Hallelujah!

I am happy for a few reasons today...

One is that my office/craft room/studio at the new house is being painted out for me as we speak, so I will be moving into it this weekend, I hope. Which means I can get back to many of the creative pursuits that make me smile, including posting regularly to my blog. I have a bunch of pictures and stories and thoughts to record there, and I will be glad to get my own computer up and running so that posting to my blog will be as enjoyable and convenient as it was before. The painters (the brother and father of my dear friend Alicia) already painted the red dining room a beautiful shade of taupe for me. I think it is my favorite color I've ever used in all my houses.

Another reason I can rejoice today is that we finally got a contract to sell the old house! Such a relief. We are meeting our realtor this afternoon to sort through it all, but I think it is going to work out so that we will close at the first of the year and the buyers will be moving in on New Year's Day. I am glad to know they really, really love that cute little house and that we can let it go and move on where we are now. Upon hearing this news I called my friend Barb and announced, "Let the decorating commence!" Many of my purchases/projects for the new house were on hold until we had something going with the old one, so now I am excited to retrieve some of my favorite things I left at the old house to keep it looking nice and start pulling everything together.

We were also fortunate enough to be able to take Ryan's four employees and their families out for a great dinner at Nakato last night and gift them each with a generous Christmas bonus. Ryan really appreciates all they do and credits the succesful first year he's had owning the company to the hard work these people do. Driving home in the cold, slushy night, Macauley said from the backseat, "I love you, Mom. " Pause. "I love my life." I'm so glad we've been able to give him a good life, one with lots of love and laughter, a nice house, nice car, good food, etc. When we made it home, Ryan had run a bath for us both and Macauley hopped in and relished the warm water and said, "That was so nice of Daddy to do this so we could get warm. He just treats us with such niceness." I thought that was so sweet. I am looking for lots of more of these warm fuzzy vibes in our family now that we are relieved of some of our stress.

I hope to post some photos of the house and Macauley's 6th birthday this weekend. I love to blog because there are so many things I would otherwise forget if not for recording them in this format. Hope I haven't forgotten too much in the last few weeks...