Home from the Holidays

Home again, home again. Well, our apartment doesn't exactly feel like home these days considering we are almost entirely packed and ready for our January 1 move. The last week and a half have been a whirl of activity and it won't stop for another couple of days. We celebrated Christmas with the MacRaes the weekend before Christmas. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas feast and somehow managed to fit in most of our traditions into a 30 hour period of time.

We left and came home to an empty home. For those of you who don't know, we had to put Duchess down last Friday. It's been an adjustment coming home and not having her welcome us. I know Jarrett is especially missing her. And I even found myself a bit sentimental. On Tuesday we packed up more of our house and then our car and headed to Tennessee. The weather was awful getting down there but we drove through snow, ice, and rain and ended up in Dayton and enjoyed a 70 degree Christmas. That was a first for me! It was wonderful seeing Chloe and the rest of the Knoxes.

So now we have returned to Chicago and work. The move comes Thursday. Oh, and just because we're both excited I'll tell you about some of our favorite Christmas gifts! After many years of wanting snowshoes, Jarrett got me a pair and a promise that we will go snowshoeing soon. I think we were thinking similarly because I got him some stuff for a spelunking adventure. Jarrett got a bow and arrows, shoes, and a pen. I got a steam mop :), rain boots, and fun accessories from Nepal.

I would promise pictures of our Christmas but we forgot the camera on top of the fridge. We're actually looking to buy a new one and hopefully that will encourage us to take more pictures.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We look forward to inviting you all to our new home. Hopefully it will feel like a home in no time at all.

Update from the Knoxes

I forget to post and then time passes and I don't know where to begin. But in an effort to catch people up on the happenings here, I'll try to give ya'll the highlights.

1. We're moving. Today is took 1 hour 15 minutes to get home from Highland Park. Yucko. So we're heading up to Lincoln Square- close to the trains for both of us to take to work. It's a cute little apartment right off the square. We're both excited but a bit overwhelmed at the amount of work it will take to get ready to move during the holiday season. My to-do list keeps getting longer.

2. Despite the commute, the job is going quite well. AND I have a lunch break. Perhaps the first lunch break ever in the history of my careers. So I read :) Today it was the Test Kitchen Ultimate Guide and another book I'm really enjoying... OH, and some food magazines at Borders.

3. Jarrett got to go to a Bull's game last night and had a blast.

4. Our tree is up and beautiful. Not as beautiful as last year since we had to forgo the real one for a fake, but it's nice.

That's it for now. I'm heading to get Jarrett from the train... Only 17 more days of these commutes.

Thanksgiving with the MacRae side

30 people for Thanksgiving, 2 pregnancy announcements, 5 children ages 4 and under, tons of delicious food, and meaningful times with all... we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

back to work

I'm six days in and starting to feel a bit more settled at the new job. It's fine but it's definitely a change of pace from 30 5-year-olds! So here are my lists:

5 things I miss the most from my time off:
1. waking up at 7.30
2. breakfasts with Jarrett
3. having the day to bake, cook, clean, sew, and read
4. not having to spend my life in the car
5. friend time

5 things about this job I like better than the past three:
1. OH MY WORD, the bathroom is finally clean (school bathrooms are gross)
2. it's not stressful
3. no one screams
4.

well, I'm coming up with only 3 so I'll end it there. I'm thankful for this job. It's in the field of education and honors teachers for their hard work. I get to organize and do some event planning. But at the same time I'm still wondering if this is it. Well, it works for now and for that I'm thankful.

A New Endeavor

Recently, Cath and I have taken on a new hobby: buying old furniture and "rehabbing" it a bit. Here are a couple of our bigger projects.

BEFORE: a pretty dinged up old dresser


AFTER:



BEFORE:


AFTER:


Plus, one more we really like. We don't have a BEFORE picture, though:


Cath and I hard at work.

More Pictures... with Jarrett :)

Good News!

I was offered the job today. YIPPEE! I will be working for a non-profit that works with early literacy and managing their annual teaching awards. I'm excited! Not so excited about the commute to Highland Park but I already borrowed a book on cd from the library in preparation for the drive. I start Monday so all my projects need to get finished in the next couple of days.

Since our last blog we've been busy...

Here we're in Rockford at the apple orchard picking raspberries and eating apple doughnuts/cider with the fam




Also, we went to an estate sale and loaded up on great stuff for the house. I'll try to update with pictures soon. I've been bad at this lately... my apologies. But for this week I have just a few more days of reading, baking, errands, sewing, crocheting, and getting ready for next week. It's been a great season not working and I feel rested and ready to go! Thanks for all the prayers!!