One Year!

I knew it was around this time of year when we closed on the house and also when I started writing this blog to keep family and friends updated about our improvements and homeowner related adventures. I can't believe it! It seems to have gone really fast! I went into the archives and discovered that my first post was added on August 19, 2009 and we closed on the house on August 27, 2009. Oh, what an exciting day that was! I believe we went to the bank at 3 pm and I packed some things in my car to bring over there as soon as we were done! I brought my poor tomato plants that were not flourishing on our sunless apartment balcony that I had been worrying about all summer. I also brought a big bag of paint samples I’d recently picked up from various hardware stores and some soap and hand towels. Kind of random! I recall being very happy though and barely able to believe that we owned a house!

I was reading through my old posts this morning and reminiscing and also laughing at my nonsense! It is hard to believe that I was able to fill a year with house related projects (and of course many off-topic posts as well). Well. . .it’s time for me to wrap this up and keep my life to myself. . . if you want to see our cat and house and yard you will have to come and visit! hahaha just kidding! I have a blast writing this thing and I don’t imagine running out of material any time soon. Please, keep reading! It is actually fun to have a year of life recorded.

Now, I am going to present a retrospective of the more important posts of the year. Well, some of them aren’t important but I just thought they were funny. So we will say they are my favorites!

August 25: In this post I displayed a rug from Pottery Barn that I wanted. Pottery Barn names a lot of its furniture with “people” names and this one was named Maren! Seriously! They still have it in the catalogues!

Sept. 23: This post is not that special but I thought it was funny. I had forgotten what a mess I created for myself by trying to paint over painted furniture without sanding it first. I was trying to paint red furniture brown and it took about 10 coats and the early coats made it look like dried blood.

Sept. 24: I wrote this post when we were in the process of moving and it was devoted to the crap that I have hauled with me since my college years with my roommate, Ashley/Roommate. It still makes me laugh and I know it made her laugh so it is one of my favorites even if it is like an inside joke between us.

Sept 12: This post was short but still had an impact! I found out I passed the bar exam on Sept. 11. I didn’t write on there that day because I was too busy talking on the phone and gloating (never mind it was my 3rd try!). I remember waking up on Sept. 12 and wondering if it could really be true!

Oct 16: This post was devoted to our first day with Allan! He looks like a little baby in the pictures! He weighed 6 pounds when he came to live with us and now he weighs 12 pounds.

Nov. 27: I wrote this post after the first Thanksgiving we hosted here in Bismarck! It was the first that I hadn’t been with extended family since my family moved to ND in 1990! Only my parents and brother were there so it was just 5 of us! It was pretty low key. My mom liked it because she didn’t have to cook for 20 people for once (it was weird for me to not eat food she cooked!) Justin and I made food that was OK, I guess…

Dec. 1: This post has one of my favorite pictures of Allan! In it, he was in the Christmas tree, which is not behavior I appreciated but it was still a good picture!

Jan. 4: We went to Red Lodge, MT, for a New Years’ ski trip and to celebrate the upcoming wedding of my cousin Katie to Adam. We went out on the town every night and had a bachelor and bachelorette party for them.

Jan. 31-Feb. 11: This was a multi-post event! We were in Mexico for seven days for my cousin Greg’s wedding to Lindsay and it was pretty fun. I love Mexico!

March 7: I wrote this soon after I started my temporary job in Fargo. I can’t believe I was there for 3 months! It seems like a long time ago.

March 23: I utilized my scanner for this one. . .it was a wedding themed post about wedding dresses. It was about as girly as a post can get!

March 31: This post was dedicated to my cousin Katie’s wedding! I had three cousins get engaged in the same month (two in the same week!) in 2009 and so I had three cousins get married within a few months in 2010. It was fun!

April 6: I wrote this one after Easter weekend. It was pretty uneventful (even though Easter was also my birthday!) I really like the post because of my description of the eggs we dyed that afternoon. It still makes me laugh, especially Andrea’s egg that was supposed to look like Jake!

April 25: Oh, the garden. We were so optimistic when we planted it one weekend when I was home from Fargo! And what a strange and disappointing garden it has been!

May 2: This post was dedicated to the third cousin wedding of the year. Laura married Kevin on May 1st in Fargo.

May 23: This post was about my parents’ Fargo Marathon accomplishments. They are planning another one, possibly in Bismarck in Sept. so stay tuned!

June 7: June 6th is Allan’s birthday! He is one now, and this post is just funny because we made him a stupid little party hat that he hated.
June 14: This post features the construction disaster on my street (which is still going on! UGH!) I love the picture of the porta-potty on the corner by our house. I never did use it!

July 8: This post was dedicated to America’s birthday and a fun celebration!

The rest are too recent to be interesting to me and probably to you, so I will end it there. Oh, what will next year hold?

Sorry I didn't add pictures from the mentioned posts. . .it would take forever so you can just refer to the archives on the right side of the page if you want to see any!