My favorite room...

Since I've been so...well, straight up lazy about putting up pictures of our house in the last 9 months, today I thought I would post pictures (terrible horrible iphone photos of course) of my FAVORITE room in our house.

This room is tiny. Small enough that you can take a picture from the doorway and capture the entire room. It's still painted a lovely builder-house tan with cream trim (seriously could they not have used white?!) and as of yet is untouched, although I have plans for it. And it has an itty-bitty closet. We've generally been using it as storage for odds and ends that we've stashed upstairs for the short-term instead of hauling to the basement. This room has an identical room next door to it that we use as a tiny guest room (it looks a lot more put together than this room though, because it has an actual bed and armoire in it). And for some reason this tiny favorite room gets warmer than any other room in the house (I think our attic furnace must be right above it).

But for all it's loveliness and space, this room is my favorite in our house. On many evenings over the last several months, my sweet husband has found me wrapped in a blanket, lying on the floor of this room. It's where I go to think and my favorite place to lay on the floor and make plans about our future, especially when things feel hard or overwhelming.

This tiny room is my favorite in our house, because it's the room where we'll bring our sweet baby GIRL home to sometime around the middle of May.   :)

Update

Well, I guess it's about that time to give a little update on life again. So much has happened since March! In May (or around there) Andrew was accepted into the MBA program at the U. Shortly after he was also accepted into the MHA program (Masters of Health Administration) as well. So, that dear smart husband of mine will be in the MBA/MHA duel program for the next 3 years. I couldn't be more proud of him! It's going to be a long and grueling process, but we're sure it will be very worth the time and effort (and the money!) in the end--even if that feels very very far away.

So August came around, and with school just around the corner we went on one last escape before things got busy and overwhelming with school! So we headed to Disneyland for a week to celebrate our 2nd anniversary and to enjoy our last bit of free time together for the foreseeable future. Andrew's program will include summers for the next 3 years, and Fall breaks and football games apparently no longer are reason enough to cancel school so time off is very VERY limited :(

After our much needed Disney break from reality, we got back into the swing of things and Andrew started grad school at the end of August. He's now been through almost 2 months of classes and 1 set of midterms and is still hanging in there, even if I'm not. Turns out both of us working all day and then Andrew going straight from work to school til 10PM a couple times a week, finally getting home at 11:30, is not very fun for Andrew or for me. Especially because the other 5 nights of the week are generally spent studying until bed. To be honest, it's down right miserable and has been a HUGE adjustment so far. We know that we're luckier than most to work in the same place and get to have lunch together 3-4 days each week, and right now it's one of the few and far between moments where we get to have some actual downtime together. Andrew is just worn out, and I'm just sick of being without a husband all the time. I'm sure we'll adjust, it's just taking a little longer than anticipated.

Maybe all that free time will mean I'll blog more...

We're trying to make the most of the little time off school that Andrew does have, so we have weekend road trips planned to Washington AND Colorado next month. Apparently Utah football games are a good enough reason to spend a couple weekend on the road. Especially when doing so means a trip to Seattle, one of my favorite places on Earth, and spending time with family and enjoy the Pacific Northwest in the Fall <3

In other news...we finally hung pictures up in the house--after 8 months. On 1 wall in 1 room, but it's a start. I have plans to redo our bedroom in all my lovely husband-less free-time in the next couple of weeks as well. Maybe I'll even finally share pictures of the house, but don't hold your breath. Lets be honest, if we haven't gotten around to buying a dining room table in those 8 months, we have bigger problems than a lack of photos on the blog. Like for instance the fact that I don't think Andrew and I have a SINGLE picture of us from this entire last year. It's like the year that never happened...so maybe I need to actually TAKE some pictures and THEN I can work on getting them posted to the blog after that. Baby steps.

March

Well we've been in our house for just over a month now, and I STILL have no pictures. I'm sorry I'm so terrible at that. At first everything was delayed due to unpacking, and since that excuse ran out, we've just failed to pick up a camera and document our very undecorated house.

But we LOVE our house and we LOVE Daybreak and we're so very very happy to no longer be homeless. We're even to the point that thinking about those hotel days seems almost like we dreamed it and the whole mess never happened at all. But it did happen of course.

The last month has been about getting everything moved and connected and set up and feeling homey. All our walls are the same beige/tan that is in every builder grade home in America, including our last place, and I HATE it. So that is first on the agenda of things to do to make our house feel more like us. Also on the top of our list are things like buying a kitchen table, bar stools, and a kitchen garbage can. But for the time being we're doing just fine without them (anything is better than living out of a suitcase and a hotel room, right?). And I guess we're just lucky that we already owned basically everything else that we needed for the new house, so there haven't been a lot of new house related purchases yet. The plan is just to go room by room and little by little and make everything feel less beige and more like the Grandemange home that we hope it will be in the not too distant future.

The other obstacle has been getting our mail delivered to the new house. Why this has been SUCH a problem, we really don't know, but it definitely has been. Not only are we still not getting our forwarded mail, but we also aren't getting our packages either. As of yesterday we had 4 different packages from 4 different companies that we were attempting to track down. 1 finally showed up yesterday, so hopefully the others will be found at some point as well.

Aside from the new house, there isn't a whole lot going on right now in our world. Hopefully with the Spring weather rolling in, things will get more exciting soon.

I'll try extra hard to get some pictures posted VERY SOON!!!

New Plans-Again

By now you would think we've been in our house for a couple weeks. That is not the case.

When I wrote my last post at the end of January, we thought that moving everything into storage was a slight bump in the road on the way to having keys to our house in a day or two. We packed enough to hold us over while we lived out a hotel for a few days and we were both embracing the relaxation of being homeless in a hotel.

Things did not go exactly as planned.

It turns out that all that relief I felt over having everything that could go wrong actually happen to us and knowing that we were fine still was taken to a whole new level of eating my words, because the best was yet to come. Apparently the bank negotiator, the guy who represents the bank that currently owns the house in the sale, didn't exactly do his job flawlessly. In fact, as it turns out, there were a whole slew of problems that were made by him in the documents for the sale of our house. And of course because of all these problems, that lovely bank approval paper that we've waited since November for and FINALLY got at the end of January ended up being INVALID--kinda like we never really got it at all. But of course, none of this came to light until after we'd already signed 200 pages of closing documents and become homeless. :(
So for the last 2 weeks, a new bank negotiator (our realtor says they usually fire negotiators after 1 mistake and our original guy made MANY mistakes so she thinks he probably got fired--which makes me feel awful and wish even more that none of this had happened!!!) has been working out all the problems and taking care of the major issue, which was that the bank appraisal had expired and needed to be redone before they would grant us approval again. That lovely bank approval takes 2 weeks to have done and processed, so needless to say we've been hotel hopping for more than a couple days.

Regardless of the drama, we feel very blessed in many, many ways.

First, that I have absolutely amazing parents that let us crash with them on weekends to avoid as many days in the hotel as possible. Along with my dear mother making us homemade dinner every night, regardless of whether we want her to or not.

Second, that staying in Woodruff on weekends means lots of family time and getting to go to church at Woodruff Ward on Sundays which I LOVE and have missed SO much!! Our last ward wasn't exactly our favorite place to be.

Third, that my mom gets a stellar discount through work at a whole slew of hotels, so apart from spending a day crying after finding out we were going to be homeless a little longer than planned, we're not paying too much more than rent at our previous place and I LOVE continental breakfast every morning and not having to worry about cleaning or cooking after work each day.

Fourth, that the BPO (bank appraisal) came back at the same price as before. There were a lot of terrible possibilities for what could have happened here (anything from paying more money, to waiting a few more months for our house to close and paying even more extension fees, to calling it quits on our house all together) and we are extremely blessed that this went our way. We are especially blessed because these houses are selling for quite a bit more now, and in another couple of months this would undoubtedly have come back higher.

Fifth, that we got our new and completely valid bank approval letters yesterday, signed our closing documents AGAIN last night, and  and should be getting keys at least by next week. HOPEFULLY TOMORROW!!

Lastly, that in spite of all the drama we've been dealt in the last couple of weeks and even months, we're completely fine and actually feel pretty good about how things are right now. I've been really worried about moving into a new ward again after having a less than stellar experience at our last ward, and this extra couple weeks have been incredibly essential in making us feel ready, prepared, and even a little excited for our new ward. Also, it's been so nice to take things like grocery shopping and cleaning off of the list of to dos for the last couple weeks, and just get to spent time together after work each day going out to eat or watching movies/tv.

The eating out part has surprisingly been one of our least favorite parts. We're looking forward to having a kitchen and eating healthy again, and so are our bodies. The other least favorite has been that we didn't exactly know we would be displaced for weeks rather than days, so we're sorely missing the rest of our wardrobe that is extremely inaccessible at the moment, along with some other things that you would never realize how much you miss until they're gone--or in the back of a storage unit for weeks.

So needless to say, we're still homeless but doing just fine!

The last couple of weeks have been filled with MANY awkward conversations about the status of our new house. These moments tend to sneak up on us during meeting rooms full of doctors, or church where my mother voluntarily tells everyone how we'll be around for a couple weeks because we're living in a hotel. These obviously lead to the painfully embarrassing moment where people realize that technically living in a hotel means you are a transient, much like Bob the mentally unstable man who lives in Liberty Park. Yup, that's us. Not exactly a fact that you love having all of your superiors know. I should point out that NEVER have WE been the ones to bring this conversation up and voluntarily admit that we're "between houses" at the moment. But there is always some wonderful co-worker around who says something awesome like "guess what, Andrew's homeless" or "Hey Megan are you coming to my going away party Saturday?" to which some other awesome co-worker replies "Oh, don't you know Megan's homeless and staying with her parents on weekends so she won't be here Saturday". It's awesome.

We just keeping reminding each other that eventually it will all just be a really good story, that we can tell our kids one night around the dining table in our house.

Hopefully we'll have keys tomorrow and officially be homeowners!!! But if not, then we'll enjoy another great weekend in Woodruff, where I will snuggle new baby Rowen all weekend long. That would be okay too.

New Plans...

Well, everything didn't go as planned with the house this weekend. We signed all of our papers on Friday, but the sellers couldn't get in to sign papers until Monday, and the bank can take as long as they want (up until Friday) to sign them. This means that we certainly aren't getting keys today, and we really really hope that we get them sometime this week, as we have to be out of our house by tonight.

So, on Saturday I headed to Evanston for Elise's baby shower at Nicole's house (can't wait for that new little nephew to make his appearance!), and Andrew started loading up the moving van. After the shower Nicole, Elise, and Aubri all came back home with me and helped me clean our place; while Dad and Matt helped Andrew load everything into the moving van and truck and take it all to a storage unit in South Jordan. It took all afternoon and evening, and after some quick dinner out, everyone headed home and Andrew and I were left in our mostly empty house.

Yesterday Andrew and I took another trip to the storage unit to unload more stuff (it's unbelievable how much stuff we fit in our tiny duplex), and then headed home, stopping at Lowes for a few last minute cleaning supplies and walking out with new pantry shelves. All that's left in our place is our bed, the TV, some various cleaning supplies, and enough clothing/showerstuff/makeup for the work week. That will all be hauled out tonight, when we turn the keys over to our landlord and officially become homeless. Hopefully it won't be for too long, but we plan to take advantage of our displacement by living out of a nice hotel for a few days while we wait for someone to finally hand us those blasted keys.

Ironically, I feel like I've had a giant weight lifted off my shoulders, and I feel less stressed out than I have in MONTHS. I think part of it came from doing our final walkthrough, part of it came for signing papers on the house, and part of it is knowing that we no longer have to worry about making any deadlines in getting everything moved in time for us to be out of our duplex and into the new house. Did we miss our deadlines and end up homeless? Yup. We sure did. Did those papers mean we finally get keys to our house? Nope. They sure didn't. Is the house starting to get a little blurry again as it gets longer and longer since we saw the house last? Yes. It sure is. I think it's just the simple truth of knowing that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong in the last week and the last month and the last six months of this house, and yet we're totally fine still and really feel like it's where we're supposed to end up and eventually we will. If it means a little hotel hopping in the mean time, then who cares. Heaven knows I'm happy for the excuse to eat our for every meal.
I promise when we finally get those keys, I will overload you with pictures and stop the very boring, whiney posts that have been ever present for awhile now.

Sooo close!

Well, it's finally getting down to the wire on this whole house thing. We're hoping to close on our house this afternoon! This week we've been waiting for our loan paperwork to go through the underwriting process, with new things to send or sign or explain everyday. It's been frustrating and nerve wracking, but we're finally about there! Good thing too, because after Monday we're homeless...

We were both feeling pretty discouraged about the whole thing this week (anytime anyone asks me about it I burst into tears--no matter where I'm at) because even though we are so close, it's been a very long road and we're very much beyond our stress limits.

In going through all of this drama, sometimes I forget what it is that we're being frustrated for. I forget exactly what the house looks like, or exactly how roomy it is, or how much I completely ADORE the kitchen. I look at pictures of listings of other townhouses on the same street and think that I must be remembering ours wrong. That perhaps it isn't worth all the trouble and we should just find something else. How much better could ours really be in comparison to all the other town homes on the market?

Last night we did our final walk through on the new house with our realtor. It was just what I needed to remember that it was all going to be worth it in the end. The house is clean and empty now, and I can't help but picture all of our furniture in place throughout the entire house. I walked around and thought of all the fun projects I have planned for each space, and how I can't wait to paint the whole house something other than tan and buy a new kitchen table and set up an actual office for Andrew. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely in love with that boy, but we're very much over living in a 1 bedroom 700 sq/ft house together. We're ready for SPACE. And CARPET....oh how we've missed carpet! We have seriously awesome original 1902 hard wood floors throughout our current place, they're GORGEOUS, but we've ready to have a little softness and warmth back on our feet for awhile. And some actual insulation from the lovely Utah Winter. And it truly would be nice to stop moving our appliance delivery date back every week. I think we've moved it about 10 times at this point. As of now, they're scheduled to be delivered NEXT WEDNESDAY. If I had to pick 1 thing I'm absolutely most excited for, it would be my NEW GAS STOVE. It's sooo PRETTY. Plus it will be nice to have 4 working burners, which we haven't had the pleasure of in about a year.

So the plan is to sign all our closing documents today, and then we will get keys to the new house on Monday (hopefully early!). That same day will be a mad rush to get everything out of the current place and into the new place, because we have to be out of there before Tuesday Morning. Should make for a pretty eventful Monday!

So hopefully in 3 days we will finally be in!...a mere 5 months later.

Good Ridence 2011

2011 has been a challenging year. It was certainly not without it's challenges, but was also full of blessings .

The hardest parts of 2011 are attributable to my lack of a job from September of 2010 until April of 2011. Those were some looong, lonely, and trying months. However, we learned an awful lot about ourselves and our relationship and came out better in the end having been through it all.

In January, Andrew got promoted to study coordinator in the GI department at University Hospital, following his December graduation.

In January, I redoubled my efforts to find a job after my graduation in December, and I discoverd online deal sites. This led me to the realization that while I couldn't force someone to give me a job right that moment, I could at least put some effort into making the money Andrew brought in go as far as possible. So from January through March I became a hard-core couponer and managed to stash away a ton of food storage and a ton of other stuff, spending next to nothing. It was really fun.

We also welcomed sweet baby niece Bethany during this time as well, making the Cox grand kids even at 3 boys and 3 girls. We love her.

At the end of March I interviewed and landed my job as a study coordinator in Pediatric Genetics working in immunology and rheumatology. This was the biggest of blessings to say the least, and things started to get a heck of a lot easier financially. After being unemployed for the last 10 months (since June 2010 when I quit my job working for the WORST BOSS IN EXISTENCE), it was a major adjustment to say the least, but it felt really nice to be challenged again.

April through July was pretty uneventful and was mainly filling with work. And I stopped being a hard-core couponer because I was too tired to go the Smiths next door to our house. We did get to watch Josh graduate high school in May, and made an impromptu all night trip to Seattle for the holiday weekend. We probably won't be doing that again for awhile. Day time is a little easier.

In August Andrew and I went to Hawaii for our 1st anniversary, put an offer in on a house, and then did a whole bunch of waiting (interspersed with drama) for the remainder of the year. I also discovered Pinterest and decided that I would become the queen of diy. Or maybe I discovered Pinterest, wanted to become the queen of diy, and so I decided we needed to buy a house....it's debatable.

Fall and Winter were pretty frustrating and nerve-wracking, as we learned to live with the fact that we had no idea when we were going to move, or if we were going to have a place to live in the next few weeks. This situation unfortunately hasn't changed, but we've learned to adapt and go with the flow rather than constantly worry about each passing day. We've also learned to live without all of the things that have been packed away in boxes since the beginning of November. This included learning to live with the walls of boxes throughout the entire house, that continue to grow weekly as we accumulate Christmas and birthday presents as well as stuff for a house that we hope to eventually have. Andrew also spent a couple of months studying to the GMAT, so that he can apply to grad school this year. It meant a lot of hard work for Andrew and a lot of boredom and loneliness for me. It sucked.

Thanksgiving was spent with my family in Woodruff, and Christmas was spent with Andrew's family in Washington. It was so nice to have a break from work and worrying about the house, and just get away from it all for awhile and spend time with family. We spent my birthday driving home from Washington all day, and Andrew's was spent in Woodruff with my family for church and dinner. New Year's Eve was spent on the couch in front of our new Christmas/birthday present TV watching movies, taking a short break to watch the ball drop and ring in the new year. We're super exciting people. This was probably an improvement from last year where we spent the 26th through the 3rd sick in bed, although we did take a PJ clad drive up to the U to watch the new years fireworks from Legacy bridge and that's a little less sad then watching them on TV....

So now it's the beginning of January and a new year. We have big plans for this year, starting with finally closing on our first home!--which should happen in the next week but we're not holding our breath or getting too stressed out about it. This will obviously be the first step to becoming the queen of diy :), followed by opening the boxes to all those power tools I got for Christmas--they're currently part of the wall of boxes.

Then in February we're getting another new little one, and this time we get a nephew! Pretty excited about that little guy!

We're glad to have it behind us. Here's to hoping for great things in 2012!

Also, I plan to be better about blogging and taking pictures this year as well!