This house

It's Sunday evening and I'm here on my front porch, enjoying the beautiful Colorado weather.  I only have a few more nights to enjoy this before we move to muggy Tennessee.  I have lived in humid states for a lot of my life (Nebraska, Indiana, Oklahoma, Ohio, and a brief three month stay in Maryland) but I don't think I ever really get used to the humidity.  I might have already written about this but the first thing I noticed when I arrived in Tennessee to look for a house was the smell of dirt and water.  The air even smelled humid.  The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane in Colorado was the crisp, clean air.  I am really going to miss that.  Mike and I were commenting that when we move to Tennessee and get a taste of the humidity again we will have to remind ourselves that come October and November we will really enjoy the warm weather there and it will make up for the hot, muggy summers.

I feel really sad tonight, actually.  I have enjoyed every where I've lived and been so blessed to make lasting friendships in each place and every time we move I cry about leaving that place.  I actually feel thankful for that fact because that means I have found things to love about each place and I would hate to live somewhere with one foot out the door, always wishing to be somewhere else.  I intend to really embrace Tennessee and I hope the people we meet will like us and accept us.  There is a slight worry that maybe this will be the one time we don't make friends.  What if people don't like us?  What if I never do get used to the humidity or the icky bugs (another thing I love about Colorado is that they really just don't have very many bugs)?  I really can't control whether people like us or not, nor can I make it less humid.  I can however get an exterminator and I do plan on really making Tennessee a place I will love and cry about leaving when the time comes.  It will take time because moving to a new place and getting used to the new environment and making friends just takes an adjustment period, but I have high hopes for this new adventure of ours.

Also, I'm very excited about the house.  I haven't really talked about the house on this blog but I'm excited about it.  The first house we had an offer on I was kind of luke-warm about (kind of like I was about my current house at first).  That house ended up having siding issues and termites and a few other problems so we pulled out of the contract and found another house that we had never personally seen before.  But it looks beautiful and since I'm not excited to move and leave my friends and current house, then at least I'm excited about this beautiful place we get to call home for the next three years.  Mike and I are also very excited to get to have a garden again because the weather here makes having a garden pretty tough.  We are excited about having a bigger yard and less neighbors too.  I imagine that since we will live so close to the Smoky Mountains that it will be overcast in Tennessee, which might be difficult for me but also, might make taking pictures easier since it's better for lighting to take pictures with an overcast sky.  The boys are excited to have a forest behind the house (I am nervous about all the ticks I will have to pick off of them) and a pool in the neighborhood.  So, there are definitely things to look forward to.

But here I am sitting on my porch and I am feeling pretty sad right now.  While I might have felt luck-warm about my house to begin with, I definitely love it now.  We have made it our home and we have precious and sacred memories attached to this house.  Part of the reason I was sad about this house to begin with was just because we found others we liked better that had less work to do.  I knew that we would do a lot of work to the house while we lived here but that a lot of the things I really wanted would not happen until right before we moved and sure enough, here we are moving and those things are finally getting done.  We had our house painted this week and it is so beautiful.  I had a hard time deciding on the color because part of me really loved the white country feel of the house and we were the big white house at the end of the road.  Also, our neighbors painted their house in the same color scheme that we wanted but ultimately, we decided to paint it anyway (isn't copying the best form of flattery?).  I chose a taupe color for the body of the house with a black shutter that looks like a dark navy blue in some lights and a red door again but his time the red is not so bright and matches the red brick on the house better.  The trim is a bright white.  I really love it and it looks so fresh and new now and makes my hydrangeas stand out even more.

Next week we get the trim and door frames painted and then the week following we will get in some new carpet.  I wish I could be here to see what it looks like.  The potential I saw in the house when we moved here is finally being realized.  I am sad that I don't get to enjoy all the changes but I am very excited to be able to share it with my friends.  We are renting the house to some close friends in the ward.  It makes me feel so peaceful to know that people we love and care about be taking care of our home.  I am excited to think about having them love my house the way I do--plus, they are better housekeepers than we are so I think they will take better care of it than we did.  I really want them to love it and think of it as their home and I think they will.

I really should have trusted the Lord more when I walked in and felt this was the house we would buy.  It really has been so perfect for our family and I'm going to miss it so much.  I hope we can love the new house and fill it with wonderful memories as well.