Surrender.

A few weeks ago now, I had a dream that I decided to move from our new(ish) house to my aunt's house, which is in a very rural part of our county and in a different school district. The dream itself was very realistic, as some dreams are, and filled with incredible minute details that made perfect sense and made the whole thing seem like it was actually happening. The dream culminated with me standing in her kitchen and looking around and thinking, "What have I done?"

Don't get me wrong: I love my aunt's house. It is the place I was at most often after my own house, and her house is filled to the brim with memories of Christmas and birthdays and countless sleepovers and lazy summer afternoons and always, always plenty of good food. I know my brother has the same strong connection to it because despite any changes we experienced in life, her house has remained a constant source of comfort since we've both been alive.

But moving there is just not an option for our three kids and two adults for a host of reasons.

I ended up waking up at 2:30am, breathing quite heavily and very, very happy that I do not have to pack up all of my belongings and move again.

I talked this over with my friend Angel who also moved this summer to a new house. "What do you think it's about?" I asked her. We talked about it for a bit and I came to the conclusion that it was about surrendering emotionally to our new house.

Because for months after we moved in, as I was wrestling with managing the new mortgage payment, moving expenses, all of the surprise costs of that fateful day in August when we had the car! the knee! the fire! issues, all the little things one has to buy when moving into a new house (the most unglamorous: three new toilet seats and a few new doorknobs), I knew logically it would all be fine but I half expected someone to knock on the door and say, "Look, there's been a terrible mistake and you can't live here anymore." I have a sign above the front door that says, With God all things are possible, and for weeks every time I read it, I added even living in this house silently to myself. I was living in it but still had my guard up that someday it would all be over.

Well, the guard is dropped and the bottom line is this: I am having a torrid, torrid love affair with my house. And I have surrendered to it.

I love the space we have. I love the view out the back windows. I love that we can eat breakfast on the deck in the summer and feel like we're on vacation. I love our bedroom. I love our bathroom. I love the potential we have in the basement. I love the kitchen and the storage and the kids each having their own room. I love the recessed lights in the family room and putting the fireplace on. I love our sledding hill, our office (or "The Studies Room", as Jenna calls it) where the girls do homework, the pantry, and the front hall. I love that I see great views of the ever-changing sky out our front arch window. I love the neighborhood, I love living 90 seconds from my parents, I love that most of the kids in Michaela and Jenna's classes live in our development. I love having space to have people over and not worry about where they'll all sit.

Now that we have lived here almost 7 months, I have a better feeling that everything is going to work out fine. The girls are adjusted to new schools and new friends, we know our neighbors, and even paying the bills is okay. No one is going to take it away from us. It's our house and will be for a long, long time.