New House

We moved into the new house on June 1st.  The week prior to the move was definitely one of the craziest weeks of my life.  I am very grateful for my super-organized husband, who is so good at planning things out, staying on task, and asking others for help.  He is wonderful.  It was nice having the elders quorum from our old ward and new ward help us move the heavy items, and I'm very grateful for extended family members for being there to help take care of the children, pack and unpack various items, and for being house guides while the trailer was unloading.

New roof.

The weeks following the move have been stressful, but good.  We had to buy a new roof immediately, which was a bit of a shock for us, since we did not put that in our budget.  We found out that our dishwasher was not operable, our sprinkler system did not work, our range-hood fan wouldn't turn on, and our swamp cooler was bad.  Brad fixed the swamp cooler a couple of days ago.  Now we have cool air!  YAY!  We bought a temporary sprinkler to use until we want to spend time figuring out what's wrong with the sprinkler system.

Organizing the kitchen.

We haven't had time to fix the range-hood and dishwasher yet, but I am not in a big hurry for that.  Surprisingly, I have enjoyed washing all of the dishes by hand.  Brad has offered to do the dishes for me, but I find that I have become very possessive of my new space now that I finally have my own kitchen.  It's MY kitchen, and I want to make sure everything gets done MY way, including the dishes.  Even the other day when I asked Emma to help me do the dishes, I ended up washing most of them all over again when she wasn't looking, because she did not wash them thoroughly enough for my taste.  Crazy?  Yes, I believe I am.  I am acting exactly like my mother!

Weeding the flowerbed.

I got started on the new yard the first week we moved in.  I cannot stand the way it looks with all the weeds and dead grass everywhere.  I also do not like the overall lack of greenery.  Our yard is in desperate need of trees and shrubbery.  I have never been much of a gardener, but I do appreciate the hard work people put into having a nice yard, especially my mother.  Now that I have my own house, I find myself trying to look at things through my mother's perspective.  She would NEVER allow a yard to go bad.  I need to follow example and make her happy with my yard when she comes to visit.  That means I have a lot of work to do.  First things first-- I do not have the time or the means to transform the yard overnight, so I have to do things bit by bit.  I began watering the lawn every day.  I've been focusing on the front lawn, mainly because it's such an eyesore, but I've been watering the backyard, too.  I dug up all the weeds in the front flower beds, and I plan on planting some flowers and plants when I have some money.  I hope the grass grows back and becomes green again.

New roof and weedless flowerbed.

While there are some things about that house that have not gone as planned, there are some things that I absolutely LOVE about the house.  Here are a few:

I LOVE having my own private bathroom connected to our master bedroom.  It's so nice walking into our own space and not seeing dried toothpaste clinging to the towels and rubber duckies all over the floor.  Plus, it's kind of fun not having to get dressed or wear a robe every time we have to use the loo.

I also LOVE the overall size and appearance of my bedroom.  It's so pretty and spacious.  There is so much natural lighting in my room that walls seem to glow every morning when the sun rises.  Plus, our closet size has doubled now, giving us more storage than we had previously.  It's lovely!

I LOVE the color of the walls and the lighting in my new house.  The paint-job was done in such a way that the light bounces off and gives us a tremendous amount of natural light during the day.  There are windows in every room, even in the basement and garage.  It's very cheerful and inviting.

I LOVE the ceiling fans!  All of the upstairs bedrooms and kitchen have ceiling fans.  It's so nice going to bed at night and feeling the cool air brush down on me as I sleep.

I LOVE my pantry.  I can store a lot of things in there.

I LOVE having the two-car garage and large driveway.  It's so nice not having birds poop on our vehicles from parking under trees!

I LOVE having my own space.  It's so nice looking at my house and realizing that it's mine.  I look forward to decorating it the way I want it, and changing things as we go along.  Now I seem to have endless days ahead of unpacking, reorganizing, and fixing things along the way.  It's stressful, but it's a good kind of stress.  We finally have our own home!