Every goodbye makes the next hello closer.

I have been busy packing and getting ready for a move over the past few weeks.  I hope you'll afford me a little sentimentality here.  My husband and I have taken a big leap into a new adventure and we are leaving our nice, comfy little nest behind!  It has been an emotional week with the full realization of what we are doing settling on me.  There is a lot more to it than packing up a house and moving somewhere new.  We are forging ahead into the unknown.  It's exciting, exillerating, and nerve wracking and scary.

I have moved a lot. A LOT. I wasn't a military kid, but we moved like a military family when I was a kid.  I counted 13 moves growing up, and we joke with my parents that the tradition lives on, they've moved at least 7 times since I left home!  There have been 6 moves for my husband and I.  This one is different because this was our first "home", the first one we bought and made our own.

We poured our whole first summer here into renovating a mess of a foreclosed piece of property.  It was a lot of work, and completely rewarding.  We didn't have a kitchen for the first month.  We cooked on a grill, washed dishes in the bathtub, and got water from our fabulous neighbors!  Here's part of what that work earned us:

It was worth it in the end.  I cooked and baked food linked to many amazing memories here.

My son has spent his first five years here.  He learned to "truly" crawl on these floors (quotations because before that he had only mastered some weird army crawl that didn't get full credit!) followed by his first steps.

These walls hold so many precious memories that will come along with us.  Still, we will miss this place. We cherish many good times spent with friends and family in this space.  It has been our haven, and we have fully treasured living here.  So many times we have settled down in the living room to relax and said "I love this house, it feels like a vacation home" as we look into the backyard at the beautiful green "lollipop tree" contrasting against the bright blue sky (well, sometimes contrasting against bright blue, probably more often against grey clouds here!).

I'll miss my humble little jewelry design studio as well.  A cozy little nook that harbored hours of artistry and creativity. This is where Variya jewelry started:

All good memories.  All good times.  It feels positive to reflect.  I'm looking forward to the future.