Just A Quick Check-In

I don’t really have anything to say tonight, I just felt like checking in. My kids are outside having a water fight with one another. I don’t buy water guns because they break too easily or they run out of water too quickly. I buy them spray bottles from the dollar store, the size that you might use around the house for cleaning. The spray adjusts from mist to long distance and the kids aren’t running in an out every five minutes to refill them. They’re having fun right now and that’s all that matters.

We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow; we’re moving the rest of our belongings into our home. Doesn’t that sound nice? “Our home.” Aaahhh… I’ve got a couple of friends and the neighbor of the people we were living with to help us. It may take a few trips but it’ll all be here tomorrow so I can get the boys’ beds set up, my bed set up and all the kids’ clothing put away in their dressers. Dolly doesn’t have a bed so she’ll bunk with me until I get her one, and I have no dressers so I’ll just use a spare bookshelf for clothing storage for me.

I got a sofa, two end tables, an entertainment center and a microwave cart from a local thrift shop the other day. They were free and the woman who runs the place actually had them delivered to me since I couldn’t haul them myself. The sofa is comfy, the microwave cart is already in use and the entertainment center is in my room since I realized, after it arrived, that my big living room TV (the bulky kind with the tube) won’t fit on it. It’s got shelving so it’ll work in my room for my TV and extra storage. I’ll just use one of the end tables, which are huge, to put my TV on in the living room and the other will sit at the end of the sofa.

Still need a coffee table and a dining set, as well as a bed for Dolly and dressers for me but those will come in time. So will all the incidentals like lamps and other accessories. Dollar General is my favorite store because I can get small household items at inexpensive prices but the furniture will have to come second-hand. That’s okay, though, because with young kids around things tend to get damaged so second-hand is just fine with me for now.

Anyway, I just wanted to update you on the goings-on over here. Like I said, I didn’t really have anything to say, I was just sitting here while the kids play outside. It’s almost time to get them inside and ready for bed so we can get started on everything tomorrow. I’ll check back in a day or so and let you know how all the unpacking is going. Oh, and did I mention in my last post that I’m getting my Comcast hook-up next Friday? If I did, sorry for the repeat. Going for now but I’ll be back soon.

Until next time…peace to all.

Freedom, Finally

I woke up a little while ago after spending the night in my new home. Yes, I said it…my new home. It’s a rental and we’re back in the same apartment complex we were in when we initially moved from Missouri to New York but it’s a home and it’s ours. I signed the lease yesterday and the kids and I moved minimal belongings with us, whatever we could get in our van, and spent the night here. What a pleasure it is to have freedom and our own rules back again.

This has been almost two years in the making. Living in friends’ basements and a homeless shelter just wasn’t cutting it but finally we have a place to call home and we can get our lives back together. If you’ve never been in our situation you won’t understand the stress we’ve been under but that’s all ending now. Last thing to do is find friends and/or agencies to help us get our belongings out of my friend’s basement and over here where it needs to be so our home will be a home. I’m working on that as we speak.

You can’t imagine how excited I was to get the call on Tuesday from the management office telling me my new address. I cried for so long I didn’t think I could stop, especially since I’d called that morning and they said it would be another week or two. But that call came in later in the evening and it was cause for celebration. I called everyone I knew and posted my good fortune on Facebook for all my friends to see. The outpouring of congratulations and support was amazing. All my friends know how hard it’s been for the kids and me and they were as overjoyed as I was to know that we finally got what I’d been trying so hard for so long to get.

So far I don’t really think it’s sunk in with any of us but I’m sure it will as the days pass and we get back to making a real home together and getting our lives back on track. The feeling is almost indescribable – FREEDOM is all that comes to mind right now. No more tiptoeing around other people, no more following house rules that we never had, no more feeling like we’re invading the lives of our friends. The sense of relief is awesome!

I’ll be back here more often now, especially since I’ll have my cable hook-up soon. I can’t wait. And then I can get into what I’ve wanted to discuss for so long, and that’s the life I’ve lived for the past two years. You’ll know everything and I won’t be holding back. For now I’m going to get my day started and see what develops. Take care and I’ll be back shortly.

Until next time…peace to all.