It's Been A While...

Is there a blogger out there that doesn't apologize for long gaps between posts? If so, I'm not following them.

So there's the apology...here's the excuse. We moved. I really expected it to be an easy task since we had so much time (more than a month) to get it done. What I didn't realize, though, is that once you get to a certain point, you have to choose one place to live and it no longer works to move a little at a time. You can't have your kitchen in one place and your clothes in another. That just doesn't make sense. So, with the help of my parents and some unusually helpful brothers, we did it in two days. We found out later that if we had finished a day earlier, we would've gotten half a month's rent back. That's another story that probably shouldn't be told, though. Too much bitterness. Let's just say no Burnses or Martins will rent from Lindsey Management ever again.

Moving did a tricky number on my emotions, much to my surprise. I had been so eager to have a house and just get it done, but once we locked the apartment for the last time, I teared up a bit. A lot of really great things happened there. A lot of really hard things happened there, too. But they all changed me, grew me, developed my marriage. It was sad to think that we were leaving our first home together behind, probably never to see it again. It was even more sad to know that this weekend, a man will be moving in there that just left his wife. That was hard for me to swallow. That apartment housed the beginning of our marriage and will now house the end of another marriage. Heartbreaking. All in all, it was just a sad experience to leave that stage of life.

It's been such a joy at the same time, though, to have our first "home" home together. We've gotten stressed out over things like hanging curtains and landscaping, but we've loved every minute of it. We've done it together. We can picture a baby or two running around in the back yard and sleeping in the front bedroom. We look forward to Ryan's parents seeing it for the first time and having friends over for dinner. It's a special time in our lives that I wouldn't want to trade.

It's just a lot of emotions...really even hard to put into words. In case I forget to blog for a while and you lose me, I'll be easy to find. I'll be the one laughing and crying and laughing again.