Some thoughts on moving...

It was with many tears and fond farewells that the intrepid residents of Shiny Red Houses made their way south and to their new home. The journey was quite easy for me, as I only had dogs and children to wrangle. David, on the other hand, was responsible for gathering up the cats to his bosom, or at the very least to their cat carriers so that they too could join us on our adventure. Foolishly, we had underestimated the difficulty of collecting three cats bent on not having an adventure. It took 24 hours, many scratches and bites, a net, an air mattress, borrowed underwear, and the brave and only partially conscripted service of Amy and Bethany, but the cats were finally caged, sedated, and transported. The timeline of "Catscapes 2012" can be best enjoyed over at Facebook where David and Amy provided real time updates, including the realization that one of the cats Amy tried to rescue was not in fact our cat.

The movers delivered all of our worldly possessions on Saturday and since then we have been in a frenzy of unpacking. You know by now that I am a woman of action and as such, the house is largely unpacked. This house is very different from my last. For one thing, it's much larger and so the cozy cottage feel that worked so well in my Arlington house would look silly here. I've decided to take a more minimalist approach to my decorating with this house. This may be related to my aversion to unpacking.

There are several things to consider about this house. Firstly, it's a rental. Since we are brand new to the area we decided to rent for a while and get a sense of where we might want to settle down. Because it's a rental I won't be painting anything which I am not ashamed to tell you is a complete effing relief. It doesn't hurt that the house is painted in lovely inoffensive Pottery Barn colors. What is interesting to see is how easily the furniture I used in my last Shiny Red House fits into Grown-Up Lady House.

Remember those pieces from my colorful dining room? Same furniture, completely different look. (All the window treatments in the house belong to the owners.)

The bedroom is hardly different at all.

Happily this house has a family room where the television and wii can go (no photos yet) and a separate living room which I have decided is Mommy's room of sanctuary. I love this living room. I want to marry it and have beautiful living room babies with it.

All of the pieces in this room were in my living room in Arlington, except for the couch which if you remember I trash picked and then put in David's office.

Tomorrow the girls and I are tackling the last room- the classroom. I am so excited to have a dedicated classroom where we can set up our maps and projects without having to take them down every night.

Before I go to bed, I thought I would let you know that the people of Maryland so far seem very nice. I was only warned once that I would go to hell for not accepting Jesus as my personal savior, but it was via a flier tucked under my windshield and as such is probably not the final word on salvation.