One-year Moveiversary, Part One.

One year ago yesterday, we moved into our current little home. I clearly remember the first time I saw it. While I thought the outside of this place definitely had some charm, once I walked in the front door, I whispered, "I hate it! I absolutely HATE it! The answer is NO" to my dear husband.

Isn't that typically a rather promising first response to things we think we will despise that actually turn out to be quite good for us? Or is it just me...?

We looked at this place in December on a whirlwind interview trip. My husband had a shot at a job he thought he just might completely love. The numbers worked. But the housing situation. Oh, the housing! Living and finding affordable housing in San Diego county was challenging enough for us (but a way was made for us!). Now we were considering moving from one expensive city to one far north of that. The difference? Oh, only about twice (gulp!) as expensive as our former city. With no real pay increase. But I was determined to find something for the sake of my husband.

After pouring over craigslist ads, calling around, and getting really frustrated with people not returning my calls since we were not local, there were really only one or two affordable options out there. One was the place I didn't exactly love and the other would be stretching our budget a little too much for my comfort. After all, if we were going to rent a larger place, we had better make sure that we could actually afford to feed "all the people we could potentially invite over" something more than crackers and tap water!

My New Centerpiece

I was in desperate need of another plant for my living room, so imagine how thrilled I was to see that Luke had taken it upon himself to make one for me! I found him making his own Venus fly trap out of construction paper and tape, so I decided to jump in and help him finish the task after he worked about three hours on this by himself. My Venus fly traps are the ones whose spines are obtuse triangles, all the other leaves are his. I helped him trim the bottom so that it would fit in a spare plastic pot I found under our kitchen sink and afterwards he made paper beetles and slugs to fill the closed traps with.

Note the two black traps that have overeaten and must be trimmed for the health of the plant! :)

"Pardon me, but there seems to be a Venus fly trap in your hair."