Happy Saturday friends! As I mentioned last week I thought that for the next year it would be interesting and helpful to those that might be moving to document and share some behind the scenes things of our moving experience. Last week I shared some of the beginning thoughts of making a long-distance (cross country) move and today I wanted to share some updates on this past week.
This past week was so busy and while it felt like some days we weren't seeing any progress, as I look back over the whole week it really was incredible how much we were able to accomplish! It definitely felt like we were able to accomplish a ton and it was encouraging in so many ways!
One of the things that I shared on instagram was about how we decided to move all of our boxes and packages and some furniture from the upstairs of the house to the downstairs. Our reason for doing this was not to create extra work, but to have the upstairs as clear as possible for the realtor to be able to see exactly what space we have.
You may remember that our downstairs was gutted (literally) due to mold remediation this past winter (you can read about it HERE) and so the cleaned out and healthy downstairs has provided a cost effective way to store our items. This has helped us with saving costs on a storage unit and has allowed the realtor to be able to see our upstairs and the rest of the house more easily.
It has taken a lot of time to do this between just mom and I and there were a bunch of boxes and crates that we were just not able to lift on our own. As I am still healing from treatment from so many years and coming off of my first year back to teaching my energy and strength is still not up to a "regular" person. My mom has also been dealing with a lot of knee pain and so... I am not going to lie...sometimes doing things just the two of us is a bit overwhelming, but the Lord has continued to help strengthen us in this process.
In addition to that we just don't know a lot of people in the area we live and lots of our friends from our time of living life here in Tennessee have moved away. As I left for college at 18 and then life took me to different places, many of the people that I knew no longer live in Tennessee and most of my parents friends have long since moved in the years since we left for New York. And neighbors that we knew have also moved away. This past year has been so busy and such a whirlwind that we have not had the chance to develop deep friendships in the way that we would have liked, so this has left us (like many of you reading this) in a situation where we just don't have the help for moving like we have had in the past. Also, we are working to save money and so we are doing this on our own.
With this, one of the biggest blessings was the help of several friends who came over on Wednesday and spent time helping us with some things we just couldn't do. These ladies were incredible. They showed up on their day off of work, helped me take several loads to the dump by lifting furniture we were getting rid of and then helped move boxes and crates in the pouring rain. What would have been impossible for my mom and I to do, these ladies were able to do within a few hours! I still have tears because they were so incredible! ALSO their laughter and joy also brought some much needed emotional encouragement in the moving process also. I am so incredibly grateful for all of their support. I definitely felt lighter and encouraged and energized to be able to keep pressing on after Wednesday. I love y'all!!
On Thursday our realtor came to look at the house which was something that we were kind of holding our breath about. We know that after 5 years of being away for my treatment and health that the house does have work to be done on it and so we were a bit anxious to hear what he had to say. While we both know the Lord is leading us to this new space and adventure in New York, it is also an emotional process, especially for my mom and so we continue to covet prayers for this. The realtor told us that the house has "excellent bones" and that in this economy it should be "no problem" to sell it and sell it quickly so that was encouraging news to hear.
As we close out this week both mom and I are feeling encouraged in how much has been accomplished in a week's time and also praying for a wonderful week ahead of similar gains. Our goal is to get out of TN as quickly as possible so that we can get up to New York to have time to find a place to live, settle in, and also have a break to recuperate from a long and difficult year of losing my grandmother and a ton of other changes and things behind the scenes before the start of my school year. We appreciate your support and love as we work to accomplish this!
Next week we will be meeting again with our realtor to again to go over specific comps and we specifically ask for prayer that the house would sell quickly for my mom, that the price it sells for would be a blessing to her, for our energy and for our health in these busy and stressful days, and for the Lord's continued guidance and provision. Thank you so much for praying for us! I can't wait to share in a week more updates and progress!
(PS- I well understand that we are not the only ones moving in the midst of a season of unexpectedness or in grief... or even those who are military families moving to a different country. My heart and prayers are with you if you are in one of these situations.)
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