Our Old House

We're newlyweds in an 1875 Victorian fixer-upper in St Paul, MN. Let the chaos ensue!

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Location: Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Spontaneity

I think I have gone temporarily insane. Friday and Saturday have developed a very a-typical Becky. The whole week at work has been insane - tons of admissions, surgeries, people left off our schedules. For example, on Thursday we had 7 full PT schedules... and 15 people on our waiting list. Friday we had 6 full PT schedules, but 5 spontaneous/need to do this today evaluations. By the end of the week, my head was fried.

As most of you know, I am much more of a planner at heart. And so, on Friday I broke the mold and randomly went out to coffee with one of my co-workers after dinner - and didn't come home until 11p. Saturday, we went to a fundraiser for Anoka Public Schools... the plan was to be dinner and dancing, but there were also silent and live auctions involved. While perusing the items, we came upon a beautiful, handcrafted, oak porch swing. We have a perfect porch for a swing, and it has been one of my dreams to sit out there in the summer swinging and sipping iced tea. The summer stuff was on clearance at Menards about a month ago, and so we bought a swing in a box - but obviously this one was much nicer. The practical side of my brain said "you already have one, and this will be way out of your price range, so forget it."

Fast forward to the live auction... a few of the other items that we were possibly eyeing went for way over our personal limits. And here comes the swing "Value $1750" the auctioneer announces, "but we'll start at $100." And away we go... something overcomes me as the auction is going, and at what I thought was $300 I grab the flag and raise it. John turns around and stares. Not that he didn't want it, just that my quick action was way out of character for this financial prude. Well, I hadn't been quick enough at the $300 level, and was slapped on at $350, but there weren't any other takers. What?!? I just bought another porch swing?!? It took me about an hour to settle into the reality of what I just did. It's not that I'm unhappy, just surprised by myself. We weren't able to get it into our Saturn, but luckily one of John's co-workers transported it to the event and could keep it until Monday in her van when hopefully we can borrow a larger vehicle and bring it home.

Yep, temporarily insane. I think I'll go cross-stitch now where the possibilities are limited.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Back into the bedroom

We were able to sleep in our own bed again last night - a first for 18 nights... it felt so good to not be on the fouton! Here's the current status of things in the bedroom... please forgive the piles, we're not entirely moved in yet!



Bedroom with the new window... the pipe on the other side will be moved shortly





What will be a built in bookcase (left) and Becky's closet (right)

















Look, ma! Only one entrance to John's closet! Look at all that new wall space!














Halloween was fun, although cold. We only got about a dozen trick-or-treaters this year. But John got to use his new toy - a fog machine - so all was good and creepy on the front porch. :-)