home sweet home

we are newly settled into the house. the kitchen is completely unpacked, the master bathroom is completely unpacked and the rest of the house is in varying degrees of undress.

yesterday, one of the neighbors on our street knocked on the door and asked if she could take kate and jack for a few hours so we could do some unpacking. another neighbor knocked on the door along with her 3-year-old son and asked if my kids wanted to come out to play. last night all the kids on the street (all 13 of them!) were in the alley riding their bikes and playing together. it was like they had all known each other for years.

this place is unreal. we love it. we love our neighbors and the sense of community this place has. everyone here buys into the idea of the development - it's not just big houses. it's about knowing your neighbors and kids playing in the street and feeling free to show up uninvited at someone's house. i'd say it harkens back to another era, but i don't think that era ever really existed.

we love it and we are lucky. i promise to stop posting soley about the house and try to start posting about more interesting stuff (just for you, jim jewell) ;)

breathe

i've been pretty relaxed the past few weeks as we neared our move date. but today? today it all hit me. the movers are coming tomorrow to pack us and i've been running around the house all day, chasing my tail. i feel like i need to be DOING something; not having anything to do is making me nervous beyond belief.

but it will be ok. i keep hearing my mother's voice in my head, "breathe, kristin. breathe." and i am. i'm trying to focus on how lucky i am that i don't have to pack the entire house up, that 5 men are going to show up tomorrow and do it all for me. i'm reminding myself how lucky we are that jeff's parents offered to let us stay at their house tomorrow night (since we won't have any furniture in our house) and are watching the kids all day saturday while we move into the new house. i remind myself how lucky we are to be able to do this move at all.

we are lucky beyond belief.
breathe in. breathe out.

new favorite

i stumbled across this site today and have spent the past hour drooling over these lofts. in my next life, when i'm a single woman living in the city and am fabulously wealthy, i am going to live in one of the these lofts.

boston lofts

humble pie, party of 1

since the day we signed the contract on the new house, i've been squawking about how unhappy i am with the colors we got stuck with. everyone has told me to wait until everything is done, that it will look better and won't be so yellow. i rolled my eyes like a thirteen-year-old girl and told everyone that i would most definitely NOT like it when it was all done. period. harumph.

today? they started putting up the shutters and i love my house. i love the yellow and green. love it. i'm so glad it's not a beige or white house.

chomp, chomp, chomp.

almost there

they installed most of the landscaping today and also took the covers off the floors and the kitchen cabinets. only had time to snap a few quick pics:

the best our landscape will ever look:
































the kitchen without the cabinet lighting:















and with the lighting on:















standing in the dining room, looking towards the front door:















all that is left to do on the outside is to install the black iron fence around the yard and the green shutters:

thanks mom and dad

my parents are extremely honest people. they taught me and my brothers to be honest even if no one would ever know. the grocery clerk gives you an extra dollar in change? you give it back. the pizza delivery man delivers an extra pizza? call them and let them know (it could have been someone else's pizza!). you get the idea.

i think i've done a pretty good job of following their example (yes, there have been times...but for the MOST part). not because i try to or because i've worked at it but because it's part of who i am; my parents wove that lesson into our everyday life and modeled the behavior for us. for our family it's no different than holding the door for someone or saying please and thank you.

today, at the new house (sorry, jim - you knew i was going to weave the new house into this somehow, right?), i noticed that they installed an extra garage door opener. we only paid for one garage door opener (on the double garage door). i mentioned it to one of the workers and he looked at me and snickered. he told me i should just be quiet and not say anything.

but that's just not me. i make sure to tell the builders when they've forgotten to install something we paid for, so i think i should be just as up front about freebies they've thrown in accidentally.

so this afternoon i sat down to write an email to our project manager and when i opened my mail program, found i already had an email from him. he wanted to let me know that they accidentally ordered two garage doors openers and wanted to know if it would be alright if they kept it in (at no charge to us) since it would cost them money to have the people come back out and take it down.

i emailed back that we were fine with the extra door opener and told him that i was just sitting down to email him to let him know. his response was a sort of stunned, 'thanks. most people would have just not said anything. thanks for your honesty.'

don't thank me. thank my mom and dad.