Is it just me or is this the longest week ever? I spent almost the entire day yesterday thinking it was Wednesday. And wouldn't that have been great? Unfortunately, Wednesday is today which means two more days until this weekend. Womp, womp.
My thoughts are about as messy as our house right now and as much as I would love to pen an eloquent post about buying our first house I'm just going to share whatever jumbled up mess I have instead because 1) both kids are napping (PRAISE) 2) I may not log onto here for a very, very long time and well when the feeling strikes you... Hit the iron while it's hot? Anyways.
Last Friday we closed on our very first home. It's funny because we called and texted a million people and everyone was saying "gosh you must be so excited" and I just felt like a one year old when you tell them Santa is coming and they try so very hard to produce the emotion that they think you intimated they should be displaying and it's so very earnest and yet completely blank. You see we started looking back in September and it was back then that we received arguably the best piece of advice you can get when beginning the home buying process "do not get excited about any house until you are holding the key in your hand." Of course we proceeded to do the complete opposite and I can't begin to tell you how many "for real, this is one!!" conversations we had with our realtor (God bless that woman for putting up with us for six months). And then it doesn't work out and the deal falls through again and again and again. And you become somewhat numb and detached to the whole thing. And all the homes start to blur together. And then one comes along and it's not a total disaster and it starts to look like it might work and you are three days away from closing and then... BOOM. Another roadblock. You almost lose it but you don't. So long story short by the time we got to that closing table we were exhausted, scared, confused and a teeny tiny bit excited. So yeah, whew. Closing is not for the faint of heart.
Today my excitement level is at a seven (on a scale of one to ten). There's still the packing, unpacking, moving vans, painting and requisite bleeding of money that comes with every move. It's all very insane especially considering we have two little ones that no matter what most-amazing-incredible-expensive toy you put in front of them right now think there is nothing, and I repeat nothing, more exciting than a cardboard box and some tape... But every time I feel like I can't breath I try to be more zen-like and focus on what the house will look like when it's all done. It works 75% of the time... The rest of the time I'm just having panic attacks in my closet and eating loads of leftover Christmas candy I am discovering in odd places while I pack (found some kisses in a box with staplers in the office...).
Kindly send us lots of pizza. Also I hope the kids' brains won't be completely fried in the next two weeks as Daniel Tiger is the only way I can pack four or five boxes before they come waddling over threatening mayhem upon me and my packing station.

I probably read this book much too early but in a way I'm glad because it made such a searing impression on me. Never before had I heard someone so perfectly describe the inner turmoil that goes on inside our little minds. Even at a young age I remember feeling melancholy and reading this book was like climbing inside a dark rain cloud and sobbing until until your eyes had been emptied of their tears. Re-reading it as an adult I was struck by what an incredible book this is for little girls - to help mold independence of thought, confidence and a strong spirit.

And in case any of you are struggling with what to write in your Valentine's day card there is so much inspiration in the pages of this stunning book:

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”

“If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”

“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.”

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.”

“I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitments, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils.”

“It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate: and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from inanition, not stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.”