New House Resolutions...Revisited!

About a year ago, Richie and I were anxiously waiting to move from our rental house into our OWN house. After a cramped, cluttered couple of years in a house we eventually hated, I made a list of resolutions for how I hoped life in our new house would be. Now that we've gotten settled, I thought it would be fun to see how I'm doing on my goals!

1) Learn how to wash clothes with bleach. I am pleased to report that I now wash 1 load of laundry per week in bleach. I'm sure I will end up getting some weird nose disease for sniffing all that Clorox, but there is just something about the smell of bleached sheets and towels that I just love.

2) Don't keep things I don't really need. I guess to be honest this item is still a work in progress. I did create a filing system that has worked out pretty well. Organization takes a heck of a lot of work! But I am very happy to say that so far we've managed to do light years better than we ever have before in this area!

3) Create a place for every thing. This ties back in to the previous item. I think we've done pretty well with keeping things organized and clutter-free. I've really been enjoying my label maker, and amazingly, a little $20 mom toy really does make a big difference!

4) Start fixing the house up from Day 1. I've got to say, we've blown this one out of the water! When we moved in, we came up with a pretty nice sized list of things we want to do. We still have lots of projects to tackle, but as of today (and with the recent help of Richie's dad) we have managed to accomplish quite a bit...painting, new lighting, knobs and pulls, landscaping. I'm excited to see what we'll do in the year ahead!

5) Decorate in a way that really reflects our taste. When we moved, we sold just about every significant piece of furniture we owned: couch, tv, entertainment center, tables, lamps, beds. I had fantasies about how much FUN we would have taking a (small) wad of cash out on the town to buy our dream (budget) furniture. Let's just say my high hopes were not met. The process of decorating has proven to be longer and more difficult than I imagined. But although we don't have all the furniture we need and want, what we do have, we really love.

6) Invite our friends and family to come enjoy our new home! Mission Accomplished! We celebrated my birthday and Owen's birthday at home, as well as hosted a big Thanksgiving Day get-together with our friends. We bought a new bed and moved our bed to the extra bedroom, so the futon has been temporarily retired. Whew!

7) Meet our neighbors. We've also done relatively well on this one. Being the Type A that I am, I drew out a map of the houses around ours and have managed to fill in the names of most of our neighbors. Really we only converse with our direct next-door neighbors....two Mississippians!

So, although this is yet another post that has nothing to do with Owen and is probably one of the most boring things you've ever read, I've had fun taking a look back over the last year, so thanks for indulging me.

Oh, and that swing that the front porch was just begging for?

Done and done!