Tag Archives: house

Pile of Stuff

Here for Another Year

Big Events,

I was browsing through some old pictures today, and I came across this one:

Pile of Stuff

We took it the night that we moved into our house, the one we’ve been renting now for over a year. Josh and I drove in from Colorado that night, with a car and a trailer full of wedding gifts, stuff, and furniture from our parents. That night we unloaded the car and trailer, dumped everything in a pile in the living room, and rolled out sleeping bags in the bedroom to sleep. It was fun to remember that night, and those first few days of being married, and how fun and happy they were. Now we’ve been married for over a year—wow, over a year! We’ve really enjoyed living in this house throughout it all, haunted dungeon and lack of AC included.

Well, we’ve known now for some time that our landlords (who are great and awesome) are planning on selling this house this summer, which has made us vey sad. We tried to be optimistic and look for a new place to live, though. But, happy day, we just found out that they’re actually delaying putting it on the market and want us to sign a contract for another year! Hooray for blessings! Josh and I know we’re so lucky, and we’re looking forward to another year in this great house!

House Pictures

Just Life

So here’s some pictures I’ve taken recently of our house. The grass (aka weeds) in the front was really really long, but our landlords had someone come and cut it all, and I was so excited that it looked better I went and took some pictures of the front…and of the back, which still kind of looks like a jungle, but hey. It’s kind of fun. A cat lives and/or explores back there. Hopefully the cat catches mice (because we had one in our house, but Josh caught that one). So anyway, we still fell super blessed and lucky to have such a nice (albeit old and quirky) house to live in!

Breaking and Entering

Just Life,

Yep, our house was broken into and entered, but don’t worry—just by us. One Sunday Josh was at the church at a meeting, and I was going to meet him there for a ward activity, so I grabbed the cookies and my cell phone and walked out the door and—oops—forgot the keys. I spent a little bit of time trying to break in myself, but no doors were open and (though the three doors in the back of our house are all pretty broken) I couldn’t get in without actually breaking glass. So I gave in and sheepishly called Josh, who had a friend give him a ride home (I had dropped him off). But Josh and I were still locked out, and we had to figure out a way to get back in.

Luckily, the basement apartment of our house, which is being remodeled, had its own key. We have a copy, fortunately, so Josh unlocked the door and made it inside…but the problem is the door from the basement apartment to our house was still locked. So we tried to figure out what we could do to unlock the door.

Next to the door, there’s a kind of decorative window with a bunch of small panes of glass. Like so many other things in our old house, one pane is broken, and I had covered it up with cardboard earlier. Glancing around, I saw the hole and got excited. “Josh!” I said, “We can go through that!”

Josh was a little skeptic, however. First he tried, but his shoulders were way too broad. So then it was my turn. I squeezed in my shoulders and head…but that wasn’t the hardest part for me. But, with Josh pushing me, and my turning just so, I was able to wiggle through! Hooray! I opened the door and let Josh and, and now the fact that I fit through that will be my claim to fame!

DSCN6688

The Hardships of Life

Just Life,

Photo 187Two words: No AC. That pretty well describes our summer this year. I feel like Josh deserves a medal for listening to (and being patient with) all my complaining. But it certainly has been a “character-building” summer, in many ways. We keep lots of fans blowing, open the windows as soon as it gets dark out, and close them as late in the morning as we can. I guess it’s definitely bearable—just hot! The heat comes with some funny side effects, too. For example, since our door doesn’t have a screen (the screen’s broken, of course), but it’s the quickest way to get cool air into our house at night, we open the door wide, put a fan in front of it (sometimes two), and then turn off all the lights or else our house will fill up with bugs. One night we were sitting at the computer and I turned over and saw this huge beetle-looking thing on the curtain by us. I jumped up and away so fast that it scared Josh, but he took care of it. So with the heat and the bugs and the dark…it’s been an interesting summer. ;-) At least our freezer is stocked with ice cream and otter pops (thanks, Brenn and Audrey), and we drink lots of cold ice water and stay cool the best we can.

DSCN6684In addition to living without AC, we’ve also been building character as we live without a dishwasher. I didn’t realize how dependent we were on it till it was taken away! But a few months ago we noticed that our new floor has been warping by the sink, so the plumber came over to check it out and found out that our dishwasher basin or whatever is cracked and leaky. He “solved” the problem right then and there by turning off the water to the dishwasher, which stopped the leak…and rendered us dishwasherless. (Josh tried to turn on the water again later, but we couldn’t find the valve.) So we waited to hear from our landlords about a new dishwasher. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and…well, we finally heard from our landlords (Chad and Kelly) that they had just had a baby! Well, our grudges were forgotten and we were happy for them and more understanding. We even sent them a congratulations card in the mail. Anyway, word is the new dishwasher will come soon, and we’ll have only (hallelujah!) six more dishwasher-free days! Woo hoo!

So, despite these oh-so-challenging “hardships,” Josh and I are still very, very happy and loving life! (But if you have any tips of how to cool down a house in the heat of summer, we’re all ears!)