Getting Settled In

Unpacking
When we started the remodel last year, I should have took more time going through and purging before I packed up. Now that we've moved back in, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of THINGS we have. Fast forward 9 months and now I have to unpack all this stuff.

I'm doing what I can, unpacking and organizing a little bit every day. I am making keep and sell/donate piles as I go through each box. My goal is to de-clutter! I found lots of great tips on that topic, here.

The first week in the house, I think I emptied out at least 40 boxes. I unpacked all our clothes, the kids' clothes, and all our coats. I sorted the clothes and already donated the baby's outgrown outfits and crib beddings to our neighbor (no more crib -- he's got a new twin bed now). I washed and cleaned all the dishes, glasses, pots/pans, and kitchen appliances. I also unpacked all the pantry stuff. I love all the cabinet space we have now! It's so nice to be able to organize things instead of just cramming them wherever there's space.

Here's our beautiful Crate and Barrel dishes. Our family and friends pitched in to buy the whole set for us as a wedding gift.


That's my husband's BBQ sauce collection there on the top shelf. He loves BBQ!

And here's a peek at our pantry. That tall basket on the floor is where I keep a big sack of rice.


Even with all the boxes I've already unpacked there's still plenty more to go.



There's also a lot of little things that still need to be done around the house, too. For example, my husband finally hung the last door just this weekend. But I know eventually we'll finish!

Etsy Update

Obviously I don't have much time for sewing these days. But I do have 2 new books I'm adding to the shop:

I've already posted this one, here.



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And here's the second book, which I should have up in the shop within the next couple days:



You can see more pages from these books, and other japanese craft book photos here on my flickr set.

You've just finished your dream home, what are you going to do now?

For almost a year my husband has been hard at work remodeling our home. Actually, I wouldn't exactly call it a remodel. When I hear "remodel", I think of putting in a new floor or maybe tearing down a wall to open up a room. We tore down almost the entire house (except for one wall) and rebuilt it from the ground up. We had to move out during the project and have been living in an apartment about 5 minutes away from the house.

It was a lot of hard work and we didn't see much of each other, which is tough on the kids. Many of our friends who survived a remodel, warned us it would be tough on the marriage too. My husband and I would work all day during our day job. Then come evening, he would head to the house and work there until midnight. I would pick the kids up from school, get them situated with dinner, homework, baths, and then get them to bed. Sometimes I'd still be up when he got home and we'd talk for a bit before we both went to sleep. But many times I'd already be asleep and he'd be up at the crack of dawn to start the next day. Sometimes it would be days before we'd catch a glimpse of each other! But 9 months later we're finally finished and we're moving back in this week. I feel like we just won the Superbowl :) and if some unseen reporter were to say "You've just finished your dream home, what are you going to do now?" Why, I'd tell them, "We're going home!"

fall leaves and remodel update

On Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I walked next to the little one while he rode his bike around the neighborhood. There were tons of leaves on the ground.



He had so much fun zipping around on his bike. And he squealed with laughter as he climbed off his bike and got ready to jump into a big pile of leaves:


Here he is taking a turn as fast as he could. It's a great shot for a camera phone -- I got the rays of the afternoon sun shining through the trees overhead:


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The rain last week slowed things down a bit, but otherwise the remodel's going well. The stucco is finished and the exterior of the house will be painted in the next week. Daddy spends a lot of time working on the house. I come by with the kids on the way home. The kids and I love walking through the house and seeing how everything's coming together :) Here are pictures from a few weeks ago. The last picture was from just this morning.