the 2nd place we live...

So Bob and I moved to a new place! Well, the house isn't new, but the whole experience is new. We have windows!! There's at least one window in every room, even the bathroom. We don't even have to turn on any lights during the day! It's amazing!

The kitchen is huge and there's a ton of cabinet space, plus a window over the sink. 

The shower in the bathroom is a normal size, which seems huge. 

The ceilings are high enough to stretch and not scrape your knuckles on the painful, painted-over popcorn finish that our old place had. It's one bedroom, one bathroom, but the living room is big enough that we've sectioned it off to make a small part of it a little craft area for me. When we can afford it, I plan on getting a nice room divider to put between the two implied rooms. And there's a HUGE front window in the living room.

There's a nice yard, and on our front steps there's a cucumber vine in a planting box. 

I know a lot of people were like, "What? You already moved?" because we just kind of suddenly did it. But the former tenants were some friends of ours, and we learned that they were leaving Tuesday morning of last week, so we started moving in that afternoon. That night I decided we should just move our bed and some clothes over so we could go ahead and start living there. So we did. And holy cow--what an amazing change! I'm far less depressed and it's not as big of a struggle to get out of bed every day. Bob seems happier too! The hard part is now that I love this place so much I don't want to go to work--I wanna stay here!

The first morning I woke up here, I got up early with Bob and got breakfast ready in our fabulous kitchen, made him a lunch, and then sat in the living room looking out the big front window to watch the sunrise. It put me in a great mood and I've had some really good days since living here.

And moving was fun, and yet it makes me crazy. I love the change, but all the packing and unpacking drives me nuts. Plus, we had a limited supply of boxes. Luckily the move was just around the block, so we'd pack up all the boxes we had, load them into my car, drive the 15 seconds over to the new place,  unload them, unpack them, and then bring the empty boxes back to reload. I put things away during the process, so just about everything is in its place already. That was the best way to move! I've enjoyed it.

Our contract at the old place ends on the 31st, and this month's rent for the new place was already paid for by our friends who moved out. So we have a few more days to finish cleaning the old basement before we're done there. It's just really hard to get myself motivated to go back to that dank, dreary place, especially since I hate cleaning--especially there. But we'll get it done and hopefully get our deposit back too, especially since paying our deposit here has really hurt us financially. But we'll bounce back... That is, after tuition, textbooks, and September rent all get paid too...

more things I've recently made

So I won the Blog Candy from Aunt Elaine's blog the other day: a set of stamps, pens, some paper, and an ink pad. I've already used those stamps several times in the few weeks I've had them! At Trina's baby shower, to make a get well card, for some magnets my ward mission council made, and I finally decided to use them for some fun yesterday, just to see what I could come up with. I don't have tons of paper or supplies, so it's really simple. But I've learned that frequently, less is more.

And speaking of Trina's baby shower, it was so fun! I couldn't have done it without Ashley, so I definitely can't take credit for it all. She had some fantastic ideas and by the time we got everything decorated and people started showing up, it looked like something people would pay money for! I was so busy that I didn't take pictures of any of it, but I did take some of the gift I made for Trina. I love making hooded towels now, and matching wash cloths to go with them. I'm planning to make some and sell them on my Etsy store (as soon as I have some time!). But here is hers. The photos aren't the best because I was in a hurry, but you can still see how cute it is.

Now I need to get back to work. Bob's been getting onto me about finishing those incomplete assignments, but I needed a break! So back to work it is.

Trina's Baby Shower invitations

After going to Marissa's baby shower a few months ago, Trina said something about me helping to do hers at the end of the summer. So here it is, the beginning of August and I'm trying to get things all planned for it. I've split up the responsibilities between me and three other people, so hopefully it won't be overwhelming and too expensive for me. I'm really excited about it. I love throwing parties and making cute invitations and things.

And speaking of invitations, I got a sample of Trina's done. I love how it turned out! Sometimes I look at the things I make and I think, "Did I really just make something that freaking amazing?!"

So here is what they look like:

And here is what will be printed on the green section in the middle:

Maybe I should just make announcements and invitations for a living. I really enjoy doing it. I just wonder if people would actually want to pay me for it.