Thursday, December 10, 2009

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Some of you might have noticed that my right sidebar thingy is different. My masters degree timeline is gone.

This is true.

A few months ago, I decided not to continue pursuing my MLS degree.

Why?
I wasn't enjoying it THAT much, especially to have it drag out for 3 or 4 more years. (Especially when we'll probably be starting a family in the next few years--I couldn't see myself pregnant/having a newborn, working AND going to school at night) The money I would be spending on the degree wouldn't pay off, salary-wise, for a LONG time. Meaning: me starting out as a librarian in 3 or 4 years would be equal to what I might be making HERE at current job in 3 to 4 years without a masters. I also enjoy my free time! Especially now with the house, and DH's weird work schedule, things would never be done. And I'd never be home.

Thanks KCJayhawk!

Yay, I like answering questions :-)

1--did you decorate for the holidays or do you still have boxes everywhere?
Uh, well, we have a wreath on our front door. Which is a start. We also have displayed the Christmas cards from people around our fireplace. Other than that, no other holiday decorations. The tree is still in its "body bag" in the basement, with the boxes of ornaments and lights around it. There are 5 other houses on the street, and 4 of them are all lit up. We look like Scrooges or something--these people put Clark Griswold to shame!

And yes, boxes are still everywhere. We don't have enough furniture to put our things inside! All of the wedding gifts that have been residing at my parents' house for 2 years came to live with us now, and...they are piled in the dining room. All we have in there is a tiny hutch that we got at IKEA--it was previously used for kitchen storage (pots, pans, bowls) at our old place since we hardly had any cabinets. I need to figure out what can fit in there, and start putting SOMETHING away. (I'm a procrastinator....)

Our desk/office stuff has not been put away yet--when we moved, we consolidated and went down from 2 desks to 1, so we need to figure out how to fit everything into one desk. Plus, we might be on the lookout for some filing cabinet type of thing.

We're currently painting our TV room, so everything that should go in there is in the library/office. The kitchen is probably the most put-together room in the house right now! Our bedroom is pretty good, too, we just need a stand for our TV. I also haven't unpacked our little 4th "bedroom" which will be my crafty stuff room, because, again, I have no furniture in there. The other 2 bedrooms are completely empty.

We did buy a bunch of shelving at Home Depot but we need to put it together so we can start organzing the basement. DH got some for his tools and his fishing & hunting stuff, I got a smaller one for pantry items.

2--did you find any "surprises" (good or bad) after you moved in?
Hmmm, I'll start with the good.
--Great neighbors! SO happy about this.
--That the house was decently cleaned before we moved in. I still have some odd things to clean--baseboards, light fixtures, but nothing was disgusting.
--It already feels like home, and doesn't seem like we've been there 6 weeks :-)

Not too much bad stuff, more like weird, maybe.
--Toilets that don't shut off--my FIL came to look at them, and he thinks we need to just replace the guts inside. That's cheap/easy.
--Lower water pressure than we're used to. Growing up and in our other homes, we had city water, now we have a well. It's not bad, just takes longer to fill up buckets or the tub.
--Some weird things on the walls when I started prepping the TV room for painting--in a few spots the paint started to peel randomly so that had to be fixed, and I didn't know how to do that, but I soon learned.
--The pantry closet in our kitchen was almost an afterthought, which makes it VERY tiny. Slim. An adult arm almost doesn't fit through the doorway to get to the shelves. Grr. We're managing by only keeping what's open or what can't be stored in a basement (pasta, rice, etc) in there. Everything else--canned good, things in bottles, paper products--goes in the basement on a little shelf until I get the shelving units up. I even have onions and potatoes down there!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Still here...

I promise. I really really promise to write more soon. The house is great---a mess! but great.

I might start a new blog, one that is more "public," but I will send you notes privately as to where that is.