I promise I won’t do too much blathering about our new house, but one of the advantages it has over the old one is STORAGE. And lots of it! The old house was sorely lacking in this department. I just thought I would share a list of things the new house has that the old one didn’t, and that make me smile every time I see them.

1. COAT CLOSETS – oh my gosh, in our previous home the coats always ended up in a HUGE pile on a rocking chair in the living room. NOT the decorating theme I was going for, certainly, but there literally was no place else to put them.

2. LINEN CLOSETS – again, there was no such thing as “storing the seasonal stuff” in our house. I finally have shelving to store blankets and extra sheet sets.

3. FAMILY ROOM – In our old house, if DD wanted to play a video game using the television, DH and I were quite literally banished to the dining room table because there was no place else for us to go.  The new place not only has all the usual rooms upstairs, it has a finished family/rec room downstairs.

4. LAZY SUSAN Cabinet – I can finally reach all the canned goods :)

5. KITCHEN STORAGE - Places to store the pots ‘n pans besides in the oven.

6. SPARE BEDROOM – This space will incorporate elements of a dressing room, office, and guest bedroom. It’ll provide a permanent home for my crafty/genealogy stuff, desk for the computer/printer, and maybe a futon.

7. KITCHEN ‘OFFICE’ NOOK – a place where the mail can get sorted and stacked, besides the poor dining room table!

8. LIVING ROOM SEATING – We’ll finally have room for more than three people to have a comfortable sit-down conversation, or gather to watch a DVD movie.

9. ROOM TO ENTERTAIN – two levels of usable space means lots of room to have friends and family over. Only thing we could do with guests in the old house was sit around the dining room table and play games or cards.

And 10. HOSTING THE HOLIDAYS – because of all of the above, I will finally have enough room to host family members during the holidays! We’ll see how that works out, I have a sister-in-law who just got a new house last year, and I think she’s got dibs on Thanksgiving already!

I said back in June that things were pretty overwhelming – I can’t even begin to describe the agony that was this past summer, so I won’t even try. I will just say that  “overwhelmed” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The long list of tragic things that occurred, coupled with the uncertainty left in their wake, actually began to change who I was as a person. A person I did not even like.

BUT – I daresay that things are slowly getting back to normal for my family and I, so perhaps I needed the period of hibernation. Here is a brief update.

Dad – I miss him terribly. I easily become wracked with guilt over various things I wish I could change (hey, I’m Catholic, it’s genetic), so I try to avoid thinking about them.

Flooded Home – we sold our home to the City through their buy-out program. We used these proceeds to pay off the mortgage and position ourselves to qualify for another loan. Fortunately, we hooked up with Bankers Trust. They were able to look at our specific situation and help us even though we weren’t their usual “perfect customer.” I thank them for taking us on.

New Home – We qualified for a mortgage and bought a wonderful new home on the South Side. We spent a couple of weeks cleaning, painting, repairing, replacing… and now it’s very nice. Here are the ‘before” pictures – I haven’t taken any “afters” yet, but I’ll share them when I do.

Flooded Friends – We have good friends, former neighbors, who are still working to repair their flooded home. It looks like they will be finished up in time for the holidays, as long as you don’t count Halloween. Nice to note that one of the two pieces of furniture in our house that survived the flood was the hand-made writing desk that Kristin’s grandpa made and that she gave to me. It’s now an “island workstation” in my new kitchen.

New job - I have a new job that started May 15, which I absolutely LOVE. I am still in the economic development industry, which is challenging now with the goofy economy, but I am in a leadership role and really enjoying it. Here’s hoping my board of directors loves me as much as I love them!

The Future – ah, who knows. My family and I are trying to figure out what “normal” looks like, and we are looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas in the new house. I hope to blog a little more – there have been many times this summer when I observed or thought of something that made me say, “I should blog about that” – and then just didn’t have the gumption to do it. Now I feel like my “gumption” (whatever that is!) is slowly returning, so maybe I am not done blogging after all.

More soon…