Still Packing

We started loading our shipping container yesterday.  It’s pretty bittersweet.  

Because we want to keep the house looking as staged as possible, we’re having to pick and choose from each room what should get packed first.  Last night, we decided my bookshelves were going to be our first task.

I have a lot of books.  I love books.  They’re functional decoration. 🙂  That also means I have A LOT of book shelves.  Here’s what they looked like in our living room yesterday morning:
That engineer husband of mine calculated that this was close to 1,000lbs of books.  We turned the shelves on their sides and packed them with books so we could use every single inch of space.  

Here’s what my living room looks like without them…
It’s so sad and boring now.  We should probably hang a picture there, but I don’t feel like putting another hole in the wall for just a week.

BUT, it all condensed and packed really well and now I know that our house will fit into 2 of the shipping containers that we ordered. 🙂  I’m getting more and more excited as we get closer to our moving date (a week from Friday!).  Our house has had a few showings and we’re trying to be calm and zen about it selling.  It will sell.  It will.  🙂

Tonight, we’re tackling my office and family room.  We have this container until Thursday and container 2 comes on Friday.

I’m thinking of this next week as the home stretch.  It’s almost over.  And then great things are going to happen!

Clean House

Our house has been on the market for 3 1/2 days now and it’s 3rd showing is tonight.  I’m glad people are looking at it, I just really hope someone is interested in it.  I want someone to love our house as much as we love our house.  🙂  And I really want it to sell before we leave in 2 weeks.  

Because it’s been showing almost every night this week, I’ve been cleaning the entire house everyday.  I am so tired of cleaning.. 😉
BUT, I think, for the first time in almost 26 years, I finally understand how to keep my house clean and looking good.  I have a bad habit of letting the clutter and the animal hair and the dishes get out of control.  And then I try to tackle everything, get overwhelmed, and refuse to clean again for 2 weeks.  But, now that I’m going over everything daily, I’ve noticed that it’s a lot easier.  I spend less time cleaning because I’m cleaning more often.  I’m sure most of you (and my mom… Hi MOM!) are already aware of this cleaning phenomenon, but evidently I needed to experience it to understand it.  

On the flip side, I’m also afraid to use my house because I don’t want to have to re-clean something.  The dogs have been angels all week because I’m letting them sleep on our bed all day long so that in the evening when there’s a showing, I just have to fluff the duvet, throw on their leashes, and head to the car.  They think they’re getting away with something, but hey, it’s a win-win.

In other news, the NCCRM sent me the link to their online portal.  Yes. It’s online.  All of it.  I signed in, filled out our histories (and boy, there was a whole lot more than the last time I saw a new RE…), and hit “save”.  That was it.  It also shows future appointments, test results, instructions, medication, and more.  It’s awesome!  I don’t have most of my records from Dr. B’s because they only told you what you needed to know or asked for.  Now, I’ll have access to everything so I can obsess about it throughout every single piece of my cycle. 😉  But really, I’m excited to have a place to see and store all of that information.  I’ve got good feelings about this place!  My appointment is less than 4 weeks away and I can’t wait!

We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow!  I can’t believe the time is going so quickly! We’re using 2 containers from PackRat to ship our things down to North Carolina and our first one will be here on Monday.  I’m excited!  Now if only this house would sell…

House for Sale!

Welp, our house is officially on the market, we signed a lease for a 3 bedroom house just outside of Raleigh, and we’ve started to pack.

This weekend was crazy as we rushed to finish up all the little projects that have been waiting over the past year.  My office got beautiful new floor boards, the living room paint got touched up, the closets and bedrooms got new door knobs, the door frame that Snow White ate earlier this year got replaced, and all of the outlets and switches got replaced.  Our house looks gorgeous.  It’s never looked so put together and so clean.. lol!  It makes selling it just a little harder.  

It makes me said that we didn’t get to have the life we planned here.  But at the same time, part of me is hoping and looking forward to leaving all of the sad things that have happened in the past year and half here.  They’ll stay here with this house and we’ll be able to start fresh.  

I made an appointment for December 9 with the North Carolina Center for Reproductive Medicine.  They were so nice when I called and explained that we were moving into the area.  And their accents?  The cutest!  I’m excited to start IVF.  I’m excited for this HUGE possibility that we’ve been blessed with.  

I found this on Etsy.. 

 

Click here to see the listing.

Do I think the IVF is going to work?  I have no idea.  But I’m so excited to try. 🙂   Cross your fingers and send some prayers this way for a quick offer on our house.  It will make moving away that much easier. ❤

3.5 weeks to go!

We drove to North Carolina and back to Chicago this weekend.  It was crazy and exhausting, but we feel so much better about moving so far away now.  The drive was long, but not awful.  We got to drive through the mountains and neither of us had seen those mountains before.

We ate GREAT food the whole time we were in Raleigh.  Maybe this sounds silly, but we couldn’t get over the number of tree that are in and around Raleigh.  I’m used to flat land with some trees, but Raleigh’s trees are so dense and beautiful.  It was awesome.

We looked at 7 different houses to rent.  We want to rent for a year before we buy to give us time to get to know the area.  We found two that we really like, both are just outside of Raleigh though.  Our first pick is a townhouse and we’re waiting to see if the owner approves our lease.  It’s looking good though.  Cross your fingers.  It doesn’t have a yard, but nothing we looked at did, so we’ll be doing a lot of walking and using the dog parks.  It’s only a year.  I keep telling myself that. 😉

We had time on Sunday morning before the rest of our showings, so we checked out a church that is by Jeremy’s new office building.  And we loved it.  The pastor was excellent and we met a few really welcoming people.  That made us feel a lot better too. 🙂

It was a good and productive trip.  It really alleviated a lot of our fears about moving.  We just need to get our house listed and sold and things will be looking amazing.

We move in 3 1/2 weeks!

WHAT?!

Well, kids, life has turned upside down, right side up, and back upside down again….

I know I left you hanging after my appointment with Dr. B, but honestly, there wasn’t much to say.  IVF or nothing.  BUT it was the way he said it.  He made me feel guilty for being apprehensive about paying for IVF out of pocket.  He made me feel guilty for wanting to adopt rather than spend $10,000 on a chance to have a baby.  He made me feel horrible.  But I knew it was coming.

And then things got all kinds of wonky.  Every so often, Jeremy applies for a job somewhere else in the country that he thinks looks interesting.  I’ve always said “If we can bring the dogs and cats, then I’m in.”  I never thought it would actually happen.  But it did.  He got called for an interview the day after he turned his application in.  5 interviews and a bit of salary negotiation later and….

We’re moving to Raleigh, North Carolina!!  Weird. Terrifying.  Exciting.  Yes.

But what else? IVF COVERAGE!!!!  It was an amazing offer complete with IVF coverage!  What the what?!

I know, I know, we JUST bought our house last year.  And we JUST got settled.  And we JUST put our fence up and did some lovely landscaping.  However… this feels good.  It feels like a fresh start with fresh and exciting opportunities.  It also feels like the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life… But we’ll be fine…

We have the chance to create a family in North Carolina.  It’s more of a chance than we’ve had in a long time.  There are two good clinics down there and Dr. B highly recommended the North Carolina Center for Reproductive Medicine.  I might still get to have a baby.  We had talked ourselves out of the possibility, but now that it’s an option again, I think we’re both realizing that it’s still important to us.  It’s something we still want.  Even though we both used to say that we’d never do IVF.  Just kidding. 😉

I’ve never lived outside of Chicago.  And now we’re moving south east and it’s exciting.  We’re going to miss our families and friends like crazy, but I can’t help but think that THIS is where we’re supposed to be now.

We’re planning to move on November 30.  We’ll be down there this weekend to look at houses.

Seeing as we’ve never been to Raleigh, we’ll take any tips or thoughts anyone has about where to live. 😉

More updates soon!