One Year

A year ago today, we signed the offer on our house and put down the earnest money, and it became ours.

Reading back on those entries, I had so much more optimism. That was before we knew that the windows were in horrible shape and needed to be replaced. That was before we knew that the fireplace, as it is right now, is not functional, because it's too dangerous (I want this fixed ASAP so we can actually start using it, but Lance isn't in as big of a hurry). That was before we knew about the poor quality of the water heater. How drafty the house is. How heat builds up in the summer so that it's almost unbearably hot. How the neighbors are loud and how we can hear the train down in the valley, almost like it's getting ready to barrel through our house.

(Hopefully the new windows will fix some of these problems, including reducing the outside noise a bit.)

This was before I knew how much work it would be to strip wallpaper. Before I knew that once you replace something in a room, something else suddenly looks old and dirty and needs to be replaced.

Ah...to look at things through rose colored glasses. It's great for a while, until reality begins to rear its ugly head and you see how flawed things truly are.

The other house that I truly truly loved...the one that was far and away my very favorite house...had we gotten that house instead, would I have loved it still? I would love to think so, but I'm not so sure. Lance and I still talk about that house, wondering what would've happened if we had bought that instead.

But we're in *this* house. It's ours. Flaws and all. And we have to make the best of it. We're making it more livable. We just have to make it lovable.

(no subject)

I just got home a short while ago from shopping for my Halloween costume.

I'm actually getting kind of excited about this pirate thing. Sigga and I went to Value Village. It's a thrift store, and I have never been there until tonight.

They had an entire section of Halloween costumes, including a really cute (and not slutty) pirate wench costume that I really wanted to get. It was $25. Sigga assured me that I could do better than a mass-produced costume. So we started sorting through the racks of clothes.

White button down slightly frilly blouse (Ann Taylor Loft) - $3
Pirate print bandana - $2
Pirate sword - $4

Here's the best part...I wanted a corset-type vest. Sigga, who has a lot of sewing experience, found a red sleeveless button-down blouse for $6. She's going to cut off the collar, rip off all the buttons, tear out the satiny lining and cut those into strips. She's going to take the satin strips and thread them through the buttonholes and attach them to the other side and tie it up in front to make it look like a corset vest.

It's going to look awesome.

The plan right now is for me to wear my knee-high boots and my black dress pants, and tuck my pant legs into my boots. I would prefer to wear a skirt. We looked for one there, but couldn't find one that looked really good on me. I might still keep an eye out.

So I walked out of there with stuff for under $18...and the blouse I can definitely wear again.

***

We started decorating our area of cubicles to make them look like a pirate ship. It's starting to look really cool.

I'm sure there will be pictures next Friday.