Gratefully Nesting to Bring in the New Year

I am writing with the most grateful heart on my New Years blog this year. I have recently moved into our new home, built high up after our previous home was flooded. In fact, I have been utterly thankful each day in our new home, which is a cozy, warm feeling.

We were in transition for 18 months. (Read my Huff Post blog here about that feeling.) That was long enough to make me understand the importance of being settled in a home.

From the moment we moved in, I have been nesting and getting settled at a ferocious pace. I knew if I unpacked and had my familiar things surrounding me, I would feel settled, and it definitely worked. I then decorated, had window treatments and artwork hung, and worked on making my kitchen as comfy as possible for future cooking and entertaining – something I did not do while we were in transition. (All our things were packed up so I couldn’t cook and bake as normal.) My tshotchkes – the ones that survived the multiple moves – are all back out on display.

I haven’t nested like that since my pregnancies, oh so many years ago. (Or maybe since the move into our last home – the one that was flooded.)

I am looking back on my Staycation as it ends with a sense of contentment having nested into a spot that is surprisingly more comfortable and homey for me than I ever expected after losing the well-loved previous home.

I spent Chanukah with my dreidel collection out, the old familiar menorahs to use, and a new appreciation for having them available to me as I did not last year. (We used a travel menorah and birthday candles!)

Our family now has a comfy home base once again. You can’t put a price tag on that feeling.

The miracle is that I don’t miss our old home any more. Yes, I have the photos to remember, and the memories, just as everyone who cheered me on predicted- and our new home is enough like our old home to feel just right – thanks to the most brilliant architect on the planet, Mark Mucasey. Our new home feels exactly like where we should be at this time in our lives, downsized but in our beloved neighborhood, surrounded by loving friends and neighbors; and enough room to have holidays here and entertain future grandkids.

As I close out this year, I have to thank once again, my family members who helped get me through this journey, along with my incredible friends which include our brilliant architect. If you have supported me through the journey in my writing, on FB, from afar, or from close by, I toast and celebrate all of you!

Wonderfully, my daughter’s fairy tale wedding came off without a hitch this past year and I now have a wonderful son-in-law in Josh, and all of his family as new relatives. There is something about bringing your only daughter to the Chuppah to marry that brings up so many once-in-a-lifetime, dream-come-true emotions. My son Adam married Jessica and we enjoy all of that new family as well. So many blessings this past year!

I have so much to look forward to in 2017- the wedding of my son Brett to the best future daughter in law possible, Andi, and the birth of our first grandchild to Chad and Vanessa, our eldest of our five combined children. I feel so very grateful for everything and so very blessed.

Happy New Year 2017 to all and thanks for reading, relating, and sharing my life’s journey through my writing. Photos of new home below for anyone interested! Just a few, more later.

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Formal living room, art and rugs now up though!

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Family room from breakfast area

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Breakfast area leading to kitcha-home-4

Family room by fireplace and TV – note Gary has window treatments and new TV up after this was taken!

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New back yard with grass! Note the little blue tiled strip at the top right is our pool, still being refinished.

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