Wow! What A Difference A Year Makes

Unbelievably we have been back in our home for exactly one year today.  Time really flies when you are having fun and I'm happy to report that we are really glad to be here.  When I look back at the previous two years, the plans that we had and our multiple failed attempts to move to Arizona and begin our lives anew, I have to say it has been quite a journey.  A journey that led us right back to the very beginning.  Apparently, this is where we are meant to be.

As many of you know we had rented our home out while we "moved" with the idea we would never live here again.  Well, we know now, never say never.  We sold and purged almost everything we owned saving only the items we felt were most important to us and the basics needed for our everyday life.  Last year, over Labor Day weekend, we pulled our RV into the driveway.  It, and the back of my pickup, pretty much held everything we owned.  We did have stack of bins in our storage area that friends were going to bring down to us when we got settled in Arizona.  Moving in should've been a snap.

However, easy it was not.  We were greeted with a pile of trash sitting in the front yard next to our driveway and although the tenants had done a fairly good job of cleaning they had destroyed the carpet in the fourteen months they had lived here as well as had done a lot of damage.  The backyard was also in rough shape and full of trash and littered with cigarette butts.  We put a lot of work into cleaning the house, shampooing and stain treating carpets and making repairs.  I'm still not finished with all of the repairs, but I've done most of them.  Our yard is, for the most part, back to normal and looking good.  We have some more reseeding of the lawn to do and I'll want to plant more perennials to replace the ones that didn't survive our time away.

Our house inside has been completely scrubbed from ceiling to floor and in every nook and cranny.  We shampooed the carpets a total of four times to try and get them clean and while they are clean they are disintegrating now so I'll have to replace them.  Not a huge deal as I've had the same carpet a long time and it would probably need replacement by now anyway.  Once the cash is there I'll get it done.

We didn't have a stick of furniture when we arrived and now he have a house full of all brand new contemporary pieces which we absolutely love.  Our house used to be filled with used and hand me down furniture with a few new things here and there.  I didn't love the motif and always had a much different vision for my home in my head of how I would have wanted it.  Now it is how I want it.  The girls have their own bedrooms and are decorated how they want them.  They seem pretty happy to no longer share a room and have their own space.

My bedroom is now in the downstairs bedroom which is a change for me.  I'd had the big bedroom upstairs for eighteen years.  Now it is nicely furnished and complete with a lovely and functional sewing area with shelves to hold my vintage doll collection.  Eventually I plan to paint everything and replace the carpet in there too.

The best part is our chicken coop is now filled with four beautiful young ladies that we love and adore.  They bless us every day with fresh eggs and we dote on them.  There is nothing better than eggs from a well loved and spoiled hen.  Seriously, once the girls were out in the coop it really felt like we had come full circle and we were truly home.

I feel so blessed to have had this second chance to experience the home I have owned this past twenty years.  It is funny how things work out sometimes.  We love our home, we love our life and things are just fine.  It turns out we didn't need to move to Arizona after all.