Nesting

Let me preface this by saying that my husband likes to start projects and them mull over them for a while (i.e. - several weeks up to a year). Let me give you a few examples before I get to this weekend.

Electrical outlets - When we first moved in under our century tree, it was fair to say that it needed updating. Metallic wallpaper, shower curtains with valances, pink linoleum flooring were just not what I was looking for in a first home; however, the time and price were right. We bought the house 3 days before we got married - so to say that settling in was hectic would be an understatment. We removed the yards and yards and yards of metallic wallpaper, re-textured the walls, painted, and painted some more; took down all valances, regardless of their location, and replaced them; tore up the carpet-covered pink linoleum and put down wood lament floors. All of this crammed into the 3 days prior to our wedding. So you can see how changing the electrical outlets from dingey yellow to basic white would be a minor project compared to the others listed above...but still, it had to be done. Nearly four years later, and we finally have all the outlets changed and covered, versus just the plug without a cover (Christmas card recipients you can rejoice because I am certain that our family photo will be without an uncovered outlet). My husband called his finishing of this project "nesting".

My beloved wisteria - The north side of our driveway has the most beautiful, fragrant wisteria bush. It blooms in early spring straight through to the summer, and we get compliments on it every year. Then one day I get an email at work with the subject line "Look what I did". I opened it during class, simply because I thought it was another one of those silly forward emails. Gasp! I. was. wrong! It was a picture of the north side of our driveway sans the most beautiful, fragrant wisteria bush ever. I didn't know how to respond, except to show my students what my husband had done - where did my whisteria bush go?! So, I called him (during my planning period), and he tells me that "it poked him for the last time!". I had no idea that my husband harbored this animosity toward my beloved wisteria, but nonetheless, it is gone. When he was done he said he was "nesting", as in finishing the project.

The living room - This is a very similar story to my beloved wisteria. I knew that my husband had been frustrated with the carpet in our living room for quite a while, but like many other projects I figured it was a bunch of "talk"...until...I come home from work one day to discover my living room in my kitchen and the carpet in the garage. Gasp! What happened to my living room?! "I was tired of that smelly carpet", he says. Over the next week, little by little my living room was restored to immaculant wood flooring, new baseboards, and vintage door trim - all done by my husband (with the support of my mom). He finished and he was nesting.

This all brings me to this past weekend, where I feel like I need a few extra weekend days to recover from my husband's nesting. No, we're not nesting because we are expecting (sorry). But we are finally settling into our home. We accomplished more tasks this weekend than we have in the past 4 years (besides those first 3 days)! The whole time we were working my husband continued to say "we're nesting"; esentially what I think we're doing is finally accepting that we will be spending many more years here and let's make the most of it. I think it's fair to say that we've nested (at least for a while).

finally the beginning

First off, I have to say that I'm glad that there is a spellcheck button. So, thank you blogger for thinking of me when you designed your site (years ago).

Secondly, I know I am late the the blog bandwagon, but I've debated my necessity of a blog for quite a while. Who would read it? What would I write? Who cares about what I would write? And so on. So this blog all started because I needed a writing outlet of my own (for whatever reason) and I bought a Vera Bradley journal at BN yesterday. Let me tell you...this journal is wonderful! I've struggled with finding the perfect journal (must be spiral-bound, not too small, not too big, white pages preferably perforated, and a lovely design on the front) for a couple of years (literally), but I could never justify purchasing one at BN because, frankly, the only reason I go there is to buy books...so I feel like I'm cheating if I buy something other than books (to read). Anyhow, I had about 15 minutes after a lesson on tea and a meeting to shop with my new, educator rewards card and I decided to finally be seriously about buying my journal. I walked over to the same wall and section of journals that BN has stocked for years, scanned it, and found the same uninspiring journals that I always see there (maybe that is the underlying reason as to why I've never left with a journal from there)...but as I turned around there. it. was. The most glorious Vera Bradley spiral-bound, white perforated pages, paisley-covered journal! It was instantaneous - I needed it! So I bought it with my new, educator rewards card.

I stared at my new journal all day: I took it to another meeting, left it on my desk to look at while I was working on the computer, took it to another meeting, etc. But the more I think about it...the journal was staring at me! What the heck was I going to write about?! It almost felt like a daunting task to begin writing my thoughts down - and still what would I write about!? So I took it home.

My new journal was inducted into my life under a century tree (our home) by a slobbery greeting from Roxie (our dog). I'm glad I didn't leave my new journal on the table, where I have now discovered that Chuck Norris (our tiny, female cat) had recently "pushed" a small, spiral notepad on the floor only to have Roxie take several pages of her own...and the front and back covers are missing sections. So I left it on my desk in the office.

It didn't sit there unattended long. I figured that I wanted to write in it before I forgot that I bought it. I picked out a green pen that I knew wouldn't bleed through the page (because I hate that), and began to write. Halfway through my 5 pages of writing my hand began to cramp, and I thought to myself "why don't you just put this on a blog instead?, it's a lot faster to type than it is to write, and it is way easier to be discovered and turned into a famous book on a blog than it is to be turned into a famous book by a journal - these days anyway". (not that I think in any way, shape, or form that my writing is "famous book" worthy, but hey, it's happened to quite a few bloggers). I did finish my first journal writing, but I couldn't let the blog idea go. So I went to blogger.com to start my own.

Since I did not have the newest, fastest version of internet explorer blogger.com would not let me create a blog. (i didn't figure out this was the problem until the next day). Here I am world, writing on a blog! Does that mean I'll give up writing in my new VB journal? Eh, we'll see how this turns out. So I'm about to post my first blog!

{FYI - I like punctuation. I generally use it incorrectly. I kinda don't care. My favorite things to use are dot-dot-dot, commas, and parentheses. }