The New House

Whew! It's been awhile since I posted. We have been preparing for our move at lightning speed and while I am anxious to get the move over with so we can carry on with our lives, it is moving a bit fast for my taste. But that's a different post. Instead, I wanted to share photos of the house. Most everyone has seen a couple on Facebook but my dad really wants to see more pics and I don't necessarily want every single one of my FB peeps to see the complete run-down of my house. Besides, they'd probably just think it was boring.

Anyway. We are thrilled about this house. The story goes that we arrived in TN with a list of about 30 houses to see over the course of 4-5 days. We narrowed our search down to Hendersonville, TN which is a Nashville suburb on the northeast side, because it provided Randy with the shortest commute into Kentucky each day. The day before we were to leave, we found a house that we liked a lot. It had most of what we wanted in a house but we knew we would have to put a bit of money into it in the next couple of years. Basically, the kitchen and baths were out of date (it was a 1984 house) but it had good basic flow. We put an offer in that was pretty low because we knew they were asking way too much for it. They countered that night with an offer that was still a bit on the high side and we decided to sleep on it. The next morning, I got one of my daily email blasts informing me of new listings. A house just came up in a neighborhood that I had liked from my laptop in Washington but at the time, there were no longer any houses in that neighborhood for sale. Since the counteroffer was in our court, we decided that we should go see this new listing just to make sure. We were leaving for home that night and we really wanted to make sure we had explored all options.

So we toured the house and liked it a bit better than the previous one. However, the house right beside it was also for sale. It never came up on our searches because the list price was out of our price range. Our realtor decides to chat up the neighbor as she's cleaning the pool. Judy, our realtor, manages to get a rock bottom price out of the owner and it turns out it is something we can look at after all.

Needless to say, we are in love. Without even a glance back at the other two houses never stood a chance, we secured a contract for this house. Our house. And here it is everyone. We are glad that we don't have to move in with extensive renovations ahead of us. It has a completely brick exterior which means no painting or vinyl replacement for us. The property is actually about 2.75 acres but we have about 1-1.5 acres that are usable and the rest hasn't been cleared so it is available but won't require maintenance. And did I mention the pool? The kids are thrilled although they did surprise us along the way when a couple of times they blatantly preferred basements to pools. They got over it, quickly.

the view of the pool from the breakfast area

the master bathroom

another master bath pic, there is actually another stand alone sink in another spot

the master bedroom

the rec room, the pool table stays, the kids are super excited about that!

the family room just off the kitchen

the open kitchen

the dining room (which we'll probably never use!)

Fear

I knew this day would come. I just didn't think I would be admitting it out here in blogland. It's quite embarrassing to be honest with you but I am so proud that I have to put my humility aside to celebrate for my child.

The day I'm talking about is one where my child did something that I cannot bring myself to do. My 7 year old son is officially braver than me. There. I said it. It's out there. Whew.

I know you're thinking, "Gee, I didn't realize that Adam rescued someone from a burning building" or "How did I not hear that Adam went skydiving recently?".

Here's the embarrassing part…for me at least….

He jumped off the diving board at the pool.

This simple act is something that has eluded me my whole life. I just cannot bring myself to climb up those steps, walk across that board and then willingly throw myself into the water. I can swim and I am not afraid of deep water. It's the jumping in that gets me. Never. Gonna. Happen.

So imagine my surprise when, a couple of weeks ago, I get a phone call at work from Randy. He was at the pool with the kids when Adam ran into a classmate of his. This classmate was jumping off the diving board and the rope swings and having a grand 'ole time. Naturally, Adam wanted to do those things with him. Randy reminded him that first he had to take the swim test so he could get his swimming license to be allowed to do those things.

As if we had not been asking him for the last year. As if it was just another thing for him to do. He simply said okay and walked over to the testing area. And passed the test!

And without any hesitation, he climbed up those steps, walked across that board and willingly threw himself into the water. Repeatedly.

"I'm so proud of you Adam", I said for the 100^th time as I tucked him into bed that night.

"Why?"

"Because today you did the one thing that mommy has never done, because I am too afraid"

"But it was so easy, are you just saying that to make me feel better?"

It was then that I realized that your kids really do think you are the bravest and smartest people in the world. While I was flattered that he would assume I had conquered the diving board, I thought it was important to let him know that even as an adult, I have fears. How many times have they heard us say, "When I was your age, I was afraid of the dark or when I was your age, I was afraid to ride my bike without training wheels". But to have me as an adult today freely admitting something that I am afraid of TODAY was probably quite surprising to him.

Now I just need to beg, borrow or steal some courage because when that boy asks me to jump off the diving board with him, I will.