We just found out that the housing office has a house for us! It is a one level house, not too much bigger than the one we have now, but with some distinctly wonderful features that our current little townhouse lacks.

First and foremost, it has a huge, beautiful backyard. Right now the backyard has no gardening going on, so it will be fun to start with a clean slate in that department. It does have one tree, and the minute Chris and I saw it we said in unison, “Look at that climbing tree!” Because, truly, it is the most beautiful climbing tree I have ever seen and it is in MY future backyard. Bliss, I tell you, bliss.

Secondly, there is a large one car garage. Currently I park in a lot and walk about ten yards to my front door, which isn’t a big deal unless I have a trunk full of groceries and two sleeping children in the car. You see, while the workout isn’t so bad, it is technically illegal for me to leave one of the children unsupervised while I walk that distance to my front door to drop one of them off. And while you think that no one would ever get busted for that, I had a friend who did get busted for that and in very similar circumstances, and it wasn’t funny at all. So now I am paranoid, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ruin one of their naps (and the rest of my day) by waking Jonas up and making him walk with me. I’ve been doing this thing where I walk Maggie to the front walk casting furtive glances behind me, and leave her there in her carseat and then go back for Jonas because this way, neither of them is out of my line of sight, so at least I’d have that going for me if an MP decided to be a jerk and bust me for it. Now, with a garage, I could let them sleep in there until they woke up if I felt so inclined, and no one would ever know.

Another favorite feature of mine is the laundry room. Right now we have a laundry hall and it is so narrow it took some serious contorting to remove a load of clothes from the dryer when I was pregnant. It is always a mess because we have attempted to store all of the cleaning supplies and computer supplies in the tiny cupboards above the washer dryer and this stuff doesn’t actually fit in those cupboards. The new laundry room is and actual room that is attached to the garage and it has a nook with many, many shelves that will fit the computer and hold all of the computer stuff and more (our computer is currently located in our dining room and Maggie is loving yanking on the cords and trying to chew on live wires). It also has a lovely counter with several large cupboards above and below it and the space for a small table or shelf or something. This area is going to be my scrap space! I am SO TOTALLY STOKED about this! My scrap stuff is currently in a weird closet under the stairs and every time I have to venture into that tiny little mess to retrieve something I feel very much like Harry Potter locked in his Cupboard Under The Stairs. Then I have to take my junk out of there and take over the kitchen table, which means that no one gets to eat while I am in a creative mood. This new house will be the end of all that. I have a feeling that the laundry will be my favorite room!

The bedrooms are comparable, so there is no real loss or gain there. We have several wonderful closets throughout the house for storage, and the kitchen is a larger and more open, friendly space than the hall style kitchen I have right now. And most of the new house has carpet instead of the disgusting linoleum that we have in our entire house currently. Although carpet can be a pain to keep clean with two little kids, I am happy that Maggie will have something softer than linoleum over concrete to fall on as she learns to walk. Since we won’t need the rug we keep in the living room we will move it to the dining room to be destroyed as our children drop their spaghetti dinners on it.

So I am pretty excited, if you couldn’t tell. Today I am off to find boxes so I can start packing. The one downer to all of this is that we have to move ourselves. The great thing is that we have a lot of friends who will help us and this gives me opportunity to do some serious de-junking. (Which is good because if we want to do anything special for Christmas we will need some money from a rummage sale!) We move September first! I am feeling very blessed.