A Month Already!!!

I can't believe it! As of Friday, we have been in the house a month. A month FLEW BY!!! We signed a fifteen month lease, and I can't believe we only have 14 left of what we have just experienced! I mean, we can always renew, I hope, but I just can't believe that 1/15 of our lease is already done!

I am loving the house =-) Have I mentioned that yet? I know I have barely blogged. The first week was full of unpacking. The second week was trying to finish the last bits of unpacking, and I got sick at the end of that week. The third week, I was sick. The fourth week was our anniversary and it flew by! We had a great anniversary =-) We bought a king size bed. It was delivered yesterday. I am ready to take some pictures to post now, but I want to wait until the sun is shining, so hopefully I will post them tomorrow. I LOVE our bed. It just came yesterday, so last night was our first night to sleep in the bed and it was SOOOO comfortable. I can't believe we have something so wonderful in our home. A king size bed is always our favorite part of traveling and now we can experience it every night. I just feel so blessed.

And now I feel like life is really going to get back to normal. In some ways I feel like our new life is going to finally begin. Last month was a pro-rated rent AND we didn't get a water or gas bill AND Brett got a bonus AND there was an extra week in the month so I had an extra paycheck. Talk about God's provisions. This month... I know that God will provide again. He is always faithful. But it is time to buckle down and really be purposeful with every dollar. Our monthly expenses increased with the move, not to mention gas prices are still climbing, so this month will be a whole new ball game. I feel ready. It is one of those seasons, once again, where Brett and I are incredibly in love. Of course, we always love each other, but you know what I mean... some days, or weeks, or months, the love is just so STRONG. Like oxygen. It's sewn into every moment of every day. Stronger than worry, or planning, or other social activities.

Okay, I am off to do a little crafting before bed, but I plan on getting back to blogging. So you'll be hearing from me soon!!!

What's With Today Today?

Kelly, if you still read my blog, shout out! I saw a clip of Empire Records this week. Soooo many memories! Sigh.

Okay, so Spring Break. My first spring break at the school. It was pretty good! Despite the fact that we had several teachers scheduled off, and more than a few people had to call-in at different times throughout the week, there were no major catastrophes. It was a fairly smooth week. And the kids had a lot of fun on all of the field trips. I even got to go to story time on Thursday with the Pre-K classes. So much fun!

I'm pretty sure that I haven't mentioned this yet, but I got sick last week! I woke up on Friday feeling nauseated. I went to work because, well, that's what I do. But after being there thirty minutes or so, my back started to hurt. It was a VERY busy morning, so I was truckin' along, just doing what I had to do, but at 12:15, out of curiosity, I took my temperature. I was at 101.8. Now, my regular resting temp is 96.8. 101.8 is a number I haven't seen in a very long time. So of course, because I'm a baby sometimes, I started to cry. Not boohooing, but I couldn't keep a few tears from squeaking out. I didn't realize how bad I felt until my temp was high enough to send me home and I had the freedom to admit that I didn't feel good. Ugh. So after only 3.5 hours at work, I clocked out and called my doctor. 2.5 hours later I crawled into bed. No strep, no flu and no baby. (I wasn't expecting a baby, but they insisted on testing me...) My doc was perplexed so she said to treat it like a virus. Lots of water, Tylenol and Motrin.

Friday was a really rough day and Saturday wasn't much better. Saturday afternoon my symptoms evolved to include frequent trips to the bathroom. By Sunday evening, I felt better though. Still a low fever, but better. Monday afternoon, the dizziness began. It was constant for 36 hours or so. Since then I am dizzy now and then. As of yesterday, I'm feeling pretty good, but a low fever has been constant. Not sure what's going on, but it's not quite done.

It's crazy how just a low grade fever can really take the wind out of your sails. I've been tired and forgetful all week. I think I'm fine, but I'm SOOO thankful that today is Friday. I need a weekend.

This weekend, I plan on getting the last box unpacked. I know I said that last weekend, but move on. I think there's only one left, and it's in my room. It's just full of pictures. It will be nice to get some things hanging on the walls. We are also bed shopping tomorrow. After almost two years of marriage (more on that in a second ;-) we might finally have the means to buy a king size bed. Brett isn't a great sleeper, which means he is up and down a lot in the night. And I take a while to fall asleep which means I turn a few times before I'm out. In other words, in our queen size bed, we wake each other up pretty frequently. We never have this problem when we are traveling and staying in a king sized bed. Brett just received his annual bonus, and the way our paychecks are falling this month, we have one more than we usually do. We have put a lot of thought into the best way to use this money, and although we would REALLY like to take a chunk out of the credit card balance, I don't know when, if ever, we would have a way to get a new bed without a credit card. AND... Monday is our second anniversary =-) A new bed would be an awesome gift! Bed this year, trip next year? That would be nice. We have looked at three different places and have a couple more in mind tomorrow. I hope we find a good solution.

I think we are also going to break in the deck tomorrow! It's grilling weather =-) I'm waiting for the day when the house feels like home. It's not here yet, but I am loving the house.

Hopefully I will post pictures soon!

Have a great weekend!

A Quick Post

Wing two, checking in.

Is that what they say? Something like that...

It's been a pretty good week. The good news is, I love the house =-) We still have some boxes that actually haven't been touched this week, but they will be out of site before the next week begins. I'm determined. I LOVE the space in the kitchen. Everything else, I'm still getting used to. But we are going to grill this weekend, and I am looking forward to that.

Lots of good things in my life lately. Well, in my life, yes, but more in the lives of people around me. Babies must be falling from the sky, because everyday I hear of someone else who I love that is pregnant. New jobs, moves, new vehicles, life changes... it just seems like the new season is bringing change for a lot of people.

I am hoping to have time to be creative soon. I already feel creative, just having a space to work in. We'll see how this weekend goes =-)

Hope everyone else is feeling God's blessing in their life!

Movin' On Up!

Is it considered movin' on up if I moved to the south-side? Not sure. But it was still a good move =-)

So it all began a week ago today. After a month of packing, it was time to move. I was off last Friday. I got out of bed at 6:45 and packed a few final things. Then I loaded my mom's mini-van, which we had borrowed the night before, and headed to turn in our Time Warner modem. One of the changes that went along with the move was our media providers. This house is wired for Verizon Fios, so we cancelled our Time Warner internet and Direct TV cable. My first task of the day was to turn in our modem. I was done there by 9:00. Thank you 25 year employee at Time Warner who made that such an easy experience. I appreciated it!

My next task was to drive to the realty company, pay rent and get the keys to the house. I took a wrong turn on the way to the place, so I was delayed about 10 minutes, but getting the keys was no big deal! Easy as pie! Then I drove to the house... and the keys didn't work. That's right. They gave me the wrong keys. What I think probably happened is the owner changed the locks and when he took the new keys to the company, they switched the old and new keys. That was a rough hour. Firstly because I was exhausted. I cry easily when I'm tired, and I needed a bit of a cry. But there was also a note on the door from the water company saying that when they came to turn the water on, the meter showed that there was water running, so they turned it off to prevent any water damage to the house. It said that someone had to be at the house when they came to turn it on. In my fragile state of mind, having no water until Tuesday, which would be the first day that someone would be at the house to meet them, was a catastrophe. So cry I did, while I sat in the driveway of the house that I couldn't get into. But after an hour or so, the owner pulled up to the house. Now let me stop and say this: I like this house, and the whole "finding the house" ordeal was tough, but not terrible. But I have been a little uncomfortable since signing the lease, because on that day I learned that we would never meet the owner of the house. The service that he uses handles everything, and the way the system is designed, we go through them for everything. Payment, repairs, everything. But when I was locked out of the house and they called the owner while I cried in the mini-van, the man who showed up to come to my rescue turned out to be none other than the owner! He is retired and handy, so he does most of the work on the house. It was a somewhat awkward interaction, but I was so happy to get to meet him. And not only did he bring a fitting key, but he turned the water back on! He said he had opened a valve after the freeze, and that's all that it was. Woohoo!

So he opened the house, walked around telling me this and that, and then left to get new keys made while I unloaded the van. Of course, I fell. I tripped over a suitcase that I didn't realize was so close behind me. I have a HUGE bruise on my leg, and my wrist is still hurting a bit, but I'm healing =-)

After unloading, I went to Chipotle and sat outside because it was a BEAUTIFUL day. It was very calming. Then I headed back to the apartment to reload. I drove back to the house and unloaded again and by that time, Brett was off of work. We took one more load to the house Friday night and then finished all of our packing.

Saturday was such a blessing. We had three friends show up to help us and they were LIFE SAVERS! I thought that my whole family, minus my dad who had to work, would be helping us on Saturday. That would be a total of 6 people, plus me and Brett. Well, there was one injury, three conflicting work schedules, and one no-show. So it was me and Brett, my mom, and thankfully, 3 friends. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and we couldn't have asked for more helpful movers. God provided completely. He always does. We loaded the entire apartment into a U-haul, the mini-van, one truck, one CUV and one car. My dad made a brisket for the movers, so when we got to the house, we stopped to eat lunch. By the time lunch was finished, Brett's mom, the no-show and two of the work-related absentees had shown up to help us unload. In short, we had the U-haul turned back in by 3:30.

Life since then has been a blur of running errands (LOTS of errands), unpacking and eating out. We had a bit of drama when the gas dryer that was provided ended up not working, but it all worked out in the end. Brett had three and a half days off this week, so he has done a lot of unpacking during the days and I have done a lot of unpacking at night. I didn't have any days off this week, and I worked 11 hours today, so I am BEAT! But I wanted to stop and blog.

God has been so good. He has provided all of the right people, every step of the way. The right people to provide boxes, to help us move, and now people to take the boxes off of our hands. Three couples in our Sunday school class are moving! Well, I guess 4, but one of them already has boxes headed their way.

And I love the house =-) I love size of the kitchen. I love the shelves in the garage. I LOVE the window in the bathroom (the natural light in the morning is awesome). I love the fans. I love the floors. I love the random shelves in the hallway that Brett has filled with comic books and action figures. I love the free movie channels we are getting for a year because we were first time Verizon customers. I don't love the cardboard smell that is in pretty much every room. I am planning to be 98% unpacked by Monday morning. I'm ready to get this done. On that note, I'm off to assemble the last set of shelves for my craft room.

Party on party people!