Love Is Shown

So Friday was Cody's birthday. If I were a good blogging wife I would have had a post ready to go of 29 reasons why I love him, but obviously I slacked on that. We had a good day that included donuts, naps, video games, and a great dinner where someone else blessed us and picked up the ticket.  Saturday morning started out to be another lazy day with the intention of finishing up some of the projects in our kitchen. We decided midmorning to head out to our friends garage sale....

and that's when the day went to pot.

Cody mentioned on Friday night that he thought our water pressure was down when he showered, but I didn't notice anything when I was using the water that day. Saturday morning we discovered the pressure was down because we had a pipe burst in our apartment in our back yard.

{coming out of from the top of the carport} 

The day was a rush of getting the city here to turn off our water, calling plumbers to find out we were #10 in line and they charge $150/hr on the weekends, cleaning out all of our garage stuff that was in the apartment, sweeping out the water on the floor and finally,  Cody cutting away at the ceiling to find where the pipe came apart. In the end, Cody was able to get an $8 part and fixed it himself. We still have a long road ahead of getting the apartment fixed with all of the flooding that took place in the ceiling, but at least we have water in our house again!

Despite the fact that it's been a long two days and we still have a lot of hard work and uncertainty in front of us (oh dear Lord please let insurance cover the cost of the damage!!)  I'm left with one thought throughout all of this: it's so easy to be loving on birthdays and special occasions, but love is shown in the muck of a broken pipe.  I love Cody and I know he loves me, but sometimes we need life to throw us a curveball to help us see how our spouse is loving us well.


Has life thrown anything at you recently that helped you or your spouse to show love?

Project Progress.

We planned on meeting my parents to pick up Griffin on Sunday after we got back from camp, but after a delay in our leaving and not making it home till almost 4, plans changed and I was going make the 3 hour drive, spend the night with them and then head back on Monday with Griffin.  Thankfully, as I was gassing up to hit the road, my mom called and convinced me to stay home. They were going to be heading our way for a work trip on Tuesday anyway, so it wouldn't be out of the way for them to drop G off. Plus they wanted to spend the night!

I am so thankful that my parents were willing to keep him a couple of extra days! I was able to get caught up on all of our camp laundry (how do two people make 7 loads?!) clean the house, and get several projects done that have been on my list for too long.

The first project I tackled was a fresh coat of paint on our kitchen table.  I've planned on painting this since we first got it almost 3 years ago, but I never could decide on a color. Our previous house had the living/ dining room combined, so I already had a lot of colors going on and never found something for the table that wouldn't clash. I'm so glad I waited to paint it, as it's now in it's own room and not competing with another piece of furniture I have that is this same gold color. {Sweet Honey from the True Value color line}

I still need to distress and stain it, but I am already so in love. It seriously makes the table look so different! I was going to paint the chairs the same color, but when I was putting them back in place, I decided I really liked the contrast in colors.

So now I'm thinking I need to paint them something different. This is the fabric that I'm going to recover the chairs with:

We already have red in the room in both the rug and the curtains, so I'm really leaning towards a paprika orange for the chairs. What do you think? I'm open to opinions and suggestions for what you think would look good!

The other project I tackled was to finish the curtains for beside our front door.

{this picture is taken from our hallway}

While I love these little windows and how much light they let in, I am afraid that someone is going to come to our front door and catch me walking down the hallway in my undies. {we all know we do it!}
I didn't want the curtains to be too heavy, so I bought one panel from Hobby Lobby, cut it in half, finished off the edges and viola! I feel safe walking in my house again!  I tied it off with some simple orange burlap ribbon from HL and love how it turned out.

While I missed Griff like crazy, I'm so thankful for the couple of extra days so that I could make some real progress in the house! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Under Contract.

Last Tuesday night I stood in our bathroom and cried. Partially out of sadness and partially because I just can't believe this is happening.

We put our house on the market three weeks ago and up until this last week, had absolutely no nibbles on it at all. No realtors calling about showings, no one driving by slow, stalking the neighborhood, just a whole heck of a lot of silence. I know that God speaks in the silence, but it also makes it a lot easier for me to shout, "Are you sure this was right God?!?!?!?! Am I missing something here???"

Even as we were listing our house though, I had a small, still feeling within me that said we needed to finish all of our projects before the house would sell. We have a small patio area that was inclosed at some point that I use for a craft room. The high quality Dollar Store peel and stick tiles they put down didn't actually stick that well, so we pulled them up and never actually put anything else down. With Cody spending Sunday through Thursday in Snyder, it didn't leave much of a window for us to actually get projects done. {and sure you know by us, I mean a lot of instruction from me and more implementation from Cody!}

Cody finally was able to work on the floors on Friday, March 8th. He did a great job of getting the floor down super quick and still having the house show ready by 5 that night, just in case we got a call. Which we didn't. Nor did we get anything on Saturday, which is when I started saying, "What the heck God?! I thought You told me it would happen once our projects were finished." We left that night to go to Snyder for church the next day, with some disappointment on my part.

{horrible iphone picture of our pretty new floor and my clean craft room. please note the is about half of my craft stuff! yes, yikes!}

Sunday came and was a great first day at our new church. We went out to eat with a few folks after church and right as we were leaving the restaurant, we got our first call about a showing! Whew! We knew it might not be the one, but at least it was a start. My mom met me in town to come home with us for her Spring Break. We hung out long enough to know they would for sure be gone from the showing and then headed back to Abilene. Once we made it back, I quickly informed her of all of my new rules about keeping the house picked up and show ready. I think my mom could have died happy on the spot to see this reformed "stuff it in the closet and under the bed and call it clean" girl actually have some OCD tendencies about keeping the house picked up!

Monday around noon I received another call from the agency wanting to show the house that night. I called my mom to make sure she could be out in time and after work we headed to Target to waste some time while they were showing it. I spend all of Monday begging {maybe pleading and bargaining} with God that we would get an offer from one of these showings. Well ya know what? A watched phone never rings with a realtor's offer.

Sometimes though, a watched phone dings late a night with your realtor asking if you were still up, as she was headed to her office to write up your contract. And, because it was the first time we've sold a house, I most definitely had to ask, "a contract for what?!" And yes, apparently contract is realtor speak for SOMEONE WANTS TO BUY YOUR HOUSE!! We ended up submitting a counter offer on Tuesday and sat around biting our nails, waiting to find out if she accepted it. After spending all day fretting that I had offended her by what we countered with, we found out Tuesday night that she accepted... and wanted to close on the 28th! {which at the time was 2 1/2 weeks away.. yikes!}

As of today we are out of the option period, {meaning she can't back out} had the appraiser come today and I am working my hiney off to be ready for the movers on the 28th. Right now we still have so much to do that I don't feel like I have time to stop and process just how quickly this is all happening. I am so thankful that we don't have to be separated as a family that much longer, but it is definitely bittersweet to have to wrap everything up here so quickly and hurriedly. As I've been boxing up the house, I keep thinking that it took so much time, thought and effort to turn it into our home, yet it is packed away so quickly. {I almost said neatly too, but let's be honest, at this point, it's all about getting stuff into boxes!}

So there you have it... that's how we went under contract and are on our way to sell our house after three weeks and only two showings! It is most certainly a God thing and we could not be more thankful for how He worked out the details for us. If you get bored, bring some boxes over and I'll put you to work! :)

 

For Sale: My Insecurities.

Well, this officially happened on Saturday:

We have everything picked up and in it's place, the closets are clean and looking spacious and projects we've put off for three and a half years have now been completed. In short, our house has never looked better!

I have always thought I was a relatively secure person, but listing our house for sale has apparently confirmed otherwise. Now I spend my days running the battery down on my phone as I constantly check to see if a realtor called and is going to drop by to show the house and I somehow missed hearing it ring. And of course, no one has called so I start telling Cody... our house has been on the market for a full three days now... why hasn't anyone wanted to come and see it? do we need to take some furniture out? do we need to repaint? OH MY GOSH IS IT NEVER GOING TO SELL AND WE'RE GOING TO BE STUCK APART FOREVER???????????????????????????????????????
{drama queen much?}

Everything else has so quickly an easily fallen in to place and only confirmed that we are supposed to move to Snyder, so my prayer has been that selling our house would be the same. And Cody is totally right when he looks at me like I have crazy eyes and tells me it's too early to start freaking out, but y'all, I'm kinda freaking out. So, if you would join us in saying a prayer that the perfect family will find our house and offer us the perfect amount we need, I would greatly appreciate it. Your prayers may keep the sanity in our marriage :)

To do something more productive with my time, I thought I would showcase a few pictures of the house since I don't think I ever did a proper house tour after we bought it. I'll break it up into a few posts as to not overwhelm you. And just a warning.. if you don't like color.. you may not like my house! Let's start with a walk down memory lane from the day Cody and I signed the paperwork to make our official offer:

   

{we went to Jamaica the summer we bought our house. we were so tan and skinny.}

The previous owners of our house rented it out and once they decided to sell it, bought a 5 gallon bucket of industrial white paint and went to town on everything: any free wall, baseboards and some doors. This is what our living room looked like when we first saw the house:

{looking straight ahead from the front door}

{looking to the right of the door}

{what became my craft room}

Talk about some bad staging... hunter green curtains, hodge podge ficus trees and plants, odds and end canvas paintings that had no rhyme or reason.  While their current decorations certainly made the house look a little unkempt, we fell in love with the open dining/living room space and wanted to make it our own. 

Here is our current living room:

{standing at the door looking straight ahead}


{looking to the right}

{looking into the living room from the entrance into the kitchen}

We obviously painted and added a mantle about the fireplace. I know the green is certainly not for everyone, but I'm thankful for a husband who lets me choose a color that makes me happy, even if it is rather bold. My mom actually found that mantle for $25 at a ReStore in Amarillo. I have to say, I will be sad to leave it!


Here is my special space in the house: my craft room.{though this is GREATLY cleaned out in prep for our move!}

I'll be honest, this room is normally a wreck! But I've enjoyed having a place to call my own and work on my projects. Having space for me to craft is definitely something that I have listed as a must have in our next place!

Next time I'll show you our kitchen and all of the updates we did to it. It's quite the transformation!

fun fun fun.

i bought the first new pieces of furniture for our new place!!!


my boss told me about this great place, it's bloomingdale's flowers on south 27th and barrow. the have a ton of furniture at GREAT prices and they'll paint it and distress it for you. i will be checking back weekly for new pieces!


now on to the next purchase... a couch and love seat. i am loving making grown up purchases!



p.s. i found out today that a girl is signing the lease next week to be the next week to move into my apartment. this means that i might be moving out within the next two weeks.. but even the even greater news is that i might not have to pay a full month's rent here! this is great news for my wallet!