Settling In & Making It Home

The last time we moved our household, I had six children and a dog. The baby was a little less than a year old. We were only moving a mile away from our old house. We were young and strong and we did all the packing and moving ourselves—with a lot of help from friends, who were also young and strong. We all quickly recognized that we were neither as young nor as strong as initially estimated; we’d never attempt that feat again.

On the first trip over to the new house, I stepped out of our van and into a hole in the construction site that was our neighborhood. My ankle swelled into a balloon before I got to the front steps. The next day, I had pneumonia, though it wouldn’t be officially diagnosed for about a week because I staunchly refused to take time to go to the doctor. Did I mention that this was 10 days before Christmas? With six kids?  I was very well organized and pretty much unable to do anything I’d planned. I just hobbled and wheezed.

I remember my friends Bonnie and Wendy, taking turns standing on the counters and unpacking my kitchen into cabinets and pantry. I remember that the first morning of our first day in the new house, my friend Karen appeared with muffins and orange juice for breakfast. Then, despite a million other boxes, she found the Christmas tree and all the decorations and she quickly and efficiently organized all those children into a team of little elves and made “Christmas at home” come to life in that new house that still smelled of stiff carpet and fresh paint. It was all her idea. I thought perhaps we should unpack the china cabinet. Or the office. But she chose homemaking. Christmas was first priority. More than anything else we did that day, those three women made our house into our home.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard bloggers who are mothers say that one of the things they appreciate most about blogging is that a blog is a creative outlet that stays ”done.” With words and pictures and design features, women can create beautiful havens online and no one will mess them up. Unlike the laundry that, once folded, gets worn and dirtied, or the meal, lovingly crafted, that is quickly reduced to a pile of dirty dishes, blog posts just build one upon another, each adding more depth and creative expression, not one messing up another, nothing coming undone.

Until it does.

My friends, it is impossible to move house online when one’s house has been well-established at Typepad. No matter how strong and smart one’s friends are, it cannot be done neatly. I know this to be a fact because I have invested three months in the process and a lot of very smart people have helped me. And here I am in this new space.

We’ve moved. Oh, yes, by golly and the grace of God, we have moved. I’m especially grateful to Lauren Gulde, who carefully packed away all our priceless family heirlooms and ensured that they weren’t damaged in the move. And God bless Joy Messimer, who is always willing to climb on virtual counters and jump over stacks of packing material and to see the vision of the house that is to become the home and suggest a better way.  And then there is my Mary Beth, who was tiny when we moved in real life. She’s a young woman now, and she knows her way around this new virtual house much better than I do. Expect to see her here in this new home quite frequently.

But there is a great deal of unpacking and picture hanging to do in the “new house.” I need your help.

First, if you usually click over here from Facebook, go like this page. My personal Facebook page is going to become more personal, more private, and quieter. As we move in here, there will be more frequent blog updates and I don’t want you to miss them, but they won’t all appear on my personal Facebook page. The blog page is going to get hopping. So, go like and follow the blog page!

You might need to update your subscription. If you saw this post in your reader this morning, you're just fine. If you've been a reader for a long time and subscribed to ebeth.typepad.com you'll need to re-subscribe. We put a handy link in the top bar if you'd like to have posts appear in your mailbox every day. Or you can subscribe on Feedly or Bloglovin’ or another feed reader. Go check yours! You might be subscribed under the old RSS and you won’t get updates.

You can still access learning ideas and lesson plans at Serendipity. We are working on a plan to move all of those over here very soon. 

Now, to unpack the boxes. It's likely that there are plenty of broken links here. And there are more broken links “out there.”  If you’ve pinned something or linked to me, chances are good the link is broken. I’m happy to help you fix it. First, look at the URL of the link that is broken. If it is ebeth.typepad.com, try replacing with elizabethfoss.com. The correct post should come right up; simply re-pin or re-bookmark with the correct one. It may not even be the link that is broken, but the picture- use the same process. If that still doesn't work, email us!

If it’s a link within my blog, please let me know. Mary Beth and I are going to work as hard as we can to fix those links. If it’s a favorite post you can’t find, send me an email and tell me about it. I’m good at finding things here.

I can’t unpack the boxes without my friends. And I can’t make it feel like home without your help. If you have linked or pinned before, please link again with the new URL . If you haven’t, please consider helping folks find me again. Re-establising an online presence is daunting. Believe me, the broken links and their effect have kept me awake at night.

Above all, if you're here today, I'm so grateful for your friendship.  Thanks so much for hanging with me. I promise; I’m never moving again.