So I will start off by apologizing for, well, a lot of things. First of all I am apologizing in advance for the scatteryness of my brain. ( See what I mean. I couldn't even think of a real word there. ) I would also like to apologize for any whining or moaning that you may have to endure by reading any further. And well anything else that jumps out at you that might be annoying or whatever.
Ok. Now that I have that squared away, let's begin. This blog is about things that I never thought about until I started to try to get ready for the big move. (How is that for a title?)
1) We do not actually fit in our house. Just for the record, 11 people do not really fit in a 1300 square foot ranch. We don't. I am not sure how it is that we are actually living here. When we first started to look at houses in Steubenville, we were looking at houses with at least 4 bedrooms because that is what we have now. Brian and I would pull up to a house and just from the outside, I knew that there was no way that we would fit. I was always amazed and slightly taken aback when I found out that it was actually bigger than our house that we live in now. We would go in to look around (mainly just to be polite to the realtor) and I could not for the life of me, figure out how in the world our kids would all fit. The bedrooms were teeny, we would have had to take turns eating in the dining room and as far the living room was concerned...well, let's just say that it wasn't going to work.
So how in the world have we (quite happily, I would like to point out) managed to live in this house for the last 14 years? I guess because we added the kids slowly and they were all pretty small when they first came out, we were lulled into a fall sense of space. Think of the frog and the boiling water. We just never realized how small our house was until we had to find a new one.
(Thank you God, for leading us the perfectly perfect Hough-sized home. It was actually the second house that we saw and I knew immediately that it was going to be the one. Every house that we looked at after that one really didn't stand a chance. More on this later...but it truly has just been another way that God has blessed us in this whole adventure.)
2) We are hoarders. Well, maybe not actually hoarders, but we have waaaaaaaay too much crap. Since we found out that we would be moving I have been slowly but surely going through every inch of this house and getting rid of unnecessary things. The toy closet in the basement took me about a month. (I am not even joking.) I have gone through every bin of clothing. I have gone through every bookshelf. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have donated about 15 garbage bags of clothing and toys and several boxes of books. I have also thrown out 10 garbage bags of broken toys. Seriously!!! That isn't even counting the things that I passed along to my sister. That is a lot of unneeded things. I am about half way finished. I have yet to conquer my kitchen cupboards and my craft room. My new rule is to ask myself, "Do I love this enough to move it to Ohio?" It's that simple. I have also decided that anything having to do with the kids is definitely best done when they aren't around. Otherwise you have them packing the first every spelling test that they have taken since first grade along with 50 stuffed animals.
3) I will have to rename my blog. Ok, this one is kind of lame, but it is sort of stressing me out. We will no longer be the Dayton Houghs. We will be the Steubenville Houghs. And to be completely honest, I didn't realize what a lame name the Dayton Houghs really was. When I first started to blog, I never thought to think up something clever. Great now I have to be clever. ugh. I will happily entertain any suggestions to rename this baby. Thanks.
4) We will have to go to a new church. Duh. Obviously we aren't going to drive an hour and a half every Sunday to go to mass at our church, especially when there will be several churches within 10 minutes of our new home. Here is the tricky thing. We (all 11 of us) will have to go to a new church. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find seats for 11 people in a church? Let me just say that it is super difficult. I think that in the church that we go to now, we sort of grew into our row. We always sit in the second row on the left hand side of the main aisle and we take up the entire row. That gives us a little bit of wiggle room, but nobody at the 11:00 mass is crazy enough to sit in our row of chaos. (I must admit that I kind of love sitting with the choir and admiring my family from afar. I can see how blessed I am from across the church, especially when I don't have to wrestle a toddler or make a frantic run to the bathroom with a little one.)
So this became very apparent to me the other week. Isaac was going to a sleepover birthday party on a Saturday night. I decided to take him to mass before I dropped him off so that he wouldn't have to go to mass in the morning all stinky and sleep deprived. He walked in before me and went to our usual row. Since we normally go to the 11:00 mass on Sundays, and it was Saturday evening, technically it was somebody else's row. The normal Saturday night crowd was just starting to come when we sat down. We sat at one end of "our" row and I began to pray my rosary. That is when it started. We could hear a couple in the back of the church talking. They were wondering where to sit because there were people in their seats. uh oh. I looked at Isaac and he looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. At this time there were maybe 15 other people in the whole church, so there were plenty of seats, but not "their" seats. After (kind of loudly) debating for a few minutes they decided to sit behind the seat-stealers. I held my breath praying that they sat behind somebody else but of course they ended up right behind us. gulp. But then they moved again, because they were worried about taking somebody else's seats. We had caused a great upheaval in the church. I could hear other people whispering about the whole incident around the church. Oh gees. I would like to say that I completely understand the people that we displaced. When somebody sits in our row, it throws off the balance of the church. We have to take someone else's seats and it is a domino effect. Here is my question... If this is what happened when two of us sat in the "wrong"place, what in the world, would happen when 11 of us showed up at a brand new church??? When I presented this quandary to my husband, the answer was obvious. The house that we are buying is currently being loved by a family with nine kids. We just have to go to whatever church they are currently attending and sit where they sit. period.
5) I hate painting. That is pretty much self explanatory.
6) I have discovered a bit of a DIYer in me. I have taken on the task of sanding and refinishing our kitchen cupboards. I have to admit that so far they look pretty good! I bought myself an electric sander and have become quite dangerous with it, just ask Brian.
7) I have no idea how in the world I am going to keep this house clean to show it to potential buyers. My kids are slobs. Six of the 7 kids that live here full time, outnumber my cleaning ability with their mess making abilities hands down.
I think that is about all that I can think of for now. I am sure that random things will continue to pop up between now and when we are finally situated in our new home. Please keep us all in your prayers. I ask that you pray for the quick sale of our house and a smooth transition into our new house and for the family whose house we are buying as well. But most importantly, I ask that you pray for my sanity. Thank you!
