No Place Like Home

There's no place like home. Well, there's no place like this particular house...we're still in the process of trying to make it our "home".

If you haven't heard, we're moving back to Clarksville and we'll be renting a friend's house. The last tenants left some work to be done, and that's what my hubby's been up to lately. Chris has been staying with friends while working at his job in TN plus working on the house in his off time. Today the kids and I got to see some of the work he's been up to, and it's definitely coming along. He's patched nail holes and other random holes, sanded, and started painting. The livingroom, master bedroom, and kitchen walls are painted. That leaves 2 more bedrooms, 1.5 bths, a utility room, and a dining room (the latter will need primer first). Then there's trim work (door frames, baseboards, etc), and potentially painting the interior doors as well. (Ceilings may be on the agenda, not sure.) My guy is SO FABULOUS to do so much work for his family, I love him so much!

Once the painting is done, new carpet will be installed! Yay--much needed, super thankful for that for our children especially! Once that's done, we'll get to move some furniture in...woo hoo!

In the meantime, though, the other big need has been cleaning. We were going to hire someone, but friends stepped up and volunteered for such duties/agreed to be recruited, and that is a HUGE gift! Today while our guys took care of the kiddos, Cayla and I got quite a bit done...not the whole house, but enough. (Please don't mind the fact that we're sweaty in these pics...this was post-cleaning w/out air conditioning~~don't we look HOT?! haha)

We then cruised over to a dinner with a whole group of friends who've been helpful and supportive through this phase, and that was fun! And it was filling. I ♥ Old Chicago! *Yummy!* (Notice that our kids don't stop eating for a silly photo op? Haha, yeah, they got their love of food from me!)

Afterward, we worked off our meal by going back to the house for more cleaning! Kelli jumped in and cleaned like a cleanin' fool! (For the record, NO, I did NOT make her scrub anything with a toothbrush...she's just that detail-oriented!) Later Kelli had to pick up her son and Cayla's fam needed to get home (as did we with a trip to BG ahead of us), so we all made departures. I managed to hurt my back only slightly, and my hubby insisted I stop before I did anything worse to it--that's how I knew it was time to call it a night!

We're so appreciative of the helping hands that have blessed us and this place we'll soon call home. Just as a church is not a building but is truly the people who inhabit it, we feel similarly about a home. It's not about the structure, it's about what you do with it...and before we're even living there, our future home has been a gathering place for friends---how exciting! Can't wait for more gatherings....
after all, there's no place like home!