Let the Move Begin

​Yesterday we started packing the house I’ve lived in for more than 30 years.

Joe and I built this house when our oldest daughter was just 3 months old. We moved in three months later. We brought our second daughter home here. When we married, his four amazing children became my children too, and this house became home to five kids over the years. Now, except for our youngest, they’ve all grown up and built lives of their own.

These walls have seen birthday parties, Christmas mornings, Thanksgiving dinners, Friday night pool parties, band kids taking over the house, homework at the kitchen table, laughter that echoed from room to room, and probably more pizza boxes than I could ever count.

They’ve also seen the hard things.

This is where we fought Joe’s cancer for eight long years. It’s where we celebrated every good scan and cried through every bad one. It’s where I came home after his funeral. Even today, there’s a  bathtub where I completely broke down.  Years later, that memory still hasn’t let go.

Life, thankfully, didn’t end there.

I found love again. Mark and I built a new chapter here with an even bigger, wonderfully blended family. New grandchildren, new celebrations, new memories, and a whole new kind of happiness filled rooms that once held so much grief.

This house has also been home to 4 cats, 2 dogs, 2 hamsters, 1 turtle and more fish than I can count… most of them, of course, named Bubbles.

Now we’re older. Two stories are becoming harder to manage, the upkeep is more than we want, and retirement is just around the corner. It’s time for a simpler life and a new place to make new memories.

But packing a house like this isn’t just putting things into boxes.

It’s wrapping up decades of laughter, tears, milestones, love, loss, healing… and carrying them with you.

Let the move begin. ❤️