Family & New things.

First I’d like to recommend that everyone goes to see "Inception". We saw it while on a late night double date with Mallory and Jeremiah at the dollar movie a few weeks ago. Ryan was so involved and on the edge of his seat I thought he was going to have a stroke. (It was pretty cute actually.) It was wonderful and it will make you think you need to see it at least five more times so you don’t miss anything.

We spent that same weekend having Thanksgiving at Ryan’s dad’s house (aka Waddy & Sugar’s house). I had a really good time. Watching Ryan play with his nephew Jake and hearing “Ryan! Get the bad guy!” while you see this little head duck in and out of a pillow fort brings a joy to my heart that I cannot explain.

Good quality family time means the world to me right now due to the mess that is my family life at the moment. I am hanging on to every second I can get of a normal loving family. I realize I won’t be able to go on like this forever but for right now, I am not going to face reality. Just let me enjoy the quiet for a few moments longer. (Thank you Warren for being an amazing father to me. You have no idea how much I mean those words.)

We took a mini road trip to Frisco, TX so that we could go to IKEA and buy our hearts desire in new furniture. We previously had what I refer to as “apartment” furniture and now we have real furniture. There is a sense of pride that comes over me when I look at our new home and know that it is us. It no longer feels like someone else’s home that’s filled with our things. It feels like us and that is so refreshing. Our house was a wreck for a few days due to the fact that IKEA believes in breaking down everything to the smallest pieces they can so that they have really awesome slender packaging that gets them awards… until you get it home and you realize you have 85,000 awesome slender packages that all open up to 3,000,000 even smaller pieces you have to assemble as fast as possible so you don’t lose a tiny piece in one of your dogs mouths. You end up with 4 blisters on the palm of your hand, a sore back and really perfect furniture (unless you suck and make a mistake which makes it not perfect) but trust me, it’s extremely worth it. All I know is maybe it’s a good thing my dad’s gay. It taught me to be a little bit tougher and a little more “manly”. (Ironic? I think so.) But hey, I spent my late teen years doing the “dad” jobs around the house... you know, the ones that made my dad a little uncomfortable for fear of getting dirty and hurt.

Ryan and Jer at the Scenic Turnout somewhere on the way..

I feel like an idiot for not taking a before picture! But I do have an embarrassing “Jana, do you have to post that online? Our house is embarrassingly dirty right now” picture and an after picture. Oh and yes, that is a blanket hanging over our front door. I am having a problem finding a curtain or shade to put over it that fits correctly. What do you do when you have a glass front door? If we lived somewhere else, I probably wouldn’t care that people can see in my house…

This is what my house looked like for 3 days.

 No more tiny dining room table. We went from a 4 person to a 12!

My sister and Jer get big props for all of their help to IKEA and back. They were troopers and they didn’t complain. We definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.

Thanksgiving has now come and gone and I have to say it was all I hoped it would be. It was the first Thanksgiving I’ve ever spent at home. No driving to Enid. No being stressed. No watching every move I make and walking on eggshells. No pretending. No boredom or awkward questions. Just family, fellowship, love & excellent food. I couldn’t be thankful for more.

Now I need to put up our Christmas decorations, clean out the gutters and bag the leaves. Welcome winter.

Here are some more pictures of the final project!