It has been awhile!

I have gotten a little off track and have not blogged in awhile :-(  Sorry about this.  Well I have been just working along and don't have a whole ton to say!  We did hear back on House Hunters and we were not chosen to do the show again.  This was both sad and happy for me.  Sad because it really was a lot of fun to do, but happy because whoa, way too much going on!  I am really realizing I like a lot going on, so would have survived it if we were chosen :-)

We put our Condo up for sale in Ft. Myers and had an offer in 6 days!  We are through inspection and are moving along with the sale.

So yes, we sold our Ohio home, bought a Florida home and sold our vacation condo all in a very small window!  I am not going to want to see one more house transaction for a VERRRRYYY long time!

We are having our garage sale tomorrow and Saturday to hopefully finish clearing out our house.  We are starting to live pretty crazy over here.  Sleeping on our bed on the floor in our den has been quite the adventure!  So much of our stuff is either sold or boxed up.  It is very hard moving, hoping I don't do this again!  But you really know what you are going to get with me.  I can't ever completely commit to my future as I do tend to like change and adventure!

We do have another piece of exciting news to share in the very near future.  Just need a little more time probably after we get down to Florida.  Exciting for us as it will be life changing experience.

My sadness has slowed down some since we first decided we were moving.  It is setting in and feeling much better and right. I know being there and away will be hard on us and know we will be very excited for our visit back to Toledo!

My 2 girlfriends and I had already planned a trip to Florida over memorial day back in the winter and just got back from the trip.  Having them down there with me, really helped solidify our decision to move.  It feels good knowing you have people in your life that support you, thank you girlies! Feel so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life!

Signing off as I really do need to finish up my work for this garage sale!  Ugghh they are really hard to do!

Working like a crazy lady.

We have had a great last week and just continue to work on moving out of town. I am slowly selling off our house and have a garage sale date scheduled.  I absolutely love craigslist and have had a huge success in selling stuff on it as well as getting rid of stuff for free.  If you put something on craigslist for Free it at least for me has been picked up within 2-3 hours of me uploading it.  It is the best thing getting rid of stuff.  I feel a sense of relief knowing how much stuff I am getting rid of.  In a sense I feel like I am starting over with my move to Florida.  Just making decisions to simplify my life and only taking on necessary tasks that truly impact my family.  I am going to learn to say NO and also to pick the right things that matter to our family.

As I am cleaning out every nook and cranny, I was sad to get rid of my children's art work and made this handy dandy photo book.  I know it isn't the same as the actual pieces of work, but now will be a great coffee book that I can look at all the time!  There is a special right now for shutterfly for 50% off and I had to take advantage of it, also wanted to get this off my to do list. Code for 1/2 off photo books.  5YXN-EEWT-FADT-BNG79G

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo Book Tip: Create an adventurous travel photo album at Shutterfly.com.

An out take from our House Hunter Audition Video, plus a bit more :-)

Well I can't say a whole lot has been happening as far as anything of real detail around here. Just mostly been doing daily chores towards our move.  I can honestly say this has been a much harder experience that I had originally thought. Don't get me wrong I knew it would be hard, but wow this has been a huge under taking.  I feel like we are like a spider web of very intricate strings of the web that are so woven tight, trying to unwind them is huge task.  Miraculously they are slowly breaking a part and I am starting to see the sun through the thinner layers. We have made such a great life for ourselves here in Toledo (Ottawa Hills) and leaving it is heart breaking.  There has been so many tears from our house hold, I really hope we are making the right decision. Fear of the unknown is painful on so many levels.  I do believe however that we can only grow from change and all the different experiences we have in life really do make us the people that we are.

I always share with my kids the things about my childhood that most kids don't go through, but in the end it did make me the person I am today.  I had so much change in my childhood and I am a little fearful that I tend to change things in my adulthood based on wanting that exciting piece of change.  Normally this has been with a paint color in my house, a change in a job or a new piece of furniture.  Now I am wanting to move it up a huge notch by moving :-(  I do know this is something that both Bradden and I want though and this makes me feel a bit better (that it isn't just me). 

I am mostly scared about leaving our family.  I have lived in Toledo for 35 years, my whole life, never left (well I lived in Columbus for about 4 months when I was 17) and knowing I am leaving what and who I have always known is soooo scary!!!  It seems like so many other people have left though and what I knew as my life 5 to 10 years ago is so very different today.  I have to tell myself that was is today won't always be what tomorrow is, so I have to stop holding on to the past.  Even though it is hard and I have so many amazing memories of what my past was, this is life and it just keeps moving forward. I firmly believe we have COMPLETE control of our life and stuff just doesn't keep happening to people, it is all self made. NOT meaning illness or things that are out of your control, but stuff that holds people back.  Not being able to make sacrifices to help yourself get where you want to be.  Working hard, having goals, staying on track, having realistic goals, enjoying the process (this is Bradden's quote about life) and just going to do it! I am not special, I am not out of the ordinary, I am not an expert, I am just me and I have A WHOLE LOT OF IDEAS!!  I still remember when I was just about 15 years old, my grandmother (who sadly is not with us any longer) picked me up and asked what I had been up to and I said "Hmmm just thinking a lot"!  Who says that, but really I am always thinking.  It has gotten me in a lot of trouble in life, but also has allowed a lot of positive aspects to our life due to my "THINKING"!  

Well it is the weekend and I hope you enjoy it and also all those  Mothers out there, enjoy their Mother's Day!!  Happy Spring!

I did want to share this awesome FB page I follow.  Such amazing advice and I have so many connections to his advice.  A big part of how I believe in living life.  Take a minute to follow him or at least check in time and time again for a little pick me up!   https://www.facebook.com/becomingminimalist

We submitted our House Hunter video this week and this was a little out take from our clips.  Haha, I look awful and I was like I felt like I looked decent in the mirror, but then the video did not agree with me.  Oh well, I have to do something to look better and stop whining about it.

Things just keep moving along :-)

This is really happening!  It is so hard to actually believe as we have been talking about this move for soooo long.  It really felt like it was such a big job and couldn't be accomplished.  I guess the timing of us waiting to do this has panned out! We had both inspections these last few days and both houses and everything has checked out.  Some minor issues, but nothing big!  Yay!  This is a really scary thing when buying and selling homes.  You really don't know.

We love the family who has bought our home and know they will be such a great addition to Ottawa Hills.  The family is coming from Put-N-Bay and have 4 boys ranging from 2 years old up to 5th grade.  They are going to love our house as much as we have. It really feels good leaving our house knowing a wonderful family is moving into it.

We have been slowly trying to get all the different things together for our move.  It is amazing how many things have to be done.  It is really quite overwhelming.  I keep saying time in and time again, "I can see why people do not make changes in life", it is way easier to stay as is.  I did find out some disappointing news yesterday that was not a happy piece for Maddie.  In order to obtain your drivers license you must have your temps for 1 year prior to getting you license.  So Maddie now is going to be 6 months behind getting her license had she stayed in Toledo.  This didn't make her to happy.  There is nothing we can do though and I have to just let it be.

I am going to be a little more conscience of all the things I put on this blog as Bradden said I was being gloaty.  That was never my intention and I am really sorry if I did this at all. I guess I was just sharing some of what was going on and didn't mean to come off that way. Lesson learned and I will pay more attention to my actual words.

Crystal

One task down....

We made it through inspection on our home here in Toledo.  This was a scary piece as you just have no idea on how your house is going to fair.  There were several people here doing the inspection along with the buyers and some of their family members.  We got news today there were a few things needing done, but nothing major. We have a sold house. We are closing on our anniversary and also closing on our other home same day!  Completely crazy. So Yay!!!

Also our call with HGTV went pretty good and we are moving on to the next stage. They like our story line, they like our house and now they just need a video of us. We are planning on working on this over the weekend.  She did say only about 30-40% percent of people actually get on the show. Time will tell!

Going to enjoy the weekend with our family and get some more items packed up and cleaned out.

Enjoy your weekend!

Excited about the news we got today!

So one of the things I was most afraid about switching the kids to new schools was how can they do the sports/activities they do here?  Some things would be ok as they can try out or become a part of them once they get down there.  For Maddie though her cheerleading try outs alway happen the Spring before the following year. I couldn't quite figure out how we could do that when we are up here in Ohio and try outs are down in Florida?  In talking with the admissions director I shared with her my concern over this and how this would be on Maddie.  I even offered to fly her down for try outs. I realize this sounds extreme, but this is something she has been doing since 4 years old. Her new school does not have a dance team (even though Maddie talked about starting one as club- apparently starting clubs is pretty easy if you get enough of a following) and if she didn't have the opportunity to try out for cheer, the transition might be very hard for her :-(

I found out last Friday that cheer try outs were yesterday and I wasn't able to get Maddie down there due to my already scheduled flight for myself.  In talking to the cheer coach she was able to try out via video! This was a little nerve racking as who likes to be filmed and she had 30 minutes to come up with a routine for the try outs. We found out Friday and she had to do the video on Sunday.  The reason it took 2 days was because she was in her school musical and had the musical the entire weekend. Since I had to leave Monday, we had to film Sunday evening after her musical was over.  I had a really nice friend who works over at our Village Life let us in the gym so we could record in it.

Any who after all this information we got the email today that Maddie made the JV Cheer Squad for Bishop Verot!

So excited for her.  She is going to have so much fun and this will be a great way for her to meet new people and keep doing what she loves!


Also got an email today scheduling my one on one interview with House Hunter executive tomorrow about possibly doing another episode with us!  I filled out all the information she sent me and she emailed said she wanted to do the next step with us :-)  It really was such a fun experience and if they are interested in us, we are interested in it!  Our Realtor would like to do the show as well.  We will see!