Frozen Food

I've heard people say, "After you buy a house - when one thing gets fixed another breaks." I can now confirm that this is true.

Our house came sans appliances - so the weekend before we moved in we rushed the annual Albert Lee warehouse sale. We were in the market for everything - and walked away with a washer/dryer and a very shiny, big ol' Jenn Air refrigerator. I never thought I own a fridge as big and shiny as the one we bought - but I embraced it quickly and was very excited to have something new in our very old house.

When the Albert Lee delivery crew came the following weekend - the power cord to our new shiny appliance was crushed and unusable. We promptly scheduled maintenance and the following Friday the repair guy came to rewire. Then...we had power!

It was the morning after we got power that I noticed the water pitcher was frozen. I assumed the power panel just needed to be reset - so I asked my handy dandy hubby to fix it.

This is orange juice. Frozen solid. I've never seen a jar of olives or hummus frozen. I prefer my yogurt slightly colder than room temp - not icy. We thought we'd fixed the problem by resetting the panel multiple times. But after days of frozen beer and condiments - we were right back where we started: "Albert Lee customer service, please".

After repair guy #2, we think the problem is the thermostat. It's being ordered. We'll see him back here on Saturday to see if the fix will thaw out our pickle pops.
Frozen Brussels sprouts.
Frozen Brussels sprout - with wine. Yes!

No Shortage of Advice

With a gaggle of family members in Portland to participate in the Weekend ala Babies, ET and I got plenty of advice on house remodeling. We still have several kitchen cabinets to sand and clean up, but my uncle Ken suggested this great wood varnish to complete the look once all the sanding is complete. Now the kitchen to-do list includes: sanding, painting, varnishing, and replacing the countertop.

Baby Weekend

What a weekend! I'm happy to say we accomplished absolutely nothing on the house this weekend. I say this because instead of staying home and sanding kitchen cabinets, we were in Portland throwing Baby Showers!

(or attempting to)

My cousin, who's shower was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, went into labor on Friday morning and delivered a beautiful baby girl at 5:45am on Saturday morning. We thought 2 months before the baby was due would be plenty of lead time for a shower - but Sydney Alyse did not want to wait to see all of her presents!

Baby and parents are doing great!

Sunday's shower for my little sister was a success! There was no shortage of love, advice, dresses, booties, and pink cupcakes! I have no doubt that both of these babies will be spoiled.

The first 2 weeks

It's really hard to blog without internet access at home, so I'm admittedly a little behind. I've already been harrassed about not posting by my self-imposed Sunday night deadline (and for poor writing skills - but I have to say the last part is just a lack of sleep, I hope?!).

The good news is I just figured out how to post a collage (kind of). Well, at least it's a cluster of pictures of the progress we've made over the past 2 weeks. I think it's pretty incredible. Here's a breakdown of our work:

DAY 6 - We started cleaning the kitchen and removing cabinet doors and finished painting the hallway.

DAY 7 - We continued to clean the kitchen and started painting the dining room.

DAY 8 - We moved a load of boxes from the condo to the house.

DAY 9 - It's MOVING day! Almost a dozen friends helped pack, load, and unload a uhaul and 3 carloads of stuff into the new house. Meanwhile, parents were holding down the house, cleaning and coordinating moving efforts. After a quick lunch break Momma T and I drove to Ikea in search of window coverings while appliances were being delivered to the house.* After 3 hours, 6 stops, and an emergency rescue call home (locked car keys in trunk) it was back to the house with new window coverings, dinner, and champagne!

DAY 10 - Both moms helped make the kitchen and back entry liveable. I painted the bedroom closet and cleaned the hall closet. Dad started sanding down kitchen cabinets (what a world of difference)! Hubby bought and installed a new kitchen sink. The washer and dryer were set up and all leaky faucets were fixed. The boys made at least a half a dozen trips to the hardware store (i think they were avoiding cleaning). At the end of the day we felt like progress had been made. Our realtor Kris dropped by, brought a basket of fantastic gifts, and shared a bottle of champagne! The Johnsons also stopped by, bought us dinner and helped hang our new curtains.

DAY 13 - We're still unpacking and will be for a while (maybe months). Tomorrow we'll have a stove and Friday the Albert Lee service guys should be at the house to fix the refrigerator - so we may actually have a working kitchen!! Yay!

*Albert Lee has an awesome warehouse sale twice a year where things are greatly discounted. BUT if you buy something from them and have it delivered, make sure that the power cord is not crushed into a million pieces when they deliver it because you may be without an important appliance for days or weeks.

DAY 4

Dad scrubbing doors
Momma T & ET in the front bedroom
I know what you're thinking....I thought it was going to be chocolate brown.

It's still pink, but now the bathroom is clean enough to clean yourself in!

This house stuff is exhausting! The parents just left Seattle and boy am i glad! (I can finally rest!) We spent the past 2 days scrubbing, sanding, taping, painting, hedge trimming, moving stuff from storage, buying appliances, and cleaning. I really can't believe we've been home owners for 4 days!

Everything started Friday with few big car loads of boxes to the new house, then on to the paint store for a trunk load of paint. The parents got in late on Friday night and were up first thing Saturday morning to help us hunt for appliances at the Albert Lee warehouse sale. We bought a big, shiny refrigerator and a washer/dryer set. They're getting delivered on moving day! yay!

We were able to paint both bedrooms, the living room, and most of the hallway. The bedroom closets still need to be painted as well as the dining room. Also waiting to be finished are the kitchen, bathroom, and stairway to basement.

Momma T was a ROCKSTAR and tackled cleaning of the bathroom (which i'm not afraid to say was disgusting!!) I helped a little - but complained the entire time. Seriously, it was GROSS! Originally I thought we should remodel the kitchen first, then the bathroom. I have officially changed my mind. Bathroom first, please!

We ate really well all weekend as you can see, mmm Dicks burgers! Also, the chili that Lo-Lo and A brought over was amazing - but it was gone before I could get pics!! Thanks everyone!