Sorry for no moving update – how about a picture of our new place to make up for it?

We are in military housing this time around and it’s nice. We have a fenced in yard, really nice neighbors and a pool! The community center has a work out area and more, but we haven’t checked it out beyond the pool. We have a four bedroom that is quite a bit smaller then our last home and, it has to be said, if I complain about a large home and how much it takes to clean it up – remind me not to.

While Chris was in school and we were in Montana for all those months all of our stuff were in storage. When Chris and a friend went to pack everything up, in the biggest moving truck we could get, we ended up leaving a lot of stuff. 🙁 We had to leave a shelving unit we used in the garage, one I had in the closet in the craft room, a big desk of Chris’ (we had it for at least four years), a ladder we only owned for a couple of months and maybe I forgot something else. I can’t believe we had to leave that desk! It was huge though and very heavy – and after unloading the truck there was no way we could have kept it. There was some settling in the truck, like boxes got squished and such, but the stuff we left would have never fit.

I’m over having left all of that stuff now – but when we first got to TX I was very upset. We just bought that ladder! We used it only to paint the house and that was it. And the shelves – okay the garage ones, fine, but the ones I used in the closet! Those were a gift from my Dad a few years ago. I even cut them to make them fit. They are sold at any hardware store but if we couldn’t pack them before, is it worth buying again?

That’s the trouble with the military and moving yourself – you have to pack it all up and hope it all fits. I guess we just assumed all of it would. And not only would it not fit in the moving truck but this new place doesn’t have the right layout for a few things – the desk, no idea where that would have gone! Hindsight- I should have gone through our stuff before moving. I could have donated more then we did, we could have left something (the ladder and shelves!) at the house to stay with the house. At least then we could have still owned it. As it was everything was left in the storage unit which meant the owners got to sell or use the items for themselves.

We are mostly unpacked, just have four or five boxes still in the garage, but still need to hang things on the walls and finish rearranging. I moved a bookcase, the couch and coffee table yesterday. Chris is gone again at a school so I have a couple of weeks to get things finished up. My goal is to have every room basically done, the kitchen better organized (I do miss all the cupboards I had!), and at least one room will have pictures hung up. Once I get a room done I’ll share pictures.

Kelly of WAHMTalkRadio has been blogging over at WAHM 2.0 on the Sparkplugging blog network. I didn’t read Sparkplugging very much before the name change (the site was previously emomsathome) but with all the news about the name change, I’m a reader now. Of course I read the Craft Boom blog too.

Kelly posted a Blog Reader Challenge and one of the questions is:

How often do you like to change the look of your blog?

Once I find a theme I like, I tend to stick with it for quite a long while. The problem I have is the code and being able to do the technical work by myself. I have a test blog that is loaded with all the free themes I like to use, then once I decide on one I’ll tweak it until I am satisfied. Of course considering I’ve been working on tweaking a theme for a few months now, I know it’s easier on me to find someone else to do a theme for me.

The current theme I have was done by Shannon at PHAT Mommy Designs. I don’t think she is taking any clients at this time, but I love what she did. I sent her a photo from istockphotos and told her what I wanted, and that was that! She also did the theme I am using over at my weight loss blog. I love that theme, I can see myself using that for a long time. When I was pregnant last year, Shannon changed the header to say “gaining” – it was a cute header and she did it very quickly.

The theme at my craft podcast was tweaked by FreshNets. I really love the magazine style theme for that site. I was walked through the customization and was also taught how to tweak various things on the blog. I love how easy it was to learn and how comfortable I feel making changes. I won’t be changing that theme any time soon!

I’ve been working on changing a free theme for this blog for a few months now. It’s the polaroid theme – yep, the very popular polaroid theme. The one that once I had been tweaking it for a month or so, I was seeing everywhere. It’s like when you like a certain kind of car or a friend gets pregnant – suddenly everyone is pregnant and driving that car! I stopped tweaking that theme and am going to look for a designer to work with soon.

We got home last night after driving almost 1600 miles over three days. The kids and I left Saturday to start the drive since we figured it would take longer with four kids. We drove for eight hours that day, then another seven on Sunday, before we got to the town we were meeting my brother. Oh – I’ve had two of my nephews since we moved to TX and this was when we gave them back.

My brother figured we would meet about halfway – he drove through Wyoming and Colorado while I drove through Texas. Yeah, this is a huge state. 🙂 He went farther then I did though so his halfway was off a bit. Yesterday my kids and I made it home in one day – we didn’t stop as often as the other two days and I was so glad to get home.

I have a lot to do now – other then the standard cleaning up and laundry, we have two birthdays coming up, Chris is traveling for his job, homeschool starting and we still need to finish unpacking and putting the house together. I’m hoping to get a lot done while Chris is gone – I’d like the rooms finished and pictures hung up. But for now, let’s start with today. 🙂

photo credit: bobu