No more

Ten. Months.

It took ten months to sell our house, but it happened. We have finally moved! Bret has been working at the other end of the state for ten months. We saw him on weekends. Now we will see him every evening! Much has been endured in the last months. To celebrate the end of this era and the beginning of our new adventure, I'd like to make a list of what I will have no more of. Maybe I'll even write it out, rip it up, stomp on it, and burn it for some therapy:)

There will be:

No More Staging the House for Showings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No more showings!
No more not being welcome in my own house.
No more eating out because someone wanted to see the house at dinnertime.
No more planning meals around what makes the least mess and cleans up quickest in case someone calls for a showing.
No more confining kids to the couch or the car while I do finishing touches on staging the house.
No more going to find an item only to remember it's packed up and in the storage unit until we move.
No more going through the stress and effort of staging, dragging my kids around town and/or feeding them less-than-nutritional food because we can't eat at home, bringing them home to finally get to bed late only to find that either no one showed up or they were late and "just need a few more minutes."
No more parking down the street and sitting in the car with restless or cranky kids waiting for latecomers to leave.
No more strangers going through my cupboards.
No more strangers ignoring the "please remove your shoes" sign and wearing their wet, dirty shoes on my new carpet.
No more strangers using my bathroom and leaving the toilet seat up.
No more strangers leaving things out of place and messing with my mild case of OCD.
No more strangers scuffing up my hope chest.
No more struggling (or failing) to not snap at the boys for making the completely normal messes that kids make.
No more dealing with the black underbelly of the real estate business! Hallelujah!
No more being the only adult in the house.
No more handling all the grown up responsibilities by myself. If the pipes freeze again- Bret's on the job. If there's a spider to kill, someone else will do it. Household chores, business, bills, phone calls, projects, errands, organization, meals, heavy lifting, snow shoveling, homework, diaper disasters, sick kiddos, teething baby, drama, sibling fighting, etc. etc. etc- SHARED:)
No more staying up until midnight trying to get in as much talking with Bret as I possibly can.
No more turning out all the lights and having to pray away the fear of someone breaking into the house while I'm alone with the kids.
No more going to bed lonely.
No more trying not to cry in the wee hours of Monday mornings after Bret has left for the week.
No more wishing I could just run simple errands in the evenings without four children in tow because we'd all had enough of each other, but not wanting to ask for help so ending up either not running errands and doing without or taking all the kiddos along anyway.

And now my brain is done thinking, so I'm done writing this list. Plus I need to go pick up kids from school. Hope you're having a lovely Thursday and that you pause to think of something you're grateful for.

Peace out.