Goodbye House, Hello Motherhood

Seriously, the year of 2017 is proving to be such a HUGE, GREAT, BITTERSWEET year!!

As of about 45 minutes ago, my Greensboro, NC house (shown above) is officially sold!  I bought this house BY MYSELF a little over seven years ago, not realizing at the time I would eventually find myself living in the Deep Delta South, much less happily married, with a baby on the way!

Since moving to Arkansas back in 2012, I had been renting my house out, to the same lady up until February of this year.  Back in 2015 she showed a little interest in buying the house, and we thought we were done with it- of course any time you think something, that’s not how life works out, so we continued owning this house, up until March when she moved out!  Before we could put the house on the market there were things to be done on our end and the rental company’s end, but once it was on the market, it was under contract within a week!  Fortunately everything has come together just as it needed to, and now we’re done with it.

It is seriously bittersweet!  I was so proud of myself for being able to buy a house at the age of 23 on MY OWN!  I became an “adult” there!  It was my space.  I moved here in 2012, honestly assuming I would be back in NC after my two years of teaching- obviously there were other plans for me that I was unaware of!  Over the last 5 years, the house has been a hassle, with repairs being done to it, and it really became annoying, especially after Will and I got married and I knew I would not be moving back- but none the less, it was still my little piece of NC.  I feel like this is my official, final goodbye to North Carolina!

On that note, FINALLY having all of this done with is such a relief!  Dealing with a house when you live 12-14 hours away over a phone and email can be quite a pain!  You also don’t ever get to see anything done, and so many simple things that we could have fixed on our own, had to be paid for (which is always more expensive when you include labor…)  Thankfully my parents were able to check on some things for us, and my Dad was able to start mowing my yard while it was being shown and looked at!

Now that it’s gone, it’s one less thing to worry about when our sweet baby girl gets here!  Going along with so many bittersweet changes- I had another big change to my life back in May!  Many of you probably already know- but Will and I decided finally that I would stay home once Annabelle Grace was born instead of returning to school in August.  This particular decision was another one of the biggest I myself have ever made!  I have waited and waited for both a teaching job (lower elementary) and a baby!  This past year I was fortunate to have been hired at Desoto as their new K3 teacher (Pre-school teacher for 3 year olds).  I fell in LOVE with my job.  We had lost one baby back in 2015, and lost our second baby not even two weeks before I started my job with Desoto.  The biggest thing that held me together was getting to see those sweet little faces every morning!  I had waited for a job like this to open up, and it finally did.  Even when we finally got pregnant for the third time this past winter, the biggest thing I kept telling myself was “if we have to lose this third baby to miscarriage, at least I have a job I love- that’ll help me get through it.”  Well little did I know, this baby has decided to stick around!  Yayayayayyay!!  Butttt, that also meant seriously having to think about what I wanted to do.  With any other job I would have quickly said I would be leaving and staying home- but not this one.  I loved the school, my class, the age of the kids, the staff, and the parents.  I also have been so incredibly cautious to not get my hopes up with this baby.  I have enjoyed my pregnancy- but when you lose babies or have trouble getting them, you find yourself still questioning everything.  This job was the light at the end of the tunnel if I lost Annabelle.  In the end, and after careful consideration of so many things, we decided I would stay home!  The closer her due date gets, the more real it becomes, and I become even more excited!  I basically just got upgraded to the biggest teaching job there is, and I can’t wait to watch our daughter learn and grow!!!  Oh, and to make it even more real- we had maternity pictures taken Friday.  (I’m 30 weeks pregnant now!)  We’ll get to see more of them soon!  Will’s friend from college, Kati Mallory is a photographer out of Little Rock and she was so fun to work with and takes great pictures!

Sooooo, goodbye house, hello motherhood!  I love this trade-off!  =)  Now, to celebrate three years of marriage soon-June 21 is not far away!!!