Okay! First week in the new house! Who's ready for some amazeballs interior decorating p0rn? LOLOLOLOLOLOLLLLLLLL Yeah, that's what's going on in almost every room right now. This particular pile is directly outside my office in the basement level, nearly barricading me in. We packed up about half of the old house ourselves, then had the movers come handle the rest of it. They did a great job, but perhaps went a little overboard on the packing paper to actual box contents ratio. Like I don't think my hairbrush and a random pile of already-broken crayons needed to each be separately wrapped in several layers of paper. One box I unpacked contained nothing but one laptop charger, a roll of cloth waxing strips , and a bag of cotton balls. Carefully and preciously individually wrapped, of course. So it's a bit frustrating that the more we unpack, the more of a mess builds up. We've been dragging boxes and paper out to the garage (where there is no room for our cars yet, only boxes and paper), but for the most part the house doesn't yet reflect how hard we've been working all week to settle in. (Especially because if... Read more →

This post is sponsored by NatureBox. So a long long time ago (I can still remember) when planning out possible topics for another NatureBox post, I decided I would write something workout and weightlifting related. Maybe go through my routines, and then talk about the diet changes I’ve made (no more hardcore calorie restrictions for this gal) and my favorite pre- and post-workout snacks (carbs first, protein after). Which conveniently, I get delivered from NatureBox! See? Easy post that writes itself! Maybe I could try my hand at some super #inspirational #fitness #selfies. (Turns out I’m not the sort of person who puts on a full face of makeup before working out, which kind of tipped any #selfies away from #inspirational and towards #haggard and #splotchy.) But about five minutes after I took that picture (and consumed that entire bag of Sriracha Pop Pops), we sold our house and life went into a complete tailspin. Weightlifting was replaced by packing and moving boxes. Cardio became our mad race to find a new house, and a general elevated heartrate from all the stress. On our first solid day of house-hunting, we were…ill-prepared, to say the least. I’d grabbed a half-empty box... Read more →

Welp. It's been a week, all right. As you probably gathered from Instagram/Facebook, our move did not exactly go as planned. In fact, in the span of about an hour on Friday afternoon, things went from moving along with near military-like precision to a complete and total clusterfuck. I've relayed the events and details over text message about 500 times since then, I estimate, and I always include something like "someday this will make a great/funny story, but right now I just caaaaaan't." I'm still not sure we're at "someday" yet, but I guess I can try. On Friday morning, my in-laws arrived at the hotel we'd spent the night at and took the kids and pets so we could head to settlement on the townhouse. The plan was for them to head to Yellow House and hang out in the backyard, have a picnic lunch, and possibly let the movers in if they arrived before we got back from the second settlement. (We'd been graciously given the garage door code by the owners ahead of time.) Settlement #1 went off without the slightest hitch. We were in and out in under 20 minutes, congratulated our lovely buyers and that... Read more →

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ZOMGZOMGZOMFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFG AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH JJJJJJASUOJLAOWPPNKJLLJLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AND ETCETERAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Headed out to finalize some school stuff today. Movers coming to finish packing tomorrow. (Oh god bless them I don't care just take our money and hellllllllp usssssss.) Loading the trucks and cleaning and saying goodbye to the townhouse on Thursday. Night in a hotel, then back-to-back settlements and moving into Yellow House on Friday. At least, that was the plan as of 10 minutes ago, and the plan has changed at least a dozen times this week. So ready for this to all be over, Internet. So, so ready. Read more →

This is where a blog post should go. This is where I should be typing something of substance, or at least stringing words together in a somewhat coherent manner, to create said blog post. Instead, my brain is reduced to nothing but a string of letters, onomatopoeia style, as I am completely overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done before the move. Which is NEXT WEEK. When did that happen? The last time I checked I still had like, three weeks to go. What the ever-loving FUCK, oh ye relentless ongoing march of time? Can you just chill for a second? I toured a couple preschools earlier this week, one of which had the word "Montessori" in it but then I showed up and was like, "you keep using that word, blah blah tired Princess Bride quote, NOPE." Another one was really excessively Jesus-y. I'm going back early next week to tour another one that seems only moderately Jesus-y. Oh, and to enroll Noah and Ezra in the public school, with LESS THAN A WEEK TO GO BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS. Surprise! Scooch over and make some room for the Storch boys, kids. We chose our crazy short-slash-ambitious closing date... Read more →

This post is sponsored by TheBouqs.com. A couple weeks ago, I bought some flowers. For myself. In the grand tradition of Treat Yo Self, I ordered not one, but TWO giant bouquets of gloriously happy-colored flowers. I ordered two because I received two promo codes as part of the compensation for this post, although I THINK MAYBE TECHNICALLY they gave me two codes so I could send a bouquet to someone else. Yeah. Screw that. (oooohhhh) (ahhhhh) However, I was kind and generous enough to write myself a note to accompany my flowers: Dear Self of Next Week, Congratulations of finding a new house! If you did not find a new house, please quietly weep into these beautiful flowers. Love, Self of Last Week P.S. Get your roots done. (I found a house! AND got my roots done. Clearly I earned both of these bouquets as a reward for such unparalleled productivity.) And now my Self of the Week After That is STILL enjoying both the relief of finding a house and my happy orange-y blue white flowers, which Jason and I have affectionately taken to calling Amy's Volcano Flowers. Because yes. These are literally grown and shipped directly from... Read more →

When I told the boys on Tuesday that we were going to see Yellow House (and they'd get to go inside), their initial reaction was along these lines, again. Much jumping and clapping and shrieking with glee. But then a little later... Uh-oh. Now, Ike is definitely a cuddler. But he has different cuddle styles based on his mood. And THIS cuddle ...facing me, head on my shoulder, one hand deep in my hair for comfort...this is a classic "I'm unsure about something and bordering on a little scared" cuddle. Poor little guy. He's been trying SO HARD to join in his brothers' OVER THE MOON excitement about moving, but it's clear there are still big gaps in his understanding of what's happening. We made him an "Ike Is Moving!" book through TwigTale* that has REALLY helped, but I think Tuesday threw him for a loop. We weren't supposed to be going to the Yellow House yet. The movers hadn't put all our boxes and things and toys on the moving truck yet. Were we leaving it all behind? Were we coming back? Where was Dad? What about the pets? We cuddled in silence for awhile and then I started... Read more →

Hi, Yellow House! (Yellow House be all, "Does this minivan make me look fat?") We had our inspection yesterday, and didn't really have much choice but to bring the kids along. They'd never been inside (we kept the car running, DVDs playing, snacks flowing during the house-hunting days, probably spending as much on gas as we would've blown on a sitter), and while there's always the nubbin of worry that the whole sale can find a way to go south, we were reasonably confident that it was okay to introduce them to the Yellow House. (The relocation company JUST had an inspection completed last month and gave us the report. So we weren't expecting to find any disasters or deal-breakers, and our own inspector did not! You go, Yellow House!) We started in the backyard. A very good first impression. There's also a sandbox, kid-sized picnic table AND a tire swing. And a hutch for bunnies. (NO BUNNIES PLZ.) Young townhouse-dwelling minds were BLOWN. Since I know so many of you have been like PHOTOS PHOTOS PHOTOS, I must add a caveat here that I didn't really take the greatest blog-friendly photos yesterday. Most of what I snapped were more... Read more →

Okay, let's take a brief break from MOVEAPALOOZA 2015 and get back to what's really important. Self-indulgent photo essays about my kids. Ezra's been working his way through his Pretend Soup cookbook for a couple years now, but just recently became quite taken with the recipe for Bright Pink Fruit Dip. But he didn't just want to make it any old time. He wanted to make it for company. For guests. And so he waited. Every week he'd ask if any guests were coming to our house, and unfortunately once the moving stuff kicked into high gear the answer was always no. I couldn't have people coming into my house, unless they agreed to take their shoes off, use only paper plates and also declutter at least one closet during their visit. This weekend, though! Friends offered to come hang out and help with packing, which was completely awesome. And Ezra's moment had finally arrived. He got right to work. 10 oz. package of frozen raspberries, defrosted. Plus half a package of cream cheese, softened. (Unorthodox knife skillz are optional.) Blend! Transfer to a bowl, add one cup yogurt and two teaspoons of lemon juice, then whisk. Taste test time... Read more →