The Bell Family

SLOWLY BUT SURELY...

Well, it's official...we've finally moved into our new home! Now, don't take 'moved in' too literally. We've still got boxes scattered between different rooms, searched for toilet paper, towels, and deodorant that we packed no where near each other, and moved furniture around one too many times.

BUT, the important stuff is done!

• We found the remote to the TV (that's an important one)!
• The kitchen is finally unpacked (it's so weird to not feel like I'm setting up a booby trap every time I strategically put the dishes away!)
• All the bathrooms now have toilet paper! (I tell you this with great pride. Nobody likes to do the chicken dance in search of TP, pants around their ankles, praying that nothing drips and ruins the freshly cleaned carpets!)
• Locks have been changed
• WINDOWS ARE SPARKLING CLEAN (shout out to mom for that one!)
• Disposal has been replaced (go daddy-o!)
• Fire alarms no longer squawk in protest every 3 seconds to remind us to change the batteries (this is an amazing accomplishment considering I did this WITHOUT the use of a ladder...piles of books, laundry and my feeble gift of balance to thank for that)
• Boogers have been cleaned off ALL blinds
• Bed setup, WITH SHEETS

Jim and Anne were gracious enough to hire help to clean our house. This was a gift straight from heaven! It would have taken me until the year 2015 just to skim the surface.

The cleaning ladies showed up and 9 hours later, called to let me know it was finished. When I got there to check things out, Maggie (the cleaning woman) just looked at me, wiping sweat from her brown, and said, "They NEVER clean!" I dare say that I agreed with the understatement! From a quick glance, the house really didn't look that bad. However, once we really started looking at it, we realized that the previous family had zero concept of cleanliness.

So, we knew for sure that we would have to replace at least the stove. We used every chemical known to man (nearly) in attempt to scrub the grime off, to no avail. We were going to use a fridge that Jim and Anne had years ago...but sadly it died the day we moved it into our place...so that too needed to be replaced. The micro was stained and didn't work. The dishwasher was on the list to be replaced as well...but we figured we'd use it till it died and clean the gunk off as best we could.

One Saturday we ventured out to Home Depot, picked out our selection of white appliances and setup a delivery for the following weekend. No more than 2 days after they were installed...Mr. Dishwasher keeled over...but not without leaving us a basin full of water...and no easy way to get it out. Steve is now filling in on behalf of the late Mr. Dishwasher. May he rest in peace.





Here are some pics of the inside of our new place: