New Year, new beginnings...

I've been MIA, obviously, but it's mostly because I was trying to figure a lot of things out that I wasn't ready to share publicly yet.

In October:
I ran in a 5k with a friend.


Brian helped a guy run the 2nd to last leg of a 100 mile ultra marathon, then the next weekend he ran a half marathon. He injured his leg with all these activities, so he's been slowly working his way back into since.

We picked our pumpkin out at Soregel's orchard again.

We took Juliana trick or treating at Target again this year. Her "Sisters" dress was a hit, although most people thought it was Cinderella. She loved it (and still loves to wear it to school, shopping, or out to dinner). She's wearing a light blue wool dress coat that belonged to Lolli. Gloves also were Lolli's.

Our work in the lower basement continued since a move became an inevitable future expectation. We put sheet laminate flooring down in the laundry room.

Juliana had a Halloween party at school and I made these orange jack-o-lanterns filled with cut up strawberries and blueberries. I also put banana halves on cake pop sticks and dipped them in white chocolate and added mini-chocolate chips to make eyes and an "oh" mouth so they looked like ghosts.

In November:
Brian and I ran a turkey trot 5k in Pittsburgh with friends.

I traveled to the NIH for a postdoctoral research associate interview, and then the next week I went to UNC Chapel Hill for a postdoctoral research associate interview.

We are still working on potty training, but we're in a stage where we encourage her to use the potty, but we aren't pushing it. We tried to bribe her by saying Elfie would tell Santa to bring her underwear if she was using the potty all the time, but no such luck. The hardest thing for her is stopping playing or watching a movie to use the potty. She does like to use the potty when we're out shopping or to eat though.

Sometimes a self-applied band-aid will allow you to finish your dinner, even if Mommy couldn't see the boo-boo.

 Maybe she'll be a doctor for halloween next year?

 Wearing her indian headdress she made at school while reading books to her babies.

 I made a felt birthday crown for a friend, and after his birthday, Juliana had to have one. I went overboard one nap and made one King's crown, one Aurora crown, and one jeweled Rapunzel crown.

 My mom's Raggedy Ann bit the dust this summer, and I salvaged some pieces and made this pillow for mom for Christmas.

In December:
We geared up for the holidays by setting up our Christmas tree, making a gingerbread house, introducing Juliana to her "Elfie" (Elf on the Shelf), attending Nutcracker ballet festivities, and of course presents.

 Juliana helped Grandma make this burlap wreath.

I received an offer from UNC Chapel Hill. Brian applied for a job in Raleigh at Cat.

I went to a paint your own pottery night with a friend.

Juliana was complaining about her eye hurting, so after a quick trip to the doctor to be told nothing was wrong, we went to Starbucks and got oatmeal and a drink for mom. While we were there, Cinderella didn't pick up her drink, so we took her cup with us.

 Next day, Juliana had a fever, so we got to do some art projects at home while Mom worked on things for school. We tried to learn about colors and what happens when you mix them (i.e. red and yellow makes orange!), but Juliana was really interested in making brown!

We got dressed up in a special new dress that Elfie brought us to wear to see Santa when he came to school. We enjoyed wearing this special outfit for all the Christmas parties and celebrations we had to attend.

Juliana got lots of new princess stuff, clothes, and toys. She played by herself for hours.

 "This is my car, Mom. Not my work truck"

Brian was a bit rushed into putting in the new railing for the family room before Lowe's came to do the carpet.

 He also wired the rest of the pot lights for the ceiling in the family room.

Lowes installed the new carpet in the family the day before we left for Christmas vacation.

We attended the wedding of my college suite mate in Texas while Juliana spent a weekend with Grandma and Bill.

We had Home Depot come to install our new vinyl plank kitchen floor. The tear out took over 6 hrs, and the install took over 8 hrs. The ceramic tile that was installed popped and shattered right off. We already had tiles breaking which is why we knew we needed to have this floor replaced.

 Then we discovered that the tile was installed on PLYWOOD, not ceramic board.

 After getting the tile up, they took up the plywood.

 The plywood had thousands of screws to keep it held to the particle board subfloor. These screws were not in joists and were very difficult to get out. So the installers hammered them into the particle board instead of trying to get them out.

 As a result of hammering in the screws, the next day when they came back to install the new floor, some screws had already started working their way back up again. Therefore, not a day after they installed the new floor (which was wavy when we walked on it), screws were popping up through the new flooring, creating new holes. Thus began the next month of trying to get someone to look at it while we figured out what needed to be done to fix it.

 We spent a short few days at Christmas at Nana and Papa's house. Juliana loved helping everyone, and visiting with all her cousins, especially Allison, as apparently she is her absolute favorite.

 Santa decided this was the Frozen Christmas, and Juliana was thrilled with her new dolls.

In January (so far):
Mom and Dad came up to our house after Christmas to help us finish up projects at the house. This included installing baseboard in the basement after the carpet install, putting up trim around the laundry room doors, shelves in the laundry room, moving furniture around into the upper and lower basements, extensive cleaning, finishing the ceiling in the family room, painting the kitchen where the baseboard used to be, etc.

We converted the upper basement into Juliana's playroom, my sewing area, and a desk area for the home computer. In order to also start thinking about "staging" the house for selling, we moved her crib downstairs and opened it up like a couch/reading nook area.

 

 We moved a couch and chair into the lower basement to enjoy our new TV/entertainment family room space.

Brian installed the door between the family room and the laundry/utility room. It's beautifully installed, probably the best door in the entire house.

 

Home Depot came back to take the kitchen floor out, scrape up the particle board subfloor and begin extracting the thousands of screws, Brian put down a new plywood subfloor, and Home Depot came back to reinstall the kitchen floor. One guy came on Friday to take up the particle board (pic below), and he only made it almost 2/3rds by the end of the day. He still had hundreds of screws sticking up, let alone a whole other row of particle board to pry up, but Brian said he'd finish it. It took Brian (and Bill) all day Saturday to get it up, and all day Sunday to put down the new plywood floor.

 Juliana is wearing a flowered dress that was Caitlin's for one of our first caregiver's weddings, many many years ago. It took a lot of convincing to get her to wear the dress (like months), because she insists it doesn't twirl. I told her it was like Aurora's dress, and that seemed to make it okay. "Don't take my picture!"

 "Take my picture!"

We are hoping to have the house listed within the next week or so, and now that the construction projects are *almost* finished (the master bathroom fan we've had for years and it's just never been a priority, but it's the last thing besides some touch up painting that's on my list), I can start the tedious process of cleaning and decluttering to get ready for pictures to be taken and to show the house. We are hopeful (and appreciate any additional thoughts, prayers, and well wishes) for a quick sell, as I need to be down in Chapel Hill no later than April. We will be traveling down to Chapel Hill in February for Brian to go on an interview with Cat, and we will be checking out house rentals and day cares. We are hopeful that this trip will be a success, get us excited about the major changes coming our way, and we will have a good idea what will be going on with our impending move. There are lots of details we will need to figure out (how we will move, what we will move, if we will sell furniture, etc), and we pray for clarity as we proceed through these decisions, but we know that we just have to take it a day at a time to check these things off our list. I hope to be better about posting stories and such of our adventures since Juliana is growing up and all her cuteness is passing by without being documented, but as you can tell, we've been just a tad busy these past few months. Mostly, I'm hoping that Chapel Hill will allow us a chance to relax, reconnect, and slow the pace a little bit from the franticness that was 2014. I'm also looking forward to moving on from a certified "money pit" of a house, and am planning that one day when we do choose to own again (right now, this will be a LONG time, I'm really turned off), that house will be minimal maintenance and maximal relaxation and enjoyment. I really can't express how exhausting it is for both of us (Brian does most of the labor, of course), to work all day or all week, and then expect an evening or weekend full of more working on the endless projects without getting to enjoy family, friends, or activities.