Six Months

We have been in this house for a little over six months now.  We are really enjoying it, I especially love my new tub, but there are some disappointments (keep reading, Nana). 

First, even though we threw away what felt like would have filled up a PODS when we moved, we still have alot of junk.  If you don't believe me, just come look at our garage.  How many times have we cleaned out that garage, threw stuff away, just to have it fill up again?  What is happening here???

Second, my kids aren't keeping their "new" rooms as clean as they promised.  At first, like the first day, they kept their rooms tidy, but now we are right back into the struggle.  "Respect your stuff or I'm throwing everything in here away!"  Please tell me I'm not the only mother to ever utter those passionate yet untrue words....

Third, this house eats things just like our old one did.   In the other house, we had this ongoing joke about our couch being the "portal."  Once things got sucked into the cushions, it went into this portal of unknown, and we would never see the thing again.  I was hoping the portal of disappearance had been left behind, but no such luck.  For example, just this week I wanted to find a certain book to take to preschool with me.  It was a book Poptart had bought at Borders, and one of the reasons I encouraged her to buy it was for the fact that I knew it would go well with our Health & Nutrition unit at preschool.  We read that book several times here at home.  However, Tuesday morning when I went to retrieve the book out of Poptart's room, it was nowhere to be found.  Not in Poptart's room, not in Gogurt's room, not in my room.  I looked everywhere.  I know that book exists, and I know it was in this house just a few days ago, but I am afraid it has fallen victim to the portal-and we will never see it again.  (and no, Ellie didn't eat it).    This isn't the only time I can remember not being able to find a book when I needed it.  Once in the old house, Gogurt came home from school excited to tell me that he had told his teacher he had a book about George Washington he could bring to share with the class during their study of  the U.S.A.   No problem, I just saw that book on your bookshelf, so I'll go get it and stick it in your backpack.  The book wasn't on the bookshelf.  We tore the house apart, we never found the G.W. book. 

Instances like this are so very frustrating to me, then add the little things that seem to happen here on a daily basis, and it's almost cause for insanity. 

Little things like always having to search for Scotch tape.  It's never where its supposed to be. 

Neither are fingernail clippers. 

And scissors.  Oh, goodness, the scissors.   I bought several pair of scissors to put in every room of this house to have handy, and now I go from room-to-room opening all the drawers and still find no scissors.  (I want to be like Nana, she always knew where her scissors were in this house.)  I, on the other hand, never know where any of my 3 pair of scissors are!  I remember my mother having this certain pair of scissors.  I'm sure she still has them, and I'm sure if I walked into her house right now, I would know the exact drawer to find them.  With that said, I can also remember as a child being threatened with my life if I borrowed "Momma's good scissors" and didn't return them to the drawer immediately. 

And what about sharpened pencils?  When homework time comes around, why do we always have to search for a sharpened pencil?  I say sharpened because we have DOZENS of unsharpened pencils, but very, very few sharpened pencils.  If we finally decide to give up on finding a sharpened pencil, then the hunt is on for a pencil sharpener.  And yes, I have sharpened pencils with a knife before over my kitchen sink.  Haven't you? 

I was really hopeful that all these annoying habits would stay at our old house, but no, they have followed us.  That can only mean one thing.....it's the people in the house, not the house itself. 

The house itself is wonderful - have I mentioned my tub? 

Every now and then the kids will say they miss their old house, I think we all do a little bit, but we are definitely enjoying making new memories at this house. 

I just wish one of those new memories would be always knowing where my scissors are.