Painting...check!

Last Saturday, Levi happened to have the day off (actually, he had to take a test for school) and we were able to get the last room in our house painted! It feels so good to be finished with that project, because it's likely that the last room could have remained unpainted for a long time if we put it off any longer.

We have now painted every room in our house except the bathroom (and we're leaving it the color it is). Whatever you do, NEVER paint every room in your house crayon-box yellow. You'll save someone from doing what we just had to do.

We'll eventually get new bedding and add more furniture to this room, but here it is now:

Labor Day Fun

Last weekend, we went camping, hiking and rock climbing in the Wichita Mountains near Lawton. Check out the pics on Facebook.

Accommodation

What an accommodating husband I have. Last night, when Levi asked me what I'd like to drink with dinner, I told him I would like a little milk. I guess I harped a little too much on the fact that I wanted a small amount because this is what I got:

An espresso cup of milk. Silly Levi!

Treasures

I found some GREAT items at Buchanan's Vintage Flea Market and Tuesday Morning today:

Vintage magazines from which I will frame ads and a neat key shadow box

Like this ad from the Better Homes and Gardens magazine. It'll go in our bathroom.

This fan is from the 30s and STILL WORKS!

Vintage outdoor seating! I'm especially excited about these chairs because when I went to Ripley's to get some like this that I had seen on a previous trip, they were gone. How fortunate that the second I walked into the flea market today, I spotted these!

Not sure what I'll do with this, but I like it.

I got some of these frames today and plan to do a wall collage

The great flood of 2010

Unfortunately, you can't really tell from the video but water is rushing down the street. We really should invest in some gutters.

Neighborly Love

I've recently realized that one of the things that makes homeownership so rewarding is building relationships with neighbors. In our rental house, we were mostly surrounded by other renters, so no one took time to get to know one another, realizing we would all be moving again soon. There was one permanent couple across the street, but our conversations with them rarely extended past "hi" for the same reason.

In our new neighborhood, we are still surrounded by several renters, but also a few permanent couples/families. The weekend we moved into our house, Bob and Diane from across the street brought us cookies while we were unpacking. That was our first taste of neighborly love and our appetite for it has only grown since then.

When I returned the plate from the cookies, Bob (who has a permanent welding station set up in his driveway) proceeded to show me all the projects he's been working on (Levi refers to him as Bob the Builder) and then took me inside to see Diane's embroidery work. I probably spent 30 minutes at their house just chatting and it felt natural.

It didn't end there. The next weekend, Bob came over to invite Levi to play golf with him sometime. I think Levi intends to take him up on the offer as soon as it gets cooler.

Then there's Ken and Wanda. They have two girls, Ashley and Marissa. Ashley is near our age, but she still lives at home due to a disability that was recently corrected by surgery, and Marissa is somewhere around 16, I would guess. Wanda and Ashley (sometimes Marissa) frequently come chat with us while we're in the yard watering our plants in the evenings. We'll talk to them for 30 minutes to an hour at times (Wanda is a BIG talker) and I love it.

Today, Wanda came over to give me some curtains that she bought for herself at a garage sale (they didn't work with her decor). She told me she thought of me when she saw them and thought they would look nice with the light blue/gray paint in our master bedroom. How thoughtful of her! I'm not sure I'll put them in that particular room, but they will definitely go somewhere in our house.

We've only lived in our new house for a month, but we already have neighbors who feel like old friends. We are so thankful that God has blessed us by surrounding us with such wonderful people. I look forward to the years to come living in this house and getting to know them better.

Not so handy woman

Last weekend, I got ambitious and decided to construct the "climbing closet" Levi and I had been discussing since we moved in. Since I had some free time while Levi was at work and I was tired of having no place to put his climbing gear away, I made a trip to Home Depot to pick up some supplies.

The plan was to hang pegboard on the inside walls of our guest room closet so he could hang, organize and display his climbing/outdoor gear. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, not exactly. I had never used a drill before but it seemed pretty easy. I got everything I needed together and successfully attached this brace to the wall, but that's where the project ended.

It turns out that I got screws with too shallow of heads, meaning I stripped the heads in my drilling fury. Unfortunately, this left me with several abandoned wooden slats with half-drilled screws stuck in them.

Finally, I gave up trying to keep my project a surprise and told Levi about my folly. Thankfully, he was able to get the right screws on Saturday and finish up the project, allowing this amazing transformation to happen:

I'm so glad it's all put away!