Remember to breathe....

I heard a joke once - "How do you eat an elephant?"  "One bite at a time." 

It's been running through my head for the past few weeks.  Why?  I've been packing our apartment and moving it, bit by bit, to our new home.  It would seem that, as small as our current living space is, it would not be difficult to pack up everything and move. I've moved A LOT with my family, as a single woman, and twice with my husband, but this one is wearing me out.  It should be a joyous time, I mean, I'm moving into my first home!  But it's been a huge source of stress, in all honesty.

I prefer to move like you're ripping off a Band-Aid. Fast. Pack it all up, put everything in a moving van, take ONE trip, unload everything, spend weeks unpacking.  It sucks, but it's over fairly quickly.  My hubby, not so much.  He would prefer to take everything from one room in the old place and then set it up where it needs to go in the new place. MULTIPLE trips.  Have I ever told you how I hate multiple trips? Ugh.  However, when you have a hubby that works 7 days a week and I am trying to balance my growing business, sometimes the less than optimal moving situation arises.

So, tonight we have a moving van. My hubby and a very cool volunteer from his work are going to load a lot of our heavy furniture and move it to our new home. My fun job today is to make sure everything is ready for those pieces to be moved and that we are ready to (finally) spend the first night in our new home.  I'll need to make sure everything from our bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are in place so that tomorrow morning there is no lack of stuff for the hubs to get ready for work and I have no lack of coffee! Doesn't seem like too much, except that I also had a huge number of orders come in last week, we won't have internet until the end of the month in the new house (thanks, Comcast!), and it promises rain tonight.  Everything added together is making my head hurt and dread today.  Seriously dread today.

But then one of my sweet friends posted this on Facebook:

 

Wow, did I ever need that. Remember to breathe.  Seems so simple, doesn't it?  But I completely stopped and took a deep breath when I read it. I took another one right now.  You take one - just stop, close your eyes and take a deep breath.  Feels good, doesn't it?  Take another one. Focusing on taking deep breaths can actually help if you're having stress or anxiety.  So I will take another, and try to focus on what REALLY needs to be done today.  I will allow everything else to fall by the wayside and make tomorrow's action plan tomorrow. And pray for no rain while the guys are moving today. And enjoy the fact that the moving process gets us out of a rental, and into our new home!

 

One bite at a time.......   ;)

My long journey to new furniture!

I have new living room furniture!  It was delivered yesterday into my spanking new house. And by spanking new I mean that the new living room furniture is the only furniture currently in our house.  We hope to move enough to be able to exist by the end of the week. It's boiling down to the end of this incredibly long chapter of my life (and my hubby's, too!).  I'm ready to start a new one! Let me tell you how we got here.

Approximately a year and a half ago, my husband and I started to seriously look for houses.  We toyed around quite a bit between building and buying a pre-existing home. Several insanely frustrating months and multiple failed contracts later, in the spring of 2013, we thought we were done for awhile. The process of home buying may be fun for some, but it certainly wasn't for us!  However, we came back to a half acre lot for sale that we originally didn't think would work, and decided the best course of action would be to build. In August of 2013, our adventure began. Here we are the day we became land owners!

I won't bore you with the details, but building a home is no picnic. And with my husband as the general contractor AND doing a lot of work to save us money, you better believe we've had our fair share of stressful days. I'm so grateful for the support, love and encouragement that my family and close friends gave me along the way - I really needed it!  This, in part, is the genesis of the Daily Joy Supply Co. We all need a little sunshine in our day - some days you need it, some days you are blessed to give it. And no matter how frustrating or hopeless or insurmountable the circumstance may seem, there is ALWAYS something in every day that can be celebrated! Take time for those small victories - create those small victories.  My husband, when he finds a penny will say: "Pennies lead to dimes and dimes lead to dollars!"  Well, small victories lead to big victories!    And now our big victory has been accomplished - almost a year later (the build was supposed to take 16 weeks....lol) our home is finished, we've closed and we're homeowners!  By the end of the month we should be completely moved in.  Here's my first house, with my favorite part - my purple door.

 

Which, of course, brings me back to my new furniture!  I feel like such a grown up. Most of my furniture is either old family furniture (nothing wrong with that, by the way) or garage sale finds (nothing wrong with that either), but it felt very fun to pick new fun pieces and choose the color and have it delivered!!  I'm sure my dogs will enjoy breaking them in. All of which has me feeling very creative. I have the perfect fabric to make throw pillows for one of the new chairs - I'm looking forward to surprising the hubby with it!  I'll be sure to take pics and share, let me know what you think!