BLEUBIRD BLOG

GETTING SETTLED

this week has been so great. we are all adjusting to our new home and loving being here in nashville. our house backs up to a big state park with woods and hills and my kids have been exploring every day. so far they have seen several deer in our yard, a wild turkey in the valley behind our fence, a mama and baby coyote and a little fox. needless to say, they are loving it! unpacking is going a little slow, as we have had painters in here for the past four days, but my kitchen is completely unpacked and fully functioning. we went to trader joes yesterday and stocked our fridge and pantry and are starting to make regular family meals again. i truly love our kitchen. it is one of my very favorite rooms in the house. i promise to share our new space with you as we get more settled.

we have already made some really great friends here and i am looking forward to meeting more. the people are so warm and inviting. i can tell that we made a great decision making this move. my friend darrell is flying in to visit this weekend to help me unpack. i'm hoping we make some good progress in between the wine, kitchen dance parties and city exploring.

MUCH NEEDED CAKE

we thought we could make it to nashville without baking a cake. turns out we crave the stuff, so we went through our mostly packed up kitchen and scraped together the few things needed to bake a little circle cake. we baked a gingerbread cake out of the box that i had bought awhile ago to doctor up for baked donuts. we didn't have anything on hand to make icing so instead we ate it hot with a little spread of butter and it was heaven. definitely filled the void.

how do you like our fancy paper plates? our real plates are packed away, along with most everything else, including our cake pans, which is why we baked in a pyrex dish. speaking of pyrex... i have done something crazy. i sold my vintage pyrex collection tonight. all of it, except for a couple of pieces that i had already packed last week are sold and gone. less to pack, less to unpack. i also sold the old stock from my vintage shop last week. that was hard to do. ten years of collecting, gone. as hard as it was to part with, it felt so liberating. i got to pass it on to a girl who was starting an exciting new chapter in her life, while helping me end a chapter of mine. i feel good about it.

i have gotten rid of so much. many things that for a long time held a sense of importance to me for various reasons. when all is said and done, those things... are just things. things that i don't need and no longer want. i feel like i have outgrown that part of my life and that i am ready to embrace this fresh start.

...and just like that february is almost over. we are all overwhelmed, cranky and tired. next week we will be home.

one more thing,

"why are we moving?" you ask. "why not?!" i say.
we have been craving change and itching to move for a while now and aubrey has always loved the city of nashville. we are giving it a try and are looking forward to the fun adventures ahead. we are also opening up a new smilebooth nashville office!

well folks, we dove into the packing process head first this week and i'm not going to lie, it completely sucks. packing and moving is pretty much the worst thing ever. boxing up this large of a family is a lot more work than we anticipated, not to mention stressful and just not really fun at all. our house looks like someone flipped it upside down, gave it a few good shakes and then turned it right side up. complain, complain, whine, complain. okay, i will spare you the details and stop now.

i had a slew of posts planned for this week, including another conversation with birdie, but have just not been able to find the time to plan, work on and post most days. i will do my best to keep the blog updated regularly, but may have a couple of silent days here and there until we move. i will also be putting a couple of our regular features on the back burner until we arrive in nashville. sunday's cake being one of them. we just don't have time for cake baking right now.

thank you for understanding! xoxo

photo of diane keaton found here. 

22 DAYS

the countdown has officially begun. in 22 days we will be piling into our moving truck and saying "good bye" to texas. we are sorting through and packing up our favorite things while trying to figure out what needs to stay unpacked until we go. this can be a little tricky with kids. the walls are bare and our home is in chaos. it is both exciting and stressful at the same time. we will miss this old house. we have many incredible memories inside of these walls, but we are all looking forward to this next chapter in our lives, to our new home, less stuff and fresh starts.

i will keep you posted with our progress. a few of you have asked about the pets and if we will be taking them with us. yes, we are bringing them but sadly we will not be able to take our chickens to the new house. we found them a new home where they will be loved and treated as pets. we will miss those sweet lady hens.

okay, back to work.