01Jul
After 5 days of moving, packing, unpacking, painting, decorating, redecorating, cleaning, complaining, and wallowing in the happiness that is my very first house – I’m baaaack! As I write this, I am sitting in my very new club chair in my very new living room contemplating on the importance of yellow-green verses olive green paint. I’m in heaven! My feet have never hurt so much in my life, but I’m in heaven.
I haven’t found my camera cable to upload picture to my computer yet, but the minute I do I’ll post pictures of the house. In lieu of pictures though, let me see if I can describe it to you: Perfect. Yep, that just about sums it up. Perfect.
We spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday moving our things from New Haven to Stratford and building a fence in the backyard for the dogs. The fence is almost finished now, with just a small section missing that Chris has to custom build. I think it should be done tonight. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were spent unpacking boxes, putting things in closets, and trying to get this odd smell out of our finished basement. Today it was cable, internet (finally!), phone, and furniture delivery. And we are no where near being finished. But I don’t care because it is literally a labor of love. I have never really understood that expression before, but I truly love this house. I love it. And so throbbing feet (the only shoes I have been able to find are flip flops – not so great on the ol’ arches when you’re carrying lumber and moving boxes) and funky smells are not even a problem.
My favorite part so far has been watching Chris. It’s like this kid was born to be a homeowner. He looks so natural out in our backyard, sawing and drilling on that big fence. And at night when he’s showered and I let him sit on the new furniture, he looks so relaxed and happy. Truly happy. That is what your first home is for, I guess. It’s the place where you learn what pride in yourself really is. One look at Chris and you’re blinded with pride. Kinda makes me want to, you know, clean a kitchen or something.
Well, I’m off to cook our very first dinner in our new house. After days of fast food, I’m not sure I’ll remember what to do with a chicken breast, but I’ll figure it out. Pictures tomorrow…
While I am adjusting to our new house magnificently, the dogs are having a tough time. Â They love the house, but they are glued to my side. Â Normally, this isn’t a problem and I would be more than happy to have them shadow me around the house while I unload Waterford crystal still in its original gift wraping from our wedding. Â The problem is that we have very narrow stairs in this house, so trying to make it up or down these with two dogs literally underneath me has been tricky. Â I tried just running faster down them, thinking I could pass them up but they’re quick little boogers. Â So far we have all crashed and burned in a giant heap of paws, elbows, and moving boxes at least three times.
And then there is the attic thing. Â We don’t have a finished attic here. Â Its just crawl space in the roof. Â For some reason, my closet in the master bedroom opens directly into this area, with no wall or blockage of any kind. Â This morning as I was hanging clothes up in my closet, Molly happened to wander into this area and disappeared into the dark pits of our attic. Â I called her and she (thankfully!) came hopping out. Â So I close my closet door to keep her from getting back in there. Â As soon as I shut the door, she starts barking at the closet like a beast. Â I yelled at her and told her to shut up and happily I moved on to finding the perfect arrangement of Chris’ boxers in our dresser. Â About 15 minutes later, I hear this faint little whimper coming from my closet. Â I open the door and there stands Lucy – covered in insulation and spiderwebs. Â Good Lord, dog! Â Don’t you know that heat in those kind of places can kill you?!?!
After such an adventurous day in the house with the dogs, I was so ready for our backyard to be fenced in so I could just let them outside and get some work done. Â I practically met Chris in the driveway when he got home from work today, kissed him, and put a drill in his hand. Â He finished the fence and we let the dogs go this afternoon. Â They were so happy! Â They have so much more room to run here, and they really, REALLY needed to get it out of their system. Â Stairways and attics just don’t always do the trick.
03Jul
What is the one thing in my entire new house that doesn’t work?
THE FREAKING WASHING MACHINE! Â The timer is broken on the dyer, so it doesn’t cut itself off. Â I put a load in the other day and 3 HOURS LATER it was still going!
It figures. Laundry is destined to be my nemesis in life.
The Chronicles of My Laundry Battle:
The Great Laundry Crisis of 2008
Everybody Breathe! The Washing Machine is Fixed
(NOTE: I don’t often stand on soapboxes. But every now and then its time to pull it out, dust it off, and climb on up.)
Are you proud to be an American today? I am, and I’ll tell you why.
I’m proud to live in a country that allows us to elect our own government officials and then complain about them. I am not a Bush supporter and there are many things I disagree with our current government about, but I’m ALLOWED to disagree and that is what makes this a great country. I’m tired of people complaining about the President or the government or the politicians as if they have been chosen out of a bag of random names. We elected these people. And then we did it again! I’m tired of my country walking around like victims of their own government because let me tell you about being a victim of your own government. Being a victim of your government is having a leader chosen for you and put into power for as long as they feel like it. Being a victim of your government is not having the freedom to say that you ARE a victim of your government. The fact is, right or wrong, elephant or donkey, we elected our government for better or worse. So stand up, hold your head high, petition your legislators for the change you want to see, and then vote.
Forget for a moment the terrorists threat or the rising gas prices and falling economy, the greatest threat to our country right now is my generation. We’re a generation of people who have grown up hearing people bash their government and country. We’re a generation of people who have not been taught that disagreeing with your leadership does not mean you hang your head in shame of our entire nation. It took 200+ years to create this nation of the free and the brave and in an 8-year span we have come close to tearing that down because we’ve created a generation of people who equate politicians with patriotism.
There are many things that concern me about our government and about our country’s position in the rapidly changing world, but through all those doubts and disagreements, I have remained a patriot. I have never been prouder to be an American because I’m proud to be a citizen of a country who allows me to blog about my mistrust of my President, who allows me the chance to vote for a new President, and who allows me to take ownership of my government.
So today, as we shoot off fireworks and burn ourselves on the grill, lets put aside our political parties, our governmental disappointment, our pointing fingers and blame. Lets celebrate those that are fighting for our country today and, above all, lets celebrate the country that they are fighting for because we are a country that was founded on the principle that we are bigger than our politicians.
My hope today is that we all celebrate not just our independence, but the greatness that is our country. Happy 4th of July.
