Before and After

So, when we first moved into our 300 square feet of home, I took pictures to show how bare and gross it was.  My goal was to make it cute and take after pictures, but it was hard to get it the way I wanted it to be.  But, finally, we are beginning to settle into our first home.  All two rooms of it!  Even though these will never be in the pages of a decorating magazine, I am quite pleased with our home - especially as we only have hand-me-downs for furniture - and a mix at that.  But, it's good enough for us and much better than the way it looked before!  Enjoy!

The dining "room"

The living room/study:

The hallwa....I mean kitchen:

Our bedroom, view one:

Our bedroom, view two:

Bathroom, view one:

Bathroom, view two:

And now, for the after pictures!

Our dining room, plus the bookshelf that doubles as an extension of our kitchen...we would have no room for all our dishes and appliances without it!

Our living room, complete with Adam's grandparents' couch, awesome bookshelf, his neighbor's recliner, my homemade coffee table, and our gorgeous wedding present - the black & white painting - it feels like a window, which gives more space to the room!

Again, our lovely couch, $2 Pier 1 pillows that match nothing, and my Great-great-aunt's trunk that we store linens and towels in.  What space we have - we use it!

The "study," complete with our black and white MacBooks.  Also, more art from our wedding - we were blessed with some talented people as friends!

Our tiny kitchen.  I actually enjoy the metal cabinets because the match the black, white, and red theme.  Plus, you'll notice I put my recipes on them with magnets as I'm cooking.  Another amazing space saver!

Our narrow hallway/kitchen.  But, it works!  I love the picture of White Sands Adam took.  I think it's perfect at the end of the hallway.

Our bedroom!  Pillows and curtains (and the rugs you can't see) courtesy of Pier 1 again - I love that store.  Also, you can see wedding pictures and the beautiful sketch of the Nauvoo temple - thanks to Amelia, Joel, Lisa, and Matt!  We love it and it matches perfectly!

This gives a little perspective of how small our home actually is.  Luckily we don't need into the furnace closet or we would have no place for my dresser!

This was the first room I completed (all four square feet of it!).  It may be simple, but I love our cotton balls and q-tips being in these jars.  Again, we use the space we have!

The other half of the bathroom.  If you're curious about the basket of tp, it's because whoever built the house put the toilet roll dispenser IN the shower.  Yeah, that makes sense.  But, Adam's Haitian art looks pretty sweet.

All in all, it's a pretty tiny place with quite the variety of materials.  But, it's our first home and it fits our needs!  We've already been able to invite people over, though we've discovered our max is six total (including us!).  But, we're just happy to be married and have a place we can afford to live in!

Spring Break!

So, to kick off our Spring Break...Lili and Bubs came over on Saturday.  At first I was going to plan all sorts of fun and games to keep them entertained - but I had no need to!  Bubba loves our recliner and will spend hours putting it up and down.  He also discovered where I keep jars of flour, sugar, and salt....so that was an exciting time.  They helped me plan the menu for this week ("You should cook Uncle Adam pasghetti.  And maybe some meatballs." - Lili).  Then, we went off to Checkers for a shopping adventure.  Luckily, they have these carts that look like trucks, so Lili and Bubba got to "drive" through the entire store.  Each time I stopped to put food in the cart, they would tell me they ran out of gas or were at a stoplight.  It was cute.  We also made cookies, took a long nap, and played with Adam at the playground next to our apartment building.  It's fun to have family close by!

Adam only has Tuesday off (plus Saturday for the temple trip), so we are making good use of our time together!  We have lots of errands to run - getting the title of our car in our name, going to the bank, finishing our FAFSAs, and getting ahead in our schoolwork.  For the first time since our honeymoon, we got to sleep in past 8 AM.  It was nice.  Spring Break really isn't so much of a break as it is just a time to get caught up - on sleep, on schoolwork.  I don't know how people can use that short time for a vacation - I would get even more behind!  I'm sure at some point we'll be able to afford - and enjoy - a real Spring Break...but until then, we're good just watching movies each night!

At the beginning...

So, I've never been successful with these.  I have no problems writing in my journal every night (even a late night like tonight!), but when I'm writing to who knows who...it gets more difficult.  I don't have fun, exciting stories to tell, but I figured this would be a good way to keep in touch with family and friends (since the Christensen Chronicles have kind of died out after I got home from England).  So...here goes!

I am currently doing everything I possibly can to avoid the inevitable - midterms.  All of mine are take-home essays, which makes it more difficult.  Why?  Well, because there is a lot at home to distract me!  It's also not a good combination to have a husband who wants to avoid homework as much as you do...because then the work is avoided.  We both have a heavy workload and won't have much of a Spring Break next week.  But, only half a semester until summer!  Huzzah!