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First things first: as promised here is a not so great picture of the house:

I keep meaning to take a better picture, but at the point I get motivated, it is either raining or dark outside. So here you have it: our house. Yay!

I love this house, but the love comes more from potential than anything. If you were to come up to me at this very moment and say, “Hey, you've moved into a house! Isn't that great! How’s it going?” My eyes kind of glaze over and my smile goes a little wonky, and I reply, “It’s great, but it is a lot of work.”

I mean, I was expecting the work aspect of moving in, but compounded with school, it makes everything go really slow. But now that we are actually sleeping here (Yay! Hot water!), the process seems to pick up a bit.

Here are some home milestones I've been meaning to document:

•        Our first family-wide movie night in the only room in the house we are consistently using. It was a big moment when we could fit all brothers and sisters under the age of 18, plus two parents, plus two close friends from church and their baby IN ONE ROOM. Comfortably. It was awesome.
•        The organizing of the kitchen. This was a big deal, because I was completely lost and overwhelmed. My approach to cleaning is to wipe everything down with Clorox wipes, and once I finished that, I didn't know how to continue. But both of my Mothers came to my rescue, and now my kitchen is organized! I am so grateful for their motherly guidance and wisdom. And I have space for everything! I don’t have to stick the crockpot in some random closet and to forget about and then say, “Just skip it, we’ll have cheese and crackers for dinner again”*
•    Yesterday, we used our dishwasher for the first time. The next milestone will be to unload the dishwasher for the first time: this has yet to happen. But soon.

      We really do love this house. Occasionally it hits us, WE HAVE A HOUSE, and to celebrate we run around like fools stomping our feet and yelling as loud as possible, just because we can. We should probably really get more curtains up, because our neighbors probably think we are crazy, but anyway, thank you for sharing in our little moments. More to come soon!

      Oh, and come say hi, if you like. 

*Side note: In all fairness, having cheese and crackers for dinner is not a sign of me completely giving up. I love cheese and crackers, and now that I am an adult, I feel that, once you eat a certain number of them, they count as a complete meal. I feel my future children will agree with me.

The Rug Saga

So, this week I find myself obsessed with rugs.

It’s strange how that works. I like to think myself a rational human being with proper priorities. 

I don’t consider myself perfect by any means, but considering everything that I have on my plate, you’d think rugs would be way down there on my list of obsessive thoughts. The list should really go like this:

      1.  Homework assignment due Tuesday

            2.  Reading for class

            3. Work

            4.  Moving into our house completely.

            5. Laundry

Wow. That list is excessively boring.

I still find it curious rugs have taken over. I think the obsession stems from the weird conviction I have that they will turn my house into a home. Or maybe it’s because I am incredibly lazy, and I want to lay down comfortably where I so choose, and not feel the need to get back up, and hard wood floors are generally rather uncomfortable.

Anyway, rugs are expensive, and I’m horribly picky. Everything in my living room is brown. The couch cover is brown, and the curtains are brown. Well, that’s about everything in my living room so far, but I am determined that this rug will be the magical piece that will pull everything together. That will draw the eye, but not take over. That will pop with color, and transcend trends. This mythical rug will also be  as soft as clouds, but durable and hot-chocolate-and-blood-stain-resistant, because that will happen someday. (Side note:  a fictional story ran through my mind involving an incident that would result in both of these stains happening simultaneously. It was hilarious, and frighteningly plausible. Come up with your own scenario, it will amuse you.) Also, it would be nice if it could fly, you know, to save on gas.

And I want all of this for under $100.00.

Ideally.

I have not yet found this rug, but I will valiantly continue my quest, and keep you informed.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, so I can exert all my efforts into curtains.  

A New Beginning

So, church starts at 1 now, and I've been contemplating reopening this blogging thing for a bit now. I have a whole morning to procrastinate getting ready, and mentally decide what I'm going to wear, so why not throw one more thing in to better edify my Sunday? I'm terrible at Sundays.

Honestly, I've been receiving the impression for a while that I need to write my life down to remember. I need to focus my talents and turn my internet time into a more constructive outlet. And I hope blogging will give me that structure. I'm terrible at structure.

For some reason, I'm a little nervous typing this. I'm not sure why. I honestly don't even expect anyone to read this; this blog is really for me and my family. I just keep reminding myself, I'm doing this to better myself as a person, and to record for posterity the growth the inevitability happens.

I find it fascinating. This blog is almost 5 years old. I hesitate to change the description above, because that is still me. The description of 20 year old Jennifer above is still me! Yesterday I went to Starbucks and bought caramel apple cider, but I went with Andrew. He is a big part of my life story now. I am still that person, but now I'm a little bit more. I have grown.

A couple of things about the structure and format of what is to come:

• I'm wordy. And jump around in thought. 
• Occasionally, I'm short and vague. Interpret as you wish.
• If this blog is go anything thing like my journal entries, a good half of them will end abruptly with no real conclusion. I have a tendency to write journal entries really early in the morning or really late at night, and I always have to be supremely cozy. Falling asleep is inevitable. And then the next morning, I'm like, "Whatever.", and will probably post it anyway. It's the thought that counts, right?
• Layout of the blog will change with time, I really feel that content is more important right now. I'm excited about learning how to manipulative HTML, but that will take time.

So, anyway, I need to get ready for church now, especially considering, in the mental planning of my outfit, I have decided to paint my nails, adding 15 minutes onto my routine.

Well, this was fun, and more to come soon!