Month in Review: August into September

What we did was mostly move 1000 miles. 

In a van that looked like this.

From this place...

To this place...

(Some of us are getting back to normal.  As you can see.)

Unpacking has taken up the bulk of the past few weeks.  But we've also been painting...

(When I say "we", I mean Andy, Katydid, Gareth, and Grandma.  My only contribution was to make friends at the Sherwin Williams store.)

Katydid also painted two small bookcases, all by herself.  One of them moved into the bay window in the dining area, otherwise known as "where we do school".  (Since we also eat there AND since it's part  of the kitchen, it really can't be called a school room.)

Here's a before picture:

(No Photoshop on this computer and the powercord to my laptop remains MIA, so I have to apologize for the lack of editing here.)

This space is considerably fuller now, but still not organized enough to merit an "after" picture.  More like a "middle" picture.  We've had to rethink our plans for several of the spaces in the house, actually.  First there was the problem of where to put everybody to sleep.  (Thought we had that one solved, but one of the kids who was upstairs has migrated downstairs again and is sleeping on a sleeping bag.)  Then we had to figure out what to do with the giant room upstairs in the finished attic.  Should we make it a school room or a play room?  Since it was off the beaten path and the twins need somewhere to run and around like lunatics roughly thirty seconds after they open their eyes in the morning, we opted for play room.  Thus, the school/dining area you see in the "before" picture.

Really, what I had wanted to do was make our front room (the room being painted yellow in the picture toward the top) into a school room.  But several people gave me odd looks when I voiced this opinion, as it is supposed to be our living room.  But then we discovered that we couldn't hook up satellite to a TV downstairs because whoever the drunk insane handy person was who designed my kitchen also put all the wires upstairs underneath the floor, so the old cable wires (of which we must 500, considering the number of cable outlets in EVERY SINGLE ROOM) could not be changed for new ones without tearing up the floor.  Therefore, the TV went upstairs in the playroom, and the front room was (or is being) turned into a "library".

This still leaves me with the problem that all the Legos are upstairs to get them away from the baby, but now so is the TV, so where do we put the Legos? 

(If you have many boys, you will recognize this as a SERIOUS problem.)

Anyway, it looks like a box factory exploded downstairs and I still haven't figured out my email address or memorized my phone number, but we have started school again after a fashion (mostly in self-defense, as the twins were driving me nutty), and I will be doing a wrap-up of our first two weeks the next time I am allowed 15 minutes on the computer.  For now I just want to post some of Katydid's bird pictures, as figuring out our bird population was a major part of our first weeks here.

We had a pair of Mississippi kites, but I think they have migrated away now.

We have had many hummingbirds migrate through, too, including one Katydid couldn't identify.  But I don't think I've downloaded that picture yet.

And we had a pair of bluebirds nesting in our mailbox.  Their three babies have fledged now.

(We couldn't get a good picture of the babies because we didn't want to scare them with the flash.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Melissa R]

Your new home looks lovely! I can't wait to see more. :)

[Jennifer Mackintosh]

Oh...I love having a peek into the new digs! Looks BIG...and BRIGHT! What great light, and it sounds like you have some really great space options!

We're so thrilled that Katydid is getting to know the local birds...and hey, we've still got hummingbirds here too...though they're mostly done migrating through!

It's hard to believe that you're practically next door now! LOL!!! Well...ok...a couple of hours next door. LOL!!!

I love that big bay window - who wouldn't want to call that "the schoolroom"...and A LIBRARY??? Hello! Have you died and gone to heaven? Seriously!!!! I'm excited for you!

Hope you and the littlest are settling in as well as everyone else seems to be!

[Amy Payson]

Glad to see you back online...even if sporadically! Don't worry about the stares. Our "school room" is our living room and dining room area as well. The T.V. is downstairs and these always throws company for a loop! It's your space. YOU know best. Good luck!