we're moving on up (sing it in the george jefferson voice)

we're back. and we've moved. i am lovin' the new digs like you would not believe. Tatum hasn't stopped smiling since we first showed her the back yard and I'm pretty sure both kids would burst into tears if we pulled up to the townhouse ever again.
the space is awesome. our moving help was even more awesome. i was beginning to freak out that we weren't going to have enough help but as we were pulling away in a caravan of 6 SUV's, trucks and station wagons, complete with 3 LOADED trailers i was humbled to tears that we would have that many people love us enough to come help us move in 90 degree heat. we got possession at 9am and by 2pm were sending people home with their bellies full of pizza.
the first night i had a breakdown. the man who used to live here smoked but we were told "only in the basement, by a window, with a fan blowing out the window." but i turned on the a/c that evening and was overwhelmed with the smell of .... not quite smoke it was more like foofer cigarellos. when we looked at the house i noticed a kind of smell but our realtor didn't notice it. then at inspection we asked her to unplug her foofers 2 days prior and again i asked the realtor and again she couldn't smell it. then i asked the inspector, he's a friend of mine from when i worked with m'lady, and he couldn't smell it either. i was shocked. but because i was the only one convinced and paul was only half convinced i didn't make a big deal about it. until move in night. we were heading out to dinner and i couldn't get out of the house fast enough terrified of what we had just bought. we did some research while we were at dinner and came home and began tackling unpacking boxes. the backyard neighbors left their dog out to screech/bark for 20 minutes straight. i really started worrying about what we had just bought. feeling totally duped on all sides i went to bed with bleach soaked fingertips exhausted, but still hopeful.
i'm happy to say that we've been in the house 10 days now and the smell is completely gone. my mother-in-law helped me bleach down our bedroom walls and karyssa's bedroom walls and the hallway upstairs. asher's room was finally tackled last weekend. it took me all morning to pull all the screws out of the shelving and rods that had been installed ALL the way around the room. i had to replaster the walls in some spots, oil primer them, tint primer them, trim them, paint the ceiling with killz ceiling paint and finally, paint the walls. it's a whole new room in there. it looks so refreshing. i'll get some pictures up soon. i don't have a good before pic because it was so full of clothes you really couldn't see the forest for the trees in there.
the basement was our biggest project. i bleached the ceiling (it's unfinished) with a sponge mop and we've killzed 2 of the walls but got delirious with fumes and had to stop. the main floor has been bleached on the floors only, we've also cleaned the carpets (that will soon be replaced with hard wood floors) and the kitchen has been bleached from top to bottom. ugh. that thing was only surface clean and that grosses me out. the built in shelves around the fireplace have been cleaned and somewhat arranged but i'm a little stuck until we get the basement finished so we can set up the desk so we can get the office stuff unloaded and off the shelves. the upstairs closet has been totally reshelved since the old stuff smelled so bad like a cheap hotel i couldn't even put a toothbrush in there with clear conscience.
it's coming along.
last night karyssa and i began baking, sort of. i let her stay up late since asher was cranky and now they have seperate bedrooms and can go to bed whenever they want to. she helped me make cookie dough balls and today i made ice cream with goat milk and only egg yolks and no whites so asher can FINALLY enjoy some ice cream. it's pretty tasty but still quite mushy so i'm hoping it finishes freezing in the freezer that stands open 50% of the time because it's on the bottom and asher can open it and it's become his #1 hobby. *sigh* and time outs are an absolute game for him so now he's started getting time outs in the pack n play. cute little stinker.