We officially own a home.

 We own a home.  Middle-sister Annie drove down to meet us at the title company for the signing, and brought a giant sack of our most favorite Indian food, Shan's, which we ate on our new porch with plates from our wedding.  We sipped cider and champagne from mason jars, and also some 312 beer to commemorate our new address.

Now the work begins.

Floor refinishing starts today.  

Getting closer...

Closing in eleven days!  This blog will soon take a turn towards home restoration and renovation.  

Instead of packing for our move...

we're packing for a visit to Tacoma!  Woohoo!

Home ten minutes -- plant splurge!

Sittin pretty.

My legs are covered in orange paint.  Repainting our retro patio furniture a bright flaming orange.  Hopefully this fall we'll be making ourselves some modern adirondack chairs like the Sawyer at CB2.

Yesterday at the Restore, a major score!  A funky retro laz-e-boy recliner for the new house!  A recliner with feet that pop out is a must have for our girl Amy, but god those overstuffed ones are an eye sore.   Her currently lives in our garage and only comes inside when she does.  This will give her comfy visits and is soft on our eyes.  It's no retro Milo Baughman, but it was also a 1/20 of what that chair would cost. Some day I'll find of of those for a song, but this is pretty flippin awesome.

I'll be sanding and attaching the arms and legs.  The upholstry is tighter than it looks in the second picture.

We (basically) own a house.

Papers are signed, a date is set.  Pending bank approval of the property, title search, and blah blah blah signing one million more papers, we are homeowners.

Last night we bought a trunk full of power tools off a friend who is moving away.  We're going to need them, and a pallet of elbow grease (Annie P., get ready for this.  Mi case, su casa, and your elbow grease is my elbow grease).

New life adventure: GO!

Home is not a house but a feeling

This week, I'm haunted by commercials with a home theme.

In a Lowe's commercial, that Hulu has decided is my new constant companion:


Home is where you are.
Home is where I want to be...
Home is not a house, but a feeling.

Advertising Discovery's "Disappeared":


You put your arms around me and I'm home.

The music that grabs my attention, and then within seconds, I'm thinking home home home home, and then looking up the song, then discovering it has very little to do with the home I'm mourning, and so much more to do with the home I have and that I'm building.

But even so, it continues, and I start listening to other songs I know about home.


 Home is where I want to be.


Every day's an endless stream of cigarettes and magazines
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be
Homeward bound, I wish I was homeward bound.

Which inevitably leads the REAL tear jerker.

Yard Party

After a very fast road trip to Kentucky and back to deliver the van for it's conversion, my childhood best friend came in to town.  Christine and I grew up 2 blocks apart and had the same bus stop.  We didn't see each other for a good eight years after high school, but even so, I still felt at home the moment we reconnected.  Sadly, we moved to Champaign a week after she left CU for grad school.  Now she lives clear across the country, but just a stones throw from Walker's folks.  Small world.

The last time I saw Christine was the week my mom died.  I have never been so happy to see someone.  She got special permission to leave her Army training program in Missouri, drove like a mad woman to my moms, and woke insanely early to do the same back to Missouri. 

We'd planned to go to the Hoopeston Corn Fest, but woke up to a dreary overcast day.  I proposed we buy a bunch of corn and have our own corn fest, but then lost my steam and plummeted into my grief.

I'm a lucky lady with good friends.  I told my friend my situation and she helped me make it happen.  We drove around town getting farm stand produce (paid for with the twenty bucks I found on the ground the night before!) and bottles of fancy cider from Michigan.  The preparation was a party in itself.

Sweet potatoes, corn, blackeyed peas, watermelon and corn were consumed.  Childhood corn dishes used.  Dogs galloped around the yard, a fire was lit, a late night beer run made, and a very late night cake baked.  This was one fine (day before) Labor Day.  

 

Impulse buy.

Sometimes finals is kicking your ass, and you don't feel like you have second to spare, so you waste precious time surfing craigslist, then drive to Urbana to buy the old timely laundry tubs of your dreams, and what does your "intended" do?  He encourages you!  Today was one of those days.

We'll be slapping a coat of paint on this frame.  There is no pink -- unless it's hair -- at this wedding.

It will be bitchin filled with bottles of Tall Tale Cider lovingly crafted by our friends.  And lovely filled with iced beverages at parties for years to come, because lets face it, we're never letting go of this stuff.

And, more practically, it's handy for being able to wash rank stuff outside.  We used set ups exactly like this at the farm I worked at.  I coveted them, and the all terrain wagon.