A Life Update

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! While 2020 was a year of change and adjusting to life with 2 kids, 2021 is an even bigger year of change for the our family! In short – we are moving from California to Pennsylvania into our forever home and my husband is switching careers from Hollywood Assistant Director to Dairy Farmer! And in between all that my husband is working on one last movie in GREECE for 3 months. It’s going to be a crazy 2021!

From the Top:

We’ve known for a couple years now that we’d eventually be moving back to Pennsylvania because both are families are there. We want our kids to grow up around their grandparents! Also, house prices in California are INSANE so living here permanently was not really an option. My husband decided early on in his AD career that he didn’t really want to do it long-term and felt the urge to take over the family business instead – aka dairy farming. It was really just a question of WHEN we would move.

The Year 2020:

2020 was the year no one was expecting and it definitely put a hamper on our plans. My husband needed to work on a few more projects in order to get his retirement benefits. However, COVID shut everything down and he wasn’t able to work AT ALL. Which means we had to stay in California a little longer.

It was definitely nice to have my husband at home for the whole year because he was able to help out with the two kids. It gave me a lot more freedom! (Well, minus not being able to go anywhere because of Covid…haha). But we were also just burning through our savings since work slowed down for me as well.

2021 and Our Current Plans:

Thankfully, 2021 is looking to be a lot better work wise. My husband got one last job working on a movie in Greece for the spring and summer which means he will be able to “retire” from the business. Since he will be gone for so long, the kids and I are going to stay with my parents in Pennsylvania. So in the middle of March we will be doing a “mini move” and driving CROSS COUNTRY with our two kids to PA. We will be there until July and then will come back to California to officially pack everything up and hopefully be fully moved to Pennsylvania in the Fall! Phew! I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

PS. That’s why I’ve been so into cleaning and donating my clothes. I’ve been trying to pare everything down so we have less to move! Check out these posts for what I’m doing will all my stuff!

How I Clean and Organize My Closet

What to Do with Unwanted Clothes + Underwear

Our “New” House:

We are going to be moving into my husband’s grandmother’s house which is on the farm property. Sadly, his grandmother passed away last year which means her house is vacant. My husband’s father technically owns the house now so we will be doing some sort of rent-to-own situation with them.

I believe this house was built by my husband’s grandfather so there’s a lot of family history there. It’s definitely old and could use A LOT of work though. It’s currently a 6 bedroom, 1 bathroom ranch style home from the 60’s. So…not really my style…lol. But we are planning to hopefully do a lot of renovations!

The crazy thing is – I haven’t really seen inside the house. We are moving into our permanent home and I don’t even know what it looks like…haha.

How I’m Feeling:

I wasn’t that thrilled with this situation when we thought it might be a possibility years ago. But now I’m very thankful that we have a house to move into at an affordable price. I’ve heard that the housing market is kind of crazy with everyone looking to move into more space so I’m glad we don’t have to worry about making offers on houses. I’m thankful that my kids will have more SPACE. We are currently living in a cramped 2 bedroom apartment with no outdoor space. 2020 was HARD. I’m thankful that my kids will grow up around our family. I’m thankful that we will have HELP with our kids and it won’t just be me and my husband.

But I do love Los Angeles. I’m a city gal so moving to the country and living on a farm was NOT my first choice….haha. It’s about to get real GREEN ACRES up in here. I love that there’s so much to do in Los Angeles. I can walk to Starbucks! Where we are moving in Pennsylvania there isn’t even a Starbucks in town. I know that’s #firstworldproblems but it just gives you a little perspective.

I’m both happy and sad to be leaving California during the pandemic. There’s not much we can do in California now because everything’s been closed. I haven’t been able to see friends or go out. We have no childcare so I haven’t been able to go out with my husband. So I feel like I won’t be missing much right now by moving away. However, I had planned to check a bunch of things off my California Bucket List before we moved away. I was planning that my last year here would be filled with lots of activities and travels and meeting with friends. So I’m sad that I didn’t get to do a little farewell tour.

I AM excited that we are finally moving into a house. I’m 36 years old (today!) and have been living in apartments ever since I went to college. I’m TIRED of apartment life. Especially with two kids. I’m so excited to renovate and decorate and not have to share a communal washer and dryer!!

What to Expect from Jeans and a Teacup:

I’m SO excited to finally delve into home decor and lifestyle content! I do have a passion for design and decorating and more “home” things but I was never inspired to share while living in an apartment. My apartment “style” and decor is a hodgepodge of IKEA and Target – because it was cheap. I gave up trying to decorate because I knew we wouldn’t be here permanently. We also don’t have enough room for all the kids stuff so it’s literally in piles all over the apartment. Not really “Instagram Worthy” content.

My current Jeans and a Teacup Instagram account will still be fashion focused but I created another Instagram account for all the home renovations and county farm life content I’ll be sharing. You can follow along @thefamilyhomestead for all of that! Right now there isn’t any content on that account. But hopefully, I’ll be able to share a lot of the “Before” photos of the house and property at the end of March.

I hope you’ll follow along for the ride!