(It’s been awhile)

(Oh hai new house!)

So Dave and I bought our first house. I don’t know if it’s more of a relief or a joy to finally have one. Two years of searching really drains a person! I’m tellin’ ya, it’s not like it is on (HG)TV. “Here’s three options for you, why don’t you discuss it for a few minutes and we’ll write up an offer! They’ll accept and then we’ll give you all new furniture!”

Nope, nothing like that.

But, end of story…we found a house! And really, we love it. It was posted on MLS at 7:00 pm, we were in the car by 7:10 and 24 hours later we were putting in an offer. It didn’t have a chance! Right price, right neighborhood, right right right.

Right now we’re working on a few things. Mainly the kitchen…the house was a flip, and so there were quite a few shortcuts taken when they worked on the house. We’re taking the time to do things right, and make sure this house won’t surprise us much more after we move in. The kitchen is getting a facelift, the bathroom, and there are a couple of wiring issues that Dave will be working on.

It’s more than just paint and getting to decorate a house and fill it with junk though. So much more. The reason we feel this is THE house and THE neighborhood is the way it all came together. Two years of looking within a certain radius yielded us nothing, and then a pastor friend of ours listened to the Lord and asked us if maybe God was telling us to expand our borders. Whoa. Expanding borders meant leaving our safety zone. Meant trusting God. Meant challenging the status quo. I’m happy to say that it took us 2 seconds to jump at the chance.

We started looking closer to Cincinnati, told Dave’s family we were most likely going to move farther away (all of 30 miles!), and within 2 weeks we were under contract. Everything fell into place.

I’m so excited with what God has planned. I pray constantly for our new village, our new neighbors, and all of the people that we will come across. My prayer is that our home is a source of light in the region and we’re able to touch lives and show people who Jesus is. To truly serve our neighbors. It’s not about getting them to come to our church, it’s about bringing Christ to them. Where they are at. To show them that we’re as broken as they are. I just have no words with how much I love them already.

I digress.

We’re homeowners. We’re learning new quirks everyday about what that means. And we’re so excited for what’s ahead.

And, yes, I am excited that I get to decorate.

http://failblog.org/2009/04/01/pregnancy-question-fail/

Oh. Em. Gee.

Dave and I got back from Tacoma about a week ago. And I’m just now getting back into the swing of things here. *sigh* I like it out there too much.

I couldn’t believe how big Isaac had gotten (he’s probably even taller now!). I really have no words for how cute he really is. He is FUNNY. And a little too smart. He figured out my iPhone in mere moments, and was calling people and deleting applications left and right. My favorite memories are of him riding his Winnie the Pooh scooter (and the music lighted whirly thing), yelling, “Jen! Jen? Jen? Jen!”  at the top of the stairs in the morning, and anything involving the words “I go!” “I hide!” or “Oh wow.”

Now. New nephew Aiden is something else entirely. Just the cutest, chunkinest baby you’ve ever seen. I loved that I came when he was 3 weeks old, and more or less picked up where Dave and I left off with Isaac as an infant two years ago. So we got to see growth, and smiles and all kinds of good things. Like this for example:

Seriously. This picture could solve world peace. How could you NOT smile looking at this chunky bebeh? I have to look away. It’s just too much.

Here’s a whole family picture:

The more Taylors in the world…the better. That’s what I always say.

Anyway. More to come later. I got some great shots with some fun stories behind them.

Knitting was a total bust. Long story…but a certain baby blanket had to come back home with me.

I need to blog more often to build up my strength…I am exhausted!

Until next time.

It’s been a long long time. I know. I’m back because Joaquin Phoenix was on ‘Late Show’ and was totally crazy the whole time.

First, read this: ‘Late Show’ Marred by Bizarre Joaquin Phoenix interview

When Dave and I went to the ‘Late Show’ a few years ago, Joaquin was the featured guest, along with a snake guy. The snake guy was good, Joaquin was…weird. He was almost exactly like this latest interview, only maybe a *little* more chatty. He would only answer Letterman’s questions with “Yes” and “No.”  Dave and I walked away saying, “What was that?!” Which I’m sure last nights guests were as well.

Anyway, it only reminds me that actors are people, and people are generally weird sometimes. I still love Space Camp!

In other news:

My sister had her baby. Sainted Nephew #2, AKA Aiden, came three weeks early and was born on January 23rd.  I’ve got my ticket booked, and I’m heading out there next week! Hooray!

Radio City was great. It keeps getting better and better. We cemented friendships, made new ones, and overall it was fantastic. I guess you just had to be there.

I’ve been cooking like CRAZY. I just got this pot today and there’s already a pot roast simmering, and the house smells wonderful. Also, got this book, and have been packing on the carbs. Not so great for my hips.

Alright, that’s all. I guess I just wanted to talk about Joaquin Phoenix. Probably because I like saying Joaquin so much. WHA-KEEEEN.

AAHAHAAHAHA  This is good.

Srsly folks, how should we respond to this? Where has the system failed? And do you think this person was maybe doing drugs at a critical point during his development? Or maybe he was just having an “off” day. That’s it. It was an off day.

It would make a good way to die a slow painful death. Every time you read the words: chiseled face, perfect face, beautiful face, awe-inspiring face, flawless face, and so on…you drink and then die of cirrhosis. Also, every time you come across a sentence in the book where Bella says, “Don’t go” “I love you more than life” or she’s conflicted about Edward/Jacob you give yourself a paper cut and therefore bleed to death.

There are four books in this series, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. And they all kind of stunk in their own way. The problem with these books, lie in the fact that you have to wade through 400 pages of the worst teen angst and pointlessness to get to one really good, well written chapter where something actually happens. Twilight was just good enough to keep me hanging on to New Moon…and I honestly don’t know why I kept reading after that.

I just really hated Bella. Shallow. Whiny. Boring. Edward…nice but also boring. Any of their heart-to-heart conversations made me want to pull out my eyelashes. Eventually, I just started skipping them entirely. People, who wants love that has that amount of extreme-codependence? Seriously! Bella should just get a needle and thread and stitch herself to Edwards “rock hard chest”. *barf*

The first book had good tension. But I certainly didn’t want to read three more books of that crud. “Where’s the beef?”

I would’ve enjoyed more character development. Less focus on that asinine relationship and more on the rest of the family or Jacob. Seriously. Jacob was a great character and his chapters in New Moon were fun.

Kudos to those of you that loved it. I guess I just didn’t get it. Sorry.

So there’s this book series that has almost completely taken over my life. Well, this book and makeup apparently…but that’s for the next post. BTW: My best friend just got married.

I went to her wedding this weekend, and the flight going to South Carolina was delayed. I had only brought along a little tiny magazine to read, and that wasn’t going to last me all afternoon (since now I had all kinds of time to burn). So I hop into a bookshop, scan the shelves, recall seeing this Twilight book on a friends’ facebook, picked it up and bought it. Three hours later I’m landing in South Carolina and the book is over half finished. If that isn’t physically possible then you’re just going to have to believe me. I finished it before I got on my connection back to Cincinnati on Monday. I hopped off flight one, had enough time to walk down the terminal, through another bookstore, find book #2, buy book, get my ticket in my hand and board the plane. Almost totally seamless. And almost totally pathetic.

Oh. And it’s totally about vampires. I know!

I talked to the bride about the series this weekend, since she had read it, and she said, “How are you liking it so far?”  I came back with, “I just want them to do it already!” Her husband came back with, “Well, now we know what kind of porn you like.” Apparently, I like vampire porn.

Nice. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought the third and fourth books on the way home from the airport……………

So, about ten years ago, I had a little Martha Stewart Living addiction. Specifically, her Weddings issue. I would buy them and quickly hide them so that no one would know that I was planning my non-existent wedding. I loved her style. I followed her trends. I believed it was totally normal to have exotic flowers oozing out of every nook and cranny of your quaint family chapel in the Hamptons. And then I actually had a wedding to plan and pay for and realized Martha is not from this planet.

Anyway, in one of her issues she featured Copperplate calligraphy, and I was instantly struck. I’ve always been interested in calligraphy. I’m more of a typography person, so this is a natural off-shoot. After studying the article for awhile, I finally bought a book and had high hopes to quickly become a master calligrapher.

Well, that didn’t happen. I met Dave and was completely distracted by life. But recently I decided to read up on calligraphy again. I found a website, IAMPETH, and developed a small obsession. Bought some necessary tools, and have been practicing non-stop ever since.

So I’m doing what I wanted to do ten years ago. Realizing that it’s not easy. And that it’s really really addicting.

PS. Please don’t look to closely. Especially at the “q’s”. Scary!

moar funny pictures

Pretending that we don’t have a crapload of stuff!

"hi, i'm here to take over your life"

So, Dave and I went to IKEA the other day. We borrowed Dave’s brother’s truck and cruised on over for a day of cheap furniture and oddly-flavorless-but smells-fantastic cinnamon rolls. We had a desk that we wanted to pick up and anything beyond that was bonus. Well, we ran across this bookcase that we’ve admired before, and it was a decent price, we had the truck, the planets were aligned, and so we bought the thing.

Brought it home, Dave set it up, and ever since then our house has been turned upside down! We moved it to one wall…eh, too big…moved it to another…nope,doesn’t look right. Thought, “What if we used it as a room divider in this room that we totally weren’t expecting to place this large bookcase in?” “Yeah. Great idea!” *eye roll*

So now we’ve got ourselves into a semi-major job of cleaning, organizing, throwing junk out of, finding donation items, redecorating, and completely rearranging two rooms in our itty-bitty house. It’s incredible how many ball point pens we have people. Seriously. I think they’re breeding.

Ugh. I hate junk!

TONIGHTS MENU:

crackers

water