A Week of Firsts

Well, we have been residents of Champaign, Illinois for one week now.  We've gotten a lot done in just seven days.  Last Monday, we had dusty furniture placed awkwardly throughout the apartment, boxes were stacked to the ceiling and trash and debris was scattered across living room and kitchen. 

Now, we are unpacked, organized, decorated (mostly) and settling in nicely.  It's cost us some money and hard work to get here, but it's starting to feel like home.  Opening our wedding presents and setting them up felt like Christmas morning.  I had been waiting two long months to tear into those shiny new appliances and pretty kitchen wares, and man, did it feel good!  What felt even better was taking back some repeat gifts ($260 worth), combined with our many, many gift cards and going on a SHOPPING SPREE in Bed, Bath and Beyond.  It was glorious.  We probably took home $500 worth of merchandise and only spent $5. 

But sadly, we were still missing some things, particularly furniture. And food. But eating can wait, I want to make my home pretty! We scored a great TV stand at Goodwill and spruced it up with a fresh coat of paint and some new hardware. While browsing, my husband, Robert, saw some old school speakers and had the stroke of genius to use them as end tables. Thanks to more paint, some fabric and my trusty hot glue gun, we now have somewhere to set our beverages while we play Super Nintendo on our 50" TV which is sitting on our "new" TV stand.  AND they still work as speakers! Surround sound, maybe?

end table before (speaker)

end table after (technically still a speaker)

TV stand before

TV stand after

We still need a coffee table, bar stools, and small shelf (or two) for extra storage space/potential decorative opportunities.  Robert tends to be picky about furniture and what he thinks it's worth and what he's willing to pay vs. what Walmart or Ikea want him to pay.  Yeah.

We also had a long and eventful trip to Walmart where getting someone to mix our paint and cut our fabric couldn't have been more difficult if the building was on fire.  But we managed to make it home with those items, plus curtains, a rug, a mirror (which Robert promptly cracked across the middle while trying to hang it), and some various hardware. 

Today I bought groceries.  Well, we had bought a little to get us through the week, mostly soup, cereal and wine. :)  Now I could actually cook a meal if I needed to.

That was an exciting first this week: cooking our first meal in our new apartment. I LOVE the Calphalon cookware my aunt, uncle and cousins gave to us as a wedding gift.  I'm pumped to cook more.

cooking spaghetti and meatsauce!

Other firsts included spending our first night in our new home (of course), doing the first load of laundry (with our IN UNIT washer and dryer!), doing the first load of dishes, having our first argument, making up after said argument,  going to church for the first time, and doing our first home improvement craft together.  I'm looking forward to the other firsts yet to come: having our first house guest, having our first dinner party, cooking our first meal on the grill Robert's parents gave us, and watching our first movie. 

There's a lot exciting things going on up here in the Land of Lincoln, so if you wanna come along for the ride, hang on, who knows what kind of crazy, chaotic adventure is waiting for us.