It Stops Being Funny When You Lose Your Bathroom!

So today we found a very large crack in the pipe leading up to the bathroom. Remember. The one and only bathroom. Ok, getting the box spring stuck in the stairway, funny. Losing all the bolts for the beds, funny. Even only having 2 out of 4 burners, funny. Not having a bathroom, not funny.

I realize that this is a very old house and things are bound to pop up. But the bathroom! I could give up my kitchen for a week. I might even be able to go without cable (well that one might be stretching it). I know that it will get fixed and I am so thankful that we have the money set aside for the repair, AND I am very thankful that we own a motel in town so I don't have to go without showering but I can't run to the motel every time one of us has to use the bathroom. Lucky for us you are only ever 5 minutes away from anything in Crookston so maybe for the next couple of days we will just have to have minimal liquids and schedules bathroom trips.

I Am In Love

I have officially fallen in love with Crookston. Two days ago me and Emily took a walk into town. Crookston has the cutest old downtown. There are so many old, well kept buildings that have such cool history. I will be taking some pictures once the leaves finish pushing their way out of the branches and I get a good camera (Kelly has promised me a new camera so I can continue with this creative side my sister helped create).

I lived in Monticello for 7 years and never new much about the town. Crookston is an open book. I love it and I can't wait to learn more about my new home.

I Bet My Husbands Goatee Can Beat Up Your Husbands Goatee

Really I think this thing deserves a blog all by itself. I love it. It is him so what is there not to love?

2 Out Of 4

Burners that is. That's right. I have 2 burners. (the small frying pan is actually covering up a whole where the burner should be) But that's ok. I really don't like to cook and so any excuse I have to get out of it I will take. Don't worry. I have a new one on its way. Some day.

House Warming Gift

The day that we moved up to Crookston we stopped by the house to see how the floors were coming. This was what we discovered.

The woman who we bought the house from (who is in her early 80's) said she didn't want it. She was moving into a retirement home and had no place for it. She got it from her great-aunt and all of her kids learned to play on it. I have always wanted to learn myself and was hoping that sometime soon I could buy a keyboard and get the girls into playing. Granted an old, out-of-tune, heavy as an elephant piano was not quite what I had in mind but we will make the best of it. The girls have already learned how to play Mary Had a Little Lamb and really, I think it looks pretty good in the dining room.

The House

For now I only have a couple pictures of the house. I am waiting to get some things done/cleaned up. This should give you a little look inside my new life.

This is a picture of the front hall.

This is a picture of the "parlor".

Picnic

Our first night eating dinner at the house we still could not get to the dining room table. We had a guy come in to replaster the pantry so all of the kitchen contents were on the dining room table. The girls thought it was fun.

Comedy of Errors

We decided to stay at the motel and let the floors have as much time to dry as possible. We figured this would be a few days. This also gave me a chance to just hang at the motel and see how things worked. The girls loved it. For the first few days. After that they were ready for some "new normal". Every day when Ada came home from school she would ask, "are we staying at the new house yet?" Every day something would happen that would prevent this from happening.

First we could not find any of the bolts to put any of the beds together. No big deal. We could just put the mattresses on the floor, right. Wrong. For the girls that was fine but for our bed you have to put the bed together first and we didn't want to be moving things on these new floors anymore than we had to. When we finally found the bolts to our bed and Kelly put it together we realized that we needed new shades. The ones that were there didn't go all the way to the bottom of the window and the girls need to go to bed before the sun goes down because they have to get up so early for school (school here starts an hour earlier than back in Monticello). Buying shades and putting them up is no big deal when you have a Menard's right in town. Well, the closest Menard's (or anything like it) is 30 minutes away. I know we could have just dealt with it for one night but why when you have a comfy clean motel fully equipped with working shades. So there went another night.

Finally we were determined to move in. The shades were in place, our bed was put together (the bolts for the girls beds were still in that place that we put them so we wouldn't lose them and now couldn't find them). This was it. No matter what we were sleeping at the new house. Then this happened.

Guess what. A queen size box spring does not fit in a 110 year old stairway. What!! They didn't have standard queen size beds back in the late 1800's. That is crazy. The best part was that Kelly was stuck upstairs. Well maybe not the best part. The only bathroom in the house was also up there and I couldn't get to it. For anyone who knows me, that is not good. I have, what my kids call, a peanut bladder. And when I know I can't go, I really have to go.

Finally after a little pushing, twisting, and trying not to teach the girls any new words we got the box spring unwedged. Kelly went to the motel to pick one of our monthly guests to help us throw it up onto the balcony outside the bathroom and bring it in that way.

We were a little late getting to bed but we did it. We spent our first night in our new home!

Homesick - Sometimes You Just Have To Cry It Out

April 8, 2010
Just yesterday I said to Kelly, "I don't think I am going to be homesick at all." I figured that having so much time to disconnect myself from Monticello and prepare for moving I would be fine. NOT TRUE! Today it hit. Hard! And just like I used to tell the girls when they missed daddy, "Sometimes you just have to cry it out." I know that after a few tears, maybe a day or two (or six) and getting settled into my house I will be fine.

Everything starts to hit. Big things like missing my family and friends, missing a wonderful church and school to silly things like missing my cutting board in my old kitchen. I miss my silly boring routine. I miss the way my house smelled, the sounds of my neighborhood. Up here things are so different. I know that I just have to get used to it and it will become home. I will find a new routine. I will make new smells in my house. I will get used to a new cutting board. It will all work out. God did not send us up here just to leave us alone and make us find our own way. As long as I trust Him, he will help me make this home. And, yes, even with His help, sometimes you just have to cry it out.

Moving

Well the day finally came for us to move and it was such a bittersweet day. My friend Karen and her husband and oldest daughter along with my dad came to help Kelly and I pack up the truck. I surprisingly kept it together during all of the loading and even the drive up. I was very proud of myself! My dad followed us up to Crookston for the weekend and to help with anything we needed moved into the house. The girls were at my mother-in-laws until that Saturday and then they all came up as well. I loved having everyone here but at the same time I just wanted to start getting used to my "new normal". Kelly had been away from the family for the better part of 3 months and we just wanted to be a family again and could not wait to start.

We had originally planned on moving right into the house and getting the floors redone at a later time. Then the week before we moved up Kelly found a guy that could do the floors at a reasonable price and get them done that weekend. Besides, we had 17 rooms to choose from at the motel. So we didn't get to move right in. We were together and that is all the mattered!

House Hunting

For several years Kelly and I have tried to figure out how we could either payoff our house sooner than the 30 year mortgage or sell the house and buy something that we could payoff before our kids graduated high school. This seemed an impossible dream. Then this whole motel adventure came up and there was no more talking of selling our house. We had no choice. The 4 hour commute was not an option.

We put our house on the market at the end of January and Kelly started looking for a house that we could easily payoff in 5 to 10 years. In my crazy little dream world this was not a hard task. We knew that the town was crawling with houses that were in that range for us. We knew that we would have to do some work and updating. But for some reason I had pictured in my mind a beautiful little old house with the cutest little flower garden in the front yard that only needed paint and a new stove and refrigerator. And all of that for a price that we could payoff in 5 years. Guess what. That place does not exist. Oh, there were plenty of houses that were within that price range but to say that I was getting scared is an understatement.

One day Kelly sent me pictures of a house. The outside was cute. The yard was nice. Then I saw the inside pictures. I was scared! Keep in mind that Kelly was doing all of the house hunting while I was in the cities with the kids. I was telling my sister/therapist about it and how scared I was. She said to me (and this is why she is also my therapist), "Tell me what you like about the house". And with that sentence my attitude changed. Nothing about this adventure was "normal" or easy. Why should the house be? If I let him, God would lead us to the right house. I just had to be positive and open to what he had planned for us. Well, that house didn't work and the next house was just as scary. And the house after that.

After seeing several houses and none of them working out for one reason or the other, the realtor drove Kelly by a house that had just gone on the market. At first he didn't even want to look at it because it looked too nice. He figured it would be too much money. The realtor talked him into looking at it the next day. Everything was perfect. The price, the terms. There is a huge claw foot tub in the bathroom (I have always loved claw foot tubs). Yes, the house needs work, the yard is small, the neighbors are close. But I could see the beauty behind all the wallpaper.

When Kelly sent me the pictures and called me that night to see what I thought, I told him I loved it. He said, "Good, I just made an offer on it." I knew that with a little time God would lead us to the right place. It had no cute little flower garden in the front yard but it has a huge claw foot tub. I can plant flowers!

Hip Waders and Soup Ladles

There comes a point in packing for a move where things are not as organized as I would like. When I first started packing everything made sense. If the box was labeled "Kitchen" you could be certain that everything in that box was from the kitchen and most likely from the same cabinet or area in the kitchen.

At the end the boxes stop making sense. Things randomly get thrown into boxes that have nothing to do with each other. They may not even be from the same part of the house. There are "Misc. stuff", "Hip waders and soup ladles", and I think I may have even had "Towels and coffee maker". I hate being disorganized!

My First Visit To Crookston

The first time I was able to visit Crookston was in late November 2009. The first snow had just fallen and everything was fresh and white. My first thought as we drove into town was it reminded me of a Norman Rockwell painting. It was so cute. I loved the old buildings downtown. All over town were the cutest old houses. Such character. I wanted to stay right then. Make this my home and just start this new life. I couldn't wait.

Then reality set in when I got back home. I was leaving my comfort zone. I was leaving my friends and family. What was I doing? This was crazy! There was still time to stop it, right?

The next morning I felt better. I could do this. This was for my family. An adventure that we would talk about the rest of our lives. I don't ever want my kids to think that they have to stay where everyone else tells them their safe. I want to instill in them that there is other life out there and they don't just have to dream about it. They can actually live it. Life is too short not to have an adventure.

My First Thought

When Kelly first came to me with this crazy idea I thought, "No way". I had no reason to leave Monticello. I loved the schools my kids went to. I loved my church and my friends. No matter how much any of them drove me crazy, I loved being close to family. The last thing I wanted to do was leave my comfortable life and go into the unknown. Not only the unknown but also a business that we knew nothing about.

One day after trying to figure out how I could talk Kelly out of this I realized that it was not my decision to make. For years I had been trying to tell God what I wanted. I realized that it was time for me to let go and let God make the decision. If this was what He wanted for us then it would happen. If not, God would close the door. Realizing that took such a weight off my shoulders.

If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plan.

How It All Got Started

My husband and I had, what we called, our pipe dream since before we were married. We were going to sell everything, pack what little we had left and travel the country. Then life happened. We got married, bought a house, had kids. There was always something keeping us from seeing what else was out there. Then one day in July of 2009 there was a hail storm that went through North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. Kelly was selling roofs and siding at the time and so he and his co-worker decided to check it out and see if they could sell some roofs. They did. For the rest of the summer they drove 4 hours from home to Crookston for 4 days a week. At the beginning of fall, as they were finishing their work, Kelly found out that the motel they were staying in was for sale. He came home and talked to me about it and we figured, "what the heck." We figured that maybe this was Gods way of telling us it was time to stop talking about the pipe dream and actually live it. Well, a scaled down version of the pipe dream. We were not going to be seeing the country, but this was a start.