When it rains, it pours.

When Ben and I got home yesterday evening, we were so ready to eat dinner, play with the dogs, and go to bed early. The past couple of weeks have been completely exhausting, and although we plan to go to bed early every single night, it just never seems to happen. Again, this was the case last night.

It all started when I got home and found that Annie had decided to use the couches in the front room as chew toys that afternoon. I knew that she had done something wrong the second that I walked through the door. Her ears were pulled back, she was crouched down, and I frantically searched the house for what she destroyed. Needless to say, I was not too happy. The worst part about the whole situation is the fact that she knows that what she did was wrong -- yet she still did it. For the time being, we have sprayed both couches with "Bitter Apple", but I don't know what we're going to long term. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I don't find the same thing when I get home today.

Later that evening, after eating dinner and taking the dogs on a walk, Ben decided that it was time for cookies and milk. Because our refrigerator was not delivered until this past Tuesday, we've been eating out every meal since we've been in the house (which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds), and we haven't really had a chance to use our new appliances to cook. Therefore, last night was actually our first time to use the oven. He turned it on, and immediately a really weird smell began to fill the house. At first we thought that it might because it was new (it made sense at the time), but luckily Ben decided to check the broiler. Broiler? I thought the drawer below the oven was a storage compartment for all of our flat kitchen stuff like cookie sheets, baking pan lids, etc. That had been the purpose of that particular drawer in all of the previous places that I have lived, but I guess that's not the case at our new house. Oops. Needless to say, the plastic lids are goners.

As the night went on, Ben continued to compliment Amos on how he had been the good dog that day, and I continued to tell Ben that he was going to jinx us. Later that night when Ben was carrying all of my winter clothes in from the car (I had stored them at my parents' house this summer) and I was making room for them in the closet, Amos decided that it would be a perfect time to go pee.....all over our brand new bed. Luckily, it didn't soak through to our new mattress, but it was all over our new comforter and sheets. We threw them in the wash and tried to wait up for them. Unfortunately, some of us didn't quite make it.

My Favorite Things About Our House

My apologies for the delay on the post about our move into the new house. I know that all of you were on the edge of your seats with your eyes glued to your computer screen and repeatedly clicking "refresh" in hopes that the post would magically appear, so I hope that each of you will forgive me. In reality though, I highly doubt any of you were actually doing that as I'm pretty sure everyone knows how inconsistent I am at this whole blogging thing. But, here's your update.

We moved into our new house on Monday, and let me tell you -- it is wonderful! We are still unpacking and putting everything in its place (it's amazing to finally have enough space for EVERYTHING), but we are very much enjoying our new home.

Here's a list of my favorite things about the house so far:

1. Opening up the back door and just letting the dogs run out. No more running down 3 flights of stairs in hopes that Amos can make it all the way down before popping a squat. No more circling around the grass with the dogs until they each find their "perfect spot" (keep in mind that Annie's "perfect spot" was usually in one direction while Amos' was in the other direction). And no more pulling on leashes in order to keep the dog who is ready to wrestle away from the one is trying to go potty. They now have to deal with that on their own. It's wonderful.

2. Walking in the house barefoot. No more stepping out of the shower and into flip flops because the floor is so gross that it leaves the bottoms of your feet black.

3. Washing clothes in my super quiet (and super pretty) washing machine. I'll admit that I even sat on the floor in front of it for a few minutes to watch the clothes go 'round and 'round. Some of you might think that it would be embarrassed to admit something like that, but when you spend that much money on something, I think it's okay to sit down and admire it. Unfortunately though, Lowe's did not deliver the right dryer hose, so our clean jeans/towels are still waiting to be dried.

4. A master closet that is large enough to hold all of our clothes, shoes, and purses. I keep telling Ben that he really needs to get rid of some things. :)

5. Our discounted sprinkler system. When deciding which ammenties to upgrade from the "standard", a sprinkler system was something that we both wanted but decided against since the developer wanted a whopping $3000 for it. We knew that this was a rip-off and that we could easily water our small yard with hoses. However, when we found out that a sprinkler system had been "accidently" installed in both our front and back yard, we were estatic. The developer did later realize their mistake and asked that we pay for a portion of the cost, but at least we got a good deal.

6. Not having anyone live below or above us. I love that the dogs can run and play inside without us worrying about the amount of noise that they are making.

7. My brand new toilet. No more sitting on a toilet and wondering how many millions of people have sat there before you. Gross thought -- I know.

8. The kitchen cabinets that I was unable to completely fill. In every other place that we have lived, our kitchen has been tiny. When unpacking all of our kitchen stuff, I have always had to make a decision as to what to put away in the kitchen cabinets and what to keep in boxes that would be stored in various closets. However, in this house, the decisions to be made were a little different. There are so many cabinets that I actually had to decide which cabinets to fill and which to leave empty (at least for now). It's an awesome feeling.

9. My shallow pantry. While all of our previous pantries have been relatively 1 foot wide and 1 mile deep, our new pantry is wide and shallow. Everything has a place, and nothing will get lost. It's the little things in the life that matter the most, and this is a little thing that I really love.

10. And last, but definitely not least, the fact that the master bathroom is the coldest room in the house. If you know what I'm like when I'm getting ready in the morning, you know that God made this house especially for me.....and Ben.