Moving In

After moving into our townhouse, I could only think of how happy I was once all the unpacking was done. I could focus on making our new little house into a home and not on all the boxes, bags, and plastic containers.

Yet, here we were once again.

First off, let me take you on a quick empty house tour, and a look at what our first day living here in our new home was like.

I love the front door to our new house. I love the arched transom window and the side window that let in lots of light. 

Straight ahead of the front door is a small hallway. To the right are the secondary bedrooms.

The living room is spacious. It's about 17' x 14', larger than the living room in the townhouse or even the family room in our old house. I'll admit I'm not a fan of all the gray in this room. The walls are gray, the tiles look like cement, but those things can be changed in time. I plan to live with it for awhile, but in the future I want to paint the walls a creamy warm white that matches my warm toned furniture better. The tiles are not my favorite but they are sort of a greige, so I think if I warm up the paint on the walls the flooring will warm up as well.

The dining area is right off the kitchen and to the left of the front door. It's not a dining room; the original plans call it a breakfast nook. It's pretty big though, more than enough space for what we need, and we certainly don't need a formal dining room. The large arched window lets in tons of light.

I should've taken a picture of the kitchen before we unloaded the car - oops! It doesn't seem like much here, but trust me, it's a very nice kitchen. It's large and comfortable to work in, and it even fits the kitchen island my daughter and son-in-law gifted me at Christmas which made me oh so happy!

The master bedroom is massive. At 18' x 12 1/2', it's the largest master bedroom I've ever had. It's surprising to me, because this house has less square footage than either our old house or the townhouse, but it's laid out so well that the house feels much bigger than it actually is. 

Quick pic of the master bedroom. It smelled nice and fresh. I was soon going to find out it wasn't. 

The master closet is bigger than the one I had at our first house, but smaller than the one at the townhouse. Either way, it's more than enough for my needs.

My son's bedroom. It's not very big, about the size of the bedroom he had at our old house. The ceiling fan will be replaced soon. He's not too fond of the blue blades and pink flowery pulls.

He's not upset about the bedroom being smaller, because the third bedroom is his office/music room. The fact that he has a whole "wing" of the house to himself makes up for the smaller rooms. That, and the bathroom.

Not that he needs them, but he has double sinks in his bathroom.

The tub and toilet are separate from the sink area, making this bathroom almost as big as the master bathroom. It's twice the size of the bathrooms in both our old houses.

The first day we arrived at the house at around 2:00 pm. The Pod hadn't arrived yet, and whenever I called the company they said the container was scheduled to arrive between 6:00 and 10:00 that night. We had no furniture, just the items that we'd brought in the car. So what did we do till the Pod arrived? 

First things first, we went in to use the bathrooms. After a long trip it's the first thing anyone wants to do. I went into the master bathroom, toilet paper in hand, thinking the bathrooms had been cleaned professionally so they should be spotless. Whenever I lifted the toilet cover, I found that someone had used the bathroom and hadn't flushed. Now, I suspect it was one of the children. The sellers have three young children, and well, kids are kids. They do things like that. What was upsetting to me is that these sellers paid over $150 to have this house cleaned, and it obviously was not.

The tile grout throughout the house was grimy and pretty disgusting. The previous owners had two large dogs and a cat that came in and out of the house constantly, and the floors showed it. The house smelled of kitty litter. It was bad. So they paid to have the floors professionally cleaned, as well as the cleaning crew that came in to clean the house. Well, the tile grout was scrubbed till it now looks like new. However, it was clear that they used machines to clean the floors, and these got the baseboards and corners filled with grimy dirt that neither the floor cleaners nor the cleaning crew did anything about. All around the house the baseboards were filthy, muddy and had pet hair caked on to them. It was vile.

After lunch my son and I headed to Lowe's. There were two things I wanted to buy immediately: new toilet seats and some sort of cleaner. The toilet seats were double what I would have paid if I'd ordered them from Amazon, but I didn't want to wait till Monday to get my order. There was no way I was going to use those old, nasty looking toilet seats. I bought a bottle of Method all purpose cleaner to start the real cleaning process. My son decided he was exhausted and needed a nap. There were some blankets and his pillow, so he made himself a make-shift bed on the floor. I, on the other hand, got down on my hands and knees, and for the next several hours I scrubbed baseboards. There was nothing else to do in the house; no furniture to sit down on, no internet connections, nothing to distract me from looking at the dirt. It kept me busy till the Pod arrived.

And thankfully it arrived around 7:30 pm. Unfortunately, the driver had a hard time getting it unloaded, so that while it was still light outside whenever he got there, it was dark by the time he left. Here it was, 8:30 at night, and we were unloading beds, mattresses, and bedding so we could get our beds set up. It took another couple of hours before we were done and ready to hit the sack. We couldn't even shower; I hadn't cleaned the bathrooms because all my bathroom cleaners were in the Pod. I didn't care. I was too tired to care. All I wanted was to get a good night's sleep, because the next day was going to be a busy one.

But that's a post for another day. See y'all soon!

YouTubers I Watch

I'm so thankful to have a place to stay while I wait on my future home. My realtor says the current owners should be out of the house by the 23rd which is closing day, though it's unsure if the house will be move-in ready, since they have a cleaning crew scheduled to come in on the 24th. In the meantime I'm blessed to be staying with my daughter and son-in-law at their little villa. I spend my day making preparations, lists of things that I need to do or will have to do once we get to the new house. I prepare meals for myself and my son E (my daughter prefers to cook for herself and her husband), clean up the kitchen and the bathroom we're using, and...that's it. Oh, and I walk the dog. It's boring, y'all. I'm used to being busy around the house, but there's not a lot to do in my daughter's home. Instead, I watch way too much television.

Now, by "watch television" I'm not talking about network television. In my opinion there isn't anything on there that's worth watching. I also don't mean cable tv. I cut out cable years ago, and my son-in-law didn't have it before or after getting married. My daughter has Disney + which I can watch, and occasionally I do indulge in some of the classics: Cinderella, Snow White, Swiss Family Robinson, those sorts of oldies but goodies. I have Hulu and watch that as well: 20/20, or I'll watch one or two (or 12) episodes of House Hunters. But generally what I watch is YouTube. 

There are several different types of channels I enjoy on YouTube. There's the design channels like Kinwoven Home that teach a lot of the design basics. There's cleaning channels, those that show a typical home cleaning day and those that teach good cleaning techniques, like Clean My Space. Cooking channels are some of my favorites; you can watch the Food Network giants like Paula Deen, Alton Brown, even Rachael Ray, but I prefer to watch the typical housewife making her family's favorites or trying out new recipes and giving her honest opinion. Of course there's the beauty channels, but there's just the one that I still watch after all these years, Shelbey Wilson. No, wait, that's not true, I still watch KathleenLights because she's based in Miami and she's hilarious. But my favorite YouTubers aren't the big names. They're the ones that like the same things I like: simple, intentional living, on a budget, who try to honor God with their channels but also like to have fun while sharing their lives and their gifts. You don't get that on network television. 

So, here are some of my favorite YouTube channels, in no particular order (though my favorites will probably be listed first):

1. Karrie Lynn (second channel: Cleaning with Karrie) - Karrie Lynn is a young mama of two living in Central Florida. She started her YouTube channel whenever she was living in a single wide mobile home in Georgia. I started watching her whenever she was moving into her current home, around the same time I moved into my townhouse. What I love about Karrie is that she decorates her home beautifully on a tight budget. She buys used furniture that looks sad and turns it into a high end looking piece. She and her husband Dylan have built furniture even though she admits they'd never done anything like that before. She's extremely talented while still being down to earth. Hands down one of my very favorite YouTube channels. 

2. Moss Family TV (second channel: Heaven's Rhythm) - For anyone who likes down home Southern style cooking and hospitality, this is the channel to watch. Mrs. Falon takes care of her five kids (ranging in age from 1 to 16), her husband, her home, and even though she's got her hands full with homeschooling and posting on YouTube daily, she's always got the sunniest disposition. She's just as happy making pinto beans and cornbread as she is trying a complicated recipe, and she's not afraid to admit when supper doesn't turn out like she'd hoped. This is a family that loves Jesus and everyone around them. If you enjoy good old Southern gospel, they have a music channel called Heaven's Rhythm. It's a family band, led by dad Titus Moss. Totally worth listening to.

3. Till Vacuum Do Us Part (second channel: Ashley and Chase) - It's strange that I would like this channel so much, since Ashley's design style is so different from mine. I like more a more traditional while still rustic look (sprinkled with some farmhouse), and Ashley is all about glam. There's lots of crystal and shiny pieces that would not go with my decor style at all. The reason I like this channel so much is that, like Karrie Lynn, Ashley likes taking the old and making it new. I've seen her take an old dresser and glam it up so it looks like a showroom piece. She also has lots of cleaning hacks and great suggestions for both cleaning and decorating, regardless of your style. It goes to show we don't have to like all the same things to learn from each other.

4. The Minimal Mom - I'm not a minimalist. At least I never thought I was, until my townhouse sold the first day it was shown. My house prior to that also sold the day after it was listed. My realtor told me it was because I kept my decor to a minimum, which made the house look bigger and show better. I credit Dawn from The Minimal Mom for helping me declutter and live more intentionally. I realized that the more stuff I had, the more I had to clean, the more I had to organize, and the less time I had for other things I wanted to do. Granted, I enjoy cleaning and organizing (yes, I'm weird). But I don't want that to be the only thing in my life. For years I worked five days a week and cleaned all weekend long. I'm over that. For me, living intentionally means keeping only the things I use and love and getting rid of the rest. Dawn breaks it down simply and gives great tips. On Sundays she and her twin sister Diana do a devotional and talk about their faith. I call that a win-win.

5. Mandy In The Making - Here's another cooking channel that I absolutely love. I've tried a couple of Mandy's recipes, and they've been approved by my picky son E which says a lot. Mandy will usually test three recipes a week, two that she's researched and believes her family will like, and one Subbie Supper, in which her subscribers send in recipes and she selects one for her channel. She goes through the recipes step by step, gives her honest opinion, and if there's anything she changes or would change in the future she lets us know. Her husband Steven helps out in the kitchen and they are so fun to watch! 

There are many more YouTubers I could list, but I'm starting with my top five. I think I'll make this the first of several posts. There's great talent out there, and I want to give props where they're due. I'll be back with more soon!