Today...

Here is how our Sunday morning went...

This morning, we got up to go to early service.  This is almost always the plan on Sunday mornings; however, it seems like a lot of weeks (especially lately), we haven't actually made it to early service.  Instead, we'll get there for just in time for class, or go to late service.  We were excited to actually be headed out to make it to early service.  Even though we were headed out the door, we were still running a few minutes late.  (For those of you that know Michael, you know that he was a little frazzled to be running late...and those of you that know me, probably already know that it was my fault we were running late.)

Michael was driving my truck this morning and got in, forgetting that I didn't have a garage door opener.  (It stopped working a couple of weeks ago, and we haven't replaced it.  Just so no one thinks that Michael is terrible for not letting me have his garage door opener, he did offer and even push a little.  However, it made a lot more sense for him to have one since he is almost always home when I get home.  I can shut the door and get out in the mornings without a problem.)  As he was getting in, I reminded him that I didn't have one, so he was going to get his.  However, he didn't have his truck keys.  I have a key to his truck that I got out of my purse to give him, but I don't have a "clicker."  Supposedly using the key to unlock the door will disarm the alarm.  It didn't work this morning, though.  As soon as Michael opened the door, the alarm went off.  I'm sure our neighbors were excited to hear that early this morning!

Michael went running into the house to get his keys to turn the alarm off.  When he came back out he turned the car alarm off, but he realized that his garage door opener was in the house.  At this point, he was frustrated and just closed the door and ran out to the truck like I have been doing every morning.  The thought was that we'd go in through the front door when we got home.

We have had a storm door on the front door that we can't couldn't unlock from the outside.  (We don't didn't have a key for it and even if we did, the key hole on the outside has had been filled in.)  We used to keep it locked, but since my garage door opener stopped working, we've been leaving it unlocked so that I could get to the front door if I got home when Michael wasn't there.  Yesterday, we had the front door open and the storm door closed.  We usually lock the storm door when this is the case and just unlock it when we close the front door.  At some point last night, Michael checked to make sure that the front door was locked.  When he did this, I had the thought that we may have left the storm door locked, but I was sure we'd have the door open again today, so it wasn't a big deal at that time...fast forward to this morning.  We are backing out of the driveway, Michael has just shut the garage door without a way to open it, and suddenly I have a fear that we have also left the storm door locked.

Michael didn't want to fret about this all through church, so we pulled around to the front to check the door.  Sure enough, it was locked!  The first thought was that we had a locksmith number handy (since we had to call when we locked ourselves out of the house last Saturday...totally different circumstances).  The second thought was that a locksmith wouldn't help...we had keys, we just couldn't get through the garage door or the storm door to use them.

It appeared that the only way to get into the house was to break glass.  We called a couple of window/repair places to see if someone could come out and cut a hole in the glass to get inside without making a huge mess...no such luck!  We evaluated our options and decided the best thing to break would be the storm door.  We've been wanting to replace the handle/lock anyway (for obvious reasons...so we could have a key for it).  Plus, we could still lock our house up if we couldn't get repairs made right away.  Lastly, we could break it without glass getting all in the house.

We went to Home Depot and Lowe's to price storm doors and replacement glass and also to buy a hammer since we didn't have anything to break the door with.  While we were there, we also bought a glass cutter thinking we might could score the glass and only break out a section of it.  We did look a little strange walking around a home improvement store, all dressed up on a Sunday morning...like we had dressed up just to start a project or something.

We got home and just as Michael was about to bust the door out, it hit me that we should document this day.  (After all, it would be funny later, right?  I must admit that by this point, I had already laughed several times...Michael, however, had not.)  Here we are as it's starting to set in what's about to happen.

Scoring the Glass (which turned out not to make any difference whatsoever)

Breaking the Glass (which resulted only in minor injuries)

Once the door was unlocked, I got in the car to drive it around to the back.  When I did, I saw that I had a recent text message from Tim, "Hot blueberry pancakes if you are home."  As tempting as that was, I called Tim to tell him what happened and to say that I didn't think Michael would want to leave the glass mess on our front porch.  When I got in, I told Michael about the text and the call.  He simply asked, "Did you ask him if he has a shop vac?"  Michael went to go change clothes and get to work, but he quickly turned around and asked if I wanted to go eat pancakes.  He said that he needed a few minutes to get away from it and calm down.

We walked down to Tim and Stephanie's house and had a nice breakfast as we compared our chaotic morning to their laid back but productive one.  As we were leaving, Michael asked Tim if he had a shop vac, and he did.  This was a small victory, but one that made clean up a lot easier!

Once the excess glass was broken out, there was quite a mess.  Michael did a great job cleaning it all up, though!

We now have a clean porch (we have been needing to sweep leaves away for a while now) with no storm door that can keep us from getting in our house.  We'll have a new storm door before long that we will be able to use our keys to lock and unlock.  It will also have a screen, which I think we'll enjoy in the spring and fall!  Also, a little too much follow through on the swing will motivate us to paint the front door, which has been on our to-do list anyway.

At the end of the day, we have a lot to be thankful for.

• I'm thankful to have a house that I can get locked out of.
• I'm thankful to have friends down the street who
1. provided us with breakfast,
2. gave us a much needed break to gain perspective and get motivated to start clean-up, and
3. lent us their shop vac, which made clean-up much easier than it would have been without it.
• I'm thankful that we are blessed to be able to replace our storm door since we enjoy it so much.
• Most of all, I'm thankful to have a husband who willingly took care of cleaning glass up and removing the old door.

Buffet, Hutch, and Café

The buffet and hutch for the dining room were delivered this morning!  You may remember that they had previously been on backorder.

After some deliberation, we decided to move the storage credenza to the café (aka breakfast nook).  We wanted a baker's rack for that room, but moving the strorage credenza instead of buying a baker's rack opens up room in the dining room.  Hopefully one day all the dining room furniture can go together, but this is a great set up for us now.

I'm excited about how both rooms turned out!

I've still got some work to do on the hutch, but I love it!  We hadn't actually seen this piece in the store.  We only saw it in the catalog.  We are very pleased with how it looks in person.  I don't have a great picture of it.  The table makes it difficult to get a good angle, but here is what I got.

The café also looks great!  Eventually we want to get a new table for that room, but that will probably not be until later.  When we dubbed this room the café, the thought was that we would set up Michael's Keurig coffee maker in there and have café-type decor.  It was fun to finally get it all set up.  Plus, I now gained more counterspace next to my stove where the coffee maker used to be!

I was very excited to find the "Snowman Café" and "Santa's Diner" plates in the pictures above.  They complete the room for Christmas.  After Christmas, we'll have fun decorating it again!

Michael was excited to make the first cup of coffee in the café.  I got my camera to document the occasion.  Ready?  Ready!

We were both so excited, that neither of us noticed that no coffee was put into the machine.  :o)   Hot water, anyone?

First cup of coffee in the café:  take two!

Success!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

You can click on the pictures to view them larger.

 

It's fun to have the Christmas stuff up!  Unfortunately, we didn't have a spot big enough for our whole tree.  We improvised and didn't use the bottom section.  Instead, we started with the second piece as the base.  I think it looks good, but we need a tree topper now!  (I bought one when I bought the tree, but it went to the ceiling in my apartment.  Since there wasn't room for the topper, I returned it.)

I have ALWAYS wanted a tree in a front window.  We thought about putting the big tree in the front bay window, but that would have meant moving the table out.  Instead, we bought smaller porch trees and put one in each window.  I love them!

Furniture!

This past weekend, we had three separate furniture deliveries:  bedroom furniture, dining room furniture, and then a mattress for our new bed.  It is nice to have furniture instead of boxes in these two rooms.  It is also great to have the new furniture smell right now.  Hopefully that will last for a little while.

The buffet and hutch that we ordered is on backorder.  It will still be several weeks before we get it.  We did get the storage credenza, table, and chairs Saturday, though.  I am so excited to have a large table so we can host bigger groups for dinner and have somewhere to sit!

Once the buffet and hutch arrive, they will go on the wall behind the arm chair.  We will take out two of the leaves that are currently in the table to make room for the buffet and hutch.  We'll have to move two of the chairs away from the table, so I plan to set them up to make a little sitting area in the corner of the room.  Then, when we need more room at the table, we can add a leaf and pull the chairs back over (I hope).

Michael had asked if I was more excited about the bedroom furniture or the dining room furniture.  I couldn't decide beforehand, but now that it's all here, I'm definitely more excited to have the bedroom furniture.  It was wonderful to sleep in OUR bedroom last night, instead of in the guest room laden with things to still be unpacked, thrown out, or organized.  It was also very nice to have a bigger bed!  We will definitely be sleeping better in the coming weeks.

I still want to have a few pillows made from the extra shower curtain fabric, but here is the bed right now.

I love the way it goes with the ceiling.

We have a remote control for the light and ceiling fan, so we lay in bed last night and looked at the ceiling, talking about how much we liked it.  Then I pushed the button to turn the light off.  Since I tend to get hot, Michael said that I could keep the remote to turn the fan up and down.  I like being in control!  :o)  Although, let's face it, the fan will start out on high and stay there.

We have a second chest to go on the other side of the bed.  However, we have to change up the way the closet door opens before we can put it next to the bed.  It's a little too deep and prevents the door from opening all the way, but hopefully we'll fix that soon.  Until then, the second chest is on the wall next to the bathroom door.

This is my dresser.  We hadn't seen this mirror attached to the dresser, but I like the way it ended up looking!  I've been trying to decide if I want to move it down closer to the light switch.  After seeing this picture, I think I do want to move it a little.

Lastly, Michael's chest fit perfectly on the wall we wanted it on.  We measured more than once, but I was still a little nervous about it.  We used the measurements provided on the website, so I wasn't 100% confident.  It looks great, though!

Now we just have to pick out tile and get the fireplace finished.  I love having the bedroom almost finished.  I love the "new" freshly cut wood smell.  Also, the bottom drawers of the chest and dresser have a cedar lining, so it smells wonderful!

Now I'm anxious to finish unpacking/organizing and get all the Christmas decorations out!