Closing

Also, our closing date on the house is May 22nd. If any of you are wanting to help us move, it'll be Saturday morning, the 23rd. We'd love to see you and use your muscles!

Eigsti corners

I woke up this morning to my husband, dressed and ready for work- leaning over me saying, "Babe, it's really cold in here. Do you want me to turn the heater on?" "No, I like it...", I mumbled from my warm cave of covers. He left for work and I snoozed on. Hours later, when I flopped out of bed and wandered into the living room in my undies and t-shirt, I felt a surge of bone-chilling air wrap around my bare legs. Through squinted, sleepy eyes, I realized it was 55 degrees in our "cozy" little apartment. If only I had listened to him... :)

Here are some corners of our world in apartment 315. I'm no photographer, but there's something in the reality of life that is just tugging today. Images from our world that I must share with you. So...here, a brief look:

Projects...

Nate's side of the bed:

Heather's side of the bed:

This is one of my favorite images ever. I keep this one tucked in my memory and find myself standing in the closet every once in a while when he isn't home. Work shirts. His work shirts. They smell of the man I love and bring great comfort for some reason.



And I often wake to things like this: Nate's handy-work with my jewelry. It's the little things in life, you know? :)

I am faced with a mild dilemma. I think I want to sell my guitar. I bought it with my graduation money after high school and took lessons for a semester. I cannot play. I play the piano- quite well, sometimes...and would love to have a piano in our home some day. I have someone who is willing to buy my guitar. I do not know her. I want to know that it will be well-loved. I want it to be taken care of. But it's a "thing"; an object and is of no value here if I don't learn to play it. So, I should sell, right? I should take advantage of someone who is interested....someone who will make the music that I'll never make with little Alvarez. If I do sell it, I'm saving the money to put toward the top seven keys of a used piano in years to come. What do you think I should do?

God blesses our home.

I haven't blogged for a long time. Let me rephrase: I haven't blogged consistently for a long time. My first year of teaching has definitely been an adventure. People say that your first year is the hardest year of teaching you'll ever have. If that's the case, then I'm in for a treat. It wasn't easy by any means- but it wasn't anything that completely shook my ground. It was hard. I've been tired for 8 months. And I've done more coloring and cutting this year than my entire 24 years prior combined. But I'm stronger for it. I have 22 little people that I simply adore and incredible coworkers to boot. I can grasp the idea of 5 year old children. I have the school year mapped out in my head and quite frankly, feel like I could do a heck of a lot better next time around. How was your first year, Heather? Fantastic. Outstanding. A true blessing.

In other news, we're still waiting to hear the closing date on our house. Latest will be the end of May. There's a slight, very slight chance that we could move end of April. We told ourselves we wouldn't get excited for April; that it wouldn't even be an option until we heard for sure from them. Well, I've failed. I've completely set my heart on April and can't wait to move into our new home. I may be sorely disappointed this week, or I may be on my knees packing books and extra kitchen accessories in last Sunday's Celebrate section of the Journal Star. I'm hoping for the latter. I'll let you know.

My good friend, Brook, is staying here for a few days this week. I'm pumped, to say the least. I love having people here. I love washing the sheets and stretching them over the guest room bed for a friend. I don't know about you, but I simply fall apart when I slide my legs under freshly laundered sheets. My husband still can't decide if he can tell the difference. Maybe it's the combination of fresh sheets and smooth legs. I'm not sure. Either way, clean sheets= euphoric wiggling. I love it.

Did I mention I'm on spring break this week? That's why I have time to blog. FYI.

I'm off for now. The windows are open, we're expecting thunderstorms today- and my man will be home for lunch. This is a great way to live!

His dying breath has brought me life.

Today I sat with my husband.
We drank a new smoky coffee from my brother.
It rained outside.
We opened the windows.
Spring came in.
We read the paper.
We listened to music.
We cooked together.
We laughed together.
We dreamed of our new house and how we will decorate.
We live life together.
Every day.
What a blessing.

The sold sign is up!!!

OK, seriously....is anyone else having trouble with posting photos on blogger? I can't rearrange them EVER.....

Anyway, these are out of order but I'm just going to go with it.

Last weekend, my brother, Nate and I drove back to see our parents. There's an annual pancake feed that I hate to miss, so it was a must that we went that weekend. These photos are sideways, but can you guess whose is whose? It's not a "Z" and an "I"....but rather, an "N" and an "H". I guess one of the perks of knowing a pancake flipper is getting sweet personalized pancakes. :) Thanks Bill!!!! (Of Nancy & Bill, for those of you who know them)

Here's a photo of my sweet grandfather. We were giving him a hard time because his pancakes were HUGE! He was laden with guilt for not finishing both of them....a curse from growing up in the depression! What a sweetie- he's one of my all-time favorite people EVER....man.

Some of you may have heard- we're buying a house! The sold sign is UP!!!!! We're really excited. It's got so many things we were looking for. I love the front porch, the huge window in the front is in the living room, so the house is really bright. I'll have more photos later- we're looking at a closing date in late May, but are hoping to get moving sooner than that. There's a chance we can close in April for a few different reasons, so we're praying for both patience and speed in the closing process!