Ready for a break
Look, a cute picture of Riley! I decided to start off with a cute picture, because the rest of the entry is about various things I've done around the house lately. It has the potential to be a bit boring. :) This is from Christmas 2008.
The past two and a half weeks have been crazy. I closed on my house on the 8th, and since then almost all my spare time has been spent on moving or fixing things up. I was lucky that the house was in move-in condition, so nothing *had* to be done before I could move. This is a huge contrast to my condo and my grandfather's house, which both needed some pretty big things done before I'd even think about moving in.
As fun as it's been to pick things out and make decisions on something that's really mine, I'm about ready for a break. In the last few weeks, I (along with my parents) have (in no particular order)...
-switched out the kitchen appliances with the ones from my old house, and moved my ginormous TV unit.
-organized yarn, books, DVDs, Wii games, and 3 years of old bills and papers.
-made eleventy billion trips to Lowe's, to the point that THREE employees recognized me and asked me questions about the house last time I was there.
-bought area rugs for the den, dining room, and living room, which I love. I bought 3 different rugs to try in my bedroom, and ended up keeping the one that was the most expensive. Figures. :)
-bought/replaced 3 light fixtures, and replaced the globes on another.
-bought three sets of curtains
-tried four different colors of paint in my bedroom/bathroom.
-painted two coats of brown in the bedroom, and one coat of green in my bathroom.
-stepped in green paint, smacked the paint roller into the shower, and also managed to get paint in my hair.
-yelled at the TV/internet people for charging me too much on installation.
-purchased and used a crock pot, and found a renewed love for my rice maker.
-watched the inauguration of Barak Obama with 100 fourth graders.
-put up 4 large pictures (which caused us to break out the laser level).
At this point, I'm pretty much tired of doing home improvement stuff, although there's still more to be done at some point (like in the summer when it's warm, and after I have more money) including:
-changing accessories in my bathroom, painting and changing the downstairs bathroom, and replacing vinyl and countertops in both bathrooms.
-painting the dining room.
-putting more shelving in both closets.
-sanding and refinishing all cabinets in the bathroom and kitchen, and replacing all knobs.
-doing something to the walls in the kitchen (tile? wallpaper? painting?) and replacing the countertop.
-figuring out a place for Floyd.
-getting more pictures for the walls.
-transplanting a hydrangea from my Grandpa's house, and planting more flowers.
It's amazing how many things I can find to fix in a house that I previously called "move-in ready." :) The things that are left to be done don't have any real urgency...they're just things that I'd like to do at some point to make it look a little more how I would like. For now, I'm ready to take some time to appreciate how much I've done.
I had my first visitors on Friday, which was great fun. I've never really been one to have people over a lot, but I do hope to change that a bit now. One of the goals on my "Things to do in Life" list is to make enough money to have someone clean my house. I searched craigslist the other day because I was curious about prices, and I think I've found someone. The price is affordable, and the thought of not having to think about dusting or cleaning bathrooms is very exciting. I'm planning on starting that in February, so we'll see how it goes!