What Now?

Every so often, I will think of this space, sitting here, neglected.  I want to be the blogger who consistently writes, and share our little piece of the world with you. I'm just not sure that this blog is the way to do that going forward. Initially, it was a fun and creative way to share the happenings of the Giles family. Things, however, have changed. Micah and Corrin are older.  While Corrin still likes to take pictures, Micah, more often than not, doesn't want to be bothered.  And while I still demand a few family pictures on Sunday afternoons, I mostly allow him the freedom to choose not to be involved in picture taking. So where does that leave Growing Up Giles?

As you probably can tell from the dates on the last few posts, I've pretty much just left it.  The blog has been sitting here, abandoned.  Social media is easier. I snap a photo, do a quick edit if needed, and post with a short caption.  All in a matter of minutes.  I'm not sure that this space will ever be what it once was.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays, but in the past few years, I've enjoyed dressing up, and dressing the kids.  This year was the first year that they both chose their own costume without some major guidance. I think that they did an awesome job with their selections.

Without further adieu, I present Goku and Grandma!  They were both a hit everywhere we went!

We started in our old neighborhood, but no one was really participating in Halloween, so we ended up heading toward a church that was hosting an event with booths and jump houses.  There were absolutely too many people there, so we went to visit another neighborhood, and hit the Halloween jackpot.  There was enough houses participating for Micah and Corrin to feel like they got enough candy without overdoing it.  We all had loads of fun, and we have enough candy to last us a while. I wonder what they will want to be next year.

Corrin also had Nerd Day at her school for Red Ribbon Week because she is "too smart for drugs!" 

We're Still Here

No. I didn't forget about you or the blog.  We've just been doing a whole bunch of nothing. Our days are mostly spent going to and from work and school, then coming home to prepare to do the same thing again the next day. On the weekends, generally, we've been hanging out around the house, and going to church. We've gotten a little boring, but October is a new month!  And we've got quite a few things that we plan to try.

Murphy's Law: Home Edition

If it can go wrong, it probably already has. The move into our new digs did not come without some trials.  First there was the damage to our belongings that had been held in a storage unit while we transitioned to this house.  Rodents destroyed all the hosing for our refrigerator and washer, as well as the mattresses that were stored.  There was also mold, so our loveseat had to be trashed as well.  In total we hauled away the loveseat, a king sized mattress, a twin mattress, and a shelving unit.

Then there was the lack of hot water. Turns out that the landlord had disconnected the gas, and we ended up having to wait a few extra days to have gas turned on in our name. Added to that, no one thought to check the water heater, so we took cold showers an extra day because the water heater hadn't been adjust to actually heat the water.  Cold showers are no fun.  Now that we have hot water, we're learning that there is a very small window of comfortably-temperatured water between ice cold and boil your skin off water.

Well then surely my husband, who has a IT-based career, can get the internet and cable connected. Think again. Apparently, the previous tenant had both cable and satellite connection while living in this house, because there are two active cable lines running into the house. You would think that the line that works for our cable provider would work once we plug in. You'd be wrong. So now we have an appointment for a technician to come out, and yet another fee to pay.

By now it's Wednesday, and Mikey has finally replaced the hoses for the washer, and rewired the dryer because this house is older, and had a different power outlet that did not fit our dryer.  I never thought I'd say it, but I was actually looking forward to doing laundry at home, and not having to go to the laundromat. I should have listened for the universe's laughter. We turn on the washer, and water starts pouring out of the side of the washer. Defeated is the word that comes to mind when I think of this moment.  After cleaning up the water, Mikey rechecked the hoses to be sure that everything was fitting correctly. Finding no loose hose, we are now debating between calling a repair man to hopefully fix it, or just buying a new washer. We Googled possible causes, and now we're afraid that if we call the repair man we'll pay that fee, and still end up having to buy a new washer. Ugh!

Thursday we gave ourselves a break.  Mikey went to the laundromat to do laundry, because quite frankly we were getting to the point of wearing dirty clothes or going naked.  I'd rather not share this loveliness with the public, and the thought of redressing in dirty clothes makes my skin crawl.  At the same time that Mikey is slaving over the washer and dryer, the kids and I stayed home. We had dinner. I organized the kitchen a little more. (I'm still searching for all my dishes and pots.) We checked homework. The kids bathed, and went to bed early.  

Finally, it's Friday!  The cable should be on at some point today.  We are in the process of making decisions regarding possibly purchasing new mattresses and a new washer. We are safely into our new home, and working on getting everything organized and reestablishing our routines. We have awesome friends who came out and helped us move our entire household in two days. We are truly blessed, and we know it. So take that Murphy!

House on the Hill

Remember this house. Well...

We moved.  We left what was supposed to be our forever home, and moved into the basement of a family member for roughly six months. And now we have moved again, into a small ranch house that sits up on a hill that we are renting. Why you may ask? To put it plainly: Money. Owning a house is expensive. Whenever anything breaks, you have to dig into your pockets for the money to fix it, or do without. Not to mention all the other costs that go with homeownership, like property taxes, utilities, home owner's insurance, HOA fees, and so many others.

Add on the cost of raising two adorable children, student loans, and wanting to experience life instead of just surviving, and you have the perfect storm of debt and struggle.  It was all beginning to be too much. So Mikey and I sat down and talked and talked. We actually had several conversations about it. We realized that we didn't want to live life surviving paycheck to paycheck. We didn't want to have to worry about the next catastrophe and not know where we would get the money from to cover what we needed to cover. We didn't want to worry that one of us would lose our job, and we wouldn't have a paycheck to cover our expenses.

So we made the decision to downsize, get our debt under control, and build a substantial nest egg before we put ourselves into more debt buying a new forever home.  For now, the house on the hill is our home.

What does downsizing look like for us? We went from a two story, five bedrooms, four bathrooms house sitting on more than two acres, to a single story three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a reasonably sized lot. That sounds so major just typing it. The front porch is to die for! The master bedroom is spacious, even if the closet space is going to feel tiny coming from each of us having our own individual walk-in closets. The kids have asked to share a room, and that will leave the third bedroom to serve as a guest room and office. The backyard is nicely laid out with lots of space for the kids to play, and it's fenced in. There's a laundry room and storage in the garage. I'm optimistic that this house will work well for us.  Of course my Pinterest boards are jumping with ideas to make the loss in space more manageable.