7 Months, 3 Houses

Hubby and I moved last weekend to our third house since our wedding seven months ago. We are back on the farm, in boomtown, in oil country, in western North Dakota, starting our new jobs and a new adventure together. I will miss some things about living in the capital city, but then again, when I lived in the capital city, I missed it here, too. I read a quote once that said, “You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” It’s true; no matter where I am, I miss someones and somethings somewhere else. But that’s ok — at least I have all those someones and somethings to love!

I digress. Here is the story of the move:

Upon starting summer vacation in early June, I assume I have lots of time to move before school starts up again this fall, so rather than packing up my house, I pack a suitcase and go on vacation to Ireland and Scotland with two girlfriends and without a care. While on vacation, I get an email from my father, who is helping us to get rid of our house in the capital city. The email informs me that I must be out of my house by the following Saturday. Upon doing some calculation, I realize that gives me three days to move out once I return from Europe.

I also realize at this point that I haven’t packed one thing besides my suitcase. I haven’t even collected one cardboard box. Uh oh.

So, late on the Wednesday night before the move, I return home to a happy reunion with my hubby after being away for two weeks, followed by a lot of frantic wrapping, sorting, packing, boxing, carrying, and loading into two trailers. We should be good at this by now – not only is this our third house together, but I have moved nine times in the past six years, and in the past nine years, my hubby has moved a whopping 18 TIMES!

And every move is just as terrible as the one before.

Luckily, we have the help of my parents, grandparents, and one brother. After three long days, we load the last box, take out the last bag of garbage, wipe down the last shelf in the refrigerator, and decide that it was probably good we didn’t have much warning — kind of like ripping off a bandaid.

And just like that, here we are, enjoying the long western North Dakota evenings and unpacking at a much slower pace than that of packing. Our new home, a little modular on the family farm, is shaping up nicely after a few days of TLC. Never mind that the spare bedroom looks like this right now:

(I know. Don’t judge.)

The more important thing is that right outside the window it looks like this:

The view outside is a bit better than the view inside, don’t you think?

I think those boxes in the spare bedroom can wait a little longer….