Oh Internets, I Have Missed You

The past few days have been pretty crazy and I've been nearly without internet which has been more painful than I should admit. I apologize for my lack of email replies or blog comments, but I promise that I have read everything while mooching wireless off a neighbor, I just haven't had the time or signal strength to respond. We've had some big accomplishments during the past few days, number one being the fact that we have unpacked all 92 boxes and found a home for everything in them- even the ones that were still packed from two moves ago.

This picture is less than half of them and they're stacked two deep. It's very nice to have that done and very nice of the moving company to come back and remove them all from our garage. Our house now looks like a home (albeit a home with very little furniture) and I absolutely could not be happier with it. I love every room, every detail, every closet - and even though I am very picky, there's only two or three projects on my "I'd like to change this someday" list. Our washer and dryer arrived yesterday, the internet and cable were installed today, the phone comes tomorrow, and the fridge comes next Tuesday. Here is Landon helping me with the laundry:

Thank you for all your appliance suggestions. I ended up selecting an LG front loading washer and dryer. They have fantastic reviews and were perfectly placed at the lowest price point of the upper end appliances. They have their own little brains inside that figure out exactly what needs to be done with our clothes and I love them. Our fridge is a fairly standard black GE model with the absolutely necessary water/ice dispenser (which is higher than most and has a child lock).

Yesterday my mom drove up to deliver a mini fridge from my brother's dorm room (The Landon prefers his bottles served chilled) and check out our new digs. She loved the house and neighborhood, and because we trust her taste more than our own, we drove her over to the furniture store to approve the stuff we'd picked out the day before. Tomorrow our beautiful living room set will arrive (leather couch, love seat, very pretty stone side tables, and a giant leather ottomon/coffee table that Landon won't be able to bump his head on and get stitches like I did, twice, when I was 1). The store has excellent financing and JP has promised he will have a job next summer. We also bought a kitchen table that I might love even more than my washer and dryer. It's polished pine with slate in the center (the stone matches the side tables in the living room) and has a leaf that will extend it to 90". We're hosting Thanksgiving this year and our dining room is going to stay a furniture-less playroom for at least the next two years.

Landon has been enjoying his greatly expanded crawling space as well as his yard and froggy swimming pool that JP and I couldn't resist buying at WalMart (I have missed that store- it's almost impossible to spend more than $14.98 on anything).

He and JP just walked to the grocery store to pick out something for dinner (oh yes, we're still within walking distance of stores, which makes me so very happy). I was about to listen to my fourth barbri lecture (I'm very behind, I don't want to talk about it) when I realized one of my loan payments was due on Saturday. That was not acceptable so I resigned myself to finally figuring out all my loan details. This ended up taking nearly 3 hours, involved many phone calls, and culminated in a complex excel spreadsheet. I have now deferred or forbeared all my loans until January 2009 which will allow us to fund our acquisition of half of Lowe's inventory yesterday.

In other catch-up news for all my family and friends who wouldn't even know I was still alive without this blog: JP has been feeling great since we entered Texas. I got all my grades and in an absurd final chapter of law school had my second-best quarter ever with an average two points above the median. I am on the list to graduate this Friday. JP successfully fought his "non-resident" status for business school and found out yesterday we only have to pay instate tuition (this spurred the living room furniture purchase - after all, we'd just "made" $20,000!). Landon is crawling at 55 mph, pulls up on anything taller than 2 inches, and can walk along the flat wall like a baby Spider Man. He already has some new baby friends at the pool and JP takes him every day while I hook myself up to the iPod to learn about things like future interests and limited liability partnerships. Yes, I bitter about this, although I will admit the nerdy part of me loves having worksheets to fill in with my pretty new pen. Barbri is relatively mindless and it's nice to actually learn The Law without discerning the holding of a case with a long-winded judge. I also have beautiful striped binders to hold my handouts and school supplies are right up there with a new pair of heels in their power to make me happy.

I promise to resume my emailing and blog commenting soon - there have been so many good posts lately it's killing me to not have time to say anything. For now, it's back to Real Property II and my bowl of Blue Bell ice cream.