But have no fear, my three dear readers! (Yes, Mom, that's you...and Bailey...and my grandparents who get this printed out and delivered via snail mail. Am I missing anyone?) My heart never left you. When I'm not putting on elaborate productions of avant garde plays for my students to suffer through, my thoughts are with wallpaper removal and power tools. I swear.
Nothing major has happened to the house lately since my job is pretty much 24/7, but we've managed to make some minor progress. So here, to fill the void, I give you a mish mash of house updates:
Update #1: We made our first big purchase for the house! Granted, it wasn't the first big purchase that we wanted to make (granite countertops)...but I still can't complain. Look at our two beautiful new babies:
The washer that came with the house was too ambitious...it wanted to be a clothes washer AND a floor washer, but spitting water all over the laundry room floor is not the same as washing it, no matter what it thinks. Actually, it makes it MORE dirty. So out it went, and in came these two new pretties. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to afford front-loading machines, but we found these old models on sale at Best Buy and saved $400 on the pair...score! They were the last two brand new ones they had in stock, so we didn't even have to take the floor models.
One of the things I hated the most passionately about apartment living was shared laundry rooms. I HATED saving up quarters, then having to check and see if the machines were available, then setting a timer and having to move all your stuff right away so you're not that one asshole who leaves their stuff in the machine all day...hated it. So I am entirely too excited to not only have our own machines in our own house...but to own ones that don't take quarters. Now if only Sean will let me do laundry every now and then.
Update #2: It's been fun to start thinking about decor, even though we can't afford to do everything that we want right now. I have some ideas and am trying to collect and organize them (with help from sites like Pinterest) but we haven't had time to do much real decorating yet. However, I did pick up this little, inexpensive guy while I was in California last week:
Update #3: I don't ever intend for this to become a political blog, but we've got some things happening here in Minnesota that worry me. We are one of four states this year who are voting on gay marriage. The other three could potentially make it legal, but not us: gay marriage is already illegal in Minnesota, and no matter what happens in this election it will stay illegal. The vote is just on whether or not we should amend our state constitution to make it even more illegal. Stupid, right?
Republican lawmakers have already basically admitted that they put it on the ballot because they hope it will drive conservatives to the polls. Apparently preserving people's civil rights is less important than making sure enough people on your side show up at their polling places. Nice guys. Real nice.
Anyway, I've never put a political sign on my lawn before (I've never had a lawn to put one on...) but I feel strongly about this issue.
I'm proud to have it out there, regardless of what the neighbors think...as I told Sean, if they feel differently, then I don't really want to be their friend anyway. I like my friends and coworkers, and I think they should have the same rights I do. It's pretty simple.
So we shall hold our breath until November 6, and continue to enjoy fall, and hopefully attack the wallpaper in the dining room in a few weeks once my program review is over.
