{Day 5}: allowing your soul time to transition

We moved last December 2nd.

It's taken 9 months or longer for my soul to accept living in this new house.  (new to us, built in 1948) I've gone back and forth over these nine months, either chastising myself for not decorating the walls more quickly, or being kind to myself in the process of transitioning after fourteen years in our other home.

I've lived with bare walls lots longer than I intended. I also planned to use the decor here that I didn't give away before we moved. Now, not so much. What gives?

It was seven months before anything but a clock went up and eight months before I could even think about more. This move hasn't only meant downsizing many possessions, moving what was left, and moving our bodies to a different address. 

But, my soul also had to make this transition and I think my soul has needed to take it's sweet time. 

Turns out, my soul had to finish up some unfinished "moving" business and has only recently begun to indicate more settledness here. This has been confusing at best, because I love our little home and it's park-like yard, and I wanted to make this move to simplify as much as my husband did.

My soul has needed time to transition.  There's been resistance to work through. Emotions from the past triggered that I've been rather surprised by.

But, I've needed to listen to and pay attention to my soul's whispers and allow it space and time.

How about you? Have you ever had a time where you needed to be patient in transition? To let the movement of your soul catch up with the transition of your body? 

By this, I mean transition in things like moving houses or towns, changing jobs, or starting a family?

Let's allow our souls space and time to transition, even if we don't fully understand why.

And, I'd love to hear your story in the comments!

Thanks for joining in with me on this 5th day of 31 Days of Soul Spas! Click here for a list of all Soul Spa posts! Or, if you'd like to receive each post in your inbox, simply add your email address to the box on the right sidebar!

Blessings to you today!

~Anne

I'm joining 100's of other bloggers for #write31days, where we each pick a theme to write about for the month of October. Head over to write31days.com to find lots of other topics!

When there's a whole lot of preparing

Today is Friday, so it's the day many of us link up with Kate Motaung for a weekly writing free write! It's only for five minutes and just for fun. Go to her website to read how you can join in on a weekly basis! So much fun! Today's prompt is "prepare." 

So. Much. Goes into preparing a home to live in! We just moved a week ago Tuesday, but before that we painted the whole interior including the ceilings, we cleaned, we touched up paint boo-boos.

A whole lot of preparing!! 

painting, painting, painting

And, we downsized a bunch which I’ve written about before, but because of all the prep work to move into a much smaller home I figure it bears repeating again. 

We downsized a bunch of stuff.

My husband kept track of all we donated, threw away or sold. It is an incredible amount of stuff over the past couple of years. And, you know what? As I unpacked bathroom boxes today, I had no place to put many things like a hot water bottle, an ice bag and um lets see... cotton balls!

It sounds silly really, but our new house has no bathroom storage. So, I’m getting rid of more and getting creative with the rest.

I seem to be caught up in trying to prepare this new (old) house for four of us to live here comfortably and not step on each others toes too much. It’s going pretty well. We’ve had to realize we need patience when we’re all in the kitchen. Hard to pass each other when the fridge door is open, or we’re all in there helping!

barely moved in

No matter how much time it takes to prepare a new home to live in, the most important thing is the love that we bring into it. Is my heart prepared to serve my family here, and not just find a spot for the extra bottles of cleaner I unpacked?

Thanks so much for stopping by today, friend! Blessings to you this Christmas season of love!

~Anne

pondering moving on

I'm linking up with the lovely Kate Motaung at Five Minute Friday where whoever loves to write decides to silence the inner critic and write for five minutes straight. Today's prompt is "notice". 

I took some larger things off my wall yesterday and took them right to the consignment store. A large clock, a large shelf, a picture and a sunburst decoration. It wasn’t necessarily difficult to get rid of these things. 

What I notice now though, with those bare spots on my walls is that I’m a bit more uneasy.

I am not a meticulous house keeper, so it’s not that. But, those gaps in the décor are staring at me, reminding me that in the next few days time, everything on the walls and on the floors must go (to the new house).

I am excited about this, but I have a feeling there are deeper feelings underlying my reluctance to start packing in earnest. I have a feeling I will have to grieve some of the collectibles I will have to get rid of to move to a smaller home. 

I will grieve those times in the past fourteen years that our family has made memories in this home. When we moved in our children were 7, 10 and 12. Now they are 21, 24 and 26. So much has changed over this past decade plus four years. We had children, now our children are adults.

Maybe this is why the gaps on the walls where pictures have been taken down stir an uneasiness in me. Maybe this is why I can’t seem to tape a box together and start putting things in it.

I will cherish the memories, even as I am excited to move on. And, as I pack I’m going to keep noticing my feelings and thoughts and honor them as they should be honored. 

Blessings to you friend! Thanks for stopping by today!

The Storage Room

So, what do 27 year old Aerospace Engineering textbooks and a dozen or more unfinished cross stitch projects have in common you might ask. Well, today they were exhumed from our storage room. Those books have been dragged around in a box to every house we've lived in for the past 27 years. That's two apartments, a rental house, our first purchased home, plus four more! And, I had a box of random cross stitch projects that I had started at one time and never had the motivation to finish. They were tossed into a box with assorted half used ribbon spools, a bunch of antique spools of thread, needles, some remnants from one of our now grown boys' Pokemon games and just well, junk. 


After putting a good one and a half hours into the cleaning process, we were just chillin' in the family room and my hubby asked me, "Why do we hang on so tightly to all this stuff that just doesn't mean anything?" I couldn't think of one good reason except for the fact that we somehow attach an emotion to each thing that we own. Then, when we decide that we no longer want or need that item, the emotion attached to the thing (like the original Star Trek posters my husband had hanging in his room growing up) keeps us hanging on for just a little bit longer.


See, being new empty nesters as of last fall, we're wanting to move half way across the country to start something new. New job (hopefully, and yes needed) for my husband, and grad school for me (yes at 48!). I am applying for next fall, er I mean this coming fall (yikes!) 2012, and my husband is currently scanning job websites to hopefully find that job that's gonna make up the 1.5 times higher living costs on the west coast. And, yes, this does mean a very small living space is going to be waiting for us there. Good thing we still like each other!


Somehow, we're gonna have to get past that emotion that we have attached to a lot of "stuff" in our house that is, well, just stuff. We know that in our heads. Will we have the guts to do the down sizing that is needed for a move of this magnitude? Will we remember as we are taking stuff to the curb, Goodwill, or posting on Craigs List that it is just stuff and can be replaced if we decide later that we can't live without it? 


My wheels are turning. I'm wondering what item  it will be that is the most difficult to let go of to lighten my load. The Good Lord knows it needs lightening in so many ways.