Late last week, we had new carpet installed, a FOR SALE sign went up in our front yard, and our house was listed on the market. Whoa.

It’s bittersweet, for sure, but after seven years in our cozy little Cape Cod on Lovers Lane (no joke!), we are moving to a bigger home that better suits our family’s needs  — a split-level ranch with a much bigger backyard for Rocco to play … which is about a mile and a half from our current house!

I was surprised by how much this impending change has impacted both of us. In the harried craziness that is preparing to list your house … we didn’t really realize just how much we love our little casita and will miss it. It’s our first home we ever bought together (and our first big purchase as a married couple). We brought Rocco home to this house. We threw countless birthday parties and even Luis’s citizenship bash here. We BBQed a bajillion Sundays here. Had dozens of bonfires here (even introducing the concept of S’mores to several of our foreign friends). We traveled to places like Korea, Puerto Rico, Mexico, El Salvador, Jamaica and Spain from this house. We have had visitors from all around the world come stay with us. And, perhaps most sentimental: this is the house in which Maya spent her first two+ years of life: learned to roll over, sit up, crawl, walk, eat with a spoon, talk … She’s essentially “grown up” here.

And though a bit on the tiny  side for the type of entertaining we like to do, we made the best of it. And we really love our house’s location: we live a stone’s throw from a fabulous park and bike trail and have a beautiful creek in our backyard (which, ironically when we move, we will still have creek access — it’s just across the street from our front yard). Though we only anticipated being here two, three years max when we purchased it … we’ve been here for seven years. Seven really awesome years … full of plenty of ups and downs, but mostly ups.

We started our house-hunt very casually last fall and kept in touch with a realtor we met at an open house. In early February — with inventories here in Michigan at an all-time low — we began looking a little more seriously … and, through a friend actually, stumbled upon the home we are in the process of buying.

Change is good, and change is necessary. But change is also scary. I feel like I know the intricacies of our house now, inside and out. The sights, smells and sounds.

Though I am sooo excited to have a master bath, a sun porch, a brand-new (remodeled) kitchen, main-floor laundry and a fourth bedroom (all things our casa doesn’t have) … I am worried about things like “Will Maya adjust OK to her new room? Will Rocco be weirded out by this new space? Where will we put our couches in the new living room? Will I like cooking on this new stove? Will I mind going up half a flight of stairs to go to the bedrooms?” All silly things; I know. But this is how my anxious mind works. It doesn’t shut up. I end up awake at 3 a.m. thinking these things. I just can’t quiet the thoughts sometimes.

So I try to quell the fears and think of the positive: we are so excited! A new house is really a clean slate. We can paint and decorate as we please. Make it our home and fill it with lots of love and — with a toddler and puppy around — just a little bit of chaos. 😉

The truth is, I never wanted to put much effort into our home before because it didn’t ever feel like it was our permanent home. But now, I feel differently. Even if this new house doesn’t remain our “forever home,” there’s no reason not to make it ours. To make it home.

We leave for Jamaica Sunday and there’s an open house that day at our house. Then if all goes well with the new roof on the new casa, we are supposed to close the following week. Between now and then, there is more organizing and packing to be done … but hopefully in a couple weeks we’ll be settled into our new place, making this new house a home.

And hopefully, someone else will be making our current house their home 😉 Wish us luck!

How about you? Do you find moving to be a bittersweet experience?