You should have seen me standing there, in that aisle, deeply surveying all the different kinds of carboard boxes (who knew there could be so many options?!). I laughed to myself as I tried to load up 8 large boxes, 10 medium boxes, and 6 small boxes into my dingy cart. I almost took out a few ankles just getting to the checkout counter.
“Are you moving away from here?” The checkout lady asked.
I smiled, “just 10 minutes down the road.”
It’s felt like such a long few years of uncertainty. We’ve talked about every possible idea for where we want to plant roots and make our lives. We’ve gone from Nashville, to Salt Lake City, to Birmingham, or to just pile everything up and move to Northeast England where my husband is from. But along the way, I was taught an important lesson in waiting, in that life continues to move forward. We built stronger roots here in Florida. My photography business started to take off, and we realized that for the time being, staying here feels like the right choice for us.
The deep sigh of relief I feel to have signed that 2-year lease and know what our life will look like for the next little while feels amazing.
As I walked out of the store, my many carboard boxes piled up, I loudly proclaimed to the worker chuckling at me as I navigated driving a cart I couldn’t see around, “We’re only moving down the road.”
I am thrilled to share that my little family is moving! And I hope I don’t let you down when I say, it’s a whopping total of a 13-minute drive from where we currently live.
But it’s our own space! With a backyard! And a patio! And a bathtub in the master bedroom! (A master bedroom!) And a room for Maverick! An entryway! And a garage!
We’ve been living in a house that sits above my parent’s garage behind their house for the past 4 years together, and I’ve been living here off and on for 9 years now. We have been BEYOND grateful for this space and for my parents to let us call it home for all these years. It’s also in such an incredible area and it has been the biggest gift for us. But, we have been craving a bit more room and space to call our own.
Everything happened so quickly. The market here is insane (and we are renting, not yet buying) so when something pops up, you have to move on it. It’s a one-story 4-bedroom home in our dream neighborhood and sits on the corner of a lake (Matt insists it’s a pond, but I say lake). It’s also a brand-new build. We are waiting to move in until the fence is put up for safety reasons (we have a two-year-old and a dog) but our current uhaul rental is planned for the 8th. Thankfully, we don’t have to be out of this house immediately so we can take a little time to move, and we’ve already started putting some boxes and random things over there.
This home we’ve been in for the past 9 years has been so incredibly special to me. When I moved in, I was 21-years-old and felt like life was only beginning. Now I’m 30, a mother and a wife, and life feels like we’re right in the most special chapter. We brought our daughter home here, and that will always make it a sentimental home for me.
If you know me at all, you know I detest change. It’s always been “my thing” I’ve struggled with (ask my best friends about the time I bawled my eyes out in a zumba dance studio parking lot because they were leaving for college). So this feels hard, but I’ve learned with age that hard doesn’t have to mean bad. Sometimes the hardest things yield the greatest results, and I’m thrilled that we get to take this step into our next chapter as a family and grow more.
But what I’m even more excited about is sharing this process with you!
I want to document the whole dang moving process and how we are decorating our new home renter-friendly and on a budget (because the price of renting in our area is astronomical). Blending my style with my husband’s style is definitely going to be interesting (he likes more classic/modern/clean lines and I like more cottage chic and florals) as well as decorating Maverick’s first official room!
I think what will make the most sense is doing some video of the process mixed in with posts, but I’d love to know, would you rather see more short-form TikTok style videos or long-form YouTube style videos?
I like the idea of longer videos, but my capacity with a two-year-old seems to be better suited to quick little vlogs where I can just throw my phone up and start recording. Either way, I’d still love to get your thoughts on it!
To me, making a home is along the same lines as slow living because so much of slow living (at least in my experience) has to do with the energy of our home and how we set up our days around our space. While I have practiced slow living now for many years, I’ve never had a space that I can truly pour all my energy into and this feels like the most incredible next step in that journey.
Chapters are such funny things, but it truly feels like this is the next one in our book of life. A new decade (I turned 30!), a new home (just down the street), a new career (photography!), it’s all happening. And I’m so grateful I get to bring you along with me. Thank you for being here.
You’re right in the middle of your Saturn return, so this is perfect. Around age 27-33, Saturn—the planet of structure—returns to the same place it was in the sky when you were born and then begins a new revolution around the sun. It’s marked by drastic life changes so profound that your life becomes unrecognizable by the time you’re done. Sounds like you had your little one at the beginning of your Saturn return and it’s not done with you yet!
I started mine as a barista living in Oregon and thought I was done when I moved to France at 30 and met my husband… but I finally finished as an author living in Québec.
Sounds like you’re doing a great job flowing through the changes (in spite of hating change). Congratulations on the new place and the new page!
I vote for written snippets with short videos, so there! Amazing how we are Supported when we ask for it... 😊