Did you know that a giraffe’s pregnancy can last anywhere between 400 to 460 days? That’s a long time to be pregnant! You know what else can take that long?

Ok, it’s not typical for it to take 448 days to build a new house (and yes, that is the final count!) – but that is what has happened in our case. We wrote a check on February 25, 2012 to make a deposit on a lot and a new house. We had some delays in figuring out what we wanted to do and we went through a few different floor plans, lot choices, and waiting for the builder to open up a new part of the subdivision. We got all of that worked out and we wrote an even bigger check in May of 2012 and started meeting with the architect and picking out everything for our new house. We were told that construction would begin around the end of June and we would be in our house by October. We had a great time picking out colors, cabinets, and flooring.

I started packing up some of our non-essential items and preparing our current house to go on the market once our new one was underway. June came and went. So did July, August, September, and October. Even though the subdivision had been approved, the particular parcel of land that our lot was part of became tied up with the city because a church was going to be built nearby. That led to complications and we could not start the building process until that was cleared up. Finally, in early October, we got the go-ahead that it was going to happen. We got word that construction would start around the end of the month. I got serious again about getting the house ready and packing up a few more items. I tried to work on de-cluttering and getting rid of things that we didn’t need anymore. October came and went. So did November. By the first of December, I was feeling convinced that there would never be a hole in the ground before the end of the year and that it would just keep getting put off by winter after that. It was very discouraging. We had looked for quite awhile before we ever settled on building a new house, so it felt like we had been in limbo for such a long time (and we had)!

Then, it finally happened! They started digging a hole on December 13, 2012. Of course, it happened while we were out of town for our Disneyland trip. We had been waiting around since May and then the day they started digging we were out of town! My agent snapped some pictures and emailed them to us and I really couldn’t believe it until we got back in town and I could see it for myself. Our builder has been able to complete houses in about 90 days (which is kind of miraculous) but they told us ours would take longer because there were sure to be weather delays and we were also finishing our basement. Our agent said he really thought we would be in by around the first of April. I knew that wouldn’t happen. I was just hoping we could somehow move in by the end of April so I could host a family dinner for my brother’s wedding the first weekend in May.

Well, we had the coldest January we’ve had in Utah since 1949 so it was the coldest winter I have ever lived through. There were a few weeks where they couldn’t pour cement. I felt terrible for the workers who were framing our house under those conditions. It was miserable to bundle up and walk through the house. More delays. We didn’t want to put our house up too early and have to move twice. We felt like it would sell quickly (it did!) and it would be too difficult on our family to move somewhere temporarily if we sold our current home. We decided to wait until about 6 weeks before the house would be finished. I knew that I needed to finish getting the house ready though and we even had a friend who said they knew of someone who was very interested in this area and wanted to move in April or May. In early February, he said that they wanted to come through and look at the home. I went into high gear of getting things done and packed up a storage pod full of stuff.

The friend never ended up coming to look at the house, but I’m still glad I took action because it has lessened my current workload. It became apparent that the new house would not be done before my brother’s wedding. We made arrangements to host the family dinner elsewhere. We figured that it would be completed around the end of May. We put our current house on the market in the middle of April and it went under contract 6 days later. It worked out so perfectly, that we still keep worrying it will fall through since nothing has been easy for us with this process. The buyers didn’t need to move in until the time that we were going to be ready to move out. Things started really happening on our house and we are set to finally close the deal tomorrow. Crossing all fingers and toes that everything works out!

So I’m knee deep in final packing and making a lot of different arrangements. We will be in transition between 2 houses over the next week as we wait for a few final projects to be completed and some new beds to be delivered before we can start sleeping in the new place. I also still don’t have an answer yet from our internet provider on when they will be able to get everything hooked up in our new house. And somehow, I need to keep life stable enough for our family (especially Alex who is struggling with all of this change) during these transitions. It’s not like we didn’t have any warning… but somehow, all the advance notice has just made us weary instead of ready. As we walked through the new place last night, we are not quite sure how everything is going to get done before we close on Friday. There is still a lot that needs to be done. It looks like it is going to be crazy til the end on this one.

So at this point, I’m not really sure of what my blogging schedule will look like over the next week or so. I will try to post when I can, but I’m going to let myself off the hook and not make any definitive promises. I’m sure I’ll post some instagram photos to document our journey to the new house. Of course, I’ll have plenty of new scenery and fun things to share in the coming months. Now I get to finally put all of those ideas I’ve been pinning on Pinterest for the last 448 days into action! Here’s to hoping for as smooth of a move as possible.

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little bits of beauty

1. my favorite, 2. together..., 3. hidden art *exlpore*, 4. daisies again?, 5. Embroidery Love, 6. sweet..., 7. xoxo, 8. don't forget..., 9. Think Spring Part Deux

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

I love to get lost on Flickr. There are some really amazing photographers there and their photos really inspire me.  I just love all of these pretty pictures! You can tell that a lot of thought went into the making and taking of each image. Beautiful!

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I’m still giggling and smiling over this one. Alex created this masterpiece for me for Mother’s Day and said “here’s an obligatory, handmade dealio for you” and he handed me a frame with this handwritten note inside it. I love him so much!

Accept, Create, Love. Sounds like good advice to me!

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Be back soon!

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My mind is going in a million different directions right now and so I’m having a hard time focusing in on any one thing. I’m in the middle of 2 houses, several blogs, end of school year stuff, and I had gum surgery and a 3 hour root canal on Wednesday. That’s probably contributing to my foggy brain more than anything else. All I know is that every time I start out to do one thing, I end up working on something totally different. If there is something “shiny” around, it’s sure to catch my attention and completely distract me from what I should be doing. I have a TON of stuff I should be doing (like packing up the rest of the house), but I keep putting it all off.

I think one of the best ways to illustrate how my mind is working these days is to share some of my recent finds on Pinterest and the thoughts I have about them. I pin all types of random things and that seems to be just what my brain is doing right now as well. Oh, and it is also a great way to procrastinate all those annoying “to do” items on my list!

I adore these travel prints. I should get some to hang in our new house. I wonder how many of these places I’ve been to? I should make a list and scrapbook about it. I would love to go back to Seattle someday. That Joshua tree sure is pretty.

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I love the way all of these little vases look. What a great idea to save drink containers and use repurpose them. After we move, I’m totally going to start doing that. Oh, and I’ll buy some spray paint. But then I have to figure out where to keep all of the containers. And I’ll have to paint them. And that will be messy and I have to figure out what kind of flowers I’m going to put in each one and where I will display them. Yep, I’ll probably never do this – but I’m still going to pin it in case I ever feel like I’m in the mood to spray paint old containers.

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Oh, I love this song by the Lumineers, I should go listen to it. Hubby is the one who has it in his iTunes though. We really need to have a day where we do a homeshare exchange and get each other’s music. Alex has a ton of songs I want and now that I transferred his iTunes to his new laptop, he lost a lot of the songs he got from my library because I haven’t enabled his new computer from my iTunes yet. Man, it sure is complicated to keep up with all of this technology. Talk about your first world problems. It’s a great song though.

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I can’t help but yell “PIVOT” when I see this one. A great episode from my favorite tv show. I need to make my husband watch this one because when we are moving something around that doesn’t fit, I always want to say “PIVOT” and sometimes I even want to channel Chandler when he says “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” lol! Now I want to watch that episode again.

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This might be the perfect pin for me right now. I seem to need reminders to stay on target. I feel a lot like Dory right now because I’m so easily distracted. I love Dory though. I still think Finding Nemo is my most favoritest movie of all time. It just hits every mark for me and I love the messages about parenting, perseverance, and life in general. Just keep swimming!

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Now I’m off to either a) start calling utility companies to arrange for our move, b) pack up some books, or c) take a nap.

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