White Picket Fences

We celebrated our four year "sandiversary," of being in the Middle East this month. The celebration involved keeping our heads down, trying to survive the insane heat and humidity, and just coping with day to day tasks of living overseas.

It reminded me of a question that gets asked to us very often.

"Don't you miss home? Don't you want to move back?"

The short answer is: Yes. We do want to move back.

The long answer is: Yes, we do feel a longing to live close to our family and childhood friends. We miss the familiar. The easy. The comfortable. We miss the "short," 9-5 work day. We miss the freedoms of speech, religion, and dress.

We miss holding hands and kissing in public.

We miss that our kids don't get to see us do that as often as they should.

We miss the community that a homogenous or semi homogenous Church family provides. (we have a great Church family here, but it is very fluid, changing often, and of people of many different cultures and backgrounds.)

We miss Thanksgiving with people that know what are Thanksgivingy foods.

We miss Christmas decor and a crisp in the air.

We miss having road trips and Starbucks that sell seasonal drinks.

I miss Target.

I miss college football.

Then there are the If Thens that I miss.

If we were in the States, Then my parents could come and help when we were swampd.
If we were in the States, Then we could find a reliable babysitter. That drives. Can I get an Amen?
If we were in the States, Then my house wouldn't be constantly covered in dust.

If we were in the States Then we would probably own our house.
With a white picket fence.
And green grass to play in.
And dry wall walls. Why I miss that, I have no clue.

But the fact is, we aren't. God has made His plan and direction on our lives very clear. We are to be here for now. We are okay with the fact that it is a flexible, ever changing thing. That we may be out here our whole lives. Or we may only be out here for this season.

Most days I don't even think about the white picket fences of my childhood dreams. I am in the present, with the ever present challenges of day to day life facing me head on. But also with the present day joys of raising my littles in a less commercialized world that cherishes the family unit. The demands by community involvement are far less than if I was involved in my hometown church and civic responsibilities.

But on those days that I do think about the white picket fence, it's because I long for stability. For love. For community. I struggle with homesickness and that ever challenging jealousy that comparison can bring. I see friends of mine buying homes or taking their kids trick or treating and I think of what I'm missing instead of what I'm gaining. I am faced with the decision of "Who should I invite to Thanksgiving this year? And will they know that sushi and egg rolls are not acceptable fare?"

My prayer for this season is to be content where I am. To enjoy the present with my little family. And to Be Still and Know that I am where He wants us to be. That's all I can really do, right?

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White Picket Fences

House Tour

We've been in our new (temporary) house for a month now and really are loving it! Going from our gigantic house to a more normal and reasonably sized house has been a blessing. I just couldn't keep up with a huge house and six (yes, SIX!) bathrooms by myself.

The house we are living in is provided by a church we partner with and is clean and comfy. The girls feel right at home and Grace screams with joy every time we pull into "Gracie's house!"

When you come in the back door you have the family room which acts as a play room and office as well.

The kitchen is directly off of the family room, just one step up. I love the layout of the kitchen because I can see what is going on in the family room, living room, and dining room while I'm cooking.

There is also a little breakfast table off of the kitchen.

We don't really use the living room much but it has great views from the window and I love all of the natural light.

In theory, this little desk is where I have all of my stuff and where my computer is. Right now, It is just a dumping spot for the diaper bag and all of Grace's home learning stuff.

On the other side of the kitchen is the dining room, which was surprisingly hard to get a picture of. I blame that on the fact that my kit lens needs to be cleaned, and can't unzoom at the moment. (does anyone know how to get Canon lenses cleaned/repaired?)

Off of the living room is a long hallway (this shot is looking back at the living room,)

And off of that hallways is the (unused) front door and the (overused) laundry closet,

 the one and only bathroom, (I love bathrooms with counters! Oh, how I have missed you!)

 

The master bedroom,

 

and the  girls bedroom. Currently Grace is sleeping in her big girl bed with a pillow wall to keep her from falling off. Sophia sleeps in our Travel Pack N Play, which is nice, because I can wheel it into our room or the dining room if they are keeping each other up.

There is a basement, too. But let's be honest, I haven't even step foot in there. I'm a Florida girl. We don't do basements.

And that's it! Like I said, it's a temporary house that we are in until October but we already feel like it's a "home" for us!

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House Tour

Home Tour: Grace's Room

Grace's room is the same decor as her nursery, only in a much larger space and less furniture. The twin bed from her first room is now our guest bed and she does not have a wardrobe in this room.

She does, however, have her own bathroom. Naturally.

The view when walking into her room- bathroom straight ahead and bedroom through the archway.

Busy Grace playing with her toys in her bathroom. I love that I don't have to completely remove her bath toys now, as they can stay in the bathtub after she's done. We only had one bathroom in the last house but we have 4 full and 2 halves in this house. It's a bit ridiculous.

The view looking into her room. The carpet is too small for the space but we make it work. Plus, we really aren't upstairs very much.

On the wall to your right, when you walk in is Grace's changing table/dresser. In the corner are her blankets and stuffed animals. I really loath stuffed animals. I am highly aware of how bad they are for allergy sufferers and I also know how quickly the collection can get out of control. True story.

Another true story? That mirror is actually too high for me to see in, but Ian had drilled the holes too high and if we lowered it then the holes could be seen. Oh well, at least my tall husband can use this mirror.

Grace's beautiful crib, bedding, and artwork. This is one of my happy places in he house.

These two bookcases are nice, but are awkwardly deep. In the future I won't use them for books, but only for bins of toys that can' slide back in there.

Toys and her artwork, including her name sign from Emily!

Grace loves looking out her window and watching the propane tank trucks drive by. They honk their horns continuously to let people know they are nearby in case you need a tank refill. Grace likes to yell "Beep, beep!" when they drive by and says "Night, night," to them (even if they aren't there,) at naptime and bedtime. I'd like to get the single layer, five slot book case that matches these to work as a window seat one day. I'd love the extra toy storage for when the girls share a room in the future.

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Home Tour: Grace's Room

Home Tour: Kitchen

I love our kitchen.

L-O-V-E

It may not be of the top quality, model home variety, but it is SO nice and SO much bigger (4-5 times bigger!) than our last kitchen.

Our last kitchen was small but functional, but not really someplace I enjoyed being. Everything in it had been furnished with the apartment, meaning it had been owned and used by countless people before us, including silverware and plates, appliances and pots.

This kitchen, however, is very much my space. And I love it!

When coming in the front door, you see the living room to the right, and a hallway straight ahead that branches into a T, with the office to the right and the kitchen to the left.

 The view from the doorway into the kitchen. You can see why I love it:
1.) the natural light- makes my heart oh-so-happy
2.) the wide open countertop space! I love clear open counters with not too much clutter
3.) it's huge! Our last kitchen only had 8 small tiles worth of space on the floor

Our fridge was a long time coming. We spent a month with a dorm sized fridge that was as short as Grace is, trying to find a good deal on a used fridge. When nothing panned out, we went to an appliance outlet and get a steal on this massive fridge and freezer...new!

Here, you can see my message board that is magnetic and has a little line with clothespins on it. I can change out the paper and colors out whenever I feel like it! Also, my calendar that I tried to make reusable, but contact paper doesn't wipe off very easily, so it's really a one time use type of thing. Grace's farm animal toy is beneath that, but I'm about to switch it out for her alphabet one and then her magnetic nativity set at Christmas time.

View of the fridge straight on. Our water cooler isn't absolutely necessary here, as our doctor assured us the tap water is clean and parasite free, but I still feel funny about it, so we've kept the water cooler. Our trash can (and bag of trash next to it,) and our fire extinguishers cap off the row. Those extinguishers came in handy when we had an electrical fire the other week!

The door to the right is a door that leads out back. There really isn't anything there but a paved sidewalk that leads around to the front of the house and ours and our neighbor's gigantic water tanks. The neighbor kids like to run on the sidewalks that go all around these houses, and since our window isn't covered, at night they can see into our house. Sometimes it is disturbing thinking that these kids are looking in, but most of the time is hilarious when I stumble into the kitchen late at night and freak them out.

Nothing like seeing a giant, pregnant, white lady when you least expect it to make a group of 10 year old girls scream and run away.

On the side of the fridge we have some emergency contact information and my weekly menu note pad with a grocery notepad next to it.

On top of the fridge are two baskets. One is full of cereal boxes, because we stock up when we can find the stuff that isn't filled with chocolate. The other has our dish towels and pot holders in it.

To the right of the door is the counter space with our sink over looking the windows to the back. The drawers on the left hold our silverware, kitchen gadgets, and disposable items, such as baggies, foil, paper plates. Underneath of the sink, the cabinets have a lock on them because we store our cleaners there. To the right of the sink, a gigantic cabinet that stretches all the way back into the corner holds our three different mixing bowl sets, my cake decorating gear, and all of our rubbermade containers. On top of the counter in the corner is our napkin holder, knife block, and my wrought iron cookbook stand, which I LOVE.

The long wall has our stove and most of our storage space. Our stove is highly unusual on this side of the world, as most people use gas stoves. Our house didn't have a gas hook up, much to my relief, and it was just easier to find an electric stove instead. We bought this stove used from a nice Brazilian woman and it has been perfect. It is exactly like our stove we had before we moved over seas.

To the left of the stove is our utensil crock and to the right is my spice rack. Right now the spice rack is more for looks, as I haven't cleaned out the spices from before storage, meaning they are 4 years old!

The cabinets on the bottom, to the left of the stove, hold our pots and  pans and colanders/steamers. The drawers to the right hold our spices (top 2 drawers,) and baking supplies and utensils (bottom 2 drawers.) The cabinet to the right, on the bottom, has our baking pans on the top and corningware on the bottom.

The cabinets on the top hold our glasses and mugs, plate settings, and plasticware.

My absolute favorite cabinet, because I went so long with mismatching, used plates and bowls:

I love my Crate and Barrel Staccato plate settings. I felt like I was at my bridal shower all over again when I opened these up from our boxes!

View of the wall to your right when you walk in. This is where most of our food items are stored, since there is no pantry. The two corner cabinets hold our serving ware (upper) and small appliances (lower.) The top four cabinets have all of our dry goods and canned items while the bottom two cabinets, under the microwave, hold all of the big baking ingredients, mixes, and oils.

The awkward two cabinets that are underneath of that island (peninsula, really,) or bar, is where I keep some fun activities for Grace, such as sensory bins, craft supplies, and hands on activities that are only played with under supervision. This cabinet has a lock on it as well.

The final thing in the kitchen is our laundry room:

It was directly to your left when you came through the door, before you get to the fridge. We bought both of the washer and the dryer for less than 100 dollars, used. They are amazing.

Remember, in our last house we had a manual, single cycle washing machine that took an hour per load of constant attention. I had to drag it across the kitchen, fill it up from the sink, drag it back to the drain to drain it for both cycles, and transfer every thing into the spin cylinder to get the water out of it before moving it all to another room to hang dry. What a pain! Now, I just press a button and "Ta-daa!" it does it's job by itself.

The only weird thing is that the dryer is a condensing dryer, since there are no piping or tubing to let the hot, moist air to the outside. It condenses all of the water in a little tray in the top left and you just have to empty it in between loads. It's pretty easy and our stuff comes out soft, fluffy, and dry in about an hour. Amazing!

I've been eyeing some shelving to go above this area at Ikea, but we haven't gotten it yet. Our washing supplies, iron, and toilet paper/paper towels, are stored on top of the washing machine, while our medicine bin is on top of the dryer. It will be nice to get that stuff off of the top of the machines and have a hanging rod to put hanging clothes on.

That's our kitchen! We love the space and the light and I have loved getting to cook here! We spend much of our time in this room, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and Grace playing right along side of us. It's a great space!

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Home Tour: Kitchen

Home Tour: Office/Guest Room

When you first enter our home, to the right, you see our Living Room. Straight ahead of you is a hallway that leads to several different rooms.

We ran out of room for these book cases in our office, but they fit perfectly in this place. I pulled out all of my children's/classroom books that I had brought with me and put them on the bottom shelf. I also have my cookbooks (top far left,) coffee table books, (top left,) and "lendable" books (top right.) Technically, all of our books are "lendable," but these are ones I would highly recommend to friends who were looking for some good fiction (Francine Rivers, Terri Blackstock, and Alexander McCall Smith.)

I used the top to display a bunch of frames and knick knacks. The pictures in the frames all need updating, as alot of the pictures are from before we were married, of high school friends and kids I worked with. I want to put in pictures of our parents and siblings.

To the right of these book cases is the doorway into the entrance of our office/guest room.

Straight through that door is the bathroom. Not pictured, to the right of this picture is a little enclave that could hold a wardrobe (closets are not built in on this side of the world,) but we are just using it for storage of some boxes. Most of the time it is behind the open door, so you can't see it, which is nice!

I like this bathroom alot. It has an older shower curtain that was in our guest bath in our apartment in the States (from Target,) and is a pretty big bathroom. The finishings are all new and modern, but most importantly, they are "western," and no, I do not mean as in cowboys. I mean it has toilets and sinks that are styled like we would do in the States, instead of squatty potties (yep, some houses here have that,) or giant, gaudy pieces, like we had in our last house.

We have four full bathrooms and two half bathrooms in this house. I know. Ridiculous. It takes me a full day of chore time to clean them. But since the builder/owner is a local, he built it somewhat in a local style, which means that no one should have to share a bathroom.

We keep extra toothbrushes, toothpaste, and facewash downstairs in this bathroom, which makes it convenient when you need to freshen up before heading out. Because I'm just that lazy that I don't want to climb those stairs.

The office is the room that we have both been dreaming about for over three years. A month before we got married, in 2008, we were broke college graduates who wanted to buy our first "grown up" piece of furniture. So, what did we do? We went out and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a gorgeous inlaid wood desk.

We're practical like that.

My parents gifted us three tall bookcases and we used Target gift cards to buy four smaller ones, and that room, our office, was our only furnished room for the entire first year of marriage.

True story.

But what a beautiful room it was!

Our office was our sanctuary. We had all of our books displayed beautifully and a nice, peaceful place for Ian to study during his graduate school time. And I loved having a dedicated space where I blogged for my first year of marriage.

We packed it all up in the spring of 2009 and haven't seen it since then! When our crate arrived in July, our books and bookshelves were some of the first things we pulled out and organized.

It has a little different feel to it this time, as it is more of Ian's own space than a shared space, since he works from home most of the time. I used our red curtains in there to try to pull in a Georgia Bulldogs color scheme (his favorite team,) but it would still need a few more details to make it an actual theme in the room.

View from the entry of the room into the office:

The tall bookcases house all of our non fiction books. I've told Ian that we aren't buying any more shelves (except maybe for the girls' rooms) so what can fit on there is all that we can keep. I weeded out a bunch of my fiction books that I will donate to a library or give to a friend and he painfully pulled out a few of his fiction books that are not "classics."

There is still a little more room for a few books and I think there are alot of books that can be trashed/given away, because they were either 1.) no good, 2.) duplicates, or 3.) read and will never be read or looked at again. It'll take me awhile to convince Ian of this. We have a Kindle so we are trying to buy our fiction books on there, but it still isn't the same as a paper copy of a book.

View of Ian's desk and the shorter Fiction book cases:

We have our diplomas framed and displayed and Ian wants to add our certificates from our language school up there, but they aren't as official and beautiful as our college certificates so I am not sold on it yet.

And, yes, Ian doesn't have a desk chair yet. He sits on a little step stool when he works. I keep telling him to bring in one of our six dining room chairs to use until we buy him a real chair, but he doesn't do it very often.

 View of the taller book cases and the twin bed that makes this room a "guest room."

I want to add a small end table with a decorative lamp and some red throw pillows to the bed in order to make it look a little more cohesive and not so stark.

Other than that, this room is DONE! We really like tile floors so I don't think I'll add an area rug. I'm not sure that we'll always have a dedicated office room, but for now, it is beautiful and we really like having all of our books in (almost) one place!
 

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Home Tour: Office/Guest Room

Survival

We have nine days left until our move and we have officially entered into "survival mode."

We work ourselves to the bone every day and collapse into bed, exhausted.

But it's that great kind of exhausted, the one where you know there is light at the end of the tunnel and that good changes are about to happen!

Our window unit AC started dripping about a week ago. Drip, Drip, Drip, all night long.

So we put a towel under it and hoped for the best. But that dripping sound continued, even with it dripping onto a towel.

So we got inventive and stuck a sheet in the corner of the AC unit so that the water would move down the sheet and just be absorbed by the towel.

It worked for a couple of days and then the humidity happened. Living in the desert, we aren't much used to any humidity, and our has been 70-85% lately! Shocking, really, since we've lived here for 2 years and haven't seen that happen. Well, the humidity made the drip turn into a constant gush of water.

Gush, Gush, Gush.

And wouldn't you know it? I had already packed and moved all of my extra linens and towels. So we used the few that we still had here to absorb that gushing flow. And I still didn't want to call a repairman. Because we only had 2 weeks left, and I didn't want to pay for a repair that we'd only be able to use for 2 weeks.

Even if an AC repairman here only costs 12 dollars. I'm so serious.

So we lose sleep, and mop up lots of water on the floor, and change buckets out periodically so that we aren't under water.

Oh, and Ian and I have to use Grace's baby towels when we shower. I use the Winnie-the-Pooh hooded towel and Ian has a nice pink butterfly hooded towel.

It's a really special time in our lives.

I finally broke down today and asked to get the repairman here. Less than 8 hours later and our AC is fixed, blowing cold air again, with no water features.

Another happening around our household is our insect issue. Remember when I said I found a termite tunnel in a door frame? Remember how nonchalant I was about it?

Remember how no one bothered to mention that termites SWARM at night and can FLY?!

Yeah.

I remember.

So one night last week, I was sitting at my computer when a bug hit me in the face and fell on the floor. I asked Ian to clean it up (really, it was more like "GET HIM! Kill HIM!") and went back to my computer. Something caught my eye and I noticed another bug on the wall. I pointed it out to Ian and he dutifully went about taking care of it.

While he was cleaning up the bugs, my eyes got bigger as I noticed four more bugs on the other wall. I surveyed the room and I saw that they were multiplying, and quickly.

All of this took place in less than a minute.

We had about 30 flying bugs in the room and I was in a pregnancy/woman induced hysterical breakdown over the bugs and we had the presence of mind to realize they were
1.) attracted to the light
2.) coming from the front room

So we quickly shut the door to that room and cleaned up the mess.

And by "we," I totally mean Ian, because I was the one sobbing at the computer, googling "termite swarm."

Luckily, no more got through to us, and in the morning there was a pile of about 500 dead bugs right by there tunnel.

I was traumatized, to say the least.

Apparently the termites that have wings swarm for several nights, trying to find their mate. They only have 5-15 minutes to mate and get back into their tunnel before their wings fall off and they die. They can't bite or eat anything, so they are harmless (physically, though I may be emotionally scarred for awhile.)

So every night we close up the front room and every morning, Ian goes in an vacuums up the mess. The first night was the worse and there haven't been as many since then.

I should probably call someone or let the landlord know, but, again. 9 days left in this house guys. And the house is entirely cinder block, except for the door frames.

(anyone seeing a pattern about me not wanting to address issues because we only have so many days left here? Because I am.)

And the cherry on top of my "I'm moving, I don't have to take care of it," denial has to do with our kitchen. Our oven/stove is gas powered, and every 6 months or so we have to replace the gas tank. It costs less than 6 dollars, but is a pain in the butt to replace.

The last time we replaced ours was in February.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yes. Our gas tank is running out/ already out.

And yes. I have so much on my plate that I really don't want to mess with getting it replaced. SO, what does any sane person do?

Say "No more cooking until after we move!" That's what!

Plus, that gives me a chance to pack up the kitchen even earlier!

We're having to get a little creative with our meals (cereal, meals that can be made with hot water, microwaved things,) but we are cleaning out our cabinets, so that's nice!

Like I said, we've entered into "survival mode." but it's a good thing, because in less than two weeks we will be on our way to our new home! We figure, we might as well have a few laughs along the way. Even if it means laughing at ourselves :)

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Survival

The Post that Almost Wasn't

Sometimes it seems as if the days are all flowing together into an endless stream of meetings, classes, and activities. The funny thing that gets me is that I have sat down to type this out at least five times, but I get so overwhelmed and feel so tired that I simply close my laptop and go to bed.

Last Thursday was our last day of language school. We completed a two year long program that studies Arabic full time. It was exhausting, frustrating, and, ultimately, very rewarding. The finality of the end of term was a little surreal, but also a little anticlimactic. All of our classmates scattered to the four corners of the world (wow, literally. The US, Germany, South Africa, and China,) while we remained here, doing our normal thing. I'm still going to class every day, but it's not the normal program, so it feels different. 

Amidst the joy of finishing the program, that very weekend we spent three agonizing long days in the car. We drove to Abu Dhabi to house hunt first thing in the morning, only to find out that no one would show us houses until after the siesta time, around 5 pm at night. We were unable to check into our hotel until 3 pm, so we ended up driving around, scouting out neighborhoods and houses on our own for 6 hours or so.

We checked into the hotel, took a nap, then met up with a realtor at 5. Realtor should be used loosely, because in this case, it was a man who knows a neighborhood really well. He would drive us to a house that was for rent, and on the way there, he would be furiously making phone calls in order to find someone who knew someplace else that was for rent and then he would take us to that one. And on and on and on.

We saw nearly 10 places that first night, and hunted until 10 pm. Many of the places weren't really an option. We were looking for a 3 bedroom with a family room but our guy kept taking us to 2 bedroom places and saying he family room could be a bedroom and that the hallway could act as the family room. Two of the apartments were still under construction and they were really whole houses that would be parceled up into apartments. We would try to envision where we would put walls and such, but seeing as we need a place in a couple of weeks to be ready, those weren't options.

That first night we found 2 homes that would work, and we were really excited about them and their locations. House #1 seemed PERFECT and I could envision every detail of how I would decorate it. House #2 was huge, but we would have a nice little community around us. I was over the moon with excitement that we had found anything!

We slept in, ate breakfast at the hotel, went for a swim, took a nap, and headed out at 5 again to see more places. Grace was a peach during all of this time. I pretty much just handed her food in her car seat the entire time to keep her happy. She learned to say "Thank you," after each pretzel stick!

The second night we looked in a different area of town with a different "realtor." We found one town home that could really work but the location was questionable and one large apartment that we loved but was outside of our budget. We saw another 10 places that night.

My prayer all weekend was that God would close the door to houses that He did not want us in and that He would lead us by the hand over the threshold into the house and neighborhood that we were supposed to live in.

The third day we woke up, I took Grace to the pool (my poor, pale skinned husband had gotten slightly burnt the day before,) and then met up with one of Ian's supervisors. Since his company is paying for his (our) housing, they have to approve of the house and make sure it is within budget and such. We met up with our first "realtor" only to find out house #1 had been rented the night before. I surprised myself by being remarkably calm with that bad news, reminding myself that God was closing doors and for a reason that He understood. That really only left us with one option and we were sure it was going to be too big and too expensive!

Surprisingly, it wasn't! We got the first round of approval and I walked out of there in a daze. Ian paid the realtor a deposit to take it off of the market temporarily, and we drove home. We sent out an email to another supervisor for the ultimate approval waited nervously. If this was turned down we would have to do another long, tiring weekend in the car again! Just 24 hours later we got our response- yes! Was this us being led over the threshold into a new home?

Ian called the realtor and had to jump through 24 hours of nerve racking hoops. It turns out that the owner had mortgaged the four villas he rents out because he had gotten behind on payments. The bank had to approve the bartered down price and then wanted the entire year of rent at once, half in cash, half in a post dated check. Cash is no problem, because Ian's work could get that for him, but check would be an issue since we did not have an in country bank account with a physical check book.

God's hand was on us once again, and it all was smoothed over and worked out. The very next day, Ian traveled back to Abu Dhabi, signed a contract, and paid our rent.

I am so excited but also so grateful for the peace that God gave me during this time of waiting. I did not become attached to a home and then upset when the option was taken away, which could only be from God, because I am such a planner, dreamer, and designer!

We have a couple more weeks left here until we get to move, but the home is ours, and we can start taking car loads of our things over at a time. It's quite the drive but Ian doesn't have school and already has his visa so he can get there much easier and cheaper than I can. No pictures yet, but I hope to send my camera with Ian sometime this week and share where we will live next! And, as I said, I've already dreamed and designed the entire house! I can't wait to get started!

AND (as if that isn't good news enough,) our crate from the USA arrives in just one or two weeks! This has all of our household goods that we packed up and stored over THREE YEARS AGO! I honestly don't remember everything that is in there. Please just imagine the excitement it will be to have matching plates and silverware that doesn't bend when you use it! And our books! Oh our books. It's going to be like Christmas in July for the Galloway household!

 

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The Post that Almost Wasn't

Handy Man

My husband is amazing.

He never ceases to surprise me.

He willingly tackles my copious tasks on my lengthy "to-do" lists. (Just in the past 3 weeks he has fixed a bathroom door, reorganized our front room, caulked our tub, repaired a light, moved our office into our bedroom, and put together our crib.)

He cooks me dinner (lambsghetti aside,) and brings me drinks and snacks whenever I need them.

He deals with my ever rising internal thermostat and lets me have full control over the AC's in our home.

He comes home early from nights out so that we can watch old reruns of The Office or Alias.

He's handsome.

He's brilliant.

He's funny.

He's strong.
He loves the Lord.

He is a hard worker.

He is a great friend.

He is my best friend.
He loves his family and he's going to be the best Dad in the whole entire world!

Happy Valentines' Day to my sweet husband.

(pictures of our crib construction, from mid January.)

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Handy Man

Storage Space Redux

When we moved into our flat back in August, and unpacked our suitcases and trunks, we noticed right away that this place was lacking in storage space.

The kitchen is pretty decent, but all other parts of the house had nothing. Except for our wardrobe in our room, there aren't any cupboards, closets, or shelves.

(here is our wardrobe, before. It wasn't very well designed inside. One bar for hanging clothes on each of our sides, and in the middle door space, only one shelf. It left us scratching our heads and wondering "why?!")


This really wasn't much of a problem when we first got here, because all of our worldly things had been trimmed down to fit into 8 suitcases.

But after several months of settling in and buying the necessities of life (aka clothes that would work in the desert as compared to clothes that worked in Canada,) we were finding ourselves in need of some more storage space.

And on a pretty limited budget.

With no access to furniture stores.

So, our trusty handyman friend found an Indian carpenter to come in and do some work for us. He installed four shelves and two more hanging bars for our wardrobe. It made things so nice in our bedroom! We were able to take all of our clothes out of our end tables and stacked against the wall and neatly store them away. Plus everything is folded or hung up which lends itself to fresher clothes.

Our shoes we moved from inside the wardrobe to the top of it, which I'm loving!

Here is our wardrobe, after!
Then he put into our bathroom, (which had nothing for storage, so we were storing everything in our bedroom end tables,) a brand new custom made shelving unit. Wish I had a picture of that. It's the perfect fit for this tiny space in our bathroom, I love it.



When we do the nursery, we're already looking into including tons of storage options, so that won't be a problem. Our family room doesn't really need much storage or display, but our ottoman doubles as a storage unit because the top comes off. I store all of my linens (all 3 of them, ha!) inside of it.

We're so happy with the changes we've made in making our house more of a home! Don't you just love organization?

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Storage Space Redux