playing catch-up

well it's been a long time since i've blogged, but i have so many topics, i'm not sure which one to write about! unfortunately, i think that leads me to listing, so here i go!

the weeks of pregnancy continue passing, and i am getting larger. with the abundance of my bosom (shall we say?), it is hard to see that my belly is actually getting much larger, but i can tell it is. [you can see that i am THRILLED about the idea of pictures being taken of me in my bloated state] i had some back problems a week or so ago, but barricading myself in bed with thousands of pillows each night has really helped. i have been blessed to have had a relatively lighter work schedule this past month or so, but even working 40 hours like i am this week, i'm doing ok getting through it. i also bought new work shoes, which i believe are contributing to my better back situation. though things like new orthopedically correct shoes are expensive, i have found they are a pregnancy necessity. and, though not a necessity, andrew did buy me a replacement ring to wear on my ring finger since my wedding set has been too small for me for a while now. i finally feel like i'm married again! (i know it's silly, but having the ring on just makes me feel better.)

thanksgiving week was an interesting one for us, as we both worked all day every day except thanksgiving itself. it was sort of a bummer to not have a long time off to celebrate my favorite holiday, but we got to spend some time together with my parents, and that was nice. plus, there was a plethora of traditional foodstuffs, which cannot be forgotten! i know there are pictures, so i'll have to commandeer them from my mother.

the following weekend we got a somewhat impromptu visit from my cousin, michelle, which was awesome. we hung out, talked long into the night (for us old fogeys anyway), and had a TON of laughs. my face actually hurt from all the smiling. there's nothing like family and a good friend wrapped up into one package to remind you what it means to be happy. she offered a lot of pregnancy sympathy as well as a ton of baby-raising advice, and she's a great christian-married-woman sounding board. i really enjoyed her visit. i enjoyed it so much so that i completely forgot to take a single picture! for shame!

this weekend, andrew and i were extremely productive -- i got a wonderful christmas bonus from work, so the penny-pinching we've been doing was able to lighten up for one weekend at least. it was really nice. we got a beautiful christmas tree and decorated it, bought decorations for the house and have been putting them up, did some general shopping for things we needed, and la piece de resistance, we bought a couch! i have been searching for a couch to replace the one we have for at least 2 years now, and though we did not get a sectional as planned, we bought a couch that i love, that will hopefully be very comfortable for me during my huge months of pregnancy. it'll be delivered right before christmas!

today was my day off, so i got to sleep in, have lunch with andrew, straighten up the yard/porch/driveway a little, put up some garland, re-install the driveway lights, and clean the kitchen. and as soon as he gets home, we'll make some dinner -- on days like this i love our quiet little country life :-)

let the renovations resume

well, andrew and i had an excitement-filled four days for this labor day break... we laid around, watched gilmore girl marathons, took naps, and pretty much did nothing - UNTIL TODAY! my mom, who is fantastically motivating, came over and got us jump-started back into getting this house in order. i have limited house painting abilities at this point because of the whole not standing on ladders or stools, and not inhaling fumes, due to the inherent danger to the bean, but luckily team-paint did a great job getting the first coats to the entire dining room/hallway/one wall of the kitchen done!

the wainscoting will definitely need another layer, as this was only primer, and we'll see how the taupe part looks on the top part of the wall to judge whether it needs another coat, but i'm SO excited that it's well underway and we're back in action on the renovation front!

uncertainty

it seems, that since we made public-ish our big announcement, i have been faced with more and more uncertainty. like, am i really pregnant? how will this change my life? how will this change our lives? will i have a miscarriage? will i have a baby with some kind of deformity or illness? will i go into early labor and have a preemie? will i have to have a c-section? will i be able to stay home with this kid after it's born? will it be a boy or girl? am i really pregnant??? are these symptoms i'm experiencing normal or weird? how will this affect the way i work at my job? how will it affect my dogs? will i get really fat and be unable to lose the weight? will we go bankrupt? AM I REALLY PREGNANT?!

so you can see, i am totally normal and there are no hormones raging out of control in me at all. ps, i just sent andrew to the store for chocolate ice cream. on the way out he jokingly asked if i wanted pickles. i realized... I DO. so i am about to consume pickles and ice cream - how cliche!

---sidenote: i am beginning to hate living here - how can it be that we have no goodberry's anywhere near, no coldstone, AND the grocery store's out of haagen-dazs chocolate. i guess that's what you get when the grocery stores aren't allowed to sell beer and the most hoppin' eatery for sunday night dinner is mcdonalds.---

on a totally rambling continuation of this blog (which seems to lack all direction... consistent with my current mental state), i took my first "belly pic" to document where i was last week. since i'm not sure what week number i technically am because i haven't been to the ob yet (and won't go till the 20th), i don't know which week to call it. i mostly wanted to document that at one time, i had a relatively flat stomach.
thank you, target dressing room.

and secondly, we got new bedroom furniture. correction: we got bedroom furniture. we've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor and keeping our clothes mostly in baskets and on shelves because of the lack of dresser and other such fancy modern conveniences for the past two or so years, but now, thanks to the poor economy and someone having to sell off their entire house's worth of stuff, we have a king sized bedframe, two bedside tables, and a dresser.

movin' on up [moooovin' on up]...

so, what did you spend YOUR tax return on?

i vaguely remember the days when i could go out and spend my money on whatever i wanted, and my tax return was spent on that new thing i wanted for my car or my wardrobe or horses... but now, we have money together that we use to pay our mortgage and bills, and when we have money back on our taxes, we spend it on turning the water from orange to clear and fencing in the property to keep the dogs from running away. woohoo!

though not as exciting as the new dooney i want:

this fence is pretty fancy! [pics to be posted asap]

and though it took sort of a long time, and a few cut cables/gas lines, i'm happy with the end result. especially the cool livestock gate and latch that goes across the driveway.

the water filtration system is not as exciting to look at, but it does make my sinks and toilets look better. i'm sort of bummed that all the new stuff we got when we moved in is already a somewhat stained beyond repair, but i guess you can't win 'em all.

next on the list of repairs/renovations:
1. fix lawnmower/mow lawn
2. till garden beds/plant
3. finish wainscoting
4. paint upper half of dining room walls
5. finish flooring in upstairs closet
6. paint upstairs
7. put up window treatments in master bedroom
8. CLEAN!

future thoughts (waaayyyy down the road):
redo downstairs bathrooms
increase pass-thru between dining room and kitchen
unpack random boxes and clear out junk
renovate kitchen

work weary

today was my day off... so i paid bills, balanced the checkbook, and spent my morning calling what felt like HUNDREDS of fencing people to get estimates for the yard. we were going to fence it ourselves, but i'm just sick of having this huge yard and not letting my dogs run around in it all the time (for fear of them running off in search of the neighbor's pet rabbit). therefore, my afternoon was spent walking and rewalking and rewalking the proposed fenceline with no fewer than four different fence companies. each of these estimates took at least 30 mins, and the surveyors showed up about 30 mins apart for the entire afternoon. yaaaaay for owning over 2 acres of land to walk :-P

additionally, i called and scheduled water purification companies to test and suggest solutions to our water problem. for those of you who don't know, we have umm... i think the man called it "a severe, almost unbearable" problem with our water. it is full of dissolved iron. according to the culligan man, a measurement of 0.3 on the iron scale (no idea what units here), will cause staining. ours is 4.6 - i repeat again: yay for homeownership!

so as soon as i get the finalized estimates back, we'll be in business for fencing the property and having clean water! ...it's only taken a year. hooray for tax refunds!

fyi: there are some companies more together and personable than others.

• for water issues, i'd recommend redding water company (out of wilson)
  
• for fences, we used allstar fencing (out of clayton) for  the dog pen earlier this year; they did a cheap, but sort of sloppy job. 
• for this fence job, pending prices, i'm now between fence deck works (willow spring), and fences unlimited (from garner); they both had friendly, knowledgeable people.

also, see this past entry for recommendations regarding chimney work and tree services.

but! the reason i am so work-weary isn't the scheduling of other people to do work, it's my work schedule this week. i had today (monday) off, then i work tuesday morning, wednesday morning, thursday all day, friday all day, saturday morning and saturday after-hours. bleh. i guess you gotta pay all these people to make your home improvements for you!

home improvements

today, andrew and i went over to the former choir director's house, and it was a very beautifully outfitted, which encouraged us to do a little work on our house!

they're small changes, but they make me happy:

a functional toilet paper roll dispenser


matching towel racks


handtowels too! (no, we haven't removed the wallpaper yet...)


new switchplates in the bedroom


outlet covers (finally)

and la piece de resistance...


outdoor driveway lights!


little ones and big ones, they really do look like little tinkerbelle twinkle lights!
and best of all, they're solar-powered!

spring = productivity

i have decided that my energy level and determination to be productive correlates directly to the weather. now that it's starting to perk up out there (well for the most part, minus the frost last night), i've felt much more energized to get things done around the house. i know it's not much compared to all the projects we have "underway" and left to start, but at least we're not stalled anymore, like we were this winter.

this weekend, while mom so kindly worked on cleaning the inside of our house (why? cause she's the best mom in the world!), andrew and i got some free mulch that a friend had left over (thanks SO much, page!) and filled the [previously mud-hole filled] dog pen with it. it was a two-day project, but it makes a huge difference, and i'm convinced the dogs are happier for it as well.

not the best picture, but it's what i have

when work starts back for the week, i'm usually out of commission as far as housework is concerned since i'm so exhausted when i get home, and earlier this week that was certainly true. BUT this morning, i am proud of my productivity, so i shall share it with you!

before 8:17am, i successfully:

• woke up (yes, this is an event - it's my morning off!)
  
• jimmy-rigged the floor upstairs [that has been unfinished for months] so that it is complete (except the closet, for which i need a saw)
• moved some shelves
• moved and unpacked a few boxes in the office
• unloaded, loaded, and run the dishwasher
• fed and medicated all three dogs
• and made a pot of coffee

considering i woke up around 7:15... i'd say that's not a bad hour's work!

if only i was that productive every hour of every day...

sunshiiiiiine!

i think part of the reason i haven't been into blogging is that it's been cloudy and cold and GROSS for weeks! but this weekend it was sunny and beautiful, and the temperature was PERFECT! i didn't take any pictures because i was busy enjoying it.

let's see... recently andrew and i have started going to a different church, north raleigh church of the nazarene, eaten lots of donuts from daylight donuts, i've started singing at church, we're beginning a new book in my ladies bible study group, i've have LOTS of good days and a few tough days at work, the dogs have gotten sick and gotten better, we've gone to birthday parties and baby showers, we've been continuing to work on the house (slooooowly), and life's been overall pretty crazy! here's a pic of andrew working on the wainscoting in the hallway for your amusement - i totally helped. eventually, it'll be finished... and white.

AMENDMENT!

we CAN use the fireplace!

we got the inspection report from the company today
and that tiny little print says, "you meet somethingo-or-other-very-important-number standards and you CAN use your chimney despite some small mortor cracks."

-- ok so that was a paraphrase instead of a quote, but you get what i'm saying. hooray!

and we have the tree guy coming out friday who will remove the tree we wanted and merely prune the other tree because we all decided that would fix the problem, so we're much closer to budget :)

thanks to my parents for the awesome presents of those two fixes and to God for making it all come out ok in the end.

chim chimeny chim chimeny chim chim cha roo!

today i woke up early to clean up a little before the chimney sweep from F.Scott Davis Chimney Sweep Inc. came to sweep our chimney! i give you the particular link to the particular company because there are some companies out there who are extremely rude and condescending - why would these be adjectives one associates with a company who makes their living cleaning soot, i have no idea, but apparently a good sweep is hard to find.

the people we had come out were very nice and professional. they brought all of their equipment:


swept the chimney quickly and efficiently without getting a spot of soot on our new carpets, they installed a stainless steel chimney cap:

and they did a full digital inspection of the chimney which will be evaluated by their boss and emailed to me in the next few days. and they did it all in 54 mins. pretty impressive, i'd say!

what's not so impressive... we STILL can't use the fireplace because there are places on the inside of the chimney where mortor has fallen out between the bricks and the tiles, and using the fireplace without getting this fixed could leak carbon monoxide into the house :( homeownership is fun - right? (someone please tell me when the fun part comes)

in other news, we have gotten an estimate on removal of the tree that's growing onto the roof, only to find out that there's also another tree growing on to the other side of the roof - crap! so i'm waiting to hear from the guy about what we can work out there. and now that we've figured out measurements, we're putting beadboard on the dining room walls to make wainscoting, and as long as i can stay motivated after lunch with andrew, i'm painting the top half of the walls myself this afternoon. phew, don't you love vacations?!


*i'm trying to find a new look for the blog, but it's a work in progress - bear with me!*

baby, it's cold in here!

this past wednesday night, i turned on the water at the house to wash my hands, and despite our really awesome tankless water heater, no hot water came out. so i waited... and i waited... and i yelled to andrew that no hot water was coming out... and he turned on another faucet, and still there was no hot water. so he went to the stove and attempted to light it... and only a meek glow emanated from the burner... and then i checked the temperature, and we were at 67 instead of 70 degrees. we were out of gas. completely.

andrew told me not to panic, that he would contact the gas company in the morning. see our gas tank had been at 30% since we'd bought the house. we took this to mean either 1. we do not use much gas, or 2. the gauge was broken. apparently it was 2. or at least the gauge was stuck, because when i woke up to SNOW on friday morning (when the heat didn't work), the gauge said 0% - yeah, thanks a lot for the warning. (my attempt at capturing a picture of the snow while driving through zebulon... probably not the wisest idea.)

luckily, after much harassment, the gas people showed up and filled our tank, so now i think we owe them 5 billion dollars... or something, i wouldn't know though because the man who came to fill the tank couldn't tell me the price of gas. this seems wrong to me. i think you should KNOW how much you're going to have to pay before you agree to something. but since we were completely out, i didn't have much of a choice.

after the gas fiasco, the rest of the weekend consisted mostly of doing nothing, with some eating and napping in there, the only big thing we did was go to the oberlin christmas party. other than that, it was very relaxed. just what we needed after a crazy week. now it's two days and on to thanksgiving break!

renovations are back!

thanks to my wonderful husband and my fabulous mother, the living room is now livable! instead of the pepto-pink wall, nasty green carpet grossness that was in here when we arrived, our room is now updated with a lush wall color, beautiful thick carpet, luxurious window dressings, and even antique bronze outlet covers. awesome.

no flash view:


with a flash:


chair in the corner:


and that's pretty much what we did this weekend!

*there are now pics posted (below) of "andrew's trail."

baby steps and big decisions

ahahaha you all thought i was going to say we were having a baby - WRONG! get your mind away from that topic - at least for a while!

but andrew and i have made some big decisions recently, which include me leaving teaching (and most likely having to pay the teaching fellows back), and going back to work at oberlin full-time beginning in january. i've been considering these things for a long time now, and we both believe that this is the right way to go. finances might be a little tight for a while, but hopefully it will all work out. we've both prayed a lot about it, and while change is always a little scary, we both think this is the right choice.

in the way of baby steps, we are also doing a little more work on the house, like pulling out more of the old, ugly boxwood bushes and planting azaleas in their place in front of the house. i would have some lovely pictures for you, but we didn't take any. oops.

time for bed... gotta resign tomorrow.

midnight [really 2am] intrusions

i present to you, specimen "a" = watchdog:
quake in the fear of its terrifying exterior!

so last night (this morning), lillie kept growling and barking at something. now bailey has gotten into a bad habit of barking for seemingly no reason, so i kind of shrugged it off and hoped it would stop. i even called out the window (the dogs sleep on the porch) for lillie to stop barking, but she persisted with her low growl followed by a sharp bark. if you have dogs, you know that there are certain barks for certain things - play, fight, warning, etc. this particular bark sounds like it is escaping from her throat where, though she tries, it can no longer be contained. it's a warning bark. then it clicked that it was LILLIE barking, and that she doesn't usually bark for no reason, especially not in the middle of the night.

i tapped the sleeping andrew and asked him if he was going to go check on it, and i was met with a slamming of the covers and a "fine!" which... if you know me, did not set well. i told him to forget it and that i'd go check on what it was. [i have learned, through this year of marriage, 3 things: andrew does not like being woken up - no matter what the reason; andrew does not seem to think that i, as a woman, need protection from scary things; and that no manner of guilt-trip i may provide will change these things.] so i went out and let bailey - our "guard dog" off her leash and told her to go find whatever it was.

now, bailey is great for a lot of reasons, but mostly because she barks really loudly and generally scares the pants off people, and because she won't run away. i knew that if i let her go find this scary thing, she'd probably frighten it off, and she'd come back when she was done or had reached the boundaries of our property. well i was right about her barking and coming back, but i still didn't know what it was lurking in the dark shadows of our woodsy lot, and it seemed more like she was interested in me throwing something for her to retrieve than she was finding this midnight intruder. however, i knew that the thing was still there, because though the barking had ceased, i could still hear lillie's low growl beside me.

lillie is great for lots of reasons as well, mostly that she's really smart, runs INCREDIBLY fast (and quickly too - for dad), and she is committed... to me, to catching bunnies she finds, to the scent of the deer on a trail... to protecting the home... to NOT stopping at the end of our property and returning if i let her chase off scary things like the pitt-bull that kept coming after me in our yard in boone... hypothetically speaking of course - hahaha. so while i knew if i turned her out after it, she would certainly find the scary thing, i also didn't know if she'd ever come back. and i worried, if it was a person, she'd get shot (after all, we do live in johnston county). so i continued to peer through the trees and out towards the direction of her glare but kept her on the porch.

andrew came out to the porch, since i hadn't returned to bed, just as i saw a figure walk past some lights out by the road. "at least they're out by the road and not in the field," i thought. so immediately my mind went on alert. either these people were trying to steal something, or they were making a drug deal on the only shady, uninhabited part of our street (right in front of our home). we continued to watch, as a second car drove up and turned around. still growling from the watchdog, still not sure what's going on. i asked andrew to check it out, but he preferred not to. the two cars' flashers turned on, and somehow that seemed less threatening. so i started heading down the driveway in my pj's and bare feet, bailey at my side. i didn't go very far though because i didn't have shoes on... and my brain was starting to take over and tell my body that it was probably no a good idea to approach unknown people in the middle of the night... in pj's (and more importantly, without a bra - what if i had to run?!).

that's when andrew broke out the phone to call the police. just as he was dialing, the cars began slowly, SLOWLY (like at a speed of .2 mph) pulling up the road. at that moment we realized they were probably just having car trouble and had broken down right in front of our house... perhaps on the way home? andrew had already dialed though, so we asked the sheriff to ride by... a few moments later, a car whizzed past the house, turned around in the cul-de-sac at the end of the road, and whizzed out of the neighborhood.

i guess it was the sheriff... and i guess the whole nocturnal event was nothing more than some people with car trouble, but i am certainly tempted to go get a shotgun and take some classes on how to use it.

ready for the slowdown

at the behest of my mother, i am blogging again! i don't know why, maybe the busy-ness of this week, or maybe my somewhat recent introspective state of mind, but for whatever reason i haven't felt like broadcasting... or i guess it could be that a lot of my other fellow bloggers haven't been doing much posting of their own, and i'm feeling shafted in the reading realm - who knows!

let's see...

on the work front, i have now been given the title i have been trying to avoid all year - graduation project coordinator. somehow, the woman whose job it was to organize this convinced our headmaster to give it to someone else... and that someone was me. greeeeeat. so now i'm the english 4 teacher, the yearbook advisor, the "cross-eyed" club faculty advisor, and the graduation project coordinator. perhaps this is why i'm exhausted all the time. what this will really mean for me, i'm not sure yet as we've never done the graduation project, but who knows what it'll mean for my future at ewa.

on the home front, chloe is growing like a weed, and we're really enjoying hanging out with all the dogs in our gigantic yard. we're having trouble getting the lawn mowed though, so the grass is getting really, really high again. the interior our home isn't done yet (and i'm sure won't be for a while), but we did get some new paint for the living room so it won't look purple anymore, and for the exterior, we bought some azaleas and gardenias to plant around the front and side of the porch. maybe by christmas we'll be ready to have a housewarming party or something :-/ can you tell i'm getting sick of the place not being done?

other than that, the only really exciting things were food-related. i had a craving for daylight donuts (my preference over krispy kreme), and we drove all the way to cary for them... just to find out that unless you go EARLY, they have absolutely nothing left. major bummer. later though, we tried to make up for it by going to humble pie - which was awesome. we started eating outside on the patio, but the deluge from the hurricaine had us all running inside (even though we were under a covering), carrying our plates, silverware, and wine glasses to avoid being drenched. dinner was awesome nonetheless, and andrew and i enjoyed hanging out together.

that's about it. suffice it to say, i'm ready for life to slow down a little.

recent (little) renovations

today's blog is a few things we (mostly andrew) have been up to recently...

andrew put some laminate flooring in the office (and it's even almost done!) that looks like real hardwoods.
we got the guest bedroom ready for guests (and even had a few over!)... though we haven't repainted the upstairs yet, so it is still seriously blue with a game of tic-tac-toe on the wall.
andrew replaced the threshold for the kitchen, so the door now opens and closes!
we replaced all the nasty bronze-y chrome-y porch light with some nice aged-brass ones.
andrew has a chair to watch tv in... even if he thinks it's uncomfortable.
we have a fridge (and this one doesn't even have giant scratches or dents in it!)
i have a chair to sit in and read in the corner of the living room... though i have yet to use it.
our mantle has stuff on it.
the heinous "dressing room marquis" fixture is gone from the master bathroom.
the scary, clogged, used-by-hippies shower head has been replaced.
andrew wrote his feelings for me in his peas.
i used "simple machines" to help the tiramisu stand up so that andrew could better eat his portion.
... and oh yeah, as of midnight tonight, we've been married a whole year! woohoo!

landscaping, lifescaping

i am a firm believer that your outlook shapes your life. now, thanks to our cleaned off, cleared out porch, my outlook is that much brighter!

before:

after:though it's kind of hard to tell from these pics, we removed a huge holly bush, as well as several small bushes and a tree from just the front of the house.

we cut trunks and hauled sticks, raked leaves and swept cobwebs, banged mud-dobber nests and cleared the junk from our house. we no longer look like white-trash with several appliances littering our porch! yay! i had to take a moment and bask in the wonderfulness of it.
throughout the day, our trusty companions (brown dog, red dog, and spotted dog) ran around picking up sticks, digging holes, and chasing the ducks halfway across the lake. lillie swam out so far (with her glazed-over-i-can't-hear-you-cause-i'm-chasing-birds expression) that i thought she might become exhausted and sink in the center of the lake. the ducks were hilarious though, they somehow became an organized gaggle (or whatever ducks in a group are) and spread out, each one going a different direction across the lake. it was too funny to watch lillie, huffing along as fast as she could, zig-zagging in all directions and not knowing which duck to follow. after that, she was content to be hosed off for quite a while, and by the time we left for the rodeo, they were all snoozing in their pen.

the rodeo was fun but not as... rowdy as i'd hoped. the bull-riders were good, but the bulls were better, and i was definitely glad no one got seriously injured after watching several of them get raked under the hooves of those giant animals. the biggest casualty seemed to be the lady who got dirt in her eye. we headed over to rachel and mike's apartment-warming party after that and chatted with the crew over there before calling it a night.

i guess it was pretty late when we got home, because we fell right asleep, and we couldn't get out of bed until after noon today. luckily, the cracker barrel is open all day and has coffee. after our breakfast... at 2pm... we headed to see byron's show, give it up, turn it loose, which was a quite entertaining collection of related monologues, a few of which had me nearly rolling in the aisles (it was one where an english teacher was in prison, and i felt like the man was speaking my life with every breath)! we got back, and i sat in my rocking chair on the porch, planning lessons with the dogs, while andrew slept some more. despite the whole lesson planning part, it was a nice afternoon sitting on the porch with the girls while the drizzle began.

hopefully i can keep my positive outlook throughout this week.

houseguests!

well, we've been living in a world of insanity as of late. there's the house-buying, house renovating, moving into the house, SNAFU'S out the WAZOO with our previous (but still sort of current) landlords from the mordecai house, and on top of that, andrew's new job, my teacher workdays starting, and oh yeah - going to california! but to add some spice to life, we had the wonderful pleasure of also having houseguests last night!

while i am quite overwhelmed by everything else i listed above, it was completely awesome to have donna and jeremy over for the night. i hadn't seen them in a year or so, and even then it was just for a day, so when donna called to tell me they'd be coming through town, i couldn't have been more thrilled to have them stay with us for a night! we had TONS of catching up to do, and i'm glad the boys were kind enough to let us chat away for hours. we had dinner together, and we even played with the dogs and took a walk around the neighborhood, but the coolest part is that donna is pregnant! i had a blast watching the alien-being squirm around in donna's belly, and i'm pretty sure everyone else had a blast watching me squeal every time it moved. it was craziness.

this is the crew (minus me of course) eating dinner, and no, the pregnant woman is not drinking wine - it's grape juice :-)

i just have to say, it's so nice to have good friends, whether they're far or near, whether we see one another all the time or only occasionally; good friends are hard to come by, but they are surely one of God's greatest blessings.

home owner humor

Taken from a conversation emily and I were having the other night. "Everyone who buys a new house should get a tetanus shot included at closing."

where to begin?

i feel like i've been absent from blog-world for so long! i guess i'll give a brief recap of the past week, though it's been quite a blur.

friday we worked on packing... sort of
we began getting stuff together and then had to go to some 4th of july festivities over at dr. joe's and with monica and dave. we had a great time kayaking and swimming around at dr. joe's, and we enjoyed dinner and hanging out at the fairgrounds until the lightning and rain took over the fireworks.

saturday, we got up bright and early and packed up the moving truck with the help of some WONDERFUL friends (monica, dave, chicken, byron, dr. allison, her husband, and my mom) load us up and move us on out to benson.
everyone worked so hard, and they just made it such a pleasant experience. i'm eternally grateful for their friendship and that they came through and helped us move in to our new home.
more pictures can be viewed here.

monday, andrew and i rested some and began unpacking - there is still SO MUCH to do! while i go to work each day, andrew takes care of stuff around the house. we did a lot of shopping for things like dog food, water bowls, containers, you know the basic stuff you need that you don't think about. we had dinner out since we hadn't been grocery shopping yet, and i made a love-connection with our waiter, wiley. it was pretty hilarious, and andrew and i had a good laugh over it.

tuesday i went back to work, and i've been working at oberlin while andrew works at home ever since. andrew's doing a great job of getting appliances hooked up, finishing flooring, and eventually painting. i can't wait until our house feels done and can be all decorated and pretty! once it's put together, we'll definitely have a housewarming party.

interesting and unrelated sidenote: i saw a random review of our blog (from some anonymous source on a random website) that said our blog is "kinda boring" and "teacher stories" which could be true... but i also got an email from a person who wanted to be added to the blog readership because they'd read previously (but doesn't know us), so it must not be too boring! [ps. welcome!] i guess i'm open to suggestions to keep it interesting, though for the most part it's just a journal/account of the stuff we do on a daily basis.