painting

We bought a bunch of little sample paint pints from Lowes to decide what color we want to have on the walls. Last night I commented that I'm not going to get to see them in daylight until next weekend. I'm afraid of picking colors that look great in artificial light but then look horrible in daylight. There WILL be daylight in our lives again eventually =)

first day of yard work

The rain finally let up enough for us to do some yard work today. The grass needed to be cut and there was a gigantic vine that had wrapped itself all the way around the house. Luckily, the previous owner left us an awesome rotary lawn mower and hedge clippers so we had everything we needed. We completely filled the yard waste bin which I think means we were successful.
Our goal later on is to get rid of all of the crazy mismatched plants and make a cohesive design. I like the look of evergreen shrubs and not so much the weird tropical-looking plants we have now (which aren't pictured here.) Also, they're fairly easy to shape so they won't block the basement windows and we can get more light down there. Maybe I'll make topiary...

starting to feel like home

It's been a couple weeks now and we're starting to get used to living here. Nate's dad and sister just visited us, and it was really nice to see them. Nate and his dad did a lot of work around the house. They ripped out all of the carpet (that smelled like cigarettes) in the basement. We're thinking about using concrete paint for that room since it'll be used for a rec room at some point. They also did some electrical and duct work for the washer and dryer to bring it up to code and got the furnace working. Upstairs, they got my closet fixed so I can actually hang clothes in it. And of course they found time to watch baseball.
Kim joined us on Saturday for The Pogues show. Beforehand, Kim tried out the flat iron and it was epic. It took about an hour and I'm pretty sure it made her hair about 5 inches longer. We had a good time at the show mostly thanks to the excellent parking spot Nate found. =)