Visitors Welcome!

My sister, Tonnie, and her family are on their way home even as I type this from a 2-day visit! It was so much fun showing off my new house and neighborhood to them! Tonnie and I took a 2 mile walk around our lake, took a trip to IKEA (and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, Ross, and other places!). We made homemade biscuits, lasagna (with not nearly enough marinara sauce), and brownies. We played Mad Gab and I especially enjoyed Tonnie reading the phrases... so funny... Here's one for you Tonn, "Heaven Iced Hey!"

We have some friends stopping in after the Braves game on Wednesday and soon should have one of our favorite couples and their family coming to stay! I love it. I love entertaining and spending time out and in with them!

Also, we have made some neighborhood friends and I look forward to seeing how the relationships develop for the kids and for me. But no matter what... the first step has been made and I am thankful.

Things Are Going

There are a few things about Georgia living that are a definite change or departure for us. For one thing, we are on Eastern Standard Time, so here I sit at 8:36 and it's still light outside... and will be for at least another half an hour! It's making it a little hard for me to wind down for bedtime, which I suppose signals to my kids that they get to stay up late! Along those same lines, prime time TV starts at 8 here... I don't really care about that, but it's just part of the adjustment I suppose.

Also, when I was getting the utilities turned on, I got the water/sewer set up and assumed that doing that meant out trash pick-up was set up through the city. Not so, here in Douglasville! So here we are in our second week and the trash is piling up! :) I called this past Monday and got us set up. It's just different.

I need to find a Thrift Store, a closer post office, a drive in, a dollar movie, an outlet mall.... the list goes on.

School starts on AUGUST 5TH!!! Oh my word!

There are a lot of details to work out to get my boys registered... blue cards transferred from Alabama to Georgia... car tags registered to Georgia... and said cars need to have emissions tested before they can be registered. We also need a valid Georgia license. I get tired even thinking about it!

I'm ready to find a church home and get my kids plugged into some events.

My time with God has been really incredible lately. Good conversation with my ever present, always supportive, emotionally healing, physically enabling friend. It would be easy to fall into a poor-pitiful-me pattern and whine about it all. I keep reminding myself that loneliness is God's cry for alone time with Him. Here's something I have been really clinging to:
Romans 12:2
"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

My house is really coming along! I will take pictures soon... maybe next week. We are already getting pictures on the wall! How crazy is that!?!?! The last time I was putting a house together, Sophie was a newborn. This time around, we set her room up first thing, and that has made all the difference! Her own toys (out of storage and out of boxes) have been like new. We got her the movie Enchanted, and while I've been unpacking, she's been going around with a duster singing Happy Working Song. It's so so so so cute! Hank had the camera with him in Delaware with the boys so I couldn't capture it, but I will definitely try to one day really soon!

Things to come in future posts:

Pics of the house (of course!)
The boys in Delaware
The boys homecoming from Delaware
Introducing the house to our kids

Our New Home

5 bedrooms
3 baths
3 car garage
Amazingly big driveway (I am not exagerating when I say it's the size of a basketball court!)
+.5 acre-- flat! part is fenced! did I mention HUGE!
Huge laundry room!

A fraction of the yard!

Our neighborhood has INCREDIBLE ammenities! A lake with a walking track, a playground, a swimming pool, tennis courts, club house, not to mention the sidewalks throughout.

I am excited about introducing the boys to their new home on Sunday! Gonna focus on their room tomorrow.

Did You Know...

When you hit a lightning bug going 70 mph on the interstate, it glows on your windshield for 5 more minutes.

Publix employees know where the water board is... thank goodness.

When you get soaked, dry off, then get soaked again... well, chaffing happens.

That a b-r-a (I'm spelling that so no one gets offended!) can live under a dresser drawer from college (sometime between '95 and '99) and come out ONLY when my Dad is carrying it off the moving truck.

A person can accumulate 7 artificial trees and not even realize it.

A person's husband gets really grumping loading and unloading seven artificial Christmas trees.

If you listen to the Glee soundtrack all the way to ATL and back, twice, it is decidely UNgleeful.

On The Road Again

Well, this is it. We get the truck this morning and load all of our earthly possessions on it. It seems a long time coming. Hank's been working and living in another city and state since last November, so it has been. But it could have been longer and I'm thankful for the way it all wrapped up so nicely here at the end. My kids finished their school year, Bryant finished his soccer season, then we closed on the sale of our home. We've been at my parent's house since then.

We were supposed to close on our new home yesterday, but a glitch postponed closing to next week. But, we are greatful that everything is still moving forward. Hank's work schedule next week is not condusive to moving, so we are being allowed to move all of our stuff into the garage of what will be our home this weekend.

Then it seems I have a limitless 'To Do' list, but I'm happy to begin tackling that!

I got to spend time with almost all of my family and friends in the past few weeks! Dinner with Kelly and Josie at Mizu's.... Pizza Hut and shopping (and prank calling and laughing) with Tonnie... Chik-fil-A and BAM with Jenn... home cooked breakfast with GiGi and Pawpaw (my mom's parents)... and lots of pool time with my friends (Nicole and Becca Mae and Kelly O.) and with the boys' friends (Caleb, Luke, Parker, and Kari, not to mention cousins!). We've made the most of our time. I love that I have such awesome friendships! Thank you guys for taking time to spend with me and my family and for loving us and putting up with us all!