Deja Vu

My life has shifted to include three central items: work, Jack, and the house (don't worry, God still counts as number 0, as the precursor to all three). The house came along at just the right time. I needed a project!

Work will probably take a lot of my time for the next 30 years. Nurse Jackie asked me to create a new service line at the St. Fozzie's (actually, she told me I'm going on a site visit to a hospital in Milwaukee and I actually had to prompt her to tell me what she was asking me to do). I was asked to create an osteoporosis clinic, to help bolster our women's care services. I'm excited about this opportunity, but stoked about the way I keep getting asked to create programs. The ol' resume is growing.

Although we both put a lot of time into work, marriage still comes first. That's why we agreed to have one weekly "date night" per week. It ends up being "go home, get into pj's, and watch America's Funniest Home Videos together on the couch," but that's okay. So that's why this house project came along at the right time. We need something else to do with our lives to get out of work mode more often. Plus, it gives Jack and I an excuse to go bummin' together on weekends.

We took our first trip to Lowe's yesterday, in search of paint colors. We spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars at Lowe's during the past several years. We refinished virtually our entire house in SB and regularly strolled the aisles at Lowe's, dreaming up ideas and color schemes for our house. Well, in the new house, it isn't much different. The great thing is that, with a new construction, everything is done. It's new and fresh and we don't have to do anything. Granted, all the fixtures and lights are contractor-grade crapola (and Jack can't stand uniform conformity!), but they are functional. Nonetheless, we strolled the aisles at Lowe's dreaming up our color scheme for the new house.

The weird part? After picking out a new chandelier, pendant lighting for the kitchen, ceramic tile, and a slew of paint colors, we realized that we're subconsciously trying to re-create our old house! We're trying to inject some character into the sterile, bland house! It's an intentional deja vu.

The other thing is that I am tempted to pick paint colors based on their names. Doesn't "Sunset Bliss" sound better than "Pale Ecru?" How about "Serenity" instead of "Washed Denim?" I particularly liked "Creme Brulee" over "Beeswax." Perhaps I shouldn't pick paint colors if I'm hungry.

Regardless, this is super fun and I'm very glad the house opportunity presented itself. It's so easy for me to lose myself in work and the Christmas season is very tough for me. So this will be a great diversion and give me something else to focus on for a while. Plus, it's just great to be able to reorganize everything. Nesting 101!

Our home inspection is Saturday (after which, we're going to hang around and measure for curtains!) and after a successful inspection, the appraisal will be completed. After that, the complete file will go to the underwriters and pending their stamp of approval, we will close the week of December 6, and move to our new house on December 11.