I’ve spent the last three months in partial survival mode. Yep, that’s right. I just sold a house, packed it up, lived in limbo for a while, bought a new house, dealt with a bit of a remodel and moved in mid-remodel. It has been a whirlwind. It has been stressful. And it has been a journey full of blessings. Let me explain…
We weren’t really planning on moving this year but the market was so crazy we thought better of waiting the extra year. The house sold in nine days! We couldn’t believe it. Wow! What a blessing! We got full price and only had to endure a week of showings and the stress of keeping the house perfect. We were excited and nervous because we had no idea where we would go next, but first we had to start packing.
Ugh, the packing! Who knew you could collect so much stuff in sixteen years? I’m not even a “saver” but man, do we have stuff! I had sixteen years’ and four kids’ worth of stuff to sort and pack. (A hidden blessing was that I was able to get rid of two truckloads of stuff.) It came down to the wire, but luckily some friends came to the rescue and helped me pack right before the movers came.
The next hurdle was finding a place to go while we were between homes. That was really stressful at first. No one wanted to rent to a family short-term and rent prices can be ridiculous. However, we were blessed again by having family offer to open their home to us. (We also had friends from church offer.) We moved in and lived with them for three months. They were such a blessing to us. And my children (all of us really) have grown closer to them and I really enjoyed the family time we got to have with them!
Of course, we were there longer than we planned because we had a hard time finding “the right” house. And I worried about always being in their space – especially with six of us – but I am so grateful that we were able to have that experience.
One of the hard parts of this move is that we did not have a new home to move straight into and the stress that comes with that uncertainty. After all, we looked at homes for months before we finally found the one we bought. It was exciting looking at homes, but also stressful. Not only were prices high, but I would see a home online that we wanted to look at, call that same day, and our Realtor would say it already had four offers. Or we would look at homes that had the right bones but needed so much work they weren’t affordable.
It was so insane that we went to look at our “dream home.” You know the one – it has everything you want, but so over-budget you would be a fool to buy it. We thought about putting an offer on it but I’m glad we didn’t. It would have been in desperation and we would have regretted it.
The blessing here is that just a week later we found our actual dream home! The one that didn’t need much work, had everything we need, and we aren’t going to spend the rest of our lives being “house poor.” We are so excited and grateful to be blessed with our new home.
The hardest part of this whole journey is the moving-in part. We have been here for almost four weeks and we really aren’t even close to being settled. Part of that is due to our busy schedules because life didn’t just stop so we could move in. The other part that has been hard is living in a remodel. (We didn’t have a functioning kitchen until three days ago.) It’s really hard to unpack when you are constantly on the move and have a remodel going on.
And did I mention all our stuff? We have boxes everywhere! How does one family have so much stuff? I’ll be lucky to have the last box unpacked by June of 2022. (Insert exhausted sigh here.) We would all like to be unpacked and settled with the decor on the walls and all the little nuisances of moving finished, but even this is a blessing. We have a beautiful new home (every kid has their own bedroom, even), we get to decorate it and make it ours, we have a space to have friends over and a place to call our own. As I write this article I’m watching my son play with his dog in the yard and my heart is happy. I’m sitting on my back porch breathing fresh air and I’m happy. I’ve watched my kids explore their new home with smiling faces and get excited about decorating their rooms and I’m consumed with joy. What a blessing this journey has been! Now to unpack another box…
-by Kari Carr
About the Author: Kari doesn’t claim to be a parenting expert, just a mom to her four wonderful children and wife to the love of her life, Mike. Together they move through the ups and downs of raising kids in this crazy world. She struggles through the trials and joys of raising children from the ages of two to 15 years old. Kari received her degree at WKU and taught public middle school music and choir for seven years before opening her own business, Sound Beginnings Musikgarten & Vocal Studio. She lives and works in Bowling Green.
