Home Projects

We are slowly settling in at our new place. It seriously takes forever to get fully unpacked, reorganized, and be able to really go about a regular daily schedule again. We haven't yet had a normal day since we moved 2 weeks ago, but we're getting lots done everyday and getting close to being somewhat finished with the moving tasks. Our moving day 2 Saturdays ago went very well. We had been moving boxes of stuff with our van the entire week before actually getting a moving truck to get the big stuff on the weekend. So, when our fabulous helpers (thanks Mike and his dad and brother, Andrew, Forrest, Scott, and all of Ben's fam!) came on Saturday morning, it was just furniture to be moved. We started at 8am and by about 11 we had already unloaded everything on the other end. It was very quick. And Ben's parents took our girls overnight on Friday (after graduation), so we were able to get a lot of the last minute packing done that evening and were able to move without our crazy little girls. :) Since the move, we've been busy, busy, busy. We installed our appliances the day we moved in (fridge, stove, washer/dryer).. however, the stove turned into the biggest thorn in our side! We lucked out and bought a stove the morning of the move at a garage sale just a couple streets over from us. It's a nice black glass-top stove, only a few years old and matches the rest of the kitchen appliances nicely. However, it had a 3-prong plug as opposed to a 4-prong (which we needed). This was no problem, in theory. Ben went to Home Depot and bought a 4-prong plug and was just going to switch it out. However, one of the screws completely stripped in trying to remove the other plug attachment. So, our stove turned into a giant paperweight for the next 5 days till we finally were able to get it working. We ended up having to order a whole new bracket part for the back of the stove, all because of a stupid screw that wouldn't come out. Anyway- the stove is working now, thankfully... and Ben's learned all about the mechanisms of a stove. In fact, we're getting a crash course in home and appliance repair, as we no longer can just call our landlord to fix stuff or install stuff for us. I don't mean to sound complaining, really - I love owning our own home and learning about everything that comes with it. It's a tremendous blessing and a growing up process as well. The next project is to get a garage door opener installed. Good thing I have a clever husband to do these things for me. :) My clever hubby has also successfully installed blinds throughout the entire house, started in putting up curtains, got our electronics all functioning, including getting a home network installed and running, and hung pictures in most of the rooms. I've been mostly unpacking, organizing, taking care of the kids, and running a tremendous amount of errands in order to get settled in. I say, give me 2 more weeks and we'll start having our life back again. :)

We LOVE our new neighborhood! It's quiet and pretty and the neighbors all seem nice and normal - I've always wanted 'normal' neighbors and not ones that feed and attract all the stray cats, so that we have cat poop constantly in our yard, and not ones that are continually fixing and washing their many huge trucks in their driveway. It's nice to be living in peaceful, clean surroundings. Our next-door neighbors even came and introduced themselves and brought us cookies. So nice. We have a great park within walking distance of our home. We took a break from the unpacking one afternoon and spent some time over there. The kids definitely have been spending a lot of time in the house lately, so this was a good reprieve. Yesterday, they got ice cream from the ice cream man - it seems that the ice cream truck is driving through the neighborhood every other day. The kids get very excited when they hear it coming, so we had to go try it out - they got some big fudgcicles, because my girls are chocoholics like me. :)

We seriously lucked out and scored a beautiful antique piano for free! A nice lady in our other ward was giving it away, and apparently I was the first to call on it, so I won! :) Thanks to Dustin for helping Ben get it in the truck and moved into our house - pianos are heavy. And it's so nice to have our own piano. It makes me want to practice again. I'm pretty rusty - maybe once I get the unpacking done, I'll work on playing some hymns. That would be good. Maybe I should first stop blogging so I can get some stuff done.