We're moving. It's sort of a long story.

I'm not sure I know where this story starts.  But I'll try to make this make sense.

 

 

 

Back when we bought this house, we were told several times by the spirit that we were supposed to be in this exact house.  We had "that feeling" that house hunters often feel when they find "the one."  Then on other occasions, I literally recognized it as if I had seen it before.  Ben had similar experiences.

 

We planned to be here a while.  A while = quite a few more years than the 2.5 we have spent here.  But then a million things started happening.  I'll start with the most important.

 

About a year ago, I started getting preparing myself for Lily to start kindergarten.  I did so much research on schools that it felt like I did nothing else.  The elementary school that Lily's assigned to made us worry.  Let me clarify: there are 105 elementary schools in our district.  Only 3 are ranked lower than ours.  Ben and I both felt the need to try to get into a different school.  So we did everything we were possibly allowed to do.  Lily even ended up as #1 on the wait list for one of the schools we were interested in.  But after the few month waiting period, she didn't get in.  That was a huge wake up call for me.  But when it happened, I felt the spirit saying, "I'm trying to tell you something, Heather."

 

I don't even know how many times at this point that I had fasted about this matter.  And I don't think I missed a single night pouring out my concerns to Heavenly Father.  Despite my concerns, I had a feeling of peace that everything was going to be okay.  Other members of our family who fasted with us had similar experiences.

 

Back in the beginning of the year, as sort of a joke, I started house hunting online.  I knew we would have a different budget than we had 2.5 years ago.  We had *sort of* decided that we would be moving a few years earlier than planned, but still not in the near future. 

 

But I kept worrying about schools.  I convinced myself that Lily could make it through one or more years of school without getting behind.  As if on cue, a bunch of people started randomly telling me about how their kids were assigned to low rated schools and they were the best in their classes.  Then when they moved they had to given special help from their new school because they were so far behind their peers.  I started panicking a little.

 

Then Ben got a pretty sizable raise in April.  On that day, Ben and I agreed that our house would be on the market in a year.

 

But here's my problem.  Like I already said, I'm a researcher.  I like to plan how things are going to happen.  So we took one tiny little step into looking at houses, and we were sort of thrown into the thick of things.  I felt that some fast forward button kept getting pushed.  But it still felt right.

 

Eventually Ben and I ended up asking ourselves this question: Do we want to move before or after the baby comes?  I'm due September 19th.  At first we weren't sure because they both sounded pretty hard.  But then we felt like we should go ahead and get things moving now.

 

For the last few weeks we have worked, and worked, and worked on getting our house market ready.  Ben's parents helped us get far ahead of where we could have been on our own.  My parents have let us use their house as a temporary storage unit so our house looks less cluttered.  The realtor has come.  A stager has come.  An appraiser has come.

 

Our house is probably going on the market this week. 

 

To answer some questions:

 

Where are we going?  We are going to be staying in the general area.  But the top spot on our list right now is Holly Springs.

 

What are we going to miss the most?  Friends from our ward and the castle in the bonus room.  I never thought of myself as so attached to that castle before, but our kids spend hours in it everyday.  I will bawl my eyes out when we leave it.

 

All of this moving-this-summer business is so new to us, that we really haven't even had time to tell anyone, so please don't be bothered if we didn't tell you.  Plus, I'm still a little in denial that any of this is happening.  Either way, we feel like this is right, and I just pray that the next stage of selling/buying will go well.

 

There are a few other reasons why we're moving, but this is the reason that is most important to us.  Now here's to hoping that I can manage to keep my house looking stellar for showings with 3 small kids.

*Gulp*