Money Saving Mom®

Well, I started off this month’s Get More Sleep Challenge with a bang: I got 10 hours of sleep last night! I can’t remember the last time I got that much sleep, but it felt amazing! 🙂

We spent all morning and early afternoon unloading the moving truck. It’s always a little overwhelming to have all your earthly belongings being hauled in at once and dumped in the appropriate rooms. I sort of wished I could wave a magic wand and have everything unpacked and in its place. 🙂

Since the house layout/room set-up is pretty different here than our previous house, we don’t have a basement, and we have fewer rooms/bedrooms than we did in our old house, it’s made figuring out where everything goes a little more interesting! But we’re really happy with what we finally worked out… now we’ll see how it works!

I’m so thankful my youngest sister, Olivia, is here with us through tomorrow. She’s been a huge help. I can’t even count all the boxes she unpacked today or the hours she saved me! We’re going to be sad to see her leave in the morning. 🙁

After about three hours of unpacking, I needed a breather, so Silas and I left to go get lunch for everyone and coffee for me (mama needs her coffee!). That was an adventure, to say the least. I learned which roads were one-way (yikes!), got stuck in traffic, and was ever-so-thankful for a GPS. Navigation in new areas (or even in areas I’ve driven in time and time again!) has never been my strong suit. 😉

We made it back safe and sound and jumped right back into unpacking. A little while later, the doorbell rang. It was a neighbor with a bouquet of sunflowers. She had seen our Kansas license plate and had gone and bought us a bouquet of sunflowers. How amazingly thoughtful was that?!?

She came back a bit later and brought me a little notebook. She shared how they had moved here from across the country a few years ago and it had been so difficult for her. One of the things that had helped her tremendously was to write down three blessings every day. Remembering this, she wanted to give me a notebook and encourage me to do the same. I can’t begin to tell you how much this touched and encouraged me that she had gone out of her way to do this for me!

The doorbell rang again and it was another neighbor. She brought her children over to meet us and, within minutes, our kids had bonded. Pretty soon, they were racing each other on the sidewalk, riding bikes, and talking all things Minecraft. These neighbor children introduced my children to more neighbor children and, by nightfall, my kids have a gaggle of new friends!

Again, this was such a blessing. It warms my Mama heart to see my children connecting so well with other children — especially since they were so sad to move and it was so difficult for them to leave their friends and relatives behind in Kansas.

I had hoped to have almost all of the boxes unpacked by tonight (yes, I kind of set an ambitious goal!) and that didn’t happen (surprise, surprise!). But we did make major headway today and have almost all of the first floor unpacked and set up.

Tomorrow, I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to finish most of the upstairs so that we aren’t living out of boxes on Monday… I’ll let you know if we hit that goal or not! 🙂

Wow! It’s been a L-O-N-G 24 hours. Long, exhausting, and beautiful all wrapped up into one big day.

We started our trek to Tennessee at around 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon. We had planned to drive as long as we could stay alert… we both decided we’d stop and get a hotel whenever we were starting to feel really tired.

By around midnight, we were still going strong. So we kept driving. And driving. And driving.

15 hours later, we pulled into Nashville. We were very tired, but very thankful to be at the end of our journey and ready to start a new journey!

Today was a whirlwind of catching up on sleep and getting everything squared away for our rental house. We hadn’t seen the rental house in person, so we weren’t exactly sure what to expect.

Well, it far exceeded our expectations! In fact, the house is everything we were hoping for — and more! Best of all, it was a few hundred dollars less per month than we had budgeted.

My favorite part of all is the beautiful kitchen! Yes, I may be just a wee bit excited about all of the scrumptious food, freezer cooking, and laughter and love awaiting this beautiful space in the months to come! 🙂

We ended today with a pizza party with some dear friends here. It’s such a blessing to already have community here. Plus, my children were especially excited to meet some new friends and some of the neighbor children! Yay! {Thank you so much for your prayers for them — they are settling in well already and that warms this mama heart so very much!}

By the way, I really appreciated all your encouraging comments on this post last night. Your kind words blessed me a great deal.

And now, I’m off for some much-needed sleep before we start tackling all the unloading and as much of the unpacking as we possibly can tomorrow. 🙂

It’s been a long few days of last-minute moving details and tying up loose ends, but the truck is all packed up and we’re headed to Nashville! We’re hoping to make it to Kentucky tonight and then spend tomorrow and Friday moving into our new home in Tennessee.

Thank you so much for all your prayers for us. The past few weeks were hard with all of the goodbyes, but we have been so blessed by your support and prayers for us. You truly have no idea what your comments and emails have meant. Thank you for how you love our family!

The Start of New Things

This move marks the new start of many things for our family. We’ve long dreamed of being able to work together more as a family unit — instead of me having my own business and Jesse having his own business.

With this move, we’re excited to be able to pursue that dream together. We don’t know how it’s all going to pan out or exactly what it’s going to look like long-term, but we are thrilled to be on this adventure together, trusting God one step at a time.

Going Back to My Roots as a Blogger

I’m especially excited, because one of the big changes for me with this move is that I’ll be going back to my roots as a blogger. The past few years, things have grown and expanded here, and I’ve felt unsettled as to how to balance blogging, running a business, and keeping my family and health a priority.

To be honest, while the growth of this blog has been exciting, it’s also been hard for me. It’s been far beyond what I could have ever dreamed and navigating it all while seeking to have my heart and priorities in the right place has been a challenge.

I’ve done a lot of experimenting, praying, and soul-searching over the past year. My husband and I have had a lot of discussions. And I’ve asked for counsel and input from trusted friends.

While I hope to impact as many people as possible with this platform God has given me, more than anything, I just want to live a vibrant life and to blog from the overflow of that life. I’ve missed sharing more personal, every day life type posts here. I’ve missed sharing my grocery shopping trips. I’ve missed giving you more of a peek into our lives.

If I’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that I’m most fulfilled when I stop trying to please everyone and just be who God has made me to be. This blog can’t be all things to all people — that’s why there are millions of other blogs out there!

What You Can Expect For the Future

So while I still plan to keep posting the best deals, freebies, and coupons, you can expect to see a lot more real-life posts around here. Such as:

• Posts about my grocery shopping and menu-planning.
• Posts about recipes I’m trying and freezer cooking I’m doing.
• Posts about money-saving triumphs and failures.
• Posts about DIY projects I’m attempting.
• Posts about our homeschooling adventures.
• Posts giving you more of a peek into our everyday lives.
• Posts about struggles I’m facing and lessons I’m learning.
• And the usual smattering of Q&A posts, books I’m reading posts, goal-setting posts, business advice posts, and whatever else comes to mind. {You know me, I can be pretty eclectic! :)}

Thank you for the constant encouragement and inspiration you all are to me. I appreciate each and every one of you so much and I’m excited to be back to more of where I started when I first began blogging. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey!

The packed truck: we were able to get everything we needed to take to fit (whew — all that de-cluttering paid off!!)