We moved down to Long Island from Massachusetts at the beginning of September 2019 and it was quite the experience because after my grandparents passed away, generations of boxes and storage and furniture were all moved to Howell Home… where we were going to be living! My Dad was using it as his second home so it had already been full to the brim with all of his possessions so let’s just say the show Hoarders could have really helped us out, but instead we had to do it ourselves!
Alex and his friend Joey came down for a long weekend and spent the entire time clearing out walking space and organizing the garage so they could put some of the hoarder-level clutter out there. Even after that we have months of cleaning and organizing ahead of us to make the place feel somewhat zen, and had to put most of our own furniture and belongings in storage and just use what is here. I want to make sure no family treasures or special mementos are lost, so every box and home item has to be carefully sorted! We got used to living in a very cluttered space already but it doesn’t make for very nice vlog or picture backgrounds, sadly, so I haven’t been taking any video footage.
The kids enjoy it though, as it’s like having a daily treasure hunt and living with history with over 300 years of family photos, furniture, and decorations. We managed to clean up little areas and make them our own, very slowly! With a baby and three other kids there just isn’t enough time in the day to properly do the job, so it will probably take a very long time. However, it is rewarding and nice to know we are helping out my Dad who is currently too ill to do a big clean out himself, but hopefully will be able to appreciate having a fixed up, cleared out home eventually!
Last week we got our new Samsung phones which have a new feature: motion photos! You can set this option and then every time you take a photo it records a 2-3 second video clip leading up to the picture. If you save these videos, you can combine them to make little video montages that serve as great bite-size vlogs. This was the very first day I took enough pictures to make a video clip, so here is us on the porch hanging out with Arthas and Ariana. We have a little sitting area and computer ‘office’ where Alex works from home, and then just enough cleared around the kitchen table to kind of sit at it.
Enjoy this short little video vlog I made using a montage of motion photos from my new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 phone. Arthas is wearing the cutest little pumpkin outfit and Ariana looks so little too as we all hang out on the porch, along with our cat Ahsoka. The little pumpkin feet pajamas have been passed down through all 4 kids and were Arin’s over a decade ago! I wish they had motion photos back then, I would love to see mini videos of Arin as a tiny baby!
I know the format is a little odd for YouTube but since over 75% of people watch videos exclusively on their phones now, it actually makes sense. You can set the video to full screen on your phone so it fills it out vertically instead of having the black bars on the side.
Thanks for watching and be sure to check back for more cool old house content!
Just posted… a few years late! But finally getting around to editing these old videos and uploading the content. Better late than never. 🙂