a hodge podge

We closed on our house yesterday. We are now official homeowners. (How did this happen? 2 kids and a mortgage!)

Even Emma seemed to understand and all day was so relieved to have “home”. I only moderatley panicked before, during and after closing. I can’t take it back to the store if I change my mind! BUT we are excited.

After the closing, Daniel and I first came to the house before getting the girls from my parents and THIS was posted on the windows:

What!? They were warning stickers stating the house was under surveillance and demanding that a Certificate of Occupancy must be obtained before moving in.

WHAT?!!?

The stickers were signed and dated for yesterday. Posted the day we purchased our first home. Talk about immediate stress. We literally only owned the home for minutes and there was already a problem. I called the number posted, and prayed in the Spirit while on hold. The unhelpful man told me to call a different number. No answer there. I call back to Mr. Unhelpful. Another number is given. They, also, are unable to give me answers but think the inspector who posted the signs might know something. He has one office hour per day and is unreachable. But where and who I question out loud, has my answers. What is wrong with my house and why weren’t we notified or red flagged in an inspection?

The inspectors secretary explains that he gets all of his orders from the city and it is the city that will have all the information I need. She offers me a phone number….it’s the first phone number that I called twice. To my delight, someone else answers. I explain my situation and she takes my name and address and the name of the inspector.

“Oh really? He just walked in for a meeting, please hold……holding…..He’s says it’s your lucky day. Take the stickers down. The city only wanted to start monitoring it because it has been vacant!”

Thank You, Jesus.

Once we were given permission to enter our own home, we photoed our first keys and unlocking. Daniel also carried me over the threshold and proceeded to walk around the house saying “That’s my toilet, that’s my light fixture, that’s my ugly kitchen floor”…and then he did “snow angels” in the carpet. (Why not!? It’s our house, right!?)

We brought the girls back took our first family photo and showed them their room. Emma was so excited she was jumping and dancing in her no-longer-gold room.  

We had a wonderful dinner last night with our families and our pastors. We had subs on a blanket in the living room floor and prayed for God’s blessing and protection over our home. Daniel also enjoyed his first game of pool with his brother.The four of us “camped out” together on the living room floor last night.

Today we were busy painting. We have a crew lined up for Saturday to help us move in all our belongings.

It’s good to be home.

We meet someone new. We small talk. Every conversation includes this question following the standard “So, what do you do?”. Here is your answer. Photos are included for your viewing enjoyment.

Yesterday we decided to visit Chicago for Memorial Day Weekend. Daniel has both Friday and Monday off so we’ll leave tomorrow night. Sunday morning we’ll visit either Willow Creek or Bill Winston’s church. I am VERY excited for our vacation.

To give the moms a break Daniel is leading worship on Sunday for the first time in a looooooong time (since our church closed in ‘06). The girls were helping him practice. Emma was helping strum and Anna was organizing his music.

I didn’t forget.

D: this is the driving, direct, demanding, dominant, get-things-done kind of person; can at times be dictatorial and callous towards others. They would say “Give me a job & get out of the way”, “Do it now, my way”. D’s fears might include thinking “Don’t take advantage of me.” D’s are extroverted (need / want to be around people) yet are task oriented.

I, for example, am a “High I” meaning I is the only one above the midline on my graph. In small groups I am an ID. The High I properly illustrates my need for people and my need for fun.

My wonderful husband understands this and allows for my “I”. Last week, he got home from work and I had been working on several projects all week and had not had any social time…which led to high amounts of stress and a feeling of being overwhelmed. I felt weak, crazy, ineffective and…dumb. He gently reminded me that it was okay for me to be feeling that way since…I am an I. I had not been around people and my work-to-fun ratio (as we call it) was out of wack. Through understanding my personality we were both able to logically process behavior.

We use this ALL the time. Almost as soon as we meet someone, we will observe and “label” (for lack of a better word) them. This is extermley helpful. My brother is a C…it is helpful to remind myself that he does things differently than I do…because we are opposites in this DISC spectrum.

Recently, we had a meeting with a person we didn’t know too well. She was very direct, demanding and almost cold. It would have been very easy to become offended. Instead we thought, “Oh, she’s a D…she’s not being mean, she’s a D”.

Now for all you:

Andi : IS

Matt (my brother):high C (not the juice)

Mandy : high I (With CSD just below the midline…so are you a forced extrovert?)

Natalie : DC

Angie : ICS

Annie : SIC

Debbie: IS

Becca: SI

Alece: CIS (with D just below the midline)

Daniel: S (at work…D)

So, what do you think? Are your results accurate? Do the descriptions fit you? What personality stories do you have?

I bought the Enchanted soundtrack. I love this movie - it’s sweet, has great acting, fun music and it makes me laugh. The bonus is that Emma also loves the movie and even Daniel enjoys it. Anna seems pretty mesmerized when it is on. I like it so much I can’t even decide which is the funniest line, my favorite part or my favorite song. I think part of it is that 1) it’s a grown up fairy tale and 2) it’s a princess movie with actual non-animated people in it. Movies of the princess genre have been dominating our tv time. Have you seen it?

So, what will you admit, has been your “most embarrassing” music or movie purchase?

By request…

Our second year of Bible and Missions School was about to begin. It was the fourth night of Word Explosion and T.D. Jakes had just finished a powerful service. But we were hungry so we invited our friends over and we were all excited to eat some homemade chicken strips. I started the oil on the stove, and even though we were right there the oil caught fire. We tried to put it out but we could not. Daniel got some bad burns on his arm and face from the oil. The fire spread through the kitchen and laundry room and our whole apartment and all of our belongings had terrible smoke damage.

Call us stupid, uninformed or ignorant but now we are much more educated on the topic of putting out fires. We didn’t know fire extinguishers are rated for different kinds of fire, that dumping flour on it would have put the fire out or that putting the lid back on would have put the fire out. That information is helpful to know before you have a fire.

Anyways, it was pretty awful. Daniel was taken to the ER in an ambulance (he even made it into the newspaper), our apartment was shot, our stuff was unusable from smoke and from “ceiling gunk” from the firefighters ripping open the ceiling to make sure the fire hadn’t spread. It was pretty amazing that my parents were scheduled to fly in early the next morning for the second half of Word Explosion. It was such an added source of strength to have them there with us.

The maintenance men from our apartment said the management would help us find a new apartment the following morning. That night we stayed with some friends. Well, the next morning management told us they wanted us out in 48 hours because of fire caused by negligence blah, blah, blah (it was kind of illegal what they were asking of us). We spoke with my attorney brother and before things got ugly they changed the tune they were humming. We were able to move in right next to the charred apartment.

We did have renters insurance (I am so glad we did, it was wonderful!). Our insurance paid for a restoration service to come and clean out our old apartment, sort through our things, and clean what they could and deliver our clean items to our new place. We were able to keep most of our things. They made my beloved red couch as good as new. Insurance covered our hotel stay and food until we could move into the new apartment.

Even though it was a few years ago, I’m still pretty uncomfortable cooking with oil.

Emma gets stir crazy and I can relate (it must be genetic) so when I saw the thermometer outside read 60+ this morning, I made the executive decision to head to the park with the girls. There is nothing quite like the I’m-so-gitty-I-can’t-control-my-giggles smile on a two year old at the park (especially the first couple times of spring). Priceless.

After the park (sorry this is redundant for eDaniel readers…what can I say? I was here first, so you’ll just have to read double sometimes) it was as if our neighbors came out of hibernation. They were all in their front yards playing and talking. There are at least three other 2-3 year olds in a 3 house radius. The families described themselves as “front yarders who all share toys and play”. Neighbors were walking up to us saying “Oh, you’re Daniel and Danielle,(yeah….how do you know that?!). so nice to meet you. Your names won’t be hard to remember (Almost EVERY time we meet someone new say that but yet somehow people don’t remember!) ” Turns out a family we grew up knowing from church is about 3 houses away and they warned everyone about us. Our street ends at a golf course fence and every 4th of July they do amazing fireworks. Well, I guess here, it’s like a huge block party. They all sit at the end of the road, bbq, and play. I think it will be a fun summer. The extrovert in me is Luh-ov-ing this (now…if we can just get the basement to stop stinking like cat peepee).

i never thought i’d see this.

This might not make you laugh out loud like some other bloggers’ post (Natalie) or blog commenters (ahem…Daniel), but these things made me laugh out loud so I wanted to share.

Story One:

I put Emma to bed, came out to the living room and what a sight did I see. Daniel was holding [his] laptop. “Are you blogging?” I joked. “Yes….”, his voice trailed off. :::Laughter::: Kudos to the author who converted my husband, whose post was so intriguing that it demanded a response from him. Maybe he’s beginning to understand my 70% addiction to blogs. I took the computer (to blog) and he objected declaring that he was not finished and…he wanted to read more. he he

Story Two:

Our kitchen has two nice pantries. A nice big one right in the kitchen and a taller but smaller one between the kitchen and the back door. It seems odd to me that when we moved in the big one was used as a much-too-big broom closet (without shelves) and the small one had shelves. It was obvious to me that their roles were reversed. Daniel made me shelves today for my big pantry AND hung a broom hook deal to hold my broom, swiffer and mop…thus giving me TWO pantries.

I’m off track…I finally was able to put all our food away and organize it like I’ve been wanting to tonight. As I was organizing I found that I have about 473 cans of tomato product. I was laughing at myself as I was putting it all away. Crushed tomatoes are one of my standard ingredients in most dishes I cook. I hate running out so it appears I buy 62 every time I go to the store. Today I bought two Costco sized cans…thinking and fearing I had none at home. he he I think this fear-of-shortage is genetic. Growing up (and even now) my Dad had pallets of mustard at home. Every time he went grocery shopping he’d pick some up just in case…