to formulate a whole new kind of blog? <\/p>\n

And I don’t know the answers to any of it so I just stay quiet. But staying quiet means I keep missing everyone and I’m done with that now. Right or wrong, I’m plunging back into the mix.  Nothing stellar.  Nothing earth shaking.  But at least it’s an attempt.<\/p>\n

A little of what’s been happening:<\/p>\n

WE’VE MOVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <\/p>\n

I cannot even begin to tell you how phenomenally awesome this is. We moved the end of October and every week I started feeling a little more energy. A little more normal. And a LOT less depressed. Our house has WINDOWS. Lots of them. Every single day I drink in the light. In the morning, it mysteriously plays hide and seek until the sun burns away the fog.<\/p>\n

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In the middle of the day, it is brilliant and warm. <\/p>\n

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And in the evening, it gets all warm and glowy and just delicious. <\/p>\n

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We love living here. The house is small, but we mostly fit. Best of all, we are alone. By the time we were here a week, we started functioning much more like our family again. It all just feels like a huge gift from God. We’re not far from camp so David can still bike to work most days and yet we have our own space. The yard is big and open (thank you, God!) and there is plenty of room for a garden (Did I ever miss that this summer).<\/p>\n

I have pictures from before we moved.  Pictures from getting ready to move.  But sadly, almost no pictures since we moved.  So here are a few befores ….<\/p>\n

The outside:
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What the inside looked like when they purchased:
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We had so much help getting ready to move, we actually got to move a day earlier than planned!  It was unreal.  I felt terribly overwhelmed with trying to move in the middle of school.  The house was in decent condition for being nearly thirty years old, but by the time we took all the old stuff out and off the walls, there were a lot of holes to patch and a number of places were missing baseboard.  For eight days we cleaned out, patched, repaired, painted, cleaned, painted, shampooed carpets, painted, and cleaned. And packed.  And unpacked.  And did school.  Although the school part went a little MIA the last two days.  There were three ladies who were going to come help me on Wednesday.  I knew we’d never finish, but I was like, “Ok, somehow God is going to figure this one out.”  Tuesday morning someone called me from a town about 45 minutes from here and said, “We have eight ladies who want to come help you tomorrow.”  It was almost surreal.  In four hours, they whipped out what would have taken me a week alone!  Jo let her girls come every day that week and they worked like girls twice their age.  Sometimes they played with the boys.  Sometimes they cleaned.  And when it came to packing and unpacking, they whizzed through boxes and loaded things that should have been too heavy for them.  It was soooooooooooooooo much fun to work with them.  They’re 9 and 12, but something about working with girls always makes me nostalgic about working with my own sisters!<\/p>\n

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{Proof that grey is a *very* hard color to choose}
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We didn’t paint the kitchen area yet because the cabinets are due to be replaced.  It’s kind of funny when you can just pick up part of the cabinet and rearrange it.  And a removable counter top might be reason enough to stop crawling up onto the counter to reach the top shelf.  And the appliances … well, let’s just say I’ll be really happy to see them upgraded.  In the short term, I’m most excited about the water treatment system getting hooked up so that we can quit hauling drinking water and the water heater being replaced so I no longer have to heat water on the stove for baths on laundry days. <\/p>\n

***********<\/p>\n

School is slugging along. Some days we’re plowing through math like a tractor in knee-deep mud. Other days we zip through the entire day like it’s a relay race. All I can say is this, <\/p>\n

Dear Mom, <\/p>\n

I am so sorry that I was such an undisciplined student the entire way through high school. But don’t worry. It passed right through the genetic code and I am fully understanding all the misery you went through.<\/p>\n

Love, Michelle<\/p>\n

If I could invent two things, it would be this. 1. Motivation for a day dreamer. 2. Indestructible pants for an eight year old boy. <\/p>\n

If anyone could ever get a patent on the latter they’d become a multi-millionaire almost overnight.<\/p>\n

***********<\/p>\n

We got to experience our first “turkey-in-the-hole” at Thanksgiving. <\/p>\n

The party started at 2 a.m. when the Pioneers (one of the groups of campers) lit the fire and started piling on wood. From then until 5, it was noise, singing, flame-fanning, wood throwing, flame-fanning, apple fritters, hot chocolate, and more wood throwing. The Woodsmen (the other group) joined the party around 3 and the Pioneers left soon after. The fire went from close to knee high to well over an adult’s head and flames shot nearly as high as the trees. Talk about a Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego sized fire!  I mean, we weren’t quite falling over dead when we got close, but it was H.O.T!  After the fire died down, the turkeys went into the hole of ashes and roasted. <\/p>\n

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{the woodsmen’s grand entrance and their crazy plot to “put the fire out”}
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{getting the turkeys ready for the fire}
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{the little guys made it their responsibility to take care of the hot chocolate fire}
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And the party night after:
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Traveling<\/p>\n

We’ve been in Maryland approximately 23 weeks and between David’s meetings with families and a few weddings to photograph, we’ve made at least eleven out of state trips. We’ve been out for the day (think leaving at 5 a.m. coming home between 11p.m. to 1 a.m.) for at least four more. I absolutely love getting out and I love both types of work; but actually counting the trips is making me realize why it feels like I am always packing or unpacking … working ahead or trying to catch up. Mostly, it’s a huge plus. David needed to do an interview in DC so the boys and I went to the zoo for a school field trip. My one and only Black Friday purchase was tickets to see Jonah at Sight and Sound for half price and luckily, David already had two family meetings lined up in the area. SCORE!<\/p>\n

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The first day of Thanksgiving vacation, we went ice skating about an hour from here.  Wait.  That’s not we.  That’s we went.  They skated.  I staggered for a few minutes. It was Adam and Liam’s first time on the ice.  Adam was thrilled! 
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Visits from friends<\/p>\n

Several friends have come to visit for the weekend and it has been so much fun! When we go home, we have an absolutely delightful time but our visit is always shared with so many people it feels as though we are always pulling ourselves from one place to the next. But when friends come here, it’s just them and us. We get to spend so much more time with them ……… I never thought quantity time was on my love language list, but I think it’s there now! Visits from friends are like a gift!<\/p>\n

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Homeschooling means you can’t stay up til 1 a.m. without getting really grouchy. Morning will be here way too soon to suit me.  Happens every time. 
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Goodnight.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Me: “Knock Knock” Xanga: “Who’s there?” Me: “Smilesbymiles” Xanga: “Who is that?” Me: “I don’t know either.” Seriously. How do you re-enter after having been gone for so long. It’s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-80","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}