Last week felt as if it lasted about a month.

We started moving in to our new home on Monday and finished moving in on Sunday.

I’ve been going to bed so utterly exhausted that I hardly know my own name.

I’ve got loads of stories to tell and photos to share but frankly, I’m still entering this next week pretty worn down and facing the return to school and a birthday for an eleven year old and a whole lotta boxes left to unpack. Not to mention the work load and emails that I have almost entirely ignored for a week. But let’s not talk about those right now, shall we?

Let’s instead talk about how NONE of this move would have been remotely possible without the ridiculous generosity of my friends.

You. Guys.

Load after load after load. To the dump. To the thrift store. To the new house. Floors swept. Messed cleaned. Walls built. Brick torn down. Bunk beds crafted inside. Every inch of the interior of the house painted. Food delivered to our home. Beds assembled. Late nights for everyone and not just for my family. Remarkable work ethic even from the kids in all of these generous families.

We’ve been cared for, helped, encouraged, fed and carried along.

My friends Sara and Melvin even came down all the way from Virginia. (By the way, the two of us went to Home Depot on a Friday night and collectively we know nothing about the receptacles and the wing nuts and the return of the incorrect doors we brought with us, but, turns out, we still knew more than the staff we encountered. My apologies, Home Depot, but it was just true.)

Good people, that’s what we have. Really really good and true and honest and generous and thoughtful and helpful and hard working people. I will say it again and again, I do not understand how I have this plethora of people in my corner but I cannot imagine wading through my life experiences without their aid.

I didn’t take nearly as many photos of the parade of people who have helped us move as I meant to. Mostly because my hands were full with boxes or something.

This week, even though the garage is filled to literal capacity with STUFF to sort, I am determined to resume a sense of normalcy. We desperately need that at this home. Also, we needed a broom. And a Swiffer. Which I purchased at my friendly Target this very evening. A Swiffer would never have worked on the floors of my former home. But these floors don’t deliver splinters and they have the potential to be smooth and shiny and that’s a lovely thought.