Settling back down

Now that we know we'll be in this same house for another 5 months or so, I've gotten back into organizational and house projects. My mom and I packed up half the house back in June so our once organized office now looks like this:

Most of the stuff that is packed away consists of extra items stored throughout the house like -- dishes, blankets, bags, books, clothes, decorations, etc. Most of the items will be forgotten about until we unpack them at the new place (wherever and whenever that'll be!). Over the past week or so, I'll sometimes think of an item that would be useful in a certain situation and have to go digging through the boxes. Luckily, the items I need end up being in the top of a box that is easily accessible.

So now that all the packing materials have been stored away in the office, our house is back to somewhat normal (shelves and cabinets look a little bare). We've been noticing around dinner time that the location of our table in the kitchen always seems very warm. Since the area was surrounded by a glass door and a big window, I decided to make some curtains to hopefully keep the heat out. Here is the finished product:

I bought one package of complete curtains for the big window; however they were a tan color that blended into the wall. So then I bought 3 panels of a sheer voile and sewed 2 of the panels over the existing curtains. The third panel, I sewed together to make a little curtain cover for the door as seen in the picture. The curtains have only been up a day and I've noticed a difference (however, I think it's a mix of being all in my head & the fact that temps are down in the 90s instead of the 100s). Anyway, I like the look the kitchen now has and the whole project (including wall/door mounts was less than $40. Hopefully, these are items I'll get to use again at the next location, and if not, at least it gave me something to do!

Roller Coaster Ride

I haven't blogged in the past few weeks for a couple of reasons. First off, life has been a roller coaster ride and if I blogged the last 2 weeks there would be 5 posts per day (that's how often things have changed for us). Secondly, because of the "roller coaster" we've been on, I haven't had the desire to blog in fear of getting my hopes up and then being crushed by the next change (which occurred anyway due to the situation). So here's an abridged version of what we've been going through (I cut out a lot of the communication between all the parties involved which is why things changed a lot).

So, let me back up in the story with a review: The beginning of this year was marked by us searching for a new house in Jackson. We spent many months searching for a house, put an offer on one that fell through, and had gotten really exited for the next phase of our life. In April, the day after we put a promising offer on a house, P&G sold Pringles (we quickly retracted our offer due to the unkowns). Steve got the option to stay with P&G meaning we will be moving out of Jackson within a year-- but we don't know "when" or "where".

So that brings us up to the past few weeks. Steve applied for a position for a P&G plant in Ohio and was even offered an interview. The job was very appealing to Steve, but the location was even more so appealing to me! We'd be about 2.5 hours away from my family (which sounds way better than the 8 hours now!). However, there has been issues over timing between P&G and Pringles. We went to the interview not knowing if timing would work out. We were even hooked up with a realtor who took us around the area. We visited my family and returned back to Tennessee without any news on the matter. Just yesterday we finally heard back on the timing situation. Even though Steve is choosing to stay with P&G he is "frozen" at Pringles until the deal is completed at the end of the year. So we finally have our answer of "when" we will be leaving Jackson-- December.

The other question we've been dealing with is "where" will we live (whether in Jackson or in another location). The lease on the house we are renting was officially up in June (Remember, we were house hunting but stopped and waited, sort of patiently, for answers on the job front). Our landlord graciously extended the lease to July but said that is all he could do because if he pushed it any farther, he would lose out on a new renter. He informed us about a week ago (same time as the interview) that he had a new renter lined up and asked if we could move out earlier in July. We had quickly decided that even if Steve had been granted permission to leave earlier, we'd still need some sort of short term housing elsewhere in Jackson.

On Thursday (2 days ago), we found a possible rental house and set up an appointment for the next day. However, Thursday night, our landlord asked us for more pictures of the house because he needed to make a new add for the house. Apparently the new renter lined up had backed out on him. Steve sent back an email with the pictures and went ahead and made an attempt for us to extend our lease another 6 months. Our landlord accepted it! He said he was too busy with work to worry about another add and finding new renters.

So within 24 hours our 3 month roller coaster ride came to an end. We have the answers we had been waiting for! They weren't exactly what we wanted, but it's not about us -- it's about God's timing. For whatever reason, we're supposed to be here in Jackson for another 5 months. So we're back to awaiting our next location, but at least now we're not living day-to-day in suspense.

Also, throughout all of this, I had 2 job offers that I turned down due to the timing of things. The first was to continue as a 1st grade teacher (like I did at the end of the year) and the second was for a history position in the next county's high school (good school system). It's been hard for me to deal with things remaining the same. I was really excited to have a new house that I could design, paint and decorate, back to being in the same house with poorly painted tan walls. I'm thankful that things have turned out the way they did (I was not excited to move our stuff into another temporary housing) in remaining in the same location -- I'm just impatient for the next chapter in our life.