A WEEK OF BLESSINGS

Last time I gave birth, the big event was sandwiched between an earthquake and a hurricane. This time was equally eventful, though a bit less natural disaster-oriented.

We welcomed sweet Willa Emmylou into our family on Saturday, May 16 at 2:01pm -- a week ahead of schedule. She was 7lb. 12oz. and 20-1/4 inches long. She has one dimple and is, so far, the chillest member of our household.

Okay so she has her moments, but pretty much only when she's hungry or when you mess with her when she's trying to sleep. :) 

Our house was on the market less than 48 hours when I started feeling contractions. Ez was working on a handful of final details early Saturday in preparation for our first showing that afternoon when I told him there was going to be a change of plans. The contractions were irregular but definitely the real deal, so we decided to head to the hospital right away, given a) how fast Johnnie was born and b) that I was Group B Strep positive and needed a round of antibiotics in my system before delivery in order to protect the baby from potentially getting sick. (Though this is really common, I took it seriously because we have a friend whose baby passed away from GBS infection.)

So we made our way calmly to the hospital, very unlike the mad rush of the late-night, going-through-transition-in-the-car experience we had 3 years ago. We checked in around 9:45am and got the IV started around 11. By 1pm the antibiotics were in so my beloved doctor, who by some miracle was on call that day, broke my water to move things along. Contractions immediately ramped up, and within an hour we were holding our perfect baby girl. Again I missed the window for the epidural, but the worst of things only lasted about 10-15 minutes. I didn't even have to push -- Willa was coming and all I had to do was get out of her way! It went so smoothly that within a few minutes afterward I felt better than I had in weeks. Again, very unlike my first go-round. 

Meanwhile, the house was getting a lot of attention. We had a couple more showings during our first days home (not recommended with a newborn, but we managed), and by Friday we found ourselves in the middle of a bidding war. Coincidentally we closed on our new house that morning, our six-day-old baby in tow, and that evening we signed a contract to sell this old log house -- eight days after it officially went up for sale. The new buyers love the house so much they even want to buy the majority of our furniture. Over the weekend they came by to chat and show the house to their kids, and they were so excited they wondered if everything was too good to be true.

The outside finally looking legit and ready for a new family.

We know the feeling, and we remain in a state of thankful shock. What a week! We knew someone would love this place, but we weren't so confident they'd be house hunting at just the right time. Of course something could still fall through between now and closing, but we could not have imagined a better outcome. In addition to deep gratitude, I have so many mixed emotions right now: sadness to say goodbye to the house where we lived and toiled for almost seven years... excitement for our new house, neighborhood and lifestyle... concern for Johnnie as she deals with all these enormous changes in her little life... elation at seeing our hard work pay off... anxiousness about moving farther from family... and loads of love for my husband and girls. All those postpartum hormones probably aren't helping with this truly crazy swirl of emotions. 

So if you need me, I'll just be hanging out for the next few weeks -- snuggling with Willa, coloring with Johnnie, soaking up my favorite parts of this finally-finished house, and marveling over all these blessings with Ez.

SETTLING AND UPROOTING

Remember how I said we were settling on our new house in July? Well, scratch that. We just confirmed that we're settling on May 22 -- just 3 days before my due date. (If we've learned nothing else from our adventures in this house, it's that, in true gluttons-for-punishment fashion, we tend to bite off way more than we can chew.)

Our house will officially be on the market tomorrow! The realtor and photographer came yesterday, and we've been in a tizzy lately trying to get camera ready. I did what I could to purge, declutter, stage, and deep clean a little bit every day over the course of the past few weeks. Whenever I overdo it, I pay for it with a sleepless night of hip pain, so it's been a long process just to accomplish little things, but thankfully this final push has coincided nicely with my nesting urges. Ez was still finishing up installing the master bathtub when the realtor pulled in the driveway, but we made it! The effort has been worth it though, and the house is finally looking the way I've been envisioning it all along.

Though we still have some tiny details here and there, we can officially call this house DONE. Can you believe it? I'll try to post lots more photos over the next few days, because the vibe in here is just so good.

Lately I've been trying to find last minute "staging" items like lamps and mirrors that will both cozy up our rooms for showings and that we know we'll use in the new house as well. Last weekend I did manage to score this beat-up old mirror at an antique store for $18 for our entry.

I'd been all over town -- Target, HomeGoods, Pier 1, etc. -- and hated everything I saw. (How can things that cost as much as $250 still look so cheap? And when did I become such a lamp snob?) As a last-ditch effort, I popped into the local antique barn and tried to home in on any mirrors I saw, ignoring all the other cool stuff I would normally look at. (So hard!) I found this at the end of the first row, 10 minutes after walking in the door. Mission accomplished, even if it reflects a slightly hazy and distorted reality -- which is really why I like it anyway.

As predicted, the dining room remains one of my favorite spots in the house. Though a little controversial at the time, I maintain that the planked walls were a good idea. (It helps that Joanna Gaines sings the praises of shiplap on every episode of Fixer Upper!)

It's weird to finally be at the settling in and decorating phase of this project, knowing that we'll be packing it all up in settling in somewhere else in a matter of weeks. It's simultaneously feeling more and more yet less and less like home.