The second to last move.

If you’ve been reading here a while, you’ll know that we’re moving house. And you’ll also know that I complain about it a lot.

You’re probably sick of hearing about this by now, so I have some good news for you!

This is our second to last move! For at least one whole decade! That’s right, at least 10 entire years without packing stuff into boxes and unpacking it all and stressing about tape and square meterage and forgetting the toaster.

In a few days, we’re moving into a rental properly while we wait for our house to get built. So then we only have to move from the rental to our home and I am so, so excited you have no idea!

My husband and I often joke that we’re a good match because if it weren’t for me, he’d be off floating in the stratosphere. And if it weren’t for him, I’d be way down on earth, probably content with roaming around some dark tunnel forever. We like to think that we’re a healthy balance for each other. We keep each other firmly above ground, but not too much above ground that it’s scary to look down.

He has big dreams. And plans and goals and all those things that come with his Determination 2.0 personality type. And this is fun and exciting and rewarding, but my god we also both agree that it’s a lot sometimes.

Sometimes it’s too much to keep striving for the next thing.

And so this is how our contract came to be. We’ve agreed that we are staying in our home that we’re building for a minimum of 10 years. No moving trucks. No open homes (well, aside from being nosy of course). And no raiding them empty spinach boxes from Pak n’ Save.

There are always shiny and exciting things out there. There are always opportunities just waiting if you look. But part of this seeking and growing is knowing when to say, “no thanks,” or “not for me right now,” and then going home and being content and full of gratitude for all of the shiny, exciting things right in front of you.

Basically, we’re so happy to be building a house that has enough space for us and no leaking walls. And once it’s built, we’re popping our rose-tinted glasses on and enjoying it. We can’t wait to start celebrating what’s right in front of us.

Having a backyard that’s actually safe for our kiddos to play! Walls that don’t leak! A plumbing systems that’s not Dux Quest!

And ridiculously enough, with the way the housing market is at the moment, it’s actually the same price to build as opposed to buy an existing house. Once you get over the tremendous finding-the-land hurdle of course.

When we’ve talked to people about our plans, some say, “hmm, make sure you do xyz so that it’s good for resale,” and while we know they have good intentions, that’s exactly what we aren’t going to do. This is going to be our home for a long time. So we’re going to embrace the colours and designs and quirks that we love. Because if you’re just building a cookie-cutter house with fifty shades of beige (unless you are a beige fanatic of course), simply because that is optimal for selling, then what’s the point? There’s more to life than making sure you maximise your profits, funnily enough.

And so here we are. There are boxes everywhere and an endless to-do list and my eyelids are so heavy and there’s a sleep regression going on and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with the last little bit of split red lentils. Because what’s the point of packing 3 tbsp of split red lentils?

It’s weird because we reckon that we usually get 60% of the packing done in the weeks leading up to the move (we are so lucky to have had ample time this round!), and then we always seem to leave the last 40% for the final few days. With a toddler and a newborn (or not quite, anymore!), this has been interesting to say the least, but we’ve survived. 0/10 recommend, but still we’ve survived.

Gotta go consult with our gazillion page to-do list. When we talk again, we’ll probably be deep in the anti-packing aka the unpacking!