Monday Musings

It's crazy how vividly I remember crying a little each day the first week we moved up here and had to leave so many friends and family behind in Atlanta. Everything felt foreign and strange: the air's consistency, the colors of a sunset, the products in the grocery store, the pace of life. I told myself that I only had to hold on for four years, that if I engrossed myself in school work and my husband, that we could be back South in no time.


And now almost two years have passed. I've finished my coursework - I never have to take another class again (and if you know me well enough, you know that's a bittersweet statement), and my PhD is half-over! JD and I have found a foster family up here of friends and neighbors, and we're having our first child in Normal, Illinois. Sometimes it's just too strange to contemplate.


Looking back to when we first arrived, one firm marker of our time spent here is the change in our house. It's amazing to remember what this house looked like when we moved in and to realize all the work we've put into it. There are now just as many rooms in the house that we've painted as those that we haven't, and the yard is really unrecognizable as the one that we inherited from the previous owners. Over the past couple of weekends, JD has worked hard and made even more drastic improvements to the front of the house by painting our front porch a new color and adding shutters that just completely change our drab grey house into a cute little thing! Check out our before and after pics:

We love it! And John David has even bigger plans to repaint the foundation the same blue; that plan will just take a little more time. But have no fear-after we finish this project, I have plenty more in mind! I mean, what else do we have to do this summer? :)