Chris grew up here in southeast Idaho and I’ve lived here for almost 15 years (on and off) after being born and raised in Pittsburgh. We met and fell in love here. We had two of our three daughters here and we really thought we were going to be hosting their weddings in the backyard of this home. So, in some ways, it’s difficult to announce we’ll be moving in the coming months.
I have been trying to keep my health complications (beyond Hashimoto’s) that I have been struggling with more private, because it didn’t really fit into what we share online about our home day-to-day. But I haven’t been doing well and over this winter, it has gotten a lot worse. I hope you can forgive me for not being ready to share the ins and outs of my health, but when I heard our 6-year-old praying for me to get better night after night, I started realizing how much this was impacting our family and our girls and my life with them. My only life with them. While I love to show up for work—for all of you!—day after day, our lives offline have been difficult. So we have decided to leave our dream house – the house we thought was our “forever house;” the house we are inching more closely to finishing every day – for a warmer, more temperate climate where I can get better care and hopefully have a better quality of life.
When we talked to the girls about it, I was surprised by their excitement! I was so worried about how they might feel, but they weren’t concerned at all about their rooms that we just finished or their big yard or leaving their friends—they were excited to be warmer and for all of us to have a better life. I was so moved, I started crying. I knew in that moment a “forever home” wasn’t a structure, it was them. My forever home is those three girls and Chris and wherever we go together, that’s home.
We have been hesitating in making this big change for months, even though my doctors have been nudging us that way for a long time. We have family here and have spent years building our amazing team that are all based in Idaho. But when we brought it up with the team, nearly all of them jumped on board with excitement to move with us. *cue more tears* I’ve never felt so supported and taken care of and scared as I have been to make this change — I know that this is what we’re supposed to do right now.
I’m sure you’re dying to know WHERE ARE YOU MOVING!? We have nailed down a location, but would like to wait to let you know where until we find a new home. Fingers crossed we find one soon! But I will say, it’s out of state, somewhere we’ve never lived, with a more temperate climate.
We’ve decided to let you all know now because we will definitely be shifting our original project plans for this year, to getting this house ready to sell. We had so much more we wanted to do here, including a big kitchen renovation we had planned to start later this month. We won’t be doing that anymore, but there are plenty of little things that we need to do before listing. Our hope is to list this home for sale by the end of April and to move once school gets out in a couple months. So we’ll definitely share our to-do list next week.
Maybe some of your minds are thinking a few of the things that I originally thought, “But you just finished ________!” The bathroom! The girls’ rooms! The living room, dining room, our closet!!! I’ve had some time to process it all and I feel at peace with it now. In the end, these spaces have served as wonderful backdrops for our family, and I’ll miss them, but they are just things.
We’re all only given one life and we’re so excited at the opportunity to live it more fully. Together. Wherever that may be. Send us some good house vibes that we’ll be able to find our next home (and bonus points if it’s cottage-y) and sell this one quickly, too.
Look up Dr.Jessica Peatross!!! My mother healed her hashimotos and declining health with her through heavy metal, stealth infections and parasite detoxes!! Wishing you and your family all the best ❤️
I hear you and I feel you on this. I struggled with a chronic health condition for years that doctors couldn’t figure out and it got so much worse after the birth of my first daughter. I’m 90-95% better today, almost 6 years later thanks in large part to functional medicine doctors. I’m sure you’re working with some but if not I urge you to check them out – for those of us with “undiagnosable” conditions, they work WONDERS and they’ve given me my life back. I worked with “The Lyme Guy” (I don’t have Lyme though), Dr Jay Davidson. There are some on the East coats that are great too (I saw mine remotely). Best of luck to you I hope you can find some functional and integrative docs to help you!
Good luck to you and all the best ! Whenever you feel comfortable, it would be awesome if you could share the health reasons. I’ve been wanting to marry my bf who suffers from a auto immune condition while living in Seattle. It’s not hashimotos but skin related. I’m always trying to know more since I’m worried what the future holds. I live in Texas and was hoping a more temperate (warmer) climate could help him get ahead of potential issues.
So happy to hear that you are choosing your health, quality of life, and time with your family! I can tell you from experience that when you choose those things, you can never go wrong. I’m excited to see all the beautiful adventures ahead of you! God bless you and your family????????????
I love this. Change is so hard but you have to do what is right for you and your family! We are looking at doing the exact same thing but across Canada! I’m also fascinated with NC since having read numerous books that play out there!!! Wishing you so much health and wellness and a bright future!!!
Across Canada! Going east or west?