Bittersweet

After a month of searching, we may have found a new place to live. I sound so enthusiastic right? My hormones are in overdrive at the moment, so bear with me here…

My biggest requirement in this move was that we stay within our same ward boundaries. I was willing to move into a place that was slightly smaller, not as nice, hopefully cheaper but we were willing to spend more, and maybe not as close to Mark’s family and work as we are now, but I was fully committed to not moving into a different ward. It has taken me almost 4 years of being in our ward to really feel like I have friends now. I love our ward.

Then I started the torture of trying to find a three-bedroom house or duplex, in our ward boundries, in our price range, that allows pets. Nothing. In the month I looked I found one. TOTAL. It was across the street from us, and it was more than we were willing to pay so we passed. We wish we had taken it now…

The more I searched the more I realized that I may not have the luxury of being picky on this particular point. There may be reasons why we can’t find something in our ward boundries. Maybe we are supposed to move on to another ward. I am having a really hard time accepting that.

This week we finally found a great place, perfect in every respect except location. It’s only about a mile away from where we currently live, but of course, in a completely different ward. We turned in an application and today the owner let us know that we have been selected if we still want it.

It’s bittersweet really. I cant even feel happy about it yet. I’m still heartbroken about moving out of this house. Every other time we have ever moved, it was because we were moving on to something bigger and better, and that’s always exciting. There is a part of me that secretly enjoys moving because I like the newness of starting out somewhere fresh. I like deciding where things will go. I like the cleanliness of a new place. I like starting fresh. It’s kind of fun. While packing and cleaning the old place and actually moving stinks, the process of starting over is kind of refreshing.

This time I do not feel anything but sadness about moving. The new place is bigger, and will probably be nicer after all the renovations the owner is doing to it this month before we move in. However, I didn’t need a bigger place. I was perfectly happy with this one. I didn’t need a nicer place. This one just feels like it’s our home. I can’t imagine the new one ever feeling like this.

Most of all, I’m heartbroken about leaving our ward. I keep reminding myself that so many things won’t have to change. I can still attend our ward’s park day. I can still go to my Bunko night on the first Wednesday of the month. I can still go to the gym with Jen during the week.  I can still keep up with these women whose friendships have become so important to me. It’s not like we do that much socilaizing on Sunday anyways. But my fear is that I will be forgotten and left behind when I move a mile down the road.

I don’t know how to feel. Relieved that we can stop looking? Panicked that I have to start preparing to move? Sad about what I will leave behind? Excited for the prospect of new friends and experiences?

A part of me just wants to hide under the covers and believe that this will all go away. That it was all some bad dream and that we don’t actually have to go anywhere. A part of me wants to pretend like this isn’t happening.

MacAskills Are Crazy

We love Indiana Jones movies.  We love gadgets and toys.  We love cool vehicles.

Behold!  Our latest love:

Moving Pictures: Hawaii Edition

I finally finished the video from our trip to Maui.  You can view it here.

Meghan also finished the photos, which you can find here.

Aloha!

Greeting from Hawaii! Mark and Reese and I are enjoying ourselves here in Maui. I will have many more photos and stories to tell about our adventure when we get home but for now I couldn’t resist sharing this one picture of Reese today. We have two and a half more days to enjoy the island before we head home and I hope to make the most of it because when we get home the packing/moving/finding a place to live nightmare commences!

Housing Nightmare- Part 2

Have I mentioned before that I HATE RENTING?

I hate being at the mercy of landlords. I hate it when your rent gets raised for no reason at all. I hate never having that feeling of permanence, like this is your long-term home. I hate feeling like you can’t make changes or invest money in things like curtains and landscaping in places that you rent because it’s not your house and when you leave you will have to leave behind all those things you paid for.

I received a phone call this week notifying me that our landlord is giving us 60 days notice that we will need to move out of our house. Apparently the owner of the house has fallen on hard times and the bank is foreclosing this house. Of all the times for this to happen, this would be one of the worst. I can’t even fathom packing up an moving again right now. This house is the closest I have ever felt, since leaving my childhood home, to really having a home that I love and can’t wait to come home to. We have made this place ours, even though we were only renting. We looked forward to throwing pool parties in the backyard this summer, and repainting the office to make it into our new baby’s nursery. I planted tomatoes and cut fresh roses from the bushes outside to adorn our table. I love living here.

Only now that I have started looking again for housing do I remember how hard it was for us to find this house in the first place. I looked for 6 months and even then, we only found it because it was not listed on craigslist. It was insanely under priced a year ago and it is still insanely under priced even though the housing market has grown cheaper this year. All I have learned from looking over that last couple of days is that to find a place we are either going to have to pay more for something equally as nice as this house, or pay less for a place that is much worse. It sucks and I don’t even want to think about it right now but I can’t stop thinking and worrying and stressing over where we will end up.

The other thing bothering me in this situation is that even if we happen to miraculously find a great place in our price range, I worry that it will be in another ward’s boundaries. Where we live right now is so perfect. I live around the corner from and down the street from at least 4 girlfriends. Jen, my gym buddy, lives so close we carpool together for park day and playgroup and trips to the gym. I finally have gotten to the point where I love our ward. I feel like I have close friends and people know me, and I have a calling that I love. I refuse to start all over again somewhere else. It would be heartbreaking.

So the nightmare continues. Wish us luck on finding another fabulous place for a fabulous price, but my feeling is that lightning does not strike twice…

Our First Family Vacation

I just realized that in one week Mark and I and Reese will be taking our fist ever family vacation just the three of us. The story goes something like this…

Three weeks ago I had a sudden realization that on May 22nd Reese is going to turn 2. What does that mean? Other than officially entering the terrible twos, we won’t be able to travel with Reese without buying her a plane ticket. Mark and I had talked last year about taking Reese to Hawaii sometime while she was still little and we didn’t have to buy her a plane ticket, but those plans never materialized. We had looked at ticket prices and they were more than we felt like we could spend. Plus, it’s been a busy year already as far as traveling goes, and we still have a major MacAskill family vacation to attend this summer. So the trip to Hawaii was forgotten, until it suddenly entered my brain three weeks ago for no reason at all. I checked out plane ticket prices to Hawaii  just to see what they were like right now, and they were cheap. I have honestly never seen prices so low. So I picked up the phone, ready to call Mark to hear what he thought about going to Hawaii, when a brilliant idea came to me. Why not surprise him? He and Reese’s birthdays are next month, why not plan this trip as a birthday surprise and not tell him a thing until we drive to the airport to board our plane? It was a delicious idea, so i ran with it. I love big surprises.

The only other possible snag would be if the condo we can occasionally use for free was booked or available. I made the necessary calls and e-mails and the condo was miraculously free due to some remodeling that had been rescheduled. Everything seemed to be falling to to place a bit too easily.

I deliberated without telling Mark for 48 hours, petrified that ticket prices would jump during that time, luckily they didn’t, though the choice of flight times became less desirable. I finally bit the bullet and did it. I spent a good couple of days stressed out that when Mark found out he would be upset at me instead of thrilled, but that passed and I knew that he would be totally excited when I told him.

Then I realized that whisking my hubby away on vacation without telling him in advance was a recipe for disaster. He would be upset that he didn’t have time to wrap things up at work (even though I cleared it with our bosses before making the plans). He would also be upset that he didn’t pack his own suitcase/load up his laptop with movies/bring everything he wanted to bring. So I had to tell him. But the element of surprise was still there. I just blurted out in the car one day “Hey, we are going to Hawaii next month. Surprise!” The look on his face was priceless.

Now all I can think about is how excited I am to be sitting on a beach in a week, playing in the warm water with Reese and eating banana-coconut pancakes. Some may wonder why we would want to take Reese along to such an exotic and romantic location. I don’t think Mark and I are at the point yet with our child where we need a vacation from her. Taking her along sounds like so much more fun than leaving her behind. I can’t wait to see the wonder and excitement in her eyes on this trip as she sees and discovers new things. And since she is free to bring along, why wouldn’t we want her to come? Mark and I have done the “Hawaii Honeymoon” once before. I’m excited to do the “Hawaii Family Vacation”.

And just because every post is better with a photo, here is a recent one that Grandpa Baldy took of our little family.