The Big Ugly--Our New Home

I'm allowing myself a half hour break from the madness of moving to update the blog. I know, I know, everyone is waiting with bated breath to find out the latest...trust me, my ego isn't that big yet! In reality, I just can't rearrange the furniture (and in the process smash piles and piles of toys) in our family room one more time without screaming at the top of my lungs!

So here is a quick status update. On Monday we moved out of the vacation rental house in Hyères. Somehow in the course of the six weeks of living here, we accumulated enough crap that it took three full Subaru loads to get our belongings out of the house. On Monday we also had a final walk through on our new house with our real estate agent. Maybe it was all the stress of shuttling bags and kids and toys and a dog back and forth between multiple houses, but as we were walking through our new house in Toulon, I was choking back tears, because I was so disappointed about our decision. I've had the same reaction with every single house we've lived in since we got married. Phil has "buyers remorse" when he spends fifty dollars on anything...I only have buyers remorse on huge, contractual purchases. And at this point in our marriage, Phil just lets me have a day or two of mourning (that we're not moving into our dream house) and patiently waits for me to get over things.

Tuesday the movers came and I was too busy directing a small circus to have time to bond emotionally with the house. Today, I'm doing a little better. I've come to realize that the house is very big, which is wonderful and nice...it's just also very ugly. And that is just that. It's practical (a word which my Mom has trained me to believe is most important above all else), has a nice yard, and is in a nice area. So I'm just a stressed out, exhausted spoiled brat...and in a couple of days I think I'll like the place. In the meantime, I would give anything to have my sisters here to help me organize my kitchen and give me a pep talk.

Here are some pictures of what I am now calling the house..."The Big Ugly"

When you pull through the gates, this is part of the house that is visible. Am I right??? It's definitely big and definitely ugly. Part of my overwhelming disappointment is due the the fact that I was under the impression the entire house was going to be pressure washed and all the sooty black stains would be removed. I'm one hundred percent sure (and so is Phil) the real estate agent promised this to us the first time we saw the house...however, on move in day, nothing was done and he looked at us like we were crazy for pushing the issue. We got Frenched.
I think this is supposed to be the front of the house...but you can't see this facade unless you walk around the side of the yard.

The kitchen...very big, especially for a French house. All the wood is dark, but the appliances are all new.

Moving into the kitchen...

Lily was thrilled to get her doll stroller back...and she stood right outside the front door watching the men unload the truck, giving us a play by play on what was coming off of it.

The truck didn't fit through the gates, so the men hauled the stuff from the curb to inside the house. All five thousand seven hundred pounds of it.

Ok, so I should get back to my work...because I'm sitting in this room right now and it doesn't look any different than what the picture shows. We have don't have any more boxes in the house, but basically all that means is that everything from inside the boxes has been dumped on the floor. We have company coming in less than week...can I make a Christmas moving miracle happen??? I don't have time for all this emotion over a silly house!

Funny tidbits from yesterday's craziness.

Lily was most excited when we unpacked her doll stroller. But coming in a close second was her level of excitement when a pack of TicTacs was unwrapped.

Zachary somehow entertained himself all day by keeping a huge apple in his mouth. He got it out of the grocery bag on his own and chewed on it throughout the entire day. I don't even want to think about how many times it fell on the filthy floors and went back into his mouth. The cold weather from yesterday in combination with six hours of a sugary, saliva droll has given him a rash all over his face today. And I've found pieces of apple stuck to the floor in EVERY room of the house!

I'll post more pictures as things get cleaned up...I can't even stand in the master bedroom...huge, moving sized clothes-bombs went off and there are clothes piled three feet high all over the floor.