Christmas Time

Sorry blogposts have been few and far between for the past few weeks. We've been pretty busy with moving, unpacking, settling in, and Christmas celebrations. Here are a few pictures from Christmas activities from the past week or so.

(Steve and I spent last weekend at Purdue visiting with some friends from college. The guys crashed a friend's house to play video games, while the girls headed to another house and made Christmas cookies)

(After visiting with our friends at Purdue, we headed back to Russiaville to stay with my parents -- we also snuck in a niece dance recital during the weekend. On our way back, we visited the Rossville lights, a place my parents took my siblings and I as kids. One family decorates their front yard with dozens of lights. You drive through their looped driveway to see them all. At the entrance, Santa greets each car with candy canes for the passengers).

(3 years ago, Steve and I visited the lights -- Steve's first trip to the lights. After returning to my parent's house on that Christmas eve, he proposed. This was our first time returning to the lights after being married).

(After returning home from our weekend with friends, I made some more Christmas cookies -- Purdue Trains -- to give to my neighbors)

(Our Christmas tree -- notice new paint color on the wall, I'll post better pictures of our new living room when we get back)

(Steve and my yearly Gingerbread house. This year, we had a surprise guest during the decorating. Steve's sister showed up unexpectedy and got to witness the decorating -- Lindsey decorated and Steve ate candy)

(This year, Lindsey specifically purchased candy for Steve to eat. I learned the hard way the first time we did it 2 years ago. Steve kept eating the candy for the house, but now he gets his own candy to eat)

Steve and I spent the Friday before Christmas with my family and are now headed out East to Jersey to spend Christmas with his family.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Pictures, Neighbors, & Painting

I can't believe we have lived in our house for over 1.5 weeks! It has finally hit me that this is OUR house. I get to wake up in this house EVERYDAY. It's a really cool feeling to finally feel like we have a "home". This is different than how it felt in Jackson, because we just rented. I can do whatever I want (with Steve's approval) to the house and no one will care (again, other than Steve).

Moving into an empty house sounds pretty easy. However, I've soon discovered all the nooks and crannies of the house that have collected lots of dust over periods of time. For instance, there are glass chandeliers in 4 different rooms that were so caked in dust, the glass looked opaque. I spent about 2 hours cleaning the big chandelier (hangs over the stairs) one day last week. I counted over 729 glass beads and pendants (which I wiped each by hand):

(I didn't take a before picture, although I should have. You wouldn't believe the change in look a little cleaning did!)

I have been working pretty diligently at unpacking all the boxes. The kitchen was priority number one, closely followed by the master bedroom at number two. After I got those two rooms done, I put up some Christmas decorations (Christmas tree inside, nativities, stockings, nutcrackers, and lights outside). Then I set up our guest bedroom since Steve's sister will be staying with us a few days a week.

(Kitchen all unpacked. There's lots of cabinet space to hold my plethora of cooking items. The lay out is a little weird for me. The appliances are all on one side of the kitchen while the cabinets span the wall on the other side. There is talks of remodeling the kitchen, way into the future, so maybe I'll get to change the layout some).

Now that most of our items are unpacked (I haven't even touched the "office" or boxes in the living room) I have begun the painting. I decided to start with the living room since we need the wall painted before we mount our tv. The room was originally a dark navy color. So far I have primed the walls because it will be painted a lighter orange/neutral color.

(Before shot of the dark paint. Layout -- The big open window is behind the camera, sunroom to the left, fireplace to the right, and entrance to the foyer to the right).

(Another before shot with dark paint. Layout -- fireplace to the left, entrance from the foyer is behind the camera to the left, the Christmas tree and windows are to the right)

(Here is the scenery of the backyard as seen through the big open window in the living room.)

(Here is the fireplace in the living room after the walls have been primed. Color will go on next week!)

(Another shot of the living room after the walls have been primed. The living room already has a different personality now that the dark navy paint is covered.)

Other accomplishments from the week:

**Bought a leaf blower/vacuum (haven't gotten to use it yet due to wet weather)

**Christmas cards/letters completed and sent out

**Set up & leveled the washer & dryer (which is a tricky situation with homemade pedestals and an uneven tiled floor)

**Tried out a church but got the times wrong and missed most of the service

**Have gotten to know the neighbors more

We are sandwiched in between two delightful neighbors. Both sets have lived in their homes for 30+ years and know everything that goes on in the neighborhood. They have also showered us with warm welcomes from home made cookies and soup to a beautiful poinsettia plant. Steve and I are excited to get to know more of the neighbors and be involved in the neighborhood.

New House

Home Sweet Home

Steve and I have finally completed a year long journey to find a house. When we started the journey back in February, we thought we'd be purchasing a new house in Jackson, TN. God had a different plan in mind and moved us up to Lima, OH. Our patience payed off in the end and we are thoroughly enjoying our new home (hence the new post in a week).

We have been pretty busy since closing on the house on Monday (Dec 5). Steve has been working (he only got to take a half day on Monday for closing) and comes home pretty tired. After we eat dinner, we pretty much watch a little show/movie together and then collapse. While he's off training at the new job, I've been super busy with house projects. Over the last several days I have: cleaned carpets, swept/mopped, unpacked the entire kitchen, unpacked clothes, cleaned the basement, raked the whole front yard (It took 4.5 hours & 15 bags. We still have the side yard and back yard full of leaves.), set up our Christmas tree and lights outside, and some other random housework. This weekend we picked out some paint colors. The painting will begin this week.

Since we've been working outside a lot (Steve began raking the backyard today), we've gotten to meet a few of our neighbors. Everyone has said the same thing, "you couldn't have picked a nicer neighborhood." I have especially gotten to know our next door neighbors. I met the Mr. while raking leaves, and today the Mrs. brought over a plate of cookies and chatted with me for an hour. They are an elderly couple who graduated from Purdue years ago (the Mrs. even went on a date with Neil Armstrong while attending Purdue). They still follow Purdue sports religiously and get a kick out of Steve & my's connection to Purdue. While chatting, I got the low-down of the neighborhood. They've been here awhile and pretty much know everyone around. We look forward to hearing more of their stories and getting to know them in the future.

We also got to host our first guest this week! Steve's sister works a few days a week at the plant here in Lima. Starting next week, she'll start staying with us on those days that she works up this way. We look forward to getting to see her more often and providing her a little "home away from home". And for those of you who know how crazy and intense my family is, I would like to note that it is an Ackerman who was the first family member to see the home.

We don't have internet at the house, yet. In the evenings, we've been able to access internet on our laptops via our phones (thank goodness for unlimited data plans!). As of now, we will not be getting cable/satellite which is a HUGE deal for me. I've been a week without it and already want to pull my hair out. We'll see if it gets better when I have full day access to internet, Hulu, & Netflix. These next few weeks are going to be pretty busy with house projects and holiday plans, but I'll try to keep you posted on our shenanigans :).