A Few Pictures

I've been meaning to get these up for a while, but there always seemed to be boxes or piles in the way. It's much easier to take pictures of an empty house!
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Here they are:

Kitchen and Dining Room

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Living Room (don't you love the mismatched couches? Someday . . . )

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Half Wall at Stairs

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Master Bedroom

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Master Bath, part 1

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Master Bath, part 2 (Our bathroom is L-shaped, explaining the 2 part pictures.) And our bathroom is not orange (though that's how it looks in the pictures). Here's a swatch of the color (though I know that computer screens vary).

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I have yet to take pictures of the girls' rooms. I'll get to that eventually! : ) More to come!

Finished!

One year and almost 4 months! That's a long time to have a project in progress, but this evening I officially finished my couch! Of course, I still have the love seat to do, but I'm trying not to think about that right now!

I began on February 27, 2007. Click here to see the original.

This afternoon I stapled on the last cushion, then I almost cried . . . and they weren't tears of joy! One of the challenges of working with plaid is that you have to match the patterns. I did that successfully for the entire couch . . . except this last piece (which I had worked on pretty contstantly for 2 days!)

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My mismatched plaids:

It was tempting to leave it . . . but I couldn't bear to do that. I worked so hard, and darn it, I was going to finish it right! It would have taken an eternity to take apart the entire cushion, but I managed to fanaggle a cover for it. Hopefully it holds up!
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The finished product:

We're Back!

You can't imagine how much I've missed my internet connection!! 2 1/2 weeks felt like an eternity . . . That's so sad! How did I communicate with people before email!?

Yes, we now have a phone, and are therefore back in cyberspace. I am still shocked and amazed with Charter and AT&T . . . let's just say that they won't be asking me for any references . . . I don't have anything nice to say at this point!

I don't have much time, but I thought I'd give a quick update . . .

Moving has gone great. We are pretty well settled in. There are still many boxes in the basement that need tending to, but the house is definitely liveable. It's so nice to have things up on the walls, etc . . . We still have some painting that I want to do in the kitchen/dining room and I'm hoping to get to that this week. I am planning to retake pictures of the place now that we're settled in so that I can share them, but there just always seems to be something more important to do.

At this point, my biggest struggle is maintaining a good balance. I tend to want to put the kids on the back-burner because there is so much that needs to get done. I think "the sooner I can get everything done, the sooner everyone can get back to normal" That's a nice idea, but kids don't do well when their lives are unstructured for weeks at a time! : ) Imagine that! So I'm trying to find a good balance and realize that not everything needs to be done now . . . the Tyranny of the Urgent! That's a tough one for me. It's now been a good month of craziness (First vacation in Chicago, next a weekend in the hospital with Meg, then moving!) There have been a couple of times when I thought that I was going to have a meltdown, but we're recovering!

Well, I'd better run! Feel free to give us a call and stop by!

P.S. To all of our local friends and family - do you know anyone who is moving? We have quite a load of boxes that would be such a blessing to anyone who's moving. We could throw them away, but I thought I'd check around first!

It Was a Nice Idea . . .

Our move has gone extremely well! Tomorrow is our big moving day when all the fellas will be coming to haul everything that is left. Really there isn't much left. Aaron has cancelled the moving truck and is planning to move everything else with just vans/pick-up trucks. We still need all of those guys to help, but it shouldn't take them long!

We have been sleeping at the new place since Saturday night and we are feeling very settled in. I LOVE our house!! All painting is done, all fixtures are hung, mini blinds are up, etc . . . The girls are still thoroughly enjoying the laundry chute! : )

The only fly in our ointment is the fact that we still don't have our phone or internet hooked up. We were supposed to have that done on Monday, but I think that utility companies must be the most inefficient companies on earth. Both AT&T and Charter have proven that to me. So, the only way to contact us at this point is on our cell phones. Once we have our internet up and running I will send out a new email with updated contact info.

More pictures are still to come, but it might be a while!