Slowing down

After the last month or so of activity, it seems life is now at the point that we can slow down a bit. Of course, this is all relative. Slowing down in a house with 4 kids looks a lot different than slowing down in a house of empty nesters or singles.

I've done most of the essential shopping for the house minus most furniture, which we're waiting to get until we buy a house. It's astonishing just how much little stuff there is that we don't really give much thought to but are, if not completely necessary, then exceedingly helpful for daily life. Then there are all of the little luxuries that we allow ourselves. They don't seem like much but they can sure add up. And I don't even consider myself a big spender, but when you restock a house in month there's quite a bit of sticker shock. Not to mention buying more clothes for the kids since they had outgrown so much. I was getting a bit sick of shopping but now I can just sit back and relax for awhile.

What does slowing down look like for me? Well, right now it entails lots of house hunting. I search the web for possibilities, then we all go out together and scope the neighborhoods and if there's anything we'd like to take a closer look at, we call our agent to go take a peek. So far, we've only taken a closer look at 2 properties and one we are seriously considering but despite being on the market for more than a year and having dropped in price by $150k, it's still overpriced and out of our mortgage comfort zone unless they'd be willing to take about $100-150k less. (You can check it out here if you're so inclined.) So, it's back on-line to look for other options. I'm so thankful that this is a much more relax process than it would have been even 10 or 15 years ago thanks to the internet. We get to scope out lots of different areas and price ranges without wasting a lot of gas or time.

I'm also homeschooling the kids. As usual, we keeping that fairly relaxed with a few workbook pages to do each day and then whatever they want to work on after that. Thanks to 2 library book sales, we've now got about 2 1/2-3 boxes of books for the kids to explore, all for less than $60. Between those and our biweekly library trips, the kids have plenty to keep their minds busy. Now it's time to start helping Zahra learn to read. She was really excited a couple of months ago to work on it but I just didn't have time then to work with her because of the move. I hope she hasn't lost interest. It's still a bit early for her. She turns 5 next week so there's no big rush.

And finally, with all of my spare time, I pulled fabric to make Judy's October Hour a day Leaf quilt top and a few wonky houses to start the wonky house growth chart for the kids. DH's aunt's hubby is now in Iran visiting his dd, brothers and various other relatives after not seeing them for at least three years and hopefully, he'll be able to bring our errant camera back to us. When and if that happens, I'll be able to decorate the blog again with pretty pictures. Until then you'll just have to take my word for it that, the kids are growing and as goofy as ever and I am in fact getting back to work on my quilting. ;)

Time to get back to work.