New Beginnings

Photo credit: North Texas Real Estate Information System

I’m halfway through my move into my new home, and I can already tell that it was the smartest decision I ever made.

We hired movers to move our furniture, appliances, and some heavy boxes. That got the majority of the items out of our old place, leaving us to unpack in the new place and finish getting the remaining stuff out of the old one with carloads full of stuff.

Hiring the movers was the smartest part of my decision, by far. I remember that when we moved into our last house — in 2016 — we did that move as a DIY special. Since the laundry room is on the second floor of our new house, hiring movers was a given. (And yes, I tipped the moving crew 20 percent because it was a big job and I was grateful.)

What I hadn’t expected was how good this move would be for me and my kids. Here’s why and how I’m changing.

Timing the move

It just so happened that I was moving during the Super Blue Moon — a time that’s supposed to be fortuitous in making new decisions and reckoning with the past.

I asked my landlord at my old property if I could have the upcoming holiday weekend to clean out the old house and he agreed. That was a solid move on his part and I’m happy to do a good job cleaning out the old house as much as possible.

But the other thing that’s been so beneficial about this move is that I’m already seeing myself in a new way — one that is taking 100% responsibility for what I need to do.

We’re moving into a new place and I’m already working with my kids to plan how we’re going to maintain it with regular cleaning. The number of dust bunnies that were swept along with our furniture was an embarrassing admission of my cleaning failures since my husband’s illness. But honestly, probably before that, we still needed a regular cleaning schedule to ensure that everything got done that needed to be. We always tended to have a reactive, rather than proactive, approach to cleaning. We kept up with the dishes and laundry but we really needed to be doing a lot more.

I get that now. I’m taking responsibility for setting the expectations and taking into account which chores the kids want to take for themselves, but I’m also going to ensure that everything gets done.