New Staff Writer!

(Thats right.  Not Courtney)

   






     


        Here at the ever-popular MLAM site, our Chief editor was kind enough to let yours truly come aboard and post the occasional blog as an additional staff writer.  So expect an incredible blog from me 3.. maybe even 4 times a year. 

        Fortunately, my profile is already done somewhere over...     -----here------->

So this introduction should be easy.  Depending on the family member, I go by Luke, Daddy or Dada.  I also go by Lukey, Lukey-Baby and Little-Miss-Luke, but I might explain that in another post and doesn't make me sound very manly at all.*  I have two awesome little girls, a sweet gig that counts as a job, a best friend that counts as a wife and a perfect God who gave me it all.                                                                               *I'm really manly

         I met Courtney when she was just a puneball* back near the turn of the century when she was in middle school.  We have now known each other for about 12 years.  She's a great great mom as you may have seen for yourself and does most of the heavy lifting while I go to 'work' every day.  And thank goodness too, because a mommy I am not.  Mommies have this special ability to change a baby's diaper with one hand, balance a screaming toddler with the other all while texting daddy and reminding him to pick up bread on the way home because she knows he already forgot.  A couple days ago she sent me to the store to get milk and some dinner rolls; I forgot the milk and got the wrong dinner rolls.  Another really cool ability of moms; you can ask them where any of your stuff is that you can't find in the house and they will know without hesitation where it is.  You can even test this.  Move something when they leave the room.  Hide something when they're not even home.  They are impossible to stump.  My mom always had this uncanny ability and now through the power of childbirth, Courtney can do the same.  All this to say, however, that mom's are incredible.  And if you have one in your life you should be extremely thankful.

*[pyoon-bawl] noun:  1. Small adolescents that should be pitied and avoided, since they are experiencing the most terrible and awkward period of their pre-pubescent lives. AKA twirp; squirt  2. Anyone shorter than me I want to threaten.

Puneball Luke & Courtney

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This is dad, and I have a life too.

a needed break

Today I got stressed.

It happened so fast I didn't know I was stressed until I was at a breaking point.

It was one of those hard days as a mother where your kids don't listen and don't fall asleep for their naps, 
and then don't listen some more because they missed said nap.

I was sitting in the kitchen trying to make some phone calls and Haven was being loud, and all the sudden I couldn't deal with it anymore and just ran upstairs so I could sit by myself for a second.

Luke, being the awesome hubby that he is, told me he was going to take the girls for two hours, and in that two hours I was going to work out on the elliptical, take a shower, and just calm the heck down.  At first I was resistant.  Why?  I don't know, I was stressed.

But I got my workout clothes and running shoes on, turned on a movie, and hopped on the elliptical.  After my workout was over I watched a little bit more of the movie on the couch, and then headed upstairs and took a nice long shower.

After my shower I called my hubby and he said to walk* over and have some dinner.  I ate a nice bowl of soup, some sweet potato fries, and ended with some dark chocolate reese's peanut butter cups.

The moral of my story is this, 
get yourself a spouse that recognizes when you need a break.

I wasn't being nice.  I was being a bad mommy and wife at the time.

But instead of getting mad at me, my hubs knew what I needed.  
Just a little bit of time to myself after catering to the needs of two little girls all day and night.  

Love my hubby.  Happy 4 years!!

*We live across the street from my in-laws, so I walked over there for dinner. 

whirlwind

Oh my word,

has this been a crazy couple of weeks.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected since we decided to move four days before Christmas,

and then host a Christmas eve party,

and then get sick, twice,

and then attend a cousin's wedding,

and then hang with visiting cousins for a week.

We haven't been able to watch any tv,

and our internet has been spotty,

and I have barely even missed it because I have barely had a chance to catch my breath.

Our house is wonderful.

I'm finally getting somewhere in the whole "getting settled" department.

I've had multiple people ask me if i feel settled in the new house yet,

and I keep thinking, "you've got to be kidding me.  not at all!"

I really thought packing was going to be the hard part, and I mean it was hard,

but unpacking isn't much easier.

houses are just different and so i have to find a new spot for each and every thing.

some things are easy - dish-washing detergent goes under the sink,

but what about the old vase filled with blue rocks that our dead fish Red used to live in.  Huh?  Any ideas?  yeah, exactly.  

I have a whole bunch of decor sitting around that needs to be put somewhere,

but as of right now i don't have a lot of the furniture I need (which is why I'm sitting on the living room floor typing this), and putting up decor without furniture just seems out of order.  

As for living in a small town, I think I am getting a little more used to it.

At first I had a small moment of panic.  "Oh no, what did I get myself into?  I've always lived in the "big" city."  But I still work in the "big" city, so I've been getting my city fix and then I get to come home to quiet, small town living.  It's a nice mix.

More updates later, I'm sooo sleepy.  I need to catch up I think.

moving and holidays

We're finally in!

But far from settled I would say.

Ever since we moved in it has been non-stop chaos.

There has been something to do every second of every day.

The day of our move was completely hectic.

We had family over helping us pack and get last minute boxes ready for the movers to take out to the truck.  The movers were fantastic.  They totally amazed me with the things they could carry out of the house.  It's like, if you're a mover, you have to have super-human strength.  It was pretty incredible.  They were carrying the bulkiest, heaviest items I own like it was no big thang.  Although they did admit that our dresser (filled with clothes) and credenza were incredibly heavy.  

Unloading wasn't much faster or easier.  The whole process took 6 hours.  But all-in-all I would suggest hiring movers.  They were extremely helpful, and we would still be moving our furniture over here if it weren't for them.  They were really friendly too, so that helped.

They even let Haven help take the bed apart!

Since the move I have been on a frenzy of cleaning, organizing, unpacking, figuring and re-figuring where things will end up calling home in our new house.  And the day before Christmas Eve I was hit with a 24-hour stomach bug that stopped me in my tracks.  That really stunk because we were having people over for Christmas Eve dinner so they could see the house.  So the next morning when I was feeling about 85% better I started my all day whirlwind cleaning and organizing.  A lot of boxes ended up in the garage and in closets just so we could make it presentable for company.

Luke woke up Christmas morning with the same illness and was pretty much out for the count for the entire day.  Sleeping on the couch while we opened presents, and then sleeping in a basement bed while we all had Christmas dinner.  Poor guy. :(  I actually felt lucky to have gotten it when I did.  But Christmas ended up being pretty low-key and uneventful anyway, so he didn't miss too much.

At the end of the day I was pooped.  I hopped in bed around 10:30 p.m. and it felt like 2:30 a.m.  I'm looking forward to some slower days but don't expect those for a while.  We still have some things to get out of our townhouse and haven't had time to do it with everything going on, especially my and Luke's sickness.  Hopefully we can make some progress or even finish up with that today.

I can't wait to get into the normal swing of things and get back to my regular blogging.  I'll try and keep ya updated in the meantime.

the last night...probably

I'm sitting in my house,

girls asleep,

writing a blog,

for the last time.

No, no, no, I'm not quitting blogging,

I'm moving tomorrow...probably.

There are so many details that go into building a house,

especially when it comes to closing,

that everything comes down to the last second.

I have movers scheduled to come tomorrow (Tues),

and I may have to either push it back a few hours

or possibly even until the day after tomorrow (Weds),

because we are waiting on the underwriter to do something or other that I don't understand.

Anyway, 

I am trying to soak in the last few precious moments at my first ever house.  It looks a little ramshackle right now with all the boxes and things strewn about.  But that's okay.  I don't mind.

Just trying to enjoy it.

The things ahead are sweet; these moments are fleeting.

finishing touches

I had to drop off the hardware for our cabinetry at the house yesterday,

so while I was there I snapped a few more pictures.

At this point in the building process there is something new to see 

every time I go out there.

There were painters doing touch-ups, 

and, to my surprise, our appliances had been installed.

Does that scream "Almost finished!" to anybody else?!

Kitchen with granite and appliances installed.
Hardware yet to be installed on the cabinets/drawers.

Pantry door and interior shelving installed.

Look at that beautiful sink, granite, and faucet.  Love it so much.

Surprise!  Appliances installed.  I didn't expect that at all.

The door on the left is to the mud room/laundry room (with access to the garage),
and as you can see, the toilet and pedestal sink were installed in the bathroom.
On the right are the stairs leading to the second floor.

View coming down the stairs into the living room.
What a nice construction door. ;)

My pride and joy.
Our custom master walk-in shower is finished.
It's the biggest shower I've ever seen.

View from living room.
Front door and entryway,
on the left you can just see the entrance to our dining room,
and on the right is the kitchen.

Our beautiful front door being stained.
I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!*

One half of our finished basement.
This is really weird because the paint looks olive green in these pictures,
but in person it's more of a charcoal grayish-brown.

I love the view out of my kitchen window.
We were able to keep that amazing tree and fully plan on decking it out with Christmas lights.
Won't that be a beaut?!

Look!  Running water!

Like I said before, toilet and pedestal sink were installed.
Again, that's beauty to my eyes.
Obviously, there are still a few paint touch-ups that need to be tended to.

Stairs were carpeted and banister was installed.  Love the wrought iron.

They are working on wrapping the posts on our wraparound porch.
Beautifying them, basically.

It is so exciting to see the progress we have made.

I will have to post the pictures we've been taking throughout the entire building process, so you can see them start to finish.

What do you think?

*Name that movie!

in moving limbo

Right now I'm feeling kind of stuck in moving limbo.

We don't have a LOT of stuff, 

and we've already packed up most of our excess junk.

So I am feeling this pull and tug in opposite directions,

one side saying, 

"PACK EVERYTHING NOW!  

You're going to regret it later if you don't!"

the other side saying, 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa.  You may need that."

This is also why I am bad at packing for trips.  

I go through the same inner turmoil.

We only have one week before closing.  That's right, we're moving a week from today!  Eek!  Before Luke left for work this evening* we decided that we're going to just pack up our entire kitchen and eat out for the rest of our meals until we move.  Doesn't sound so bad to me. ;)

So that's next on the agenda, pack up the kitchen ENTIRELY.

Also, we are moving from a 1400 sq. ft. house to a 2500 sq. ft. house, so we're definitely going to be needing some more furniture and just more things in general to fill the space.

My mind is in overload, and oh yeah, it's almost Christmas.

That's almost beside the point this year. Well, not really.  

I just haven't had a lot of time to think about it.

I can't wait until we are all moved in.  The actual moving day makes my mind freak out, so I try not to think about it too much.  

One step at a time... Breathe in, breathe out.

*January 10th, Luke gets to switch back to NORMAL hours.  Yes folks, he's going to be sleeping at night like regular people do.  He has been on an overnight schedule on and off for the past three years, so we are elated that he gets to go back to his afternoon shift (1 p.m. to 11 p.m.).