Are you in your place of safety? :)

This has been a crazy weather day so far. I'm definitely missing the basement at Baugay's on a day like today! We don't have a basement here at our house, so when there's bad weather, I guess our best option is to hide out in our guest bathroom. It's probably the safest room since it doesn't have any windows. Luckily, we have some awesome friends from church who have said it's ok to come over anytime there's bad weather in the area. The Hesters live about 2 minutes away, so it's really convenient! I've already been over to their house twice today with all of these tornadoes coming through, so thank you, thank you Melissa!! You're the best! So far, we haven't had any damage at our house, so hopefully it will stay that way for the rest of the day. 

Last night, we went to hear Bobby Bowden speak over in Athens. It was put together to benefit ABS, and we saw a lot of friends and people we know there. We sat with Baugay, and it was great to see her for the first time since we moved a couple of weeks ago. Bobby Bowden was really funny, and he seemed like a natural speaker. He spent most of his time talking about what's really important in life rather than football wins and losses, so it was pretty inspirational. 

Things are really starting to get busy for the two of us, and I have a feeling that it's not going to slow down until after July 28th! This weekend, Travis is going to a tool and gadget "shower" for Matt on Saturday night. Next weekend, we've been invited to FOUR parties/showers....not to mention that it's also Mother's Day weekend!!!! The weekend after that is Matt's bachelor party. Then, we've got Emily's graduation, Memorial Day, the Cotton Row 10k, the lingerie shower, Fripp Island,4th of July, bachelorette party, the wedding!!!!! AAAHHHH!!!!! :) This time of the year gets busy every year, but this year it seems even busier than normal. I think I just need to take it one week at a time. Sometime in there, we've got to get unpacked and settled so that people won't have to step over boxes at the lingerie shower!! I did manage to get my china cabinet cleaned and all of my china washed and put away. It looks so pretty displayed with the light on!!  We also rotated our dining room table so that it fits better in the room with the china cabinet. 

I've been running a good bit over the past week! Today, since the weather was bad, I went to the gym and ran 35 minutes on the treadmill. Monday morning before work, I ran 3.5 miles around our neighborhood and the one across the street. Sunday afternoon I ran some hill repeats in our neighbhorhood. So, I feel like I'm getting in better shape slowly. I need to start upping my mileage though b/c this 10k is only about 1 month away!!!

This is my week to work Thursday instead of Tuesday, so I'm working the next two days. Gotta get this laundry done and folded before church tonight! Hope you all are staying safe today!! :)

Living in a Mess!

Well, we really haven't made much progress on unpacking since my last post. We got the TV/entertainment center set up on Friday night--which is a several hour project b/c of the surround sound and all the cables--but other than that, things look about the same around here. Travis has been slowly getting his study organized, but it's still got a way to go. 

There have been a couple of reasons for our lack of productivity:

1.   Saturday, we spent all afternoon running errands (and spending too much money!). We went to Kohl's, DSW, Target, Men's Wearhouse, and Encore Furniture. By the time we got home, we were both tired! So, we ended up watching the A-Day game and lazing around on the couch that night. 
2. Sunday night, Travis left for Nashville and was gone until Tuesday night. And it's hard to start unpacking and putting stuff away without his input on where it all should go. Of course, the kitchen is finished, and the bedroom mostly is, but a lot of the stuff that hasn't been unpacked yet is mostly "junk", and I'm not sure where it needs to go (probably in the trash!). 

Here are a few more "before" and "after" pictures. As we become more organized, I'll post updated pictures...

Dining room "before"

Dining room "after"

Living room "before"

Living room "after"...the color is different, although you may not be able to tell from this picture. Excuse the mess! :)

Travis's favorite purchase so far...our comfortable couches and recliner!

Guest bedroom "before"

Guest bedroom "after"...still a work in progress!

Guest bathroom "before"

Guest bathroom "after"

Master bedroom "before"

Master bedroom "after"...ignore our "beach towel" privacy curtain :)

The study is not picture worthy yet, so I'll have to show you that later. It's the same color (taupe) as the guest bedroom, so there's not much to show. 

My big exciting find this week was a china cabinet! I wasn't dead set on buying one this soon, but I found one at Encore Furniture Saturday night that I really liked. It's not new, but it's new to me, and it's in pretty good shape. Here's a (bad-quality) picture of it in the store:

Yay!!

It has lights, which is one thing I really wanted, and I love how it has glass doors on the bottom as well as the top. From looking at a lot of different china cabinets online, it seems to be a pretty unique one. I'm excited! We're planning to put new handles/hinges on the doors and possibly new lights depending on if/how well they work. Should be a fun project!

Update: They just delivered it a few minutes ago, and I love it even more here than I did at the store. It's a good bit darker than I thought it was, so it's actually darker than my table. (I thought it was going to be lighter). Here's what it looks like in the dining room:

Here's my china...still in the box after 3+ years...but not for long!!

Another new development in my life is that I'm planning to run the Cotton Row 10K with Mollie on Memorial Day. I'm excited and scared at the same time. I'm definitely not in the shape I used to be in, but I hope I'll still be able to finish. That's 6.2 miles, and apparently there's a pretty big hill around mile 3 or 4. I've run plenty of 5Ks in the past, but a 10K will be a new challenge! I've been trying to run about 2-4 miles several times a week for the past couple of week, so maybe by the end of May I'll be up for it! :)

Travis had a good trip to Nashville for "Quad A" or "AAAA"--not sure which way it's supposed to be written...haha. That stands for Army Aviation Association of America, and they had a big expo at the Opryland Hotel for companies that work on army aviation to network and meet with each other. He came home with a few freebies and got to "sleep in" for a couple of mornings...they didn't get started until 10 or 11 AM either day! This is also his week to have Friday off, so he really only had yesterday and today as "real" work days. 

Well, I've got to get busy. I'm making this dessert for my "birthday buddy" at work to take tomorrow, and before long, it will be supper time. Gotta run! 

Hope you are having a fabulous week and staying dry in all this rain! :)

In!

I think we set a record.

We were just a few days shy of it being 3 months since closing when we moved in...haha. We took our time...no one can argue with that. In the end, I'm glad we did it this way. The new paint on the walls looks great, and it would have been a lot more difficult to do all the painting with our furniture and other stuff in the way. 

Thanks again to everyone who helped us move on Saturday!! We couldn't have done it without you! I think everything was loaded up at Baugay's and unloaded into our house in about 1 1/2 hours....it was great! The weather cooperated too (no rain!), so we were glad about that. It's definitely a lot harder to get everything packed while working though. Every other time we've moved in the past, we were still in college, so we'd just spend 3 or 4 days straight getting everything boxed up. This time, though, we're in the working world, where unfortunately surgeries and helicopter modifying don't come to a standstill so you can have time to pack and move. I was literally throwing stuff in suitcases and duffel bags after people got there on Saturday to load our stuff up. Talk about last minute! It definitely wasn't for lack of trying to get it finished sooner though. 

So, our stuff in officially in the house, but the house is nowhere near presentable yet. We do have a bed with sheets on it to sleep in, and a shower with a curtain on it, so that's good news! The kitchen is probably the closest to being finished of any room in the house, and that's because I already had a bunch of my kitchen stuff put away before we moved in. The main thing left to do in the kitchen is buy/hang curtains and pictures. So, here are the "before" and "after" pictures of the kitchen:

"Before"

"After"

"Before"

"After" (ignore the boxes on the floor...haha)

"Before"

"After" (this picture turned out a little dark...sorry)

"Before"

"After"

"Before"

"After"

So, there's our first room transformation! As we get more stuff unpacked and organized, I'll post pictures of the other rooms. Hopefully it won't be another 3 months before everything is completely in its place! A big thanks to Mom and Dad for buying our kitchen table and chairs as our Christmas present. I love it so much! Pineapple is one of my favorite fruits, and the chairs are actually really comfortable. 

LOVE :)

It still feels weird to be living here in some ways. Last night when we left church, it felt like we should come by our house to put the trashcan in the garage (b/c that's what we did every Wednesday night for 3 months!) and then go back to Baugay's to take her trash out for her. Old habits are hard to break I guess. We really do miss seeing you every day, Baugay! Saturday night was our first night to sleep here, and I actually didn't sleep very good. I kept hearing all these "strange" noises and waking up all night. Ever since the first night, though, I've slept great. This neighborhood is really pretty quiet at night, which is awesome for sleeping! :)

Last week, we noticed that Travis's car was getting louder and louder when we drove it, and we could see that the muffler had a huge crack in it. So, yesterday morning we took it to get the muffler replaced. Well, they got it fixed by the afternoon, and the mechanic took it out to test-drive it around, and he got hit while he was on Hwy 72. Apparently, some guy in a Dodge Charger didn't see him as he was changing lanes because Travis's car was in his blind spot. I haven't seen it for myself, but apparently it's not too bad. There's some damage to the driver's side door and back left passenger door, but both can still open and close. The guy in the Charger has insurance too, so that's good. So, they called the police and filed a report, and we may just end up pocketing the insurance money if the damage isn't that bad. After all, Travis's car is 16 years old...it's probably not going to be around that much longer anyway. The mechanic was going to take it to a few different repairs shops to get some estimates this morning, so we should have the car back by this afternoon. It's always something! :)

This weekend, we're going to spend most of our time getting things organized around here. Travis wanted to go to the A-Day game in Tuscaloosa, but we've just got too much to do to spend all day Saturday there. Plus, he's leaving Sunday night after church for Nashville for work, and he'll be gone til Tuesday night. So, it's going to be a busy weekend/week next week!

Speaking of busy, I better get busy around here. I've got to run, make cookies, write thank-you notes, and keep unpacking. Hope you're having a great day!!! :)

Milestones

Today is a special day.

5 years ago today, Travis and I went on our very first date. He picked me up at Riverside, the dorm I was living in, and took me to Depalmas, an Italian restaurant in downtown Tuscaloosa. I remember being pretty nervous beforehand, but he was easy to talk to, so we had a great time. (And the food was awesome!). After supper, we went back to his apartment at good ol' Preston Place to watch a movie. Now don't ask me what movie because I can't remember....I think I was still too nervous to pay attention! I guess he thought I was a keeper (and vice versa!) because the dates continued until here we are...been married for over 3 years!

Just for fun, I thought I'd post some pictures from way back when :)

This picture was taken in June '06 after my first visit to Huntsville!

Summer 2006 (after eating at Cypress Inn)

Eating lunch at the lake house (summer 2006)

4th of July weekend (2006)

We've come a long way since that first date! Can't say I would have thought 5 years later we would be married, living in Huntsville, and about to move into our first house...

Speaking of our house...

This is a special week.

It's moving week!!!!

Are we packed? Nope. Have we started? Barely. 

That's ok. It'll get done somehow. As of today, the weather is supposed to be pretty good on Saturday. Partly cloudy, 82, 20% chance of rain. I'm sure it will change about 5 more times before Saturday gets here though :)

Last weekend, we got the shelving mostly done in our bedroom closet. Here are the pictures to prove it:

It may not look like much, but this was a lot of work!

Travis's fancy tie and belt rack :)

It slides out!

 We've still got to pop the bottom row of shelving in on the long wall (my wall), but we're waiting to do that until we take our clothes over and figure out how much room they take up.

I think this would be a good time to tell everyone how awesome Baugay has been for letting us live with her off and on for the past 3 years. She's certainly kept us well-fed in popcorn, dessert, and stories of her childhood and raising a family! :) Baugay has been the best landlord/grandmother we could have asked for, and I've really enjoyed getting to know her and spend time with her while we've lived here. Now it will be our turn to have her over once we get settled in our house! Thanks for everything you've done for us, Baugay!! :)

As if today's blog didn't already celebrate enough special things, I have one more:

This is a special post. 

This is officially my 100th blog post! I've been blogging since September 2008, and I've really enjoyed doing it. I think it's been a good way to document our first years of marriage, and it's kept some of you who don't live nearby informed on what's going on in our lives. It'll definitely be fun to look back and read this one day! 

Some of you may not have been reading my blog when I first started out, so here's a recap of some of my favorite posts: 

• The first 9 months of being married (in pictures)
• Turning 22
• Thanksgiving 2008 and the Iron Bowl Beatdown :)
• Our first anniversary
• Valentine's Day 2009 (and a scavenger hunt!)
• Reflections after my cousin Lindsey died
• Our first home...all 425 square feet of it
• The start of summer 2009
• Our second apartment in Tuscaloosa
• Thoughts about a major back surgery
• Graduating from nursing school! 
• Our trip to Pasadena for the National Championship game
• Surprising Travis
• Travis gets a job!
• Getting used to the working world...
• Random lessons learned
• We put a contract on our first home!
• "Before" pictures of our house
• You gotta learn to work together!

So, there you have it. 100 posts gone by, and hopefully many more to come.

I've celebrated a lot of milestones for one blog posting! Oh, and here's one more: Happy 26th anniversary to my wonderful parents!! I love you!!!

Hope you are having a fabulous week!

One final thought for the day:


"There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate."  ~Robert Brault

I'm choosing to celebrate this week!

We're really moving!

Mark your calendars for April 9th...that's our moving day! I promise :)

Until recently, our house mainly felt like a big project that was never going to be finished. It was a place to paint and renovate, but it didn't seem like we would ever actually live there. Well, the day is soon approaching! 


We put up the new shelving in our pantry on Saturday, and I'm really excited about it. The old shelving was sticky and rigged up with tape and wooden pieces. When we took it down, we patched up at least 60 holes before we painted. Guess how many holes it took to put up the new shelving? 11! The new shelves are also 20 inches deep (8 inches deeper than the old ones), so I have much more room for my pantry stockpile! And, the shelves can be adjusted to different heights if I decide that I want to change things around!

Before

After

We also have the shelving in our master bedroom closet almost completely finished. Lowe's is out of the shelves that we need for one wall, but we've got the system in place, and that's the tedious part. Once we buy the shelves, all we have to do is pop them in where we want them. 


The next step in the process is packing...our favorite! We've done a lot of packing since we got married. We moved into Presidential where we lived for the spring 2008 semester. Then, we packed up some stuff to move to Baugay's for the summer. Then, we moved back to Presidential for the fall 2008 and spring 2009 semesters. Then, we packed up everything and moved it into storage for the summer. We moved back to Baugay's for the summer, and then we unpacked everything from storage into our apartment at Rivermont for the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters. Then, in May 2010 after Travis graduated, we moved all of our stuff back to Baugay's where we've been ever since! Now it's time to move again! We've gotten pretty good at packing, labeling, and organizing in the past 3+ years! The good news is that even though we're saying that we're moving April 9th, if we don't get everything moved on that day, it won't be the end of the world. I don't think Baugay will be auctioning off our stuff before we have time to come back for it...haha :) 


Well, I'm going to make this a short post because I've got a lot to do today! Hope you're having a good week so far :)

Lessons of Life from Paint, Mud, and Sandpaper

Last weekend started off a bit rough. All of the rooms in our house were painted, and it was time to paint the closets. Except that I didn't want to paint the closets. In fact, I didn't want to do anything except move all of our stuff in and stuff the closets so full that we wouldn't be able to paint them if we wanted to. I was tired of painting; after all, we'd been at it for 2 1/2 months...

When we first started our painting marathon back in January, Travis wanted to paint every room including all closets and the garage before moving in.  Then, the next several weeks flew by, and we quickly realized that if we didn't do something, it would be the end of the summer before we moved in! So, we came to a compromise. We would paint the pantry and master bedroom closet (basically, the essentials) before moving in, and we would paint the other closets (linen closet, coat closet, and the other two bedroom closets) and garage afterward. So, I was satisfied with that. I didn't really think we should worry with painting them in the first place, but after some convincing by him and others, I agreed.

But, suddenly, it was the middle/end of March, and we still weren't moved in. Every week that passed I was getting more impatient. Then, Travis decided somewhere in there that he thought it would be a good idea not only to paint the pantry and master BR closet before moving in, but that we should take down all of the shelving and replace it with totally new shelving as well. It's just the perfectionist in him. And I just about had a meltdown. I could just see this taking weeks and weeks, and we would never move in, and what's the point of painting a closet anyway when you can't even really see the walls after your stuff is in there?

You see, this painting project has been a real learning experience for us. We definitely have different standards of quality when it comes to work. 

Here's Travis's thought process: "Do it right the first time; take your time and don't take shortcuts; buy the nicest stuff, and it will last a long time; it doesn't matter if you're painting a closet or the living room, you put the same effort into it."

And here's mine: "Do a good job but don't obsess over the little details that most people (especially me) won't ever notice anyway."

You can see how those philosophies don't exactly hold hands and love each other. 

The problem lies in the fact that although I may not notice the little details (like the paint in the closet or the shelving in the pantry), Travis does. And "the popcorn from the pantry will taste better with new shelving up and fresh paint on the walls." Yes, he said that. I guess that's what I get for marrying an engineer. It's all in the little details.

So, how do we get anything done when we work together? Here's what I've discovered:

1. Compromise: Sometimes, it's just not worth arguing about it, even if I think he's crazy or he thinks I'm irrational, etc. We meet in the middle, and come up with something that will satisfy (at least partially) both of us.  This is why we aren't going to paint every closet before moving in, but we did paint two of them.

2. Patience: What's important to me may not be important to him and vice versa. If it's that important to him that it will make his popcorn taste better to eat it from a newly renovated pantry, maybe I should just agree to the new shelving and paint. If I take a step back, I realize that it's going to get done eventually. We will move in sometime this century. And it's not worth getting upset over the fact that we haven't moved in yet. 

3. Love: We really do make a great team. Yes, we butt heads occasionally...sometimes every weekend. But, in the end, I love that we're different. We each bring our own mindset and ideas to the project, and when we work together, we end up with a great outcome! I think every room in our house looks way better than it did before we got a hold of it. (That's a teaser for the upcoming "after" pictures in a few weeks...haha). Working with someone on a big project like this can either be a disaster or a success, and it all depends on your attitude.

I'm glad to say that our house projects have been a success so far! :)

So, here are a few pictures of our recent work before I end this novel:

Here's Travis's newest toy (he gets one just about every week...haha). Meet DeWalt, the Cordless Drill:

DeWalt was a lifesaver when we started taking down all that shelving!

Part of the pantry shelving before we took it down

Dismantling the pantry

Master BR closet before we took the shelving down

Let's just say we mudded and sanded well over 100 holes after taking all that shelving down. Then, we painted the walls. After this weekend when we put up some new shelving, the pantry and closet will be new-and-improved for sure! Told you we work well together! :)

Tentative move-in day is April 9th. But don't hold us to it :)

Come back, spring break!

Even though I don't really miss college that much (at least the studying and tests part), one thing I do miss is having spring break. Once spring break gets here, it means that summer is right around the corner. The weather is warming up, and I just want to get outside and enjoy it! When we lived in Presidential, we used to really enjoy spring break just staying in Tuscaloosa. We almost had the whole campus to ourselves because everyone else was at the beach or at home! It was fun to walk around the Quad, throw the frisbee around, play tennis, and just get caught up on everything. Now that we're "grown ups", spring break is just another work week I guess. Oh well! I'm still loving the fact that it stays lighter later at night; I don't think that will ever get old. Just seeing the sun and not having to wear a jacket outside automatically makes me happy. 

Last weekend was a very productive one! We got the guest bathroom painted, and it was a lot easier than painting the master bathroom since it's smaller and there are less things to paint around. It looks much better gray than it did sky blue! With a nice shower curtain and some towels hanging on the wall, it will look complete! We've still got to hang the mirror back up and do some touch up spots, but other than that, it's pretty much finished. Completing the painting in the bathroom means that we've now painted every room in whole house, minus closets and the garage! Whew! It's definitely taken us a while, but I'm really happy with the way everything looks. 

Our painting station :)

Travis fired up his lawnmower and weedeater on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, and he managed to make our yard look way better than it did on Friday. Those purple flowery weeds were taking over! Good news is they are gone now...at least for a few more days :) He had a big grin on his face while he was cutting the grass because he'd "been waiting to cut the grass at his own place for years." I guess it will get old after a while, but he definitely had fun with it last weekend!

Travis's new toy!

This weekend, we're going to work on painting the pantry and the closet in the master bedroom. The tedious part will be taking down the shelving and putting it back up; the painting shouldn't be too difficult hopefully. Once we get those two done, we'll be ready to move in I think! :)

Travis is playing laser tag tomorrow night with a bunch of the guys from church, so I think I'm going to move some more of my kitchen stuff over to the house and get my cabinets organized. I also need to measure all of the windows in our house for blinds and buy some paint for the closets. 

Yesterday, Mom and Jenn came up to see all of the progress we've made on our house. It was the first time for Jenn to see it at all. I think she's got a spot picked out on the La-Z-Boy to sleep in next time she comes :) We also went to this thrift store right down the road to look for furniture possibilities for the house. I didn't find anything, but Mom ended up getting a new lounge chair for the lake house. All it needs is a cushion, and it will be good to go!


Today I met Travis, Alisha, and Emily at Chuck Wagon for lunch. It's this little hole-in-the-wall BBQ place in Madison that reminded me a lot of City Cafe with a different menu. It was really good! And, tonight we're eating corned beef for supper with the Grant fam and Tyler. Should be a fun time!
 
Hope you remembered to wear your green today (or hurry and put some on if you didn't!).

:)