What Do I Want For My Kids? What Do I Want For Our Days?

My question at the end of my last post was:  How do I transition in all of this? How do I grow with my kids and this new season of life? How do I move forward this school year? What do I want our week to look like?

My goal was for a slow and peaceful childhood. But something I didn't talk about was that I also want them to have to work some struggle muscles. Some of the reason I chose a more traditional, curriculum based homeschool model (over radical unschooling or whatever) is that I want my kids to realize not everything worth having in life is going to feel easy or fun. I want to work those struggle muscles and for them to see that they can do hard things. I want them to have self-discipline that not everything is all about them or easy breezy, feel good fun.  I want them to have the experience of  navigating something arbitrary and distasteful and having new skills or understanding because of it. Not to create hardship for the sake of hardship but to develop their character and help them have some recall to draw from into adulthood.

I need to find the balance between wanting them to dig in for the joy of learning something they're passionate about. And understanding that sometimes you just need to buckle down and memorize stuff so you have it handy and can use it in other ways throughout your life. Like maybe we need to incorporate math drills and maybe they need to write that paper on Louis & Clark or book report on Sarah Plain and Tall because it works "muscles" in both their character and brain. I may not align with any single educational method but I don't feel that I've gone completely awry in some of my more arbitrary requirements of them. I just struggle to teach or require the arbitrary because I struggle to teach things like they do in school. I was never good at school! 

Old pic, that's Joy4 (now almost 6) standing on the chair

So what does that mean for our school week this coming year? What do I need to do to ground us? What do I want them to learn? What do I want us to gain in this year? How can I use school as a source of connection and balance the arbitrary with the joy? What do I want our days to look like? What actually works with the real flow of our schedule and our family's lifestyle? 

I don't know. 

Schedule-wise I know the kids do best when I'm up and ready to go by 8a.m. and that's more doable now that I'm generally getting decent sleep. I'm usually awake and drinking my coffee by 7:30. 

Things that I don't enjoy about our school days previously have been: having 2-4 kids waiting on me to help them with questions. I do not enjoy bopping from kid to kid while someone acts out in the background (because they've been waiting 15 minutes and can't move on) or the boys start fighting or making tons of noise. I leave each school day frazzled and feeling grumpy because it was 2-4 hours of chasing my tail while I try to help them answer stupid questions in the text I wasn't assigned to read. I'm a bit bitter about the last school year or two in particular if you can't tell. 

Hard to believe this baby is starting 1st grade...but he's been the main source of the chaos the last 6 years!

I have come to dread school because it's just this constant relentless chaos of questions and drama and kids at loose ends and me struggling not to snap at the same behaviors we've dealt with 229 times already that week. 

So that's not working for me. 

How can I manage this better? What do I want the days to look like? 

What's worked best is to set aside an hour for each kid in the day and that's their hour to do their focused school with me. We go into my bedroom with their school basket and they get that hour with me all to themselves. But I do not have an hour to give anymore! I won't ever use a curriculum that require a full hour or my holding their hand. What would work even better is if I focused on explaining the next day's assignments to them so that they could get started earlier the next day and know what they need help with when it comes to their turn and time with me. We can bop those issues right off and be more efficient and focused. 

So what would my ideal day be this year?

My ideal  school day would be...

7:30: Wake up by then at the latest
7:30-8:00 coffee and quiet time
8:00 get breakfast together...bake the muffins, make the pancakes..make sure the smoothies.
8:30 chores...chickens, dog, cow...garden.
9:30ish Family Style Work: Read aloud, History read aloud and project. Science on the alternate days.
10:30 One on One  #1 I work for 30 minutes with AJ. She's usually the most anxious to get her work done and usually needs the most hand holding.
11:00: One on One  #2 I work 15-20 minutes with RJ she's usually at a place where she's looked everything over and has questions.
11:15 One on One  #3 I work for 30 minutes with PJ she's usually done everything she can, read her reading, done her math...and she needs help with language arts/grammar and maybe some math questions Her work usually doesn't take very long. 

And then this is the part of the day where everything falls apart. By lunch time I'm fried. It's been too much peopleing, so much thinking and questions and talking. I want a long break or I need to run errands or there are basic household things we've got to take care of ASAP...

Ideally we'd do...

Noon-ish. Lunch break  

12:30: One on One  #4 School with IF
1:00 Rest Time Mon Take RJ to Violin. 
2:00 Kids check off last of their chores before computers can be used. Friday Take RJ to violin

3:00 Free For All and Errands 

As far as a rhythm to our week? 

Mondays: RJ has Violin and currently every other Monday we have to drive down and get milk. Though that won't be an issue when we have the cow. 
Tuesday: Bread Baking. I need to teach the kids how to do this. We could focus on a baking project on Tuesdays.

Wednesday: It could be library day, we were doing Thursday but middle of the week would work better. 
Thursday: Bread baking day
Friday: Homeschool Park Meet ups  11-2 and then RJ has violin 2:30-4:30

Reading all that it makes sense why I'm tired. I think I have a better picture of what I want to do so that's good. Next post I need to work through exactly what curriculum we're going to use and how I hope to use it....Later. 

What DO I Do Well?

 

I'm trying to figure out what we're doing this school year. I've been reflecting on what has worked and what hasn't and feeling overwhelmed. I only have 5 more years of schooling Joy1, the reality that we're staring high school is really hitting me hard. 

I'm not a teacher. It's not a strength of mine to be honest and I'm looking at the fruit of homeschooling so far and on paper, well I'm just not sure. 

On paper my kids are all over the place, way ahead in some areas and way behind in others. That's normal for homeschooled kids but it's hard not to start comparing or feeling like a failure because I certainly do not have college level middle schoolers. I've never stuck to a curriculum perfectly. I hate making them do things that feel arbitrary but are the "right" thing. I waffle and worry. I kept having babies which threw a wrench in everything for a full year afterwards. I can be very consistent for myself and personal habits but when it means motivating others to do the same I'm at a loss. I don't know how to set us up for success or how to have a consistent school day or schedule...Things always seem to derail everything.  

When I set out to homeschool I wanted to offer my kids a real childhood. I didn't want them being trained to be good little students who could ace a test and get gold stars. I didn't want them gone 40+ hours a week and spending their entire growing up years away from our family. I didn't want their days full and rushed, I didn't want them to be in a constant state of stress and compression.

 I wanted them to be able to play, to curl up with books and get lost for hours at a time. I wanted them to be playing outdoors for hours on end with friends, getting muddy in the creek, playing in the snow and rain. I wanted to take nature walks with them and enjoy the gifts to be found in each season. I wanted them to find what they love and dig in and learn all about it. I wanted them to make mud pies, learn to garden and cook. I wanted them to be free. 

And looking back over the last 9 years I think we have done so much of that. I haven't ever stuck to a schedule. I haven't checked off every box I planned to scratch. But I know that freedom and time is what I've given them and I feel so blessed that we've been able to do that. They do know how to learn and figure out stuff on their own and how to find help when they're stuck.  They know how to read, they love stories and books and learning. 

I was talking with a friend in PA during our visit and she was saying essentially how she was going to try to relax this school year, to let go of the book stuff and focus on relationships.  What she shared was really resonating with me. The idea of building a daily rhythm to ground our days is so very appealing. It's what has worked best for us in the past, between babies when I actually had the brain space and enough sleep to get it together. But I'm really worried about the book stuff. I feel like such a failure that my kids still struggle with basic multiplication and division. That they won't memorize anything (except random pages of Frances books and random passages of books that have nothing classical or meaningful about them) and I have never been able to get them to see why it's important. I had visions of my kids knowing bunches of Bible verses, Awana award winner types, spouting poetry, knowing all the presidents and tons of history facts. Classical Conversation Elite all the way. I want to look successful and don't want to be a cautionary tale of those horrible neglectful homeschoolers. Most of all want my kids to be prepared for the real world...I want my kids able to do what they want to do in life. I want them to be able to find the answers. I don't want them feeling frustrated that I didn't offer them opportunities to learn the things they'll need to be successful. 



But I don't think focusing on drilling concepts, trying to cover gaps in learning and focusing on where we lack is going to do it. It can't be the focus. 

Our amazing School Room

So what do I do well? What does the focus need to be? How do I build more connection and help them learn and discover?  No curriculum is going to do it. We've tried them all with varying success. I feel like it's often such a waste because I'm not a teacher and they're not great students. They see arbitrary things as the busy work that it is, they see the waste of time. They see the reality that it's so that I can feel I taught something and checked something off an arbitrary set of checkpoints. Most of them do not grasp concepts by doing worksheets and crosswords about them. They are all mostly kinetic learners, they learn best from doing real things and through creativity. They learn best when their imagination is involved. They learn best when they are asked to solve real life problems. 



So what DO I do well? I love a good story. I love finding resources that make history come alive. I love nature and feel that most of understanding of science that you could ever need can be learned through appreciating and slowing down and being curious when out in nature. I am good, when I slow down and let go of the To Do list, at helping them find the answers they are seeking. What is lightning? Why do trees have bark? What kind of sap is edible? How does rain work? What about rainbows? 



I am also realizing I've struggled so much the last few years because 1) I've had infant/toddlers and that's brutal for me energy-wise. 2) My older kids have moved out of the curiosity stage.  The under 8 crowd wants to know everything about everything and they have no qualms about asking a billion questions a week. I love that! My older kids don't really get curious about things that require a library trip to find books about wolves or volcanoes. We have covered those things. They are more into 3D modeling and drawing and things that require youtube and hours of practicing a new skill on their own. 

The shift into this new stage of life has been really difficult for me. I find it harder to connect. I can't just curl up and read with them or try a hands on project from scraps I dig up from the junk drawer and pantry. I did do those things for them. But now we're in a new season. Their Dad is stronger at the technical stuff and he's the one slogging through helping them problem solve and find resources to do what they want to do.  Also having such a wide range of ages has been a real challenge, I think we're getting to the age where I can do read aloud times with out the younger ones making it an absolutely miserable experience within 10 minutes. 

So my answer to what I can do well: I enjoy things with them. Nature walks. Looking things up. Reading out loud. Crafty projects. I don't enjoy baking but I can teach them how to cook and bake. 

So how do I transition in all of this? How do I grow with my kids and this new season of life? How do I move forward this school year? What do I want our week to look like?

Questions for another post...

Update...Getting Settled...Home

Artwork made by our old neighbor in PA of our old home. It's my favorite

 The past six months have been a blur of hurry up and wait, transitions and changes. Our new house was finally finished in early June and we made the 45 minute move to our new forest home. It's wonderful here! A National Forest across the dirt road, a 14 acre spring fed lake bordering the back of our 3 acre property...nature galore! 

Our walk to the mailbox

Florida is full of rainbows this time of year...I hope I never stop geeking out about them!

A walk on our road

Space to play!

Half of the backyard (that's the lake peeking out)

Our home has 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a dedicated school room and it fits us so well! We are so thankful to be getting settled but that said, we've got projects coming out of our ears. 

The lake at sunset

We moved in early June, my Mom arrived from PA as the moving truck was nearing empty and she stayed for 5 weeks helping us get settled! I don't know how we would have done all that without her. She helped keep the kids while I ran back and forth to the rental to clean and empty it out. She sewed me gorgeous curtains that make the house feel like home. 

She bought us book shelves and helped us with a landscaping project. 

Landscaping Project

A family project!

8 tons of river rock: a lot of fun!

Gutters and river rock...It's a work in progress but at least now the foundation is protected!

We also took little trips with her. 

Then she left and I worked on a few more house things for a week and then we were hit with some virus. I don't think it was the big C, I think it might have been RSV? The younger ones were hit harder than the teens and adults. Nasty cough for the little ones and fever that lasted 5 days. It was exhausting. And then the moment (literally the moment) I was feeling somewhat better we packed up and headed up to PA for a nearly 2 week trip. 

Time with Mom on her porch

A visit to a favorite park

The trip was heartbreaking in all honesty. I mean it was so good to be back and to get snitches of time with my Mom and a few friends. But we were exhausted from the past 2 months and recently recovering from illness. Now we've been back a few days and hopefully we're going to start falling into a new normal. The oldest has started band  (2 days a week) at a local Christian school and I'm staring down the school year and feeling overwhelmed. 

Which brings to me to my question for this school year...

What DO I do well? Next post...

The End of 2020...Recap

 January...was a blur. We had a really bad cold and that was pretty much all I remember about that month. AJ and PJ both got their ears pierced at the end of the month. And Hubby and I talked a lot about a potential move. We announced to the kids on Pip's birthday (she turned 8) that we were planning a move to Florida. I feel a bit badly that it ended up being some thing we told them on her Birthday, it just kind of happened that way.

February...We headed down to Florida for two weeks. We enjoyed time with family and we headed out to the center of the state to scope out areas we might be interested in living. We came home the end of the month feeling fairly certain we knew exactly where we were heading when we moved.

March...The first week we were still recovering from our trip and I spent the end of February and the beginning of March trying to slowly fill the freezer we bought when we got home and prepare the house for whatever weirdness we felt coming down the pike. No, I didn't hoard toilet paper, I kind of wish I had it was touch and go there for several weeks on the TP Front. Our state locked down hard on March 13th and everything stopped for 2 weeks. It felt like the beginning of the end. I know that sounds dramatic but I could see the writing on the wall even the, our way of live was ending. :( We felt strongly to keep moving towards moving.

April...Still locked down but I began to go room by room and pack and clean things out. We began to meet up with friends at each others houses just to feel some normalcy.

May...Same story but even better weather more packing...Jeffy turned 2.

June...Real estate opened and we put our house on the market, sold it by the 14th and had a closing date for the middle of July. More packing and preparing and the goodbyes began. 

July...Packed the house up...packed the kids up...packed our life up and moved down to Florida. It was probably the busiest month I've ever experienced. Florida was getting slammed in the media for our COVID case count and everyone was on edge here. But the state was open. It felt like a breath of fresh air, even though people here were on edge it was nothing like it had been in PA.

August...AJ turned 11 and my Mom visited for a week. We had a great visit. We spent most of our weekends driving around land hunting. We found our property and put in an offer in.

September... Isaac turned 5... Lots of paperwork for buying the land...lots of stress...

October...A very hot month...spent a lot of time playing with water and waiting for the cool off. A lot of waiting in general...

November...We closed on our house and land...yay! Mom came to visit for Thanksgiving.

December...getting ready for Christmas, a fun month, met some other homeschoolers...They cleared our lot for the house...RJ turned 13. 

It's been a good year all things considered.

Self-Care in 2020

I was reflecting on the wall I hit Saturday night. I didn't mention this in my last post but after the boys had me up for hours from midnight to 2 a.m. and we finally all got settled and into a good deep sleep there was an unearthly shattering sound at 4a.m. and this is the scene that greeted us...

The giant mirror in the kids' bathroom came off the wall and shattered everywhere. I could draw a lot of parallels to this mirror situations. The fact that the builders didn't secure the mirror to the wall with screws and clips, they just slapped some heavy duty glue up there and called it good. We could draw that out to how that's a lot like Parenthood. If we don't have some things that we do that bolt us and secure us we're going to end up like that mirror.

I wouldn't have said that "Mom Guilt" is something that I have struggled with often. Yesterday writing everything out, it was kind of eye opening how much of that burden I have been carrying lately. I think some of it is due to Hubby's work schedule and stress levels. He doesn't have any extra anything to give and so any time I take from the kids is 95% of the time them just fending for themselves. So sitting alone = guilt. Grocery shopping alone= guilt. Grabbing an extra hour of sleep after a horrible night with the boys= guilt. I've been the primary parent for months and the kids have been getting the short end of the stick. Hubs sees this, he's well aware and struggling with his own guilt.  We can't change the work schedule right now, it is what it is (that's pretty much the phrase of 2020) but it doesn't change the fact that I feel this sense of deep exhaustion tinged with guilt any time I try to catch a break.

But that's not working for me. I need to have something to secure me and keep me strong and in place.

So what do I do?

One thing I need to do is drop the guilt. It's not serving me. 

I went out on the porch for a bit this morning and I stopped the "shoulds" and sat out there and enjoyed myself. I browsed social media and drank my coffee in peace.

Yesterday I ran errands and while that's not exactly recharging (I hate Walmart) I did grab some stuff for my plant babies and they're much happier now.

I think the thing that I really need to do is compartmentalize and be intentional. Yes, I am taking time for myself right now. Yes the littlest does not like being locked away from me or having me leave him but it's just for a little while, he'll be okay. 

This hour I am working on school with the kids and then I'm going to go rest by myself for a little while. For an hour I am going to work on chores and then I'm going to do something fun with the kids, after that I am going to sit and knit and watch a show for 30 minutes. I need to be more intentional about the time I take for myself and not feeling bad about it. 

Today I am going to...

•  Go through the kids school books and get their schedules written for the week. 
• Get Joy2's math pages printed and organized
• Call the dryer repairman and ask him what my options are for our broken dryer (oh yeah on top of the bad sleep and shattered mirror the dryer broke this weekend!)
•  Wash a few loads and dry them outside (yay for a working washing machine!)

 

Finding the Balance Between Self-Care and Self-Improvement

The 5 year old has been struggling this year with sleep, especially since the Lockdowns started in March. He's a really sensitive guy and he's the perfect little barometer for the atmosphere and stress levels in our home. When we are stressed his sleep goes out the window and he wakes up anxious at night. Between the instability, our private worries about food and money in those early weeks of Lockdown. The work of preparing our house to sell, the insanity of selling our home and moving our family of seven 1,000+ miles, the weeks of getting settled and hunting for land, finding a house to put on the land. Mixed into the midst of that the insane hours Hubby has been working, adjusting to a whole new place, trying to homeschool and function. His sleep issues are expected I suppose. 

Friday night he had me up for hours because he was anxious. I was so patient, I rubbed his head and prayed for him and we muddled through the night. Usually when he has a bad night the next night was better but to my bitter surprise this was not the case and the disappointment and sleep deprivation triggered me. I got angry. I'm right there with him! He sleeps with his head shoved into my all night every night. I have my hand on his body! I can't do any thing more and I WANT SLEEEEEP!!!!!! 

He woke me up again when I was in deep in my first hour of amazing restorative sleep and my sleep deprived brain snapped. I was mean, I threw a hissy fit on the bed  pounding my fists and yelling, I kicked him out of the room and told him to go sleep somewhere else, I didn't care where. Not proud of myself at all. Daddy got him settled and I've made things right but it was eye opening to the level of burn out I am experiencing. 

I laid in bed seething and then feeling deep remorse and guilt for being such a shrew to my sweet and anxious little boy. I started reflecting and berating myself (so helpful) for being so burnt out. I mean I take time for myself! I go grocery shopping once a week! 

And I feel guilty for going alone, going on a weekday (because the stores are less crazy) while Hubby is trying to work. I feel guilty for taking so long when he's juggling the kids.

I workout every day! I take at least 30 minutes for myself every single day to stretch and twist my spine and push my lymphatic system.

I take time to have some Bible time almost every day. I sit out on the front stoop or in my rocking chair in the quiet bedroom for at least 30 minutes and do my daily reading and write and reflect. I mean the kids interrupt me every 5 minutes or so to ask a question or tell me some small person needs their bum wiped or because some one is howling...But I carve out that time!

I was laying there last night ticking all those things off and I was reminded of the book The Introverted Mom by Jamie C. Martin and her profound point that there is a difference between self-care and self-improvement. 

Self-care is doing things that truly recharge you and fill you up. Self-improvement is great and it can make you feel like you're accomplishing things but it is NOT self-care. And when any self-care that you access is constantly intrupted? No bueno. 

 Adding to that, if you're flooding any semblance of self-care with guilt...or feeling guilty meeting basic needs of your family in a way that keeps you sane? So unhelpful! And Exercise is self-improvement. It does make me feel better and is partially self-care but it's not fun, it's not like, "Yes this just filled my tank!!" It definitely falls under, "I did this so my body won't fall apart from stress and I won't slip into depression, go me!" It make me feel physically good afterwards but at it's base: it is self-improvement.

 So where does that leave me? How the heck do I do self-care? In the past self-care was going to Hobby Lobby and wandering around thinking about crafts I'd like to do. It was going to the park and wandering alone for a few hours. 

 But in our old state there was a mask mandate and walking through the masked masses depresses me beyond anything. Add to it that wearing a mask means that I end up with an awful pounding headache after wearing a mask for more than a few minutes. And we don't live near any of the small parks I felt safe wandering alone, all the parks here are trail heads that are very secluded. I miss my old places. So mix in a pile of grief and homesickness to my old self-care habits.  

So how can I do this? How do I recharge during this stressful season? 

I haven't come up with any answers but I'm going to reflect on it today. I'm going to go out alone and buy a pedestal fan to blow on me at night because part of my meltdown last night was also triggered by being physically incredibly uncomfortable. I woke up soaked in sweat because the central air to our bedroom is horrific when the bedroom door is close...but Hubby stays up lat into the night and we have to keep the door closed because he needs the lights.

More tomorrow...I need to go make muffins for the kids, they're hungry again.

Big Changes 2020...Hunt for Home!

 You can read Part 1 and Part 2 of our Big Changes 2020 posts in those links!

It's really strange moving to an entirely different area. It was fun driving into our development...Suburb? I think they call it a "Deed Restricted Community" but it takes 30 minutes to drive across whatever this thing is, neighborhoods are different down here! I remember thinking, "This will all be familiar to me in a few weeks but right now I have no idea where I am or how to get anywhere, how strange!"

You have to use navigation to find your way to the grocery store. You don't know how roads connect or if there's a shorter route. You have no idea what direction your headed in relation to the nearest city or what the name of the highways are. Thanks to my hours and hours scouring Zillow and Trulia for a rental and housing options had gotten me fairly familiar with the different areas of the county. The search was on again for a place to settle. I don't want to give too much information about where we've landed on here but I will say it was just the general feel of the area that got us here. All of Ryan's family is in the Orlando area of Florida, we have some friends in Central Florida and I have some family in the Tampa area but none of those areas appealed. We came to this area and we just knew it was home. It's hilly (for Florida) there are pine forests everywhere and it's just gorgeous, it was very different from our palm tree, scrubby and flat Florida experiences of the past, it felt like home. The counties down here are quite big, it can take over an hour to drive across them and while we knew we wanted to be in this county, we didn't know where. 

 

Our dream list was at least 2 acres of land but Ryan really wanted trails to wander so upwards of 9 would be preferred. We were really hoping for water access (knowing that we could get water for the Berkey water filter something was wrong with the well was of interest). We wanted to be near the forest but have some open area for any animals we kept. We needed to have at least 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the property couldn't be too far down a dirt road (we have a minivan and a small car and no desire to upgrade). That's a tall list. 

Once we were settled we started driving around to places listed that might work, most were miles down dirt roads! Some were obvious flood risks, others were too far from any family (we really wanted to be within  2 hours of Ryan's folks). I had come across this listing so many times since February. It's nestled in a vast forest near several large lakes but the top view shown on the listing was this bizarre property line.

3 acres with access to a 14 acre lake...but look at the odd shape!

 

I couldn't make heads or tails of the strange lot and it just didn't seem like it would work, it was only 3 acres and it says that it has an electrical easement on the border of the property, if there are giant power lines, no thanks!

But we drove out to see it. We walked the property lines and thought, this is odd. But the more we walked it the more we loved it. The power lines are very small (just a line and a telephone line) and the property is surrounded by national forest and the power just runs to the few properties near by, really the easement is only on a very small corner part of the property. It is on a dirt road but the driveway is only .2 miles down the road.

We went back to visit again the next day. We liked it even more! It has an area down by the lake, an open area for animals to graze, a foresty area and a HUGE (hundreds of acres) of pine forest across the dirt road. As we were leaving a little 2 door coup came puttering down the dirt road! The neighbor down the way (a retired couple) said that they've lived there for years and have had no problems with the road...a neighbor further back has a tractor and he levels and rakes the road every few months to keep it nice and smooth. 

We went back the next day with Ryan's parents and had them take a look. The neighbor (with the pool you can see pictured, they are actually the sellers) was outside and we chatted with her. They are retired and had 5 kids (she loved seeing that we had 5 kids too), the property has been in his family for over 50 years and our lot was the original site of the cabin (which burnt down some years ago) that his family kept there for when this was their hunting and fishing land. They were originally from up north and would come down for family trips when he as growing up. The little lake is spring fed, has small gators that usually stay to the other side of the lake, it has bass and cat fish and they enjoy taking a row boat out and fishing in all their years they've never had a problem with alligators or snakes.

The property is situated out in what looks like the middle of nowhere but it's 5 minutes from a little shopping center and only 25 minutes from downtown! And it's only an hour from the beach and an hour from Ryan's family! His parents were extremely impressed with the entire property.

We put in an offer the next day. 

The public forest bordering the property goes on for a few miles and ends in a series of large lakes

 

The little lake next to the property, it's lower in these pictures though we've gotten quite a bit of rain since then.

More forest

More lake views

Our offer was accepted and after 2 months of hoops and paperwork we sign closing papers next week!

Now for the house! We looked into so many housing options for this property, we priced out what we could afford, what we were willing to invest and what would actually work for our family. We are a one income family, we work and school from home. We looked into stick built homes and were unhappy with our options. The companies were not well reviewed and had issues with BBB. We looked into modular homes while they were better reviewed and we trusted the building process more, the savings was only a few thousand dollars and we simply could not get the amount of house we needed. We found a manufactured housing company that we researched thoroughly (rave reviews online and from every company we've talked to that works with them, no listings with BBB)and we decided that it was our best option.
There's a stigma with "living in a trailer" b the more we researched the more we realized that manufactured housing ahs come a long way in the last few decades. The model we found and the company that builds it seems amazing. You'd never know it wasn't stick built. We've decided to upgrade  the roof to reflective aluminum, raise the ceiling height 2 feet and upgraded the insulation to the highest density possible. We'll eventually add some really nice permanent brick skirting for the house. It's a 5 bedroom 3 bath house with two living spaces and enough space for us to continue to grow (not planning on more kids but I mean physically, these kids take up space!). It's not exactly what we planned but it seems like the most solid investment. We really don't want (nor can we afford) a half a million dollar mortgage. Our main focus is having a house that fits us and that we can start a little mini farm moving forward, come what may. We hope to put a great big deep front porch on the front of the ranch style home and focus on making it a welcoming place to visit. We'll have a guest bedroom/home office and an extra bathroom to accommodate visitors. We're really excited!

The Future!

I hope to kind of sit down and plan things out a little. I hope to create a food forest, we want to get chickens and maybe ducks and goats. Lots more blogging as a I learn and figure all that out over the next few months!

It's definitely going to be very different from the city life we enjoyed before...To the forest and life by a Florida lake (gators, snakes and all) to new adventures!

What our old walks looked like.

Big Changes Part 2...Getting Settled

 You can read Part 1 of Big Changes here I didn't go into how exactly we chose the area of Florida that we did. I don't want to give too many details about our location publicly. I will go into it a bit more in part 3.

Closing on our home was set for a month from when we went under contract. In those short weeks we packed, we did inspections and repairs and said goodbye to people and places we love so much.  It was a hard month.

Ryan and I played here as children and this has been a special place to visit

A favorite park

On July 11th we worked from morning to night packing up the truck, Ryan's Dad left with the truck that night I could go into all the little miracles and headaches of those last few days. How the reservation we made for the big 26ft truck was somehow canceled. Well no, the reservation wasn't cancelled it was still there but it didn't matter the truck we had reserved was gone. Ryan and his Dad had to drive 3 hours early Saturday morning to get a truck in the state next door. There were blessings too, our church is mostly elderly folks who couldn't help us with our move. Our old church where we were married has a moving ministry and since we're still connected through Ryan's family several people came helped us pack up our truck.

We slept on sleeping bags in our empty house that night and woke up and cleaned the house all day on the 12th, finishing up last minute projects. That evening we said goodbye to our house of many years for the last time. We made a video walking through all the rooms and saying goodbye. After all that work we were beat but we were also desperate to get this transition over for the kids. Little ones do not love seeing their house empty, the kids needed this whole thing to be done. So that evening once all the cleaning and goodbyes were complete, we packed the kids into the van and drove all night long to the rental house in Florida. The trip went so well! I mean it was really difficult, Ryan and I were beyond exhausted from all the work but we took turns driving and napping and the kids got naps as they could. The littlest one didn't love sleeping in his car seat but got a pretty decent nights rest as long as I sat next to him and held his hand (Thank the Lord we have an 8 passenger van and I could fit in the back with the kids as needed!). 

After 18 hours of driving we arrived at the rental house at nearly 3pm. Our truck and Ryan's Dad was waiting for us there! I won't go too much into the drama of our arrival....Actually I will, it was difficult. We discovered that the property management company we had so carefully chosen (highly reviewed and well established) had profoundly dropped the ball. It seems the person managing our property had been doing a crappy job and was fired. In the week before the move we knew that our point person had changed but what we hadn't realized is that the company hadn't actually made sure that our property was ready for us! The house was disgusting. The carpets hadn't been cleaned, there was water damage in an area of the house. There was damaged walls and electrical outlets weren't working, the garage door was broken. The bathrooms were atrocious and both toilets were broken!!! It was so bad. After packing a truck all day on Saturday, scrubbing and cleaning all day Sunday and driving through the night (with 5 kids!!!) all night Sunday and into the afternoon Monday: I was shattered.

We had to get settled though the kids needed us to get things as normal as quickly as possible. I ran down to the grocery store (truth be told it was a 3 trip process, thankfully we have a Winn Dixie 5 minutes away!) to grab heavy duty cleaning supplies and I spent 3 hours scrubbing the black ringed, hair crusted tubs (I am not kidding it was so very wrong, I still feel horrified and angry when I think about it) and dirty broken toilets (thankfully one was usable but you had to stick your hand deep in the tank, lovely!) and sinks. I scrubbed and hung the shower curtains. I scrubbed the hard water calcified broken kitchen sink, I did everything I could to make the best of a bad situation. The next day Ryan's brother came out to help us unpack the truck an take Ryan's Dad back to where they lived (about an hour and a half away). Ryan's Dad is very handy and he was able to get the garage door patched up enough to use until the PM company could send a repairman. I had packed for this move as carefully and thoughtfully as I could and I had the kitchen  and living room unpacked and "normal" by the end of Tuesday. Ryan's Dad had all the kids beds built and set up (Seriously, God bless that man) and their rooms were "normal" and ready for them. We were completely settled and had a usable house before his Dad left Tuesday! Miracles, so many miracles happened that weekend, it was unreal.

Moving is hard, making it feel like home as quickly as possible!

By the end of the first week I had all the boxes out of the rooms and every thing as settled as they were going to get in this transitional housing. The house is what it is, it's too small for us and it's cramped but we've mad the best of it. As frustrating as the disgusting greeting was and the damage we discovered (not as picture or shown in the zoom walk through!), I'm thankful. We plan to move out before our lease is up and we have pictures of everything that greeted us. The company still hasn't repaired some things that we've told them about, we have good leverage to break our lease early without penalty.  And that's what we plan to do because we found a new home! More on our Hunt for Home in Part 3!

Before I close I do want to say that even though some things went sideways, the overall feelings I have when I think of our move is awe and peace. There was so much peace even in the exhaustion and frustrations. The memory of our drive down here is so sweet to me, covered in a fog of exhaustion but still so sweet it was a really special trip and driving through the night made the first 14 hours FLY. The  last 4 were rough but still the kids did absolutely amazing. We have some seriously amazing people in our family (including our incredible children) and we had some seriously wonderful prayer warriors covering us on that journey. It was a good time even if it was hard. 

The Hunt for Home coming soon!