What a great weekend, we really made some headway in the bedroom. Almost there! I am getting ready to fill the closet with all of my clothes. Putting up the window casings was way too much fun. Much better than baseboards. Much more fun and satisfying work. It went super fast, and made a huge impact in the room. Here is something funny. . . Friday after work there was a knock at the back door and there was this tall and thin man. . . he was the owner of the house! In town to do a wedding and his wife sent him over to bring some weird wrought iron thing that apparently belonged to the fireplace and two wooden curtain rings that go to the curtain rod in the middle bedroom. She had written us this two page note and included pictures of what the house looked like when the professor bought it in '96 or '97, something like that. It is very interesting, I will have to get Brent to scan them and then I can post them. He was very nice, but I could tell that he was taken aback by what we had already done in the kitchen. I think he was surprised to see that we had already changed so much (I don't know why, but maybe he really loved the colors and "woodwork" that was already there). I really felt bad, it was very awkward. The note was very nice, and she left her email address, so I guess the nice thing to do would be to email the wife and thank her. Not looking forward to the first day of school, I am really dreading it. Since I don't have a classroom, I have to teach in other teacher's classrooms during their off hour. I had to go to every single one of them and break the news to them myself, and each of them said: "well that's fine as long as you don't mind me being in here". First of all, they said it as if I had a choice! I was assigned the classrooms, and don't they know that I would much rather be in my own classroom. Second of all, yes I mind if you are in there! How would they like to be thrown in a new school, with a new age group, and new teachers. . . and then be watched everyday. It's like I am going to be informally observed. . . everyday. . . every hour. Not to mention that not a single one of them is friendly or even attempts to be friendly. I am really stressing about this. I keep telling myself that God would not put me in this situation just to be humiliated. I just don't know how this new teaching situation could get any worse. Can you tell that I am freaking out, just a little bit. Oh well, I know that when tomorrow comes, I will take a deep breath and try to hold my head up high, but inside I am going to be freaking out!!!! I just hope it doesn't show!

Today I was able to finish painting the closet! We have the closet organizers but we are just running out of daylight, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I was able to start setting up the kitchen, I can't believe that after two years I am just now getting to open up and use all of our amazing wedding gifts. I only painted one wall of the kitchen, it was just too overwhelming to do all at once, so I am taking it one wall at a time. So here is a before and after picture of my one kitchen wall. I will post the before and after of the closet when we finish it tomorrow. Tomorrow is also the first official day of work, no kids yet (they don't start until next week) so this whole week will be filled with sitting, meeting the teachers and setting up my closet and my cart. Unfortunately I am not high enough up on the ladder up here. So I do not get a classroom, just a closet with a desk and a cart. I will have to roll my cart around from classroom to classroom like a nomad. Not ideal, but hey a job is a job, I just have to make the best of it! One last thing, (this is really for Mom) you can click on the picture to enlarge it and see it in detail :)

Today Brent did alot of work outside, he cleared off that huge bush/tree thing off the patio, so that now we can put the table and chairs there and sit. That was only phase one, phase two will be to cut them down below the railing atleast, so that we can enjoy an unobstructed view. Turns out that it is a rental house and the landlord most probably won't care what we do. But hopefully we can catch him one day to ask if we can just get rid of it. Last night we went to dinner with Brent's colleagues, and we got some great dish on the house! Turns out that six years ago it was owned by another professor in Brent's department, and he was forced to leave. Before that he was restoring the house. Then he sold it to the preacher and his wife, and they just let the house sit and rot, they did no maintenance or upkeep 5 or 6 years. They really let it deteriorate. The department head and his wife live literally right behind us, and the wife was friendly with the preacher's wife. She had helped her to plant strawberries, and red and yellow raspberries. Apparently the ONLY time that these people cut the grass was when they left and were trying to sell it! It is so unbelievable how they let this house start to fall apart, but I guess that's our problem now :)
Enough complaining. . . we got the foam insulation into the cracks between floor and sheetrock, and the strange old house smell is really gone from that room. . . either that or we are just completely used to it. Brent and I were able to get the baseboards up for one wall this morning, so here's hoping that tomorrow is super productive! Just three more walls to go!

Here is our first entry. . . These are the pictures we took of the house before we moved in. . . I only posted the picture of the outside of the house and the master bedroom so stay tuned because we are feverishly working on the master bedroom, we decided a long time ago that the bedroom would be our first project. We hope to have it completed before the weekend is over. We will post pictures of that as soon as we are done! Things are really going well in our new town. It is tiny! But it has charm. Maverick loves running around in the house and in the big yard. The average morning temp is in the low 50s! Then it warms up to the 70s during the day. I guess that's it for now :) I will keep posting more pictures of before and after as we keep going through the house. I think that we have enough work to keep us very busy for a very long time.