I am the luckiest, most blessed person ever. Lately I’ve felt so valued by my beautiful friends and family. I’ve also felt totally overwhelmed by everything that’s going on in my life. So basically, I’m joyverwhelmed.

Since I last posted, we moved everything we own into our new home, unpacked dozens of boxes, and painted broad expanses of cracked, uneven wall. I also celebrated my 29^th birthday, organized a bachelorette party for one of my dearest friends, and started a new job.

Me, in the chaos of our kitchen

In between all of that, we tried — and failed — to find time to do boring things like check our mail, do our laundry and pay our bills.

We also tried to settle into a new, Elmvale routine. So far our routine is: wake up at 7 a.m., put in a full day of work, have takeout dinner (note: it took us under 10 days to try ALL of Elmvale’s takeout), work on the house until 2 a.m., zombie to bed, and then do it all over again.

Under normal circumstances (note: nothing about August has been normal) I would have buckled under the magnitude and weight of all this change. It’s all good stuff, but sometimes it feels like a big, heavy pile on my shoulders. The thing is, I have a veritable army of people propping me up and keeping me moving. My love army.

Dozens of people have stopped by to say hello and lend a hand. Far too many to thank. My uncle Dan left half an hour ago after spending his whole night moving my washer and dryer.

My friend Cynthia was the first to strip wallpaper with me

Over 20 individuals came by on my birthday to help strip the acres of wallpaper that used to cover this house. Some — my dad, aunt Denise and uncle Dean — were here from 9 a.m. in the morning to 10:30 p.m. at night.

When the army took a break to eat Life’s a Slice Pizza (note: it arrived an hour late because the small Elmvale pizzeria had never made 3 party-sized pizzas at once before) I felt surrounded by love. It was in the gluten-free birthday cake my sister baked just for me, the aching shoulder our friend Donna braved to free our bathroom of sheep, and the bus ticket my old university roommate Steph bought to get here.

My cousin Duncan, sister Genevieve and mother Helena lighting my birthday cake

Without all of our loved ones, we would have had to fix up this big old house on our own. We’re not even close to done yet, but they literally saved us months of work.

I promise to post pictures of our progress soon. But before talking about our new space, I needed to devote a little bit of cyberspace to the unsung heroes of this brief, hectic period of my life. Thank you all for sharing in this transition. For helping me bear the load. And for loving me enough to strip wallpaper.