Props: Shabby Chic (Jill) or Awesome Cheap (Nathan) Tables

So, this was a project that slipped through the cracks. Not so much our accomplishment of it, but our bragging about accomplishing it on the blog.

The pictures are in reverse order, so, watch the transformation unfold from end to beginning. Notice the beautiful and classy nightstands to either side of the bed (the duvet cover was a Jill creation).

Here is a close up of the job. If you're wondering, yes that is an ESV Study Bible. Great setpiece, isn't it? Notice the fresh, white paint and the illusion of age that comes from careful sanding.

Here is where the tables began their life, as a pair of cheap sewing machine tables. Jill found an antique shop out in the Indiana boonies that she wanted to visit, so we made the trip. It was about an hour outside Louisville, but it was a different world. That's an exaggeration, but not a huge one. I saw at least three places to buy a tractor on the way out.

Jill had wanted some side tables for a while, and she had hopes of finding some good ones there. I don't pretend to be an expert on these things, but there does seem to be a large market for antiques in and around Louisville. Where it all comes from, I'm not sure, but, in terms of price, things get cheaper as you move out of the city.

So, we didn't find any nightstands persay (but if I collected Coca Cola stuff, mmm, I would have been in heaven). We were about to leave before we found an almost matched set of sewing machine tables. Crazy, I know. But, with a little work, some paint, a matched set of knobs from Home Depot, and a screwdriver to remove the unneeded hardware, and you have what we see here.

I love the cheapness; I love few things more than bragging about a good deal. Apparently, though, it's a stylish result. So I hear. By that I mean, so Jill tells me.

Plot: A Cold Spell

I have been chided for letting so much time lapse since my last post. Jill just explained to me last night her vision for alternating blog posts, so, not only have I been letting my end of the blogging bargain fall by the wayside, I've been holding her up. This is an attempt to make up some ground.

It's not as though I've been entirely idle, though. Here are some of the things I (often we) have been into for the past month, working backwards:

-Today I got myself tested for tuberculosis. The test gets checked in two days. I haven't coughed up any blood so, I think things look good.

-This past weekend I took a pair of teacher certification tests. Hopefully the Praxis will be the last standardized test I ever take, maybe, for a while.

-We saw a star show at the planetarium. It was free (the best sauce) because of some of my students who were presenting there. I should thank them.

-Jill got to come to school and watch the sophomores put on a science demonstration show for some visiting fifth graders. She also got to see me entertain sixty elementary school children for a while and yell louder than she has ever heard me. I'm sure that's the part that stuck with her.

-We went out to sushi, feeling very urbane and sophisticated about the whole thing.

-We (mainly I) have watched three and a half seasons of 30 Rock. I'm less than proud of that one.

-We visited Ball State University, where my sister will be attending in the fall. I was supposed to do homework in the car. I didn't.

-We made bagels and roasted our own peanuts. Jill was excited about these. It was very domestic. You'll likely hear about them later.

-We started attending a small group at church. It's been great and we were definitely spoiled by full meals two weeks in a row. The experience has taught me that I am terrible with names and I ignore my lack of knowledge long past when it's acceptable to ask. I've been doing a lot of back door conversing, trying to get people to say their own names.

-I shaved my beard.

-Jill shaved her legs (I assume).

As I'm sure you can see, it's not like I haven't been busy. Tell Jill; back me up.

Plot: Visitors weekend

How I miss this girl. I was so excited that she came to spend the weekend with us, though not so excited for some of the other events of the weekend.

Friday night before Kelly arrived, we received a knock on our door from our landlord. She had a troubled look on her face and asked to look at our hot water heater, apparently the apartment below us was getting soaked. About an hour after that we had some men come shut our water off and told us we would be getting a new heater in the morning. Kelly arrived shortly after this.

Sure enough, at 9 the next morning we had a new hot water heater being installed. I was so excited, since previously we

only had enough hot water to take one hot shower and one lukewarm one.

We went out for the day with Kelly, showed her around town and such, but when we came back we had yet another surprise. Some men were in our apartment installing "Driz" an industrial vacuum that sucks water out of the floor. It had to run constantly for three days... awesome.

*below* "Driz"

However, we did not let this stop us from enjoying the weekend. We also did a fun craft while Kelly was here. Nathan and I bought some muslin fabric to make curtains out of and some coffee to dye them. They didn't turn out quite as dark as we thought they would, but we like them. I'll let the series of pictures tell the story.

Coffee pot fail lets try boiling it ready to pour

stirring and such

So exhausting..

For finished product please see our video labled: Setting

Thanks to Kelly for photographing these special events:)

Plot: Our week long adventure - The Honeymoon

After a six hour drive from Michigan the day after our wedding, we were home, but not for very long. We unloaded our over packed car and heaped it into our living room. Very exhausted we climbed into bed for the night.

We intended on leaving at 10 the next morning. We were not too far off that mark despite the packing, breakfast, and showering that all took place.

The drive to Maryland was something like an 11 hours to our destination, the Elk Forge Lodge Bed and Breakfast. I was questioning whether it was even worth it to travel this far for a bed and breakfast. As it turned out, it was. The place was beautiful, a huge old house with stained glass windows, three floors of rooms, sitting areas, a game room, and a conservatory, where breakfast was served every morning.

The night we arrived we got in a little later than anticipated. We went to the front door, which we were told would be unlocked..it wasn't. We thought maybe this isn't the front door, so we proceeded to walk all the way around the building at 11:30 at night, with only our phone light to guide us. Finally we found a doorbell and someone came down to let us in. We were so tired, we climbed in bed and went to sleep.

The following day Nathan had some homework due, so he worked on that while I napped.

We found out that we were right on the border of Delaware, a state with no sales tax and we had just opened all of our cards from the wedding. We ventured over there for the day to spend some of our Target money-our best buy was a board game called othello.

On Thanksgiving, we thought we would go to a restaurant that we had a coupon for. It was located on a river, a tiny little town clearly only inhabited during the summer. We found the restaurant and thought that the sign said that they would be open at 5. It was 4:30 so we stayed and despite the misty cold air we got out to walk around a little bit. As 5 o'clock rolled around, we went back to the restaurant to find it still deserted. Reading the sign a little closer we find out that the Thanksgiving dinner was served yesterday. That being a bust, we start back toward the B&B looking for anywhere that was open. About two hours later, we are both starving, we look to our right and we see a place that is open that isn't a McDonald's. We came upon a shady little diner named " The Chuck Wagon." They are serving an all you can eat Thanksgiving dinner and they were open, we couldn't pass it up. We had the nicest seats in the house, right next to the electric fire place. We had our fill, then went back to our room, totally satisfied with our first Thanksgiving dinner together.

Nathan and I went out to a nice restaurant one night and ordered a meal of appetizers and wine, in my opinion, it was the best meal we had. I love variety in a meal.

We were back in Kentucky the following Saturday and went to church on Sunday. Concluding our first adventure as a married couple.

Synopsis

Like Nathan said there has been a lot of change in our lives over the past few months. I wanted to hit a few of the highlights and hopefully elaborate on them a little later.

We both graduated in May, not long after Nathan was on his way to Kentucky for the summer to start classes while I waited not so patiently for a ring so that I could start planning a wedding.

Early July, Nathan surprised me with the engagement on campus. I said yes.

Many phone calls, decisions, and conversations later, we were ready to get married on November 20,2010.

The day after we were off, back to Kentucky for a night, then to Maryland for our honeymoon.

The next couple of weeks following were spent finding a home for all of our wedding gifts and making a few swaps with Target.

Soon after I found a job making quilts. It kept me busy before Christmas, working over 50 hours a week.

I had to take the day off on my birthday on account of my car being completely coated with a 1/2 inch layer of ice, which I did not really mind given the day.

We ventured North for the holidays. Seeing both sides of the family yet trying not to overload our time was tricky, but we figured it out.

We were back in Kentucky for New Years Eve, which we spent with a few of Nathans friends from his program, I being the only girl.

Our friend Mike came to visit, making him our first guest.

Soon after our friend Kelly came to visit during MLK weekend. This same weekend we found out our hot water heater was broken and was leaking all over the apartment below us. We had the immense pleasure of meeting "Driz" the industrial vacuum that was sucking water out of our floor and was running constantly for three days.

We have set every Wednesday night to be our "date night" usually a time to just be intentional in conversation and hanging out, usually dinner is included. One date night this month we went to a winery since we hadn't been on a fancy date since our honeymoon. There was live music, wine, some awesome sweet potato fries and a comfy couch.

An ongoing decision making process has finally come to an end, we have decided on a church.

Just recently I found that I was laid off from quilt making, not to say I was too surprised since after Christmas business slowed dramatically.

I also had a meeting with an entrepreneur who is trying to start a clothing line sort of modeled after Toms shoes. He really enjoyed the designs that I brought and will hopefully get to be a part of this organization as it starts, God willing.

Nathans project for the past couple of months has been refurbishing an old computer by combining and swapping parts from another old computer in hopes that it would run the internet and connect to our tv, which it now does. I was so proud of him when he got it all hooked up and running. Very impressive Mr. Harris.

Nathan has also been getting hurt quite a bit lately. His little activity cost him a gash to the toe from dropping the computer on it. He sliced his finger with his new knife cutting ham. And splashed acid on himself in a lab at school.

That should just about bring you up to speed on our lives, and like I said, Nathan and I hope to expand on certain topics, one so we can remember them better and two so you can understand.

Plot: Gardening

Gardening is hard. I think it's like caring for a child. Probably. We don't have children. We do have a rosemary plant. It was our Christmas tree, and I think it's now dying a slow, protracted, agonizing (Jill says), and I can only assume painful death. I don't know what else to do for the little guy. He has a new pot, plenty of sunlight, fertilized soil and what should be the right amount of water (not too much, he's a fickle Mediterranean shrubbery). And yet, it's still getting crunchy.

Jill censored a cancer kid joke here.

I don't know what else to do, besides watch what could have been a delicious source of herbs for years to come and the first implicit test of our parenting skills give up the ghost. At least we didn't kill a dog.

Cliff Notes: Everything You Need To Know

We've added a sidebar video to catch you up on us, if you can't be bothered to read the book, so to speak. That would mean actually getting to know us, I suppose. The claim is pretty grand. Is it really everything you need to know? No, it isn't. You won't learn, for example, that Jill is not a morning person or that I love the perception that I'm being mistreated, and getting to complain about it. You don't really learn, in retrospect, about the faith that is supremely important to both of us, and the relationship with God that defines all others in our lives, including with one another.

But it's a set of Cliff Notes, right? It will probably get you through the test, even if you can't remember the name of Don Quixote's sidekick (Sancho Panza).