Moving.

I have always hated moving house.

We moved into our first home, after living at home with my parents, 'The Happy House' 15 months ago. We signed up for a 2 year lease because the prospect of packing, unpacking, starting afresh and making a new house a home was not an idea I relished.

I wanted stability.

I knew it wouldn't be our 'forever' home. Our forever home would have a yard to fit a swing set, trampoline and leave room for the Kidlets to run, play, and even have a dog. A home not on a main road with a fence so that our Kidlets could play on the front lawn without the fear of a hoon taking them out in a car accident. It would have endless pictures of our lives adorning the walls, reminding us of a life we lived there. A place that had space for our dining table and chairs without our dining area needing to be rearranged every night to make room for us to sit for our family meals.

This house, had none of those things, but we made do with what we had. We worked and made it not just a dwelling.

We've not been happy at the Happy House for some time. It was a gradual process. Comments from myself or Hubby full of resentment.
'I can't wait to get out of here' became a frequent phrase of choice for one or both of us.

Be it the fact we had to go outside in a storm just to get to our washing as that's where our laundry is located, the fact our kids could not sit at the dinner table watching us cook without getting in our way, having a family that was growing, everyday, and a house that didn't accommodate, the neighbours waking the Kidlets nightly with their music, fighting, swearing. Or even the fact we were paying the rent of what you could get a much nicer, larger house for.

Whatever it was started out so small and grew to a massive resentment of a place we'd once been happy to call our home for two years.

These things were small nags.
Small nags we could tolerate for another year. Another year, until we found a place that we loved again, a place we could call the Happy House and mean it.

It wasn't until we started feeling unsafe in our home that we considered breaking our lease and escaping early.
Feeling unsafe, and having a reason to feel unsafe, because we are here.

We applied for three houses, told not to get our hopes up, which we hadn't. We'd had too much disappointment when we first started house-hunting over a year ago, that getting our hopes up was not an option.

We were just treading the water. Testing our luck, which of late has been particularly bad.

The first house we applied for, that had everything our ideal Happy House had, except us, was the very house we were offered under 24 hours of applying.

So we're moving.
In a week.
Everything is falling into place nicely.
Nicely enough to get our hopes up that one day, one day very soon, we'll have our Happy House.

Not our forever home, but a place where we can be happy, comfortable and safe until we find our forever home.

'I can't wait to get out of here' has been replaced with 'I can't wait until next week'.

I'm actually enjoying packing.
My daughter took her first steps here.
My son started toilet training here.
My unborn daughter was conceived here, but I won't miss this place.

These memories are with me.
Not the house in which they occurred.

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Just advising you all this may be my last post for a little while. I'll still be online, lurking, I may even post, but if I don't, you all know why. Don't miss me too much now.!