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Happy Halloween!!

November 1, 2013

A sad holiday is one where there is no one to spend it with because you may have waited until the last minute to plan anything. But we are not ones to mope around and feel sorry for ourselves so out came the loud Halloween party music, the pile of hurriedly bought candy (I break into cold sweats when I think of kids coming to a house with no candy!), and naturally, our wedding clothes. I will take any excuse to get some more use out of that dress, not to mention how dashing my husband looks in a tux. Add some chocolate martinis and we have a lovely two man party!

There’s nothing like opening the door to the kids, “Trick or TREEEAAAT!!” followed by the mother, “…oh and you are in a wedding dress….” I kept wondering if they could see our faces – It’s part of a costume!! Then they would gather outside the window peering in to see the strange bride cooking in her wedding clothes. Greg got “nice costume” – clearly his translated better. But truly what made this evening particularly magical was that my dimmers finally came in the mail!!!! Our two lights in our living room are lovely but have always been way to bright for my taste (I’m a weirdo about lighting). I’ve been begging Greg to figure out a way to make them dimmer but then I figured there must be something you can plug a normal light into that had a dimmer on it, AND THERE IS!!! I’m so happy about this. OH anddd, we found some great under counter lights on our last Ikea visit that also have dimmers! Our house is slowly acquiring mood lighting which puts my poor nerves at ease : ) Unfortunately our outside lighting is not yet up to par which we tried to make better by lighting our one Jack o’ Lantern. This only scared the children and caused many of them to ask, “what happened to him?” to which Greg would reply, “he’s old.” We all know this is a lie considering we just carved him six short days ago. The truth is, I am selfish and wanted to enjoy him all to myself, thus he has been residing in our toasty little house and melting quickly away. He is, in a sense, the face of selfishness.

Despite having the potential to be a sad, depressing day, this was one of my favorite Halloweens ever filled with good music, good smells, pumpkin soup and cornbread, my handsome husband and of course, good lighting. Hallelujah.

we so sexy

Cozy Nights

October 29, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comments 2

home / that darn house / that dog Bentley

On our first date I told Greg I wasn’t high maintenance, I just liked nice things. It probably didn’t help that I worked at a high-end residential interior design firm for three years either. Your reality becomes very skewed. All of a sudden any bed under $20,000 seems like a great deal! It’s sad when reality sets in and you realize how much higher that high-end really is ; ) All that to say, we made a trip to Ikea this weekend. I so wanted curtains cause our living room looked so very stark and I hated being in it but every place I looked was way over our goose egg budget. Enter Ikea. We now have a bit more warmth to our place and I am tremendously more pleased. We also got a cool cow hide rug but had to take it back cause it was just too weird to be walking on animal.. I think Bentley was a bit weirded out by it too… he recognized his kin under him. So we headed to Pottery Barn instead and found a floor model rug in just right size that was $400 less than it would be new! Sure it has one large spot of sticky on it but we all know our furniture is going downhill at double speed now that that dog has entered our lives, so it’s no big deal. I am currently sitting on a wet couch because he knocked an entire glass of red wine onto our not as white couch and it had to be vigorously scrubbed. Sigh. Anyways, back to the happy parts.. now we have cush under our feet and our hearts are happy. Look! It looks sorta pretty now!

The corner to the left is desperately in need of a chair but it also is the perfect place for a CHRISTMAS TREEEEE so I thought that would give us time to save up for said chair : ) We also got a new bookcase! Here it is in the dark cause I haven’t had time to properly decorate it yet ; ) Notice Stan (the pumpkin) is back! He has a special voice that goes with him.

This is a classic example of why I much prefer having my furniture delivered, fully intact. I got something wrong on step 3, putting this together, but didn’t notice till step 53. Apparently this whole thing is held together by itself. And this is where angry, annoyed Hillary emerges. Pesky screws. Oh! but the real miracle was getting that sucker in Greg’s car! The Lord sent a very nice man to help this weak lil lady and somehow it miraculously fit. Happy Hillary. We also took off the doors to some of our kitchen cabinets to have some makeshift open shelving. I’m very excited about this because our cabinets do not operate in a functional way. If you think it will open one way, you can almost be sure it will open on the other side. I don’t think that anyone logically thought about anything while installing lights or appliances or anything at all in this house. This was made clear when we put in a new light above the sink and it became even more obvious how not centered it was.

^^yayyy open shelving! booo giant microwave

Oh well. Greg even moved the mirror over in the bathroom because again, it was not centered on the sink but shoved in the corner, centered on nothing and jammed up against the towel rack which allowed for a continuous shoulder bruise every morning. It’s these sorts of things that made me angry at first but now I’m realizing this house just needs a whole lot of attention and love cause apparently it hasn’t ever had any : ) aren’t we good people! Let’s see, we also got big curtains to cover up our ugly hallway laundry room and made it a bit more pretty by taking down the dinky, crooked, falling down shelf and putting up two new semi more sturdy shelves! Slowly but surely, things are making me more happy! Ooo and we got some more curtains in our bedroom so our window doesn’t look so silly above our dresser : )

^^LOOOK! ample room for legitimate bedside tables someday!!!!

I even ironed and hemmed all the curtains myself. I felt so very domestic. I think that’s about all we did this weekend. In other news, Bentley is getting huge! LOOKIT!

He also learned to catch.

Sometimes he’s a good dog, sometimes he’s a bad dog. He likes to bite me. I think it’s because I’m getting squishy. I must be fun to bite. Well, I’m going to go enjoy the cozy rain. It finally feels like fall!! I miiiiight have listened to some Christmas music today because you never know! It might be sunny all winter down here in sunny Southern California, so one must take advantage of such dreamy, Christmassy feeling days! Happy Monday everyone! We really really miss you all!

Weekend Bliss

October 21, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comments 3

date night / family days / mmmm meals / wedded bliss

I love weekends. I’ve grown to love them more the last couple of weeks. This weekend was especially special because well, first, my husband brought back date night. Yessssss. We enjoyed hot dogs and popcorn and cherry coke and sour patch kids while watching Captain Phillips on the big screen. I have an obsession with popcorn so any event that is centered around that, is a good one. I still must wonder though, why a giant cargo ship does not have at least one weapon on board to defend itself especially in dangerous territories. If someone has an answer, I’d love to hear it because I think Greg is getting tired of me asking him : ) Saturday, my mom and sister made a surprise visit and brought my car to me!!!!! Freeeeedommm!!!! Finally! I missed them so so sooo very much and was so happy to see them. And Sally works again and was able to make the long long trip, so praise the Lord for that! Greg took us to a delectable dinner and the free desserts and singing began. Sigh, I am passed the age of looking forward to birthdays. When I was little, my favorite song was Happy Birthday To Me. Sweet child was I. My mom would notice me getting depressed half way through opening presents because I knew my birthday was almost over. Now my husband notices me getting depressed the day before the day is even here out of pure dread ; ) BUT any day that includes feasting is usually a good one so let’s celebrate.

^^he’s a trooper for hanging out with allllll those women… alone

Now, remember the fun things we are looking out for as little things from the Lord that tell us He loves us? I found another! This one is all for me, I just know it! On Sunday, we took Tay and mom for a drive to show them the heavenly neighborhoods in Pasadena.. Remember a while back I told you about that one that basically had an angels chorus playing when you looked down it? And then I said that Mr. Klein said, the Father of the Bride house is located around that area? Weeeellllll we decided to go find the actual house and looked up the address and *insert smile here* it’s on our street!! Just on the south side : D : D : D Basically, you can draw a straight line from us to them cause weeeee share a street name which makes me very happy.. I thought our street name was ugly but nowww it’s not! So what if it’s miles away : ) What are the chances, of all the places in the LA area, that we would end up on the very street of my dream house. Probably only because, He knows what makes His kids happy even if it’s something as silly as sharing a street with a pretty house in a movie : )

We went to a new church that was really great and followed that up with more feasting, as we are prone to do. Taylor and mom were ever so sweet and took us out to a delicious lunch. And then we followed that up with a delightful walk to a bookstore to get some new gardening books! I’m very excited about those : ) I go back and forth on whether or not I actually want to spend the time and energy fixing up this place but either way, it’s always nice to have inspiration : ) It was so good to see my fambly even if it was a short lil visit.

Anddd since we now have cable, Greg is a happy man since he finally gets to watch football again. He doesn’t look happy here because his favorite quarterback is getting beat by his favorite team. Oh, the heartbreak. Bentley and I clearly have much sympathy for such sad sad times.

And then today I woke up to this deliciousness.

Followed by thisssss

^^notice the pumpkin decoration <3

Heeello! That guy knows how to brighten up any dreaded day! Fruit tarts, bagels and lox, raspberries, french press coffee ANDDD mimosas??? If only I had more hands to help with the shoveling! He’s too good to me and I love him. Happy Monday everyone : )

Oh, to be a girl

October 18, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comments 4

that darn house / that dog Bentley / the daily life / why do i act like a child

A lady once told Greg she could not be a Christian on the pill. Oh, hormones. I seem to have gotten an extra dose of them. After that last post about the excitement of getting internet tomorrow (and I truly was ecstatically excited), I gleefully headed home to my no internet house, and looked around and plunged back into my deep hole of despair. None of the doors stay open, the bathroom feels like a prison, I hate cooking in that kitchen, the rooms are too narrow you can’t put any furniture in them, I sniffled. If you know me well, you know that if my room is messy, I start to get depressed. Very depressed. I don’t notice this coming on nor do I know how to fix it until someone (usually my mom) asks me if my room is clean. Very juvenile, I know, but I would look around and notice, woah… it has gotten messy! and set out to clean it up and bam! the feeling of hopeless despair is gone. Poor Greg found this out early in our dating relationship and I noticed if he ever got to my place before I got home and noticed my room being messy, he would quickly set out to start putting my clothes into nice folded piles, make my bed, and get things straightened : ) He’s a dear man. Anyways, I was so overwhelmed with the mess that does not seem to be going away on its own and looked down to notice my dog wasn’t near me anymore and thennn noticed that the door to the guest room was no longer latched and quickly rushed to it to find that Mr. Golden was peeing on my freshly made bed that I had just washed allllll the blankets and ironed the sheets for! Well that just put me over the edge and I think something in my little brain snapped. Cue the dramatic drop to the floor in tears. I called Greg sobbing telling him I hated this house I hated this dog I hated his job and that he was never home anymore I hated hated hated… Thank goodness for stable men. May I also mention, with all that’s been going on lately, we decided it was in fact that darn pill that was making me angry all the time and it would be best to be rid of it at this point. No one tells you that the first couple days you go off it, get ready for bitchzilla. It’s a good thing our first child is a tough little pup that doesn’t hold grudges because I’m still learning many things about parenting. For example, do not strike your child to the point where they move three feet. Poor puppy : ( I’m a terrible mother. Granted, he does slide very easily and it was more of a shove than a hit but man I felt awful. He looked at me with such sadness and went in a corner and curled up, blinking at me with his sad puppy eyes. I felt so horrible and went over to him just wishing he would chew on my hand to show me he didn’t hate me. But he didn’t. The sad blinking continued. Greg came home to a zombie wife that sat looking straight ahead, motionless. This lasted longer than it should have. Again, thank goodness for men and their ability to not be offended by such behavior. Anyways that night was fun but come the next day, the sun was shining! The trees were beautiful! I took Greg to work with whistles and skips, in awe at being able to live in such a lovely area! I go home, and a man comes to install internet AND cable! I haven’t had cable television since I lived with my parents. It. Is. Amazing! It’s like having someone home with me all day… just chatting in the room next to me! It’s wonderful! I rearranged my house and now I love it! Sure it’s not a fine piece of craftsmanship but it’s a great house and will be fun to live in for the next couple years! Do you see what Greg has to deal with? Extra gems in his heavenly crown for working with this psychopath. Anyways, this guy is back to loving me.. just in time to go into some strict training : ) Greg says he looks funny here but I think he’s cute. Thank goodness for Friday!! Lots of love to you all!

WE GET INTERNET TOMORROWWWW!!!!

October 15, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comment 1

that darn house / that dog Bentley / the daily life

I’ve never been more excited for internet in my life!! Let’s see… there’s been a whole lot of this going on lately: Other than staring straight ahead and/or at our one corner of fall beauty, we have beeeeennnn umm, what have we been doing? I think this is pretty much all we do. I have two rooms left of boxes that I can’t bring myself to face. They are all books and I have no more bookshelves to put them on so here is my dilemma. One might say, just go get some cheap bookcases and problem solved however, one would need a car to pick up said bookcases and Greg has the car all day so voila – the rooms remain unpacked. I shut the doors and pretend there is no problem, and go back to staring at my fading tulips. Greg let me go get some plants for out front of our stark little house. Here let me show you the before… the after will soon come but it still looks awful so we’ll have to wait ; ) One may say Ohhhh it’s cute! but that’s just because you aren’t here in person. Those pillars are plastic and have a row of small nails sticking out of them. The windows have previously been described but we did find out they are ripply because they are in fact melting! The giant holes in the grass are from where the previous tenants dug up the shrubs and sprinkler system (I’m thinking out of anger considering there was a petition put out against them by all the neighbors to get them evicted).. With patch jobs like these, it’s hard to see why anyone would want such a thing. Yes, their fridge was too big so the obvious solution was to cut the counter and fill in the space that I’m assuming used to be for a dishwasher, with a piece of jaggedly cut painted plywood. And yes, that is a single nail holding that bit of cupboard up. The cabinet door was also cut and hung back up, complete with a wobbly lopsided shelf nailed inside! My mom got the giggles when she saw this. Luckily, this strangely sized hole could be the perfect spot for a wine fridge someday! I asked our landlady if we could take down these lovely cupboards and she said “NO! The opening above is just open – it would look ugly!” Yes, cause clearly, this looks fantastic. Anyways, so Greg let me get some plants to try to help with the starkness of the front area (probably also to make me stop crying since I also lost my glasses the night before and am back to my fuzzy way of life… boooo) anddddd he let me get the twirly plant I’ve always wanted since I was a little girl and went to a millionaires house and they had them by their front doors and I was smitten and have coveted them until this day, when I got my own in a pretty pot! Except when we got it home and put it on this lovely “stone looking” tile, all of a sudden it didn’t look so good anymore. I do love that they didn’t even try to stager this lovely stone pattern. It’s just plunk plunk plunk. We done! But look! Now I have a vine! It still doesn’t look pretty from the front yet (hence no after photo : ) ), but it sure does make me happy to look out on it now! I also met lots of neighbors whilst planting. One neighbor, Diane, loves little Bentley and brings her dog, Mr. Darcy, to come play with him. He’s a therapy dog and is awfully sweet. He’s teaching Bentley good manners since we can’t seem to get that through to him. I find us screaming to each other, “THAT’S NOT CALM AND ASSERTIVE BEHAVIOR!!” as he continues to plunge his razor sharp teeth into our flesh, gleefully getting the desired, frenzied reaction from us. All that to say, his training collar is coming on Thursday and then he’ll be a good dog. I’m very excited about this new method cause I saw it work on little red and quite frankly, Cesar’s “be calm and assertive and the dog will respect you…” doesn’t seeeeem to be working like it does on his tv shows. Until then he can continue being Darcy’s shadow. Diane’s awful sweet. She brought me one succulent plant and one daffodil bulb and one tulip bulb to welcome me to the neighborhood : ) She has no teeth. Our landlady decided that since the shrubs are now gone, rocks were a good idea. Because that’s every gardeners dream. I’m still working on picking the hundreds of them out. Oooo! and Greg mowed the lawn this weekend for the first time! It looks significantly better. Just in time for AT&T to come dig it up. Actually, they put it back quite nicely : ) Let’s see what else… I took Bentley to the beach for the first time. He loved it and ohh man, I did too. I miss the ocean so much. We went down to Seal Beach and I parked in the cutest neighborhood.. everyone was out on their patios, entertaining.. it did my soul good : ) Here’s Bentley’s first encounter with a wave. I kept trying to get far enough away from him to take a video but he’s my little shadow and likes to be right next to you. Preferably under your feet. In other news, I’m starting to realize we are crazy. It started to sink in as I watched Greg describe our situation to a sweet young couple – “We just moved here.. for my new job.. we just got a new puppy.. and actually just got married 8 months ago..” I see them glance at each other nervously, both realizing they have stepped into a giant hole of need. So, hopefully, having realized this, we can find time to slow down and settle a bit.. enjoy this soon to be good puppy and savor the last couple months of our first year of marriage. And on a depressing note, I shall do my best to savor my last week as a twenty five year old. Sad day. Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone!

Good Things

October 8, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comment 1

home / that darn house / that dog Bentley

The first night we moved in, we saw something horrifying. Ourselves. In the mirror. Except it wasn’t a mirror, it was our front window. The lovely tenants before us installed a one way mirror film on the front windows – I’m assuming for privacy except I think they put it on the wrong side. This meant everyone could see in but we could not see out. So, as we looked around our empty cheaply put together house, this was the easiest and first thing to go to head towards improvement.. or so we thought. The film in the living room came off relatively easy but the one in my studio (eee!!! still excited about that) seemed to have melted on. We attempted to peel it off that first night but it left a new film of stickiness that made the windows look frosted in a bad way ; ) Sooooo yesterday, I finally knuckled down and spent several hours scraping and scraping and using half a bottle of goo be gone to get the gunk off. I now have callused fingertips, sparkling clean windows and a lifted mood! They still are ripply and ugly but make me so much happier. Let’s not forget about that steaming side of self accomplishment that came with it! The little treasures that came with this place, the unicorn sticker and the permit that’s been stuck there for the last 10 years it seems, have also been removed and the people rejoiced.

before

after!! You can now also see the large tree branch that fell down a couple days ago that has yet to be removed : )

To celebrate my small little victory, I decided to tackle another one. That dog. He needs exercise but hates to be on a leash and instead pulls against it like a fish on the end of a line, so it’s been very difficult to take him on walks. Yesterday I decided, screw that, IIIII need a walk! So he can either walk with me or be carried… and he decided to walk!! I was so very proud of him. These are my little victories for the day. The sink is still clogged and the internet is not yet on but we did get water hooked up to our backyard so we can start watering our languishing fruit trees. Yes! We have fruit trees! Currently dying ones but not for long! I found out Bentley loves water.. and mud.. that lil rascal. He seemed to have a joyous day.

In other news, all rooms are still in complete disarray, but the kitchen is mostly put together so that makes me happy. I like to pretend the counters are real wood and the cabinets open easily and don’t in fact skin your knuckles every time you have to use two hands to get one of them open. That’s gunna get old fast : )

Hopefully next time my landlord comes over she won’t tell me how “so messy!” my house is and won’t accuse me of “you no make meal fo yo hawd woking husband!?” because nowww I have a fridge : ) : ) now if we can only get my car down here….. Happy Tuesday!!

Welcome to your new home

October 6, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comment 1

date night / that darn house / that dog Bentley

Hello again! My, my! …life has changed quite a bit since our last post, hasn’t it? Lots of good, lots of erm… changes : ) Greg and I celebrated eight months of married life recently and can I just say, I have the most amazing husband! I can’t imagine going through any of this without him.. I’m sure I’d melt into a little puddle of despair : ) We kicked off our last week in the Bay Area by finally making it over to a Giants game.. Greg had never been to AT&T Park so I was excited to show it to him. Unfortunately, one block from the park, in our attempt to find parking, we went down one wrong street which took us right onto the Bay Bridge headed in the completely wrong direction. Needless to say, we arrived a little late and one might say, not in the best mood. But, on the bright side, we did get to see a beautiful sunset from a different bridge ….aaaand since this wasn’t the first time I had made this obnoxious mistake, I knew about the left lane Treasure Island turn around so we didn’t have to pay a toll (hip hip hooray!) and I didn’t end up on an island like last time. These are improvements.

Plus, the Giants won. So there.

^^this is us attempting to look like we were having a great ol time

^^just kidding. It was fun… eventually.

The next day, the Lord sent us a miracle! ….my dad. Friday was packing day and I was so worried we would have to do it all ourselves which would be fine except our mattress is very very heavy. Plus my dad is the king of making things fit and although our truck was ginormous, when all was said and done, there was not one more thing that could have fit in there. We seemed to have acquired quite a few things at our short little stay in this house.

We celebrated the end of the dreaded packing day by sipping the champagne our landlords gave us for our wedding, while sitting on our little stone path, looking out at that heavenly view for the last time. And thennn we went for one last dining experience at our favorite sushi restaurant in town. I was so happy – I’ve always wanted to share our findings with someone and finally my dad (who is the best to share food findings with, as he is a savorer down to his bones) was able to finally enjoy it with us. Plus they were having a killer sake tasting which was a wonderful surprise. It was a wonderful night. So, one more BIG thank you to my daddy. We couldn’t have done it without you : )

Saturday we meant to leave real early, but cleaning the place took much longer than expected and we finally hit the road at noon. But the drive was quite pleasant and we made it safe and sound rolling in around 7. The landlady came to give us our keys and ask us about a dozen times if everything was good (she tends to like to repeat things..) We started to unpack a few things until we heard the clip clop of horses coming down the street with authentically dressed cowboys on them, listening to Mexican music. That made us smile. Lots of things are making us smile for different reasons. Like, I wonder why the door is made from three different types of wood? *smile* I wonder why there are explosives in our backyard.. *smile* I wonder why when you turn on the disposal, water shoots everywhere.. *smile* You get the idea. I think both of us have been having a hard time for different reasons.. Me because I’m a big baby and am away from my family and friends in an icky house where nothing works.. and Greg because I know he feels a tremendous amount of responsibility for the move and for the house. But it’s been a wonderful experience to band together and keep our heads in the game, knowing this is just a transition period where we get to rely fully on God and His provisions and remember to be extremely grateful for EVERYTHING He has given us. Things are getting fixed little by little and we are still so so blessed. It’s been a good reminder that there will always be things to complain about and that there will always be things to be thankful for. Our attitude depends fully on where our focus is : ) That’s been a day by day lesson : ) And as Greg says, if anything, it will help us appreciate the shiz out of our next place! : D

One thing that has made it easier to remember this lesson is this guy:

Oh my golly gee. This guy melts my heart. He is a cuddler and a lover and has made our lives incredibly more slow but hugely more blessed : ) His name is Bentley and he is good. He is going to be a big dog which I can’t wait for but I’m also treasuring being able to carry him everywhere cause he just melts when you pick him up. His favorite spot is under the bed and he loves when you get on your hands and knees to call him out from under. He does a squirmy little army crawl, hitting his head on each bed slat as he wiggles his way over with a big smile on his face. Then he stops and lets you pull him out by his paws and rolls over on his back while trying to bite your hand. Everything about that experience is good and makes my heart fuzzy except the hand biting. That must stop. He’s the sweetest most mellow little guy and ahh I just love him.

Yesterday we had Mr. Klein and the lovely Dr. Claudia over for a mini Octoberfest celebration which was ridiculously delicious and fun. It’s been good for me to learn to be okay with having people over when our house looks like crap. I’d normally be so embarrassed but this is teaching me to stop caring : D I’m actually quite thankful for that since it has always been one of our goals to have an open, welcoming house no matter what.. and let’s just face it.. no one has a perfect house all the time, and if they did, well… that wouldn’t be a very fun house to be in anyways. : ) Well, I’m rambling. Until next time, we love and miss you all!

Rainy Days and Mondays

September 23, 2013

by hillywoohoo

comments 3

home / our newest member / wedded bliss

Do NOT get me down! Oh my, this weekend was so wonderfully lazy I can’t even tell you how it soothed my soul. Saturday I woke up to the most wonderful gift from the Lord – rain! When the weather has been perfectly lovely, to sneak a rainy day in there, it just does this body good. It’s like it goes into a mental, slow down, just relax and enjoy mode. We had our fancy weekend french press coffee in our pretty, too-small-but-still-adorable coffee cups and lay in bed for hours watching the rain pour down and in, considering we had all the windows open. It was positively magical.

When we first moved in here, Greg was out running errands and I had all the windows open trying to air out the lovely chemical smell this place was sweet enough to offer as a housewarming present, and all of a sudden it just started pouring! Sudden downpours make me giddy. That was, I think, the last time it rained hard here. It’s has sprinkled here and there… maybe a minute or two of solid rain, but I’d been hoping it would rain like that just one more time while we were here… and it did!! Excitement!

Later, we went for a lil walk down to the market to get some food and on our way back up, something happened that we had hoped for since day one. We looked up and there was…. the white dog! looking over his roof down to the street where we were at. We locked eyes and had a moment. We always see him from our window but had yet to see him from the road. The things that make us smile.

This then made us wonder why that doggon breeder had never written or called us back. She had been awful flaky and slow about answering questions. She would tell us to call but never returned our maybe too frequent and eager calls. Needless to say, we were getting very discouraged. We have talked about a dog probably every day we’ve been married – “the white dog,” “the red dog,” “oh he’s a good dog,” “IIIIII wanna dog!” We even contacted a breeder when we were newly married and almost went through with it but we had just gotten back from a succession of trips and had yet to unpack and get settled. Plus, our place was pretty small so we thought we’d wait to get adjusted first. Back up a bit… A couple weeks ago, I was talking to my mom about the move and expressing how sad and discouraged I was. This place had the Lords fingerprints all over it – he practically shoved us in the door and handed us the keys. I didn’t want to leave but my mom very encouragingly said, “I know He will guide you to a new place there and will do something very specific that will tell you He loves you.” I’ve been eagerly awaiting seeing what He will do. Not only did He give us a place in a beautiful neighborhood, he gave us a guest room which I’ve always wanted, AND a studio, AND a big backyard, AND a garage! Plus, it’s under what we were expecting to pay and the lady liked Greg so much (duh, he’s a charmer), she went back on her no dog policy and is willing to let us finally have one. Now, this made us, umm… how do we say… ecstatic? Hence why we contacted the breeder.. hence the excitement in the last post. Then! The Lord, in His goodness said, no no children. I know you are excited but (chuckles here) let’s take a look at your bank account. ….We had gotten a bit delusional about such things and forgot to consider that (ha!) there is no way, right now, that we could afford a $2,500 dog as we saw they were going for. We just couldn’t. So, He led us to the most amazing breeder we could have ever asked for. We were a bit concerned because their prices were remarkably low, but his explanation was, “You know, we love these dogs. They have brought us so much joy over the years. We’ve been breeding Goldens since we got married, 22 years ago, just because we love them and love to be able to be a part of giving so much happiness to another family. We aren’t in it for the money but we just want to charge enough to know they are going to a good home that will cherish and take care of them.” Umm, how amazing is that! No games, no waiting for a response back for days and days. So, all that to say, this lil guy will be in our ever so eager arms next week.

I. cannot. WAIT. to meet him! So, we’ve pretty much been watching every dog training video available on youtube cause we are going to have a good dog! : ) I’m pretty sure this was His gift I’ve been waiting for because I cannot WAIT to move down now and turn that funny little house into a happy home.

Old House, New House

September 17, 2013

by hillywoohoo

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So, this will probably be the last day of our place resembling a lived in home before the extreme packing begins and the boxes start piling up. It’s rather exciting. This place is lovely and we have loved every minute we’ve been blessed to live here but I’m so looking forward to our next chapter, even if it looks like we’re taking a step backward : ) Best news ever is that Greg and I decided it is definitely a priority for our next place to be able to have a dog. Oh. my. That makes any ugliness that comes our way, 100% worth it. So, of course being the impatient person I am, I’ve already emailed several potential breeders and (!!!!!!) I already got a response back from one saying she has puppies right now!!! I should say this is very premature since nothing is confirmed but I’m about an 11 on the excited scale. Oh and before I forget, this would be our pups dad. Isn’t he handsoooomeee????

Your first grandchild is a hairy one, parents : ) And since we are talking about premature things, Greg possibly may have found us a delightful little house! Again, not set in stone but it is in a nice neighborhood in Pasadena with treelined streets : D and has a HUGE backyard for this puppy to play! It’s not pretty but it is a house (!!!!) with two bedrooms (hello, guest room!) AND another small room where I can paint. PLUS! It has a big two car garage so we finally will stop getting street parking tickets. It needs a whole lot of work and love but the more I think about it, the more excited I get.

Yesterday I took my Aunt Sarah’s advice and checked Craigslist for free boxes and sure enough! a bundle of boxes are waiting to be filled right now! I was feeling kinda lazy and reluctant to go on a scavenger hunt for boxes that may or may not be there but after checking every office supply store online and seeing it would cost $80 new for the amount I was able to get free, I quickly jumped in my car and set out on my box finding adventure. The guy I picked them up from had two of the cutest boys (probably three and four) named Nate and Graham who helped me carry them all out to my car : ) So, it was a happy experience and helped soothe my sadness as I remembered throwing away all these boxes so willingly just a couple months ago.

So, before it becomes complete disarray, let me take you on a little tour. Get your vomit bag ready cause I’m not a great videographer.

Alrighty, let’s walk you through this sucker. You’ve already seen this front door of bliss. I must say, it’s rather lovely to come home on this path.. it takes away all the frustration of carrying six bags of groceries up a steep hill. And that view aint so bad either.. I’m sorry I talk about it so much. Pictures don’t even begin to do it justice. You just have to experience it in person, in all it’s magnificence. But, I suppose a picture is second best.

Once you go down there, if you look to the left, this garden used to be there. It made me very happy. But it was neglected and is no more.

Now my only flourishing plant is my succulent pot : [

I got a bunch of succulents for the summer months when I knew we’d be traveling quite frequently. So far, they’ve hung in there!

Now let us adjourn to the liiibrary, as we call it when we are feeling fancy, or simply the dreaded dining room. It’s a nice room but it never really got fixed up and I always thought it was stale and cold. (It’s really because the only lighting is the overhead lighting which is awful and makes a buzzing sound. Consequently I don’t like eating dinner in there – lunch definitely – but not dinner so we end up eating most of them at our coffee table which is nice and cozy). : )

Those shelves were a nightmare to fill. Have you noticed the bookshelves in magazines all have the same color books, or real old beautiful books, or something freakishly off about them? Well, that was my problem here.. a whole wall of shelves to fill with our cheap, ugly books. But I figure it turned out more “eclectic” so I am satisfied. On to the living room! You must know, that when we first went into this place, it was basically like three long, narrow, oddly shaped rooms but because Greg left absolutely giddy (I’m pretty sure his ankles clicked at one point), we took on the challenge of tackling the odd, staggered, rectangle rooms.

There was a point when I was sitting on the couch with my freshly painted nails, and looked down to see they were the same color as the stripes on the pillows — which were the same color as the carpet — which was the same color as our bed — which was basically the same color as the rest of the house. Funny enough, the first time I visited Greg down in Calabasas, I looked around and noticed his whole place was brown. Shortly there after, I noticed I had this obsession with grey and everything I bought happened to be a dreary grey. So this brownish grey color that has invited itself into our house appears to be the sweet marriage of our two favorite colors. Or else, I simply have a problem.

This room then leads into bedroom. These doors do not shut without splitting. I am looking forward to doors that shut.

When we first moved here, there were blinds on these windows which didn’t look as nice, but were able to be rolled all the way up and you just had a seamless view of all of the city and the side hill. It was really breathtaking. After about a month of that, I was ready to be able to change in my bedroom without thinking some perverted teenage boy was probably on the street watching. Needless to say, I think our neighbors appreciated the newfound privacy that came with these shutters, even if they did block the view. Compromise, compromise. And there is our messy little office space. If you go through the living room again, it’ll take you down a little hall to the kitchen, which you have already seen.

We thought it was so weird that they had a window looking into the bedroom but it ended up being so nice to have something to look out at when you’re stuck doing dishes for hours on end. Turns out the bedroom used to be a screened in porch which explains the window!

Off of the kitchen is the bathroom..

It’s itty bitty but nicely appointed as Greg likes to say. I believe the landlords want to eventually move down here when they aren’t able to climb their stairs anymore, so they put a lot of thought into the finishes and things which I adore. And off the kitchen is what we call, Greg’s smoking deck. It also used to look much cuter but has dwindled from my recent neglect : )