Home Sweet Home

It's been over 2 weeks since I posted last. So much and yet, it seems, so little has happened in that time. We bought our house and moved in, fortunately uneventfully. We are very much enjoying making a "home" for ourselves. Even though we owned the mobile we never really wanted to make it ours, we just kind of tolerated living there and wished to get out some day so we could have a real house. We have been having fun picking out things for the house and deciding what we need now and what can wait. I was actually excited to buy an outside trash can because it means we no longer have to use a dumpster! Word of caution: Only continue reading if you really want to know what we are doing with our home. (There are some cute pictures towards the end though.)

We have put vertical blinds on the sliding glass door as well as cellular shades on the 3 windows in the master bedroom. The sliding door was a big priority since the sun comes in shining on the dining area all afternoon and directly in our faces at dinner time. Then, after spending about a week having to change and dress in the bathroom, we made the decision that our bedroom had to come next, thus the cellular shades. Since the sun shines directly in the kids rooms in the morning Adam's room has the blackout curtains that we used in the kid’s room at the apartment. I had tacked up the flat sheet to Noelle's bedding on her window, which worked great and of course matched her room. I was even considering just turning it into the curtain for her room that would go in front of blackout curtains. Then a couple days ago she decided to pull it down. Now I can't figure out what to put in her room. I originally didn't want to do blinds since her window only starts about 2 feet off the floor which gives her great access to break and ruin the blinds. But now I am hesitant to put in curtains because I don't want her to leave a hole in the wall if she decides to tear it down once we have them on an actual rod. So I am now leaning towards the faux wood blinds like we will put on the 2 windows in the living room. I feel they are sturdier and would be best since she could easily move them out of the way to see outside and they wouldn't bend easy like metal or plastic blinds would. If anyone has any ideas or opinions I would love to have them!! Right now she has nothing on her window so it is very bright in the morning and gets very warm on nicer days.

We are slowly unpacking with the goal of having the boxes already in the house unpacked by next Sunday. I also hope the new living room furniture will be installed by then. You see, we are having Adam’s kid b-day party that day and it would be really nice to have the place looking like a home for our guests. I am still working on organizing everything as well. We have a very large pantry in the kitchen and extra storage above the washer and dryer, BUT no linen or coat closets. When I bought our front load washer and dryer when we moved in I purposefully got the pedestal drawers to go under them so we could use the space above them for extra storage. I am also working on organizing the kid’s rooms/toys. Noelle’s is a challenge since we have to be able to put ALL her toys in her closet when she is sleeping. The closet then gets locked so she can’t make a huge mess and will go to sleep sooner. I got some pink and purple bins with lids, to go on a bookshelf in her closet, for her toys that have a lot of pieces and don’t come in a storage container. Since she doesn’t have a dresser the only things left out in her room during sleeping time are her bed (including bedding and stuffed animals), doll station (but no dolls or toys to play with it), and the humidifier (which I usually have to turn back on and/or plug back in before I go to bed LOL).

The kids and I are really enjoying being able to play outside so easily. When we get home in the afternoons I usually let them play in front for a while. The block has lots of kids on it, varying from about 3 years through elementary school. The 3 year old girl lives in the other half of our paired home. The kids love to blow bubbles and run around with her. It was so nice out Wednesday that I let the kids go out back after lunch. They had a great time running around and having a squirt gun fight. It is SO nice to be able to open the door and just let them go out to play. After 2 weeks I already know several neighbors names, which is more than I can say I knew after 7 years at the mobile. Everyone seems very nice so far and hopefully we will continue getting to know them.

A quick funny story about our mail and then I am done. When we moved in we got 1 mailbox key, but we had no clue which box was ours. The realtor told us to take the deed of sale to the post office and they would tell us which box the key went to. When I did the guy handed me a piece of paper to fill out and said it would be $35 (or some ridiculous number) to re-key the lock. I told him I had a key and just needed to know what box it went to. His response, “I don’t know which box it goes to, you’ll just have to try it in every hole until it works.” WHAT!! I think that falls really close to being mail tampering. Since I really had no other choice that’s just what I did. I felt like an idiot standing there trying it in every box until it worked. And of course there were other people getting their mail AND landscapers doing some work right across the street. I had to go through more than half the boxes before I hit the jackpot, and there was even mail in it!!