thank you Mr. President!

we submitted our paperwork for the first time homebuyer tax credit!!!

too good...

not to tell you as soon as i remembered -


google FINALLY made picasa for macs! this makes me SERIOUSLY happy. someday when i am able to take the time to learn photoshop this won't matter, but right now it makes me so happy.

its the simple things in life, right??

workin'

i'm WAY behind on blogging... so get ready for some updates!

last sunday (like not this past weekend but LAST sunday) we worked on the house. shocker - i know! our friends Aaron & Sara were gracious enough to give up their sunday to help - can you believe that??

as i was organizing boxes in the garage to go up in the attic i almost kissed what i thought was a fake snake. when my face was about 2 inches from it - i saw the tongue move. OMG thats not cool. we "let" Aaron handle it (i.e. we were freaked out). it didn't want to leave but eventually 'Aaron the snake whisperer' (a Grant given name) got it out.

as an aside - our back yard is its own little eco system - on a daily basis we see rabbits, birds, frogs, snakes, and just about every bug you can imagine. i wonder if we ever mowed our lawn if they'd be around still???

this is just to show you we were STILL living in boxes. see that couch WAY back there??? it had been weeks since we'd sat on it. =( at this point we were living between the two bathrooms and had the kitchen and our bedroom situated.

Aaron hung all our blinds! no more sheets and towels in the windows!


he also worked to get our vent covers back on - they are surprisingly difficult to get on...


poor G kept plugging away at the flooring - he has been working on getting the quarter round moldings down - lookin' good!

Sara was amazing and painted the master bath for us. This was HUGE - we were able to get settled in there the following day and we finally feel like we can get ready for each day without hassle.

I worked on getting my office/craft space set up - sooo necessary so I could study effectively. plus i just want to get as many boxes out of our house as i can - i'm in true purge mode - wanting to get rid of EVERYTHING!

berry pickin'

these would have been up earlier this week had our internet not stopped working for the thousandth time since we got service. i must go all day without internet - can't a girl just come home and be able to check her blogs?? now that my rant is over... this is going to be short and sweet. its late and i have an exam in the morning, but i wanted to get these up before my 13! hour day at school tomorrow.

saturday we went berry picking. it was a really nice morning - sunny but not humid. don't even get me started on my hair and the weather out here. it is out of control. anyway we had fun but the berries SUCK. they taste horrible and they are tiny. again... don't get me started on the quality of produce in the midwest. it is such a sad sad topic.

we were laughing about how abnormally long my femurs look in these pictures

G took this and had no idea both of our feet were in it. kinda funny. love his duck flip flops! our bank here has UO checks for free - SO excited about this. we are way WAY homesick lately. probably because Oregon is way cooler than Missouri, especially this time of year.



ok so it wasn't such a short post after all. have a good weekend!

finally

there haven't been very many fridays in my life that i looked forward to more than last friday. it has been such a roller coaster we really needed a weekend so we could reconnect and focus. both of which are necessary for us to finally relax into our life here.

it was good. SO good.



this is our new routine - eating on our patio. we love it and stay out as long as the mosquitos let us.



do you know about tostadas?? they are one of our very favorite dinners. corn tortillas fried in oil til crunchy then layered with beans, taco meat, cheese, olives, lettuce, tomato, CILANTRO (soo freakin' good), salsa, sour cream, and pepper. don't forget the pepper it is SO good on the sour cream.

after our relaxing dinner we entered about 10,000 lowe's reciepts into our budget spreadsheet - all i can say about that is - WOW. i have pics from the rest of the weekend and will try to get them up in the next few days.

on a side note... can you tell i'm feeling better? about thursday last week things just started to click back into place and not feel so overwhelming. i think i needed the prospect of a productive weekend with my husband and successful completion of my first two exams behind me.

thank you for all the love and support - we truly appreciate it.

change

this is my new life. see that wine glass? i will probably be upping my consumption considerably. its been insane and completely overwhelming, but i've made it through two weeks. thats good right?? (8 more to go...) did i tell you i needed 11 books for this one semester?? that might give you just a bit of an idea of what i got myself into. the craziest part - my life is easy compared to many of my classmates. how they do it i will never know. 

G has been amazing picking up the slack around the house and helping me through my daily breakdown. i think its just a little bit too much all at once. as you can see in the picture we have sheets in all our windows because we've barely had time to breathe let alone get anything unpacked or settled around here. i don't think there has been one minute since we got the keys to this house that either of us has felt at ease. hopefully we can work hard to unpack this weekend and get a place where it feels like a place we can relax in. it does look damn good though...if i do say so myself! 

keep G in your thoughts...his vertigo has been really bad since we stressed his system with all the house work. we are hoping to find him a doctor who can give him better answers - 'there is nothing wrong' doesn't cut it when you can't get through the day without feeling like you are going to fall over. 

OH... i also meant to post last week to say 'happy birthday' to this little blog. it turned two may 31st. i had hoped to sit down and reflect on how different our lives are since may 2007, but here is the quick and dirty.

in the past two years we have... 

gotten engaged, 

quit grad school (n), 

started a new job (n), 

planned and created a wedding, 

gotten married, 

gotten way sick on our honeymoon, 

finished a phd (g), 

searched, interviewed and secured a post-doc with an amazing mentor in a place n could go to nursing school (g),  

hosted our first thanksgiving,  

quit a job (n), 

celebrated three years together, 

drove across the country  (twice actually... ), 

moved across the country (still so homesick), 

settled in to a crap apartment for 6 months,  

settled in to a new job with a completely different kind of research (g),  

experienced unemployment (and loved it) (n), 

searched and found a home  (we looked at at least 40), 

bought a home,  

renovated a home,  

started school (AGAIN) (n)....

isn't that insane? no wonder i break down... we've experienced almost all of the major life changes in the past two years...most in the past 9 months. but we feel so fortunate for how things have worked out and are excited for some calm.