Progress!

Over the weekend we started taking loads of stuff over to the new house. I failed to bring the camera with us tonight when we took two big loads over, but here are some pictures of our rental house mid-move:

The Office
the desk and book cases have been removed and only my jewelry stuff remains, now on a folding table, so that I can continue to work on my custom orders that are quickly coming due.

See that pile of electronic stuff? That's where the desk used to be.

My Closet
Only the essentials remain. Yes, the shoe rack is essential.

Man Town
I was so proud of Seth that he was able to choose just a few hats to keep handy during our transition (which is obviously a lot better than I did with my shoes).

The Living Room
it's weird to look at all the stuff that hasn't been touched, yet the recliner, side table, and coffee table are all gone. Tonight's move was a "what's the closest thing we can grab that will fit in the bed of the truck?" kind of load.

Tomorrow night will be another round, then we'll take a break until next week. (And by "take a break" I mean continue to be insanely busy, just with things other than moving.) Then on Monday we'll get back to moving. Here's hoping we can get it all out by Thursday morning!

Aaaaaaand we have a winner!

9 months, 21 days.

That's how long we've been at Trinity Lutheran Church in Glenwood, IA. That's also how long it took for the first member of Trinity to make a comment to me about Seth and I having a baby. Which is actually a lot longer than I thought it would take.

I was walking into a graduation party with a member of our church, let's call her "Amy", and we were watching a group of kids playing Bag-O (a.k.a. "bags" or "cornhole" depending on where you're from). There was a little baby girl who was probably about 9 months old who was crawling up onto one of the boards and Amy turns to me and says, "You guys should get one of those." I was thinking she was talking about the Bag-O set and inside my head said, "We actually have one in our basement!" But at the moment I opened my mouth, it hit me that she wasn't talking about the popular yard game, she was talking about the baby. Oh my.

I started to laugh and then assured Amy that it is indeed in our plans to have "one of those" in the next few years, but not just yet. I suppose now that we own a house, we can expect to hear more questions about how soon we'll be expecting, but in the mean time I will be thankful for people like Amy, who care about us very much and are looking forward to being a part of our family's lives in the years to come.

Long Time No See

Oh the shame. :-(

It has been almost four months since my last post, and now that I have returned I must face the serious question that all bloggers must answer after having taken a leave of absence, whether it was planned or unplanned, announced or unannounced: Do I just start fresh and skip over the time I spent away from my hillside reflections, or do I provide some sort of overview of what it was that kept me so busy that I neglected to take time to share it with my beloved readers?

Hmmm... as a blog reader myself, I have seen it done both ways and I there are things I like about both options. So I think I will provide a hybrid. A bulletpointed list of the highlights from my time away (which comes with complete and total permission for any of you to skip right over if you'd rather not be bored by the past) followed by a more typical update of the most recent goings-on.

Thus, I give you the list of excitements:

• Youth group ice skating and Super Bowl Party
• A visit from our friends, James & Jackie
• A fabulous visit from my sisters, Sara and Emily, and of course, my lovely niece, Addie!
• Spring Break
• Wonderful time spent with my in-laws over Easter
• Several custom jewelry orders

and the "big one"...

• putting an offer on a (short sale) house
• having the offer accepted
• gutting mold from the basement of that house
• closing on the house
• cleaning the house
• preparing to move into the house

I have to say that while I knew that the process of buying our first house would probably be complicated, buying a house on short sale was almost more than I could handle! I haven't been so stressed since grad school when I had 19 credit hours on top of student teaching and two practicum placements. Yikes!

Then, once the stress of actually buying the house is finished, on comes the stress of moving! Thankfully we have several weeks left on the lease for our rental house so we don't have to be in a huge rush, but we are definitely itching to get into our new place that we are so excited about and having so much fun working on already.

I don't want this blog to become completely consumed with my adventures as a new home owner, but there will definitely be posts about our excitements and surprises during the process of moving in and making changes balanced with other tidbits from life out here in Iowa.

Love and blessings to all of you from me, along with my apologies for staying away for far too long. It's good to be back :-)