A new adventure!

A new adventure...that pretty much sums up the theme of my current life status! :) So our school corporation just went through a huge redistricting process and is opening new buildings, which means that staff gets shuffled. Fortunately, I still have a job (this is the most important thing!) and am in the same building but after this school year I'll be heading down to second grade to teach. A bunchhhh of teachers shuffled grade levels. I'm totally ok with it. If I think about it too long it overwhelms me a little because it's a pretty big switch from fifth but it will be ok. We will be in a brand new building next year so everything is going to be new. I'm not very concerned about it right now because realistically I don't even have time to be. I'm sure that the way this summer is shaping up that after we return from Hawaii that I'll be in a whirlwind of figuring out the new transition to a new grade level but that's fine.

In other news.....

Our beautiful blinds were installed this week. These blinds are SO nice. I love them. At first, I went back and forth if we should spend this much money on them but I'm glad that we did now. They are awesome.

Our tile project is underway in the bathrooms...it's looking great. It will look even better when it's all done! :) I went and got all new bathroom stuff (new shower curtains/rugs/etc) for one of the bathrooms this week and was just so glad not to be in Lowe's for stuff!

We have to have electrical work done--gah. It's really my fault. I neglected to look at what type of outlets there were behind the stove before I bought a new one--oops. But of course we love the new stove and don't really want to return it. :)

After the bathroom project is over we have some odds and ends projects to wrap up but nothing that costs a lot of money. We need the time mentally and financially to take a break. We are going to work on the landscaping outside but that will be an ongoing project. The plan is that we will do the basement this fall maybe like August or September. We are incredibly excited about the progress we have made. It's been so fun to make this house 'ours'.

Met with the reception hall this week and got everything finalized. I'm so stinkin' excited. We figured out what food and beverage will be served, how things will be set up, decorated, etc. We are meeting next week to figure out a few things with decorations and then there's nothing more to really do with them until it gets way closer.

Went and got random stuff last weekend with my sister for the wedding. I'm constantly thinking of little things that we need. So I'm trying to get it as we go along so that it's not a whirlwind when it gets here.

I'm SO close to having the invites ready. I'm printing them next week at my mother-in-law's office. They will go out in May.

We are down to 99 days--yay for being under a 100. We are both SO ready! We start marriage counseling in a few weeks--I'm ready for that too!

We are continuing to sell stuff on Craigslist--not as fast as we were at first but still making progress. In fact, I just sold an armoire. We can start to walk through our basement again so we are making progress for sure!

It is finally spring break--praise the Lord!

It's going to be busy for sure but I'm ready for the break. Here's a preview:

Saturday--Phil and Beth (brother and sister-in-law) from Texas are here for the day. My families Easter dinner is that evening at Grandma's in Rochester and so is my mother in laws. So we are going to Rochester for a while then coming back up here for the rest of the evening.

Sunday--Going to church and lunch in Rochester with my family plus my father in law and his wife from Virginia who are driving in. Then we will spend the rest of the day with Gary and Michelle.

Monday--Michelle flies out to go back home and Gary stays for the rest of the week. Then Ashley is coming-yay!

Tuesday--Ashley is here. Going to the reception hall. Printing all the invitations in the evening

Wednesday--Taking my flower girl shopping for her dress!

Thursday--Pat has a baseball game

Friday--Pat has a baseball game.

Saturday--Pat has a baseball game

Sunday--Church and engagement pics in Warsaw

Combined with some REST, running (lots!), organizing stuff in the house, hopefully working in the yard a little, and working on some school stuff.

One more random rambling! :)

Soo.....on my 'bucket list' of things to do is run a full marathon. I have ran 2 half marathons and will run another in May and then another in June and probably another in the fall all with my sista and other friends. The whole marathon thing though has always been in the back of my mind but I would waver back and forth about it. I'm doing it though! What's even better--in FLORIDA! :) My future sister in law, and step mother in law, and I are doing the Disney Marathon on January 9th. I'm sooo excited. :)

Random Ramblings....:)

**5 school days till spring break! I'm soooo ready for a break! I am physically and emotionally exhausted and ready for a break in routine for a few days even though it's going to be a really busy spring break.
**Wedding planning is in full swing again--we are almost down to 3 months--woohoo! This past week I met with the wedding coordinator, florist, met with our families about decisions of food and such for the reception, got the rest of the invitations today and am finishing up the formatting for all the invitations. I ended up doing them myself because it was sooo much cheaper and seriously they are a piece of paper! I'm currently working on making mailing labels for all the envelopes. I got the aisle runner today and the matted picture frame for everyone to sign. I meet with the reception hall this week to go over all our decisions about food/beverage/rental items for the night of the reception. Over spring break I'm hoping to get all the invites printed and ready to go so that I don't have to think about it anymore! :) I also plan to get all the centerpieces planned out so that I can get anything random i.e. flowers or floating candles ordered. We also are going to start working on getting the favors ordered and start working on the seating arrangement chart. I have my last dress fitting on Saturday and my jewelry should be here soon! Woohoo! :)
**House stuff continues to plug along. This past week our carpet was installed, fridge and stove installed, bought a new area rug from Bed Bath and Beyond, went and bought all the tile/supplies to do the bathrooms (hopefully that will be done this week!), the blinds should be here anyday. After that it will be lots of finish work like touching up paint, putting trim back up, etc. It's nice to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel for the upstairs anyway.
**I'm soooo blessed to be marrying such a great man. These past 4 months have been intense and quite a whirlwind and he has been so supportive through everything. I can't wait to marry him. :)

Carpet/Fridge/Stove/Craigslist!

So....my new favorite obsession! Craigslist!!! We have sold over $1000 worth of stuff on there in two days and it has been so easy! Most of the stuff that we put on except for a few things only last a few hours and then they are sold. We have had people picking stuff up from our house all weekend and all night tonight! I am now convinced that it's the fastest way to make money ever! I even got my dad to start selling things on there and he as well has had huge success. We have a few more things left to sell on there but they are big ticket items and then we are putting up a few more once I can locate them in the basement and take pictures! This is wayyyy better/easier than having a garage sale. We just have so much stuff that we didn't even know where to begin. So anything that didn't have a need in our house or we wanted to replace/upgrade and that didn't have family significance got put up there. We have sold a stove, a mini fridge, a fridge from the garage, a futon, a bike, an armoire, a dining room table/chairs, a king bed. More to come....a big screen tv, a recliner, and a tv stand. It's awesome--I love it.

Our house is like a war zone right now because Lowes comes today (hopefully soon!) to install our carpet in all the bedrooms/hallways. We moved everything out of the rooms ourselves/took up all the carpet which doesn't sound like a big job but it was huge. I am dreading starting to put it all back together tonight. It will take several evenings to get this under control again.

Our fridge and stove came today too!! It will be delivered tonight as well!!! It's so exiciting to see things come together one thing at a time!

Getting Closer....

We continue to get closer and closer to all sorts of exciting things:

1. We are finally getting closer to spring break! It has been a long haul since Christmas and we both need some time to get stuff done and rest. Even though it will be a wayyyy busy spring break it will be good to have some time to switch gears for a few days.
2. We are down to 115 days till our wedding...just a little over 3 months! We are beyond ready and excited. We have a serious amount of wedding planning that needs to resume but our lives have been more than chaotic lately.
3. The house is coming along and is absolutely beautiful! The painting is all done and is gorgeous. I love it! We should have all the hardwood done tonight--we layed hardwood in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. It is gorgeous--I'm glad that we invested in it. Monday Lowe's comes to install all the carpet in all the bedrooms and then our friend will install our tile in our bathrooms! Next week our new fridge and ceramic top stove comes! In about two weeks all of our blinds should be here/installed too! It feels good to start to see some light at the end of the tunnel even though things are way tore up right now. I'm sooo glad that we are doing this. I will definitely post pictures soon.

Loveeee it!!!

Engagement session # 1 of 3 are done! Yes, we are ridiculous. We are having pictures done at lots of places that have been important to us. All of our pictures from this past session turned out amazinggg.....I'm in love with them. :)

Randomness...

**I've been sick for two days. Yuck. I don't like being sick. My roomies have bronchitis and I'm hoping it doesn't turn into that....
**I have my next dress fitting tomorrow! Yay! :)
**Having a girls night tomorrow night and sooo looking forward to it. Going to Bar Louie and Valentine's Day. :)
**Ends up that I'm moving into our house sooner than we anticipated. Moving there in a week.....I'm more than ready. I'm ready for the next step and I'm excited about making this house ours and working even more to become established and situated in a new community and give me some time to transition to the commute. I only have a week left of the glorious 5 minute commute and I'm going to enjoy everything about it because I won't have it again at least for a long time. The painting will hopefully be done soon. Then come the next set of decisions--hardwood, tile, carpet, fridge. I want to wave my magic wand and it to be done. :) HA. :)
**I'm breathing major sighs of relief over a decision that we made this week. We decided that it's time for me to slow down on grad school and by slow down I really mean stop until August. I can't keep up with everything that's going on in my life plus that program. I want to enjoy the rest of our engagement because we are only engaged once. I'm tired of not getting any sleep and always being stressed out about it. I just got done with a class and was supposed to start another class in two weeks but I dropped it and then won't take anymore classes till August. I'm grateful....really really grateful. I'm glad that I can just focus on work, transitioning to a new season of life, all the home remodeling, planning a wedding, and to start enjoying more time with family again.