10 days

10 more days 'til we officially move. I've been packing a few boxes everyday to make the task seem a little less daunting. In fact, our new landlord was kind enough to give us the keys to the new house on Jan. 1st, without charging us rent until the 15th. We've already made a few trips to the new house and even managed to unpack most of my kitchen.
Feels good! It also feels good to be downsizing a bit. We're losing about 400 sq. ft. with our new home but we're also gaining an upstairs and an extra bedroom that we wanted for a school/playroom. Hooray for no more school supplies left out on the kitchen counters! Our living area will be a bit smaller but truthfully, I'm also looking forward to the closeness this promotes within a family. All in all, there are so many positives about this move.

I love the fact that we're still close to our friends, family and community. Morgan will save about 20 min. on his commute to work and actually, we're right in the center of the valley, making things super convenient. We're also only 5 mins. away from Grandma and Grandpa's.

Most of all, I'm joyfully embracing the fact that we're back to being renters for a while. Does that sound odd? There's so much more simplicity and freedom in renting. We realize that selling our home for the price we did was a God send. We sold it for the exact amount we needed to pay off the loan. Many of the homes in our same community were selling for well over 100K less than ours. As the real estate market continues to decline, we know we're extremely blessed to have sold our home at all. And the best part- to be able to walk away, knowing we fulfilled our obligation to the bank, as well as being debt free. In this economy, that's what I call Simplicity and Freedom.

Emotionally, how do I feel about leaving our beautiful home after 4+ years, full of such personal detail and wonderful, cherished memories? I'm actually totally fine with it. Now, if you would've asked me this at the being of 2010, I probably would've been a bit sad and uncomfortable about selling but God has gently been working on changing our priorities this past year. It's been quite the journey thus far and we're not done yet. Morgan and I are really looking forward to this next chapter in our lives and all that God has in store for us in 2011. He has always provided us with everything we need, and then some.
As always, I've enjoyed learning some valuable lessons through this process of trusting and surrendering. Maybe I'll even share some of them with you soon... Until then, it's time to get packin'!