Mr. ADM and I have moved 6 times now in the 4 1/2 years that we have been married. I joke that I'm a nomad, to which I usually get a shake of the head from him. Mr. ADM was born and raised in one single house. His family never moved while he was around. His first move was to college, 2 hours away. Then, he met, fell in love with and married me.
I grew up moving. I've lived all over the eastern half of the United States. I even spent a semester abroad in Austria. I can't say I love moving around, but I'm used to it. I never imagined I'd be moving around so much in my adult life, but I am not completely surprised either. The good part of all of this is that we have stayed in the same general area, but we're both hoping that this will be our residence for the next 2-3 years.
With all this moving, one can see that we've also yet to actually own any place we've lived. And with renting, it is not always easy to personalize as one would like. I have certainly had moments of frustration and impatience to owning our own home when trying to make our place unique and truly "ours." We just recently moved into our new apartment. In fact, it's been just over a month. We love where we live, but it's been a slow move. Since Mr. ADM is a teacher, we have always moved in the middle of summer in the past. This particular move was not planned but something we had to do, so mid-January it was! With Mr. ADM being the organized one in our marriage and two little boys in combination with part-time work AND an exhausting pregnancy, things did not get unpacked and organized within a matter of days. We still have a couple boxes that need to be emptied, but we've finally whittled down to only 2 :)!
My point? We've had bare, blank walls staring at us for this entire month. And it's not something we're accustomed to. The one thing we've always been allowed to do is hang pictures. Until this move, I never really realized how much pictures can personalize a space. Mr. ADM was busy hanging pictures, crucifixes and a few other items all afternoon and once he was finished, he had a huge grin on his face. He breathed a sigh of relief and said to me, "This finally feels like home."
What ways have you turned your house into a home?
To make our house a home, I love to paint walls, but since we'll be moving soon to someplace we won't be very long I won't paint the walls in our new house. I'm hoping having pictures and the boys art on the walls will help fill in all the white. =)
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