Excuses, Excuses

Sometimes people ask me, "Do you make any money off your blog?" and I say "Not really."
(Please read: none whatsoever. Occasionally people send me presents, but even that has mostly stopped.)
Then they follow up with "Why not?"
As though someone once handed me a check and said, "Fill this out, for your time blogging" and I said "No thank you. I blog for nobler reasons."
When the truth is probably this:
Apparently, when I move (or get sick, pregnant, go on a trip, plan a party- basically do anything besides hang out at home) I stop writing on my blog.
For months at a time.

They don't hand out blog-money-checks to slackers like me.

But you read that right! One of those things is the cause of my blog-hiatus.
Let's see if you can guess which one? It's an exciting surprise that affects my whole family...
No. I'm not pregnant. I was leading you on.

I moved! Into a pretty (but slightly-terrible) home!
We love it. We love the neighborhood. We love that we can literally lie in our beds and see the stars over the mountains like we're camping. We love that there is a big basement full of toys and sewing supplies and carpet so squishy it's like walking on a velvet trampoline. We love our big windows and old-home charm. We love our giant trees, full of bratty squirrels.
We do not love that things keep breaking, including most of our appliances and some of our pipes.
We do not love our lumpy, thorny lawn. We do not love learning that we apparently have no idea how to fix anything that needs more than a fresh coat of paint.
But regardless of pros and cons, this house is ours - for better or worse! And yay for Home Owners Warranties!

In all seriousness, this house is perfect for us. It is bigger than our last place, but still cozy. It has big open widows, gorgeous floors, and all of our stuff- piled up in the corners and pulled half-way out of boxes.
I hung up pictures and books on the shelves though, so it's finally feeling a bit like home.
Occasionally people on Instagram (where I've posted many house pictures) will say "I can't wait for the tour!" and I get a little panicky. It's not ready. It won't be ready for probably years. We can't even afford the lamps I want, let alone the couches and desks and new floors in the kitchen. You can't have a tour!
But okay. I will give you some kind of a tour very soon. As soon as the last four boxes are unpacked. Yes, you read that right. I only have four boxes left.
See? I didn't leave this blog for an insane amount of time for nothing! I got a lot of work done!
And now,  I will leave you.  Because I promised my four year old that we would make a cake. And four year olds have very good memories when it comes to cake promises.