Tennessee Nature

Tennessee has some of the most beautiful sunsets, sunrises, and nature scenes in general. Driving home one night, this was the sunset, and I just happened to have my camera in the car with me, so I pulled over (safety first!) and took a picture. It reminds me of the birds of paradise flower.

Then we have the sunset from our deck. I can never get enough of this view.
Living in the woods, we have a lot of little friends... hummingbirds included. I tried my darnedest to get a good picture of him, but he wouldn't hold still long enough! You get the idea, at least.
He has a habit of flying RIGHT by our heads when we're out on the deck. It's surprising how loud a hummingbird can be when they fly by your head and almost hit you!
And one more sunset picture from our deck. Anyone still wondering why we moved here?

Food and a beautiful sunset

**Be sure to check out my other two posts below this... they're new also.**

So here's the reason Ruston is such a chunker... he LOVES food! Cheerios are great.

And he's a HAM for the camera... he'll smile as soon as he sees it!
Spoons are also great fun... "I'm ready for some food, mama!"
Fat and happy!!

And for good measure... here's the GREAT sunset we had in May. This is from our front porch/deck. It's a great reminder of God's creation! We get these almost nightly...

Our newest addition

Haha... I bet you thought we had the baby... WRONG!!!  Today we got a dishwasher! :)  I know, it seems like such a small thing, but honestly, it sucks to not have a dishwasher.  Jason's aunt and uncle came down here (an hour drive) to put it in for us since we didn't have any hookups for it, or any clue how to do that on our own.  Paula and Roger do home improvement stuff for a living, so they knew what they were doing... yay!  Jason got the dishwasher at Lowe's for $268 after tax because it was last year's model, even though it's brand new.  I love good deals. :)  Roger also took some measurements and is planning to build a cabinet around it too, with a butcher block top (according to Jason).  I'm loving the idea.  Jason asked if we could dirty some dishes so we could use it, but I reminded him we still have to pay for the water!  (Yes, they did test it earlier to make sure it didn't leak or anything.)

So that's our news for now.  I no longer have to stand at the sink and have my back hurting while washing dishes... and now Jason can do the dishes too. :)

A bit close for comfort!!

Last night we had a very large storm... it lasted seemingly forever.  I woke up at about 230am the first time, and at 630 it was still going.  Anyway, that's besides the point... it was a big storm.  At 330am, Jason and I woke up, or rather, were jolted awake, by a HUGE thunder/lightning combo.  We thought for certain it hit a tree next to the house, but we couldn't find any evidence.  I kind of think it hit the house, because when I woke up this morning, there was one outlet and switch in the house that had to be reset... but only one.  VERY strange, because we never lost power to anything else in the house, just that one outlet.  So yeah, that lightning strike was WAY too close for comfort.  Jason and I both jumped in bed when we woke up from it, and I couldn't fall back asleep for quite awhile because my adrenaline was pumping.  Of course, with my adrenaline pumping, the baby decided to be awake for awhile too.  Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep last night, and I have to go back to work tomorrow. :(

Sunsets are great...

Last night I managed to get a few REALLY good pictures of the sunset from our deck.  Just can't beat that view...

There's nothing quite like coming home from a long day at work and relaxing to nature's paintings.

Painting...

I'm VERY glad we didn't have to paint every room of this house when we moved in!  I'm in the process of painting the baby's room, and that's enough for me.  Here is a picture I took with my phone.  I got the top part painted, and tomorrow I will be on to doing the trim work and also taping off the part for the border that will go between the green and the brown.  I'm also glad this room was already brown, because that's half the work already done for me!  This is a pretty close depiction of the actual green color, I think...  oh yeah, and this is the first time I've really ever painted a room, so it's all new to me.  I'd say I'm doing pretty well!

Some words...

Well, I still don't know where the cord is for my camera, so no pictures until I find that (which could take awhile the way this unpacking thing is going).  In the meantime, here's some highlights from the last couple weeks.

1.  We have been moving (in case you hadn't figured that out yet).  We got one of Jason's old high school buddies that now goes to our church to help move the major big stuff, but the rest of it we've been getting little by little.  I get off of work, go to the rental, pack some stuff, and then Jason usually grabs it on his way home after work.  Makes for some long nights, but that's about the only way we can get it done around our schedules and needing breaks due to heat and whatnot.  So far in the moving process, we have experienced a broken screen door downstairs, a refrigerator on its side while my english muffins rolled down the hill at 1030 at night, and several new dings and bruises on Jason's pickup.  Maybe someday we'll be done and have a housewarming deal for people to see (at least the ones that live in this state!).  I'm thinking mid-July possibly, or maybe for Jason's birthday, but that's still in the works.  Since I have this blog pretty well private (you can't search online and find it... you have to know about it), here's our address: 14 Diana Lane, Elmwood, TN 38560.  Besides, even if you do know the address, you may not be able to get up the driveway... although I have mastered that in my car these days!

2.  There have been several mornings that Jason or I have looked out our window to see deer or turkeys in the grass... just chillin'.  Every time that happens, Jason says "we picked a good one".  Duh honey. :)  I think he's getting excited for all the hunting seasons... I just hope he doesn't kill them all so we'll have some for next year too!  This morning we had a doe in the grass under a tree, and she even stayed there while Jason went to his pickup to leave for work... very mellow animal.

3.  These are pretty randomly ordered, so sorry about that... BUT Jason SAW the baby move the other night for the first time.  Every time I try to get Jason to see him move, he stops as soon as Jason is watching or feeling.  Well, the other night, Jason finally got to see him move, and it wasn't just kicking... he was rolling and VERY active.  Now, Jason's all about trying to see him move more, and he's been an active little guy the past week or so, so Jason's having fun with that.  I am too though, since he does it almost all day long while I'm at work.  He's a pretty good distraction!

4.  I picked out the colors for the nursery walls the other day.  I was in the mood to think about it, and now I just want to buy the paint and do it!  I knew the general idea of colors I wanted, but I think I found the actual shades I prefer.  Kelli managed to help me a bit by explaining how different shades of things work together (like a green tinted white will still look white with a green wall...).  So maybe the next time I post about the nursery, it'll be that I got the walls painted... hopefully!

5.  It feels like I have been working like crazy lately.  I think the combination of work, baby, and moving has made me pretty exhausted, and thus haven't felt like blogging much lately.  When I get home, I just want to sit and do nothing.  It also didn't help that we didn't have internet here at the house until this last Wednesday.  They were supposed to come Thursday, but came a day early because they were "in the neighborhood".  We have no neighborhood lol... but they were coming from Knoxville, so it made some sense.  Anyway, back to the work thing.  I've driven over 200 miles in a day 4 different times this last two weeks.  I have a client who is with his mother in Cookeville right now, which is the opposite direction of Nashville, so I drive to Cookeville, then back past the house and to Nashville for all my other cases.  After doing this so many times, I've made the decision to transfer offices.  There is an office in Cookeville, and I realized how close Cookeville really is to our house... so sometime within the next month, I should be even more stressed with transferring lol.  But in the long run it'll be nice because I will be able to have cases in the county we live in and not have to drive nearly as much... so when the baby is here, that'll be MUCH better to get home quicker to see him as much as possible!!!  Whew... just thinking about work stresses me out... but I'm on call this weekend anyway, so I'm thinking about it all the time and hoping the pager doesn't go off!

6.  We've had some pretty severe and interesting storms this last week.  No tornadoes that I know of, but some VERY strong winds and hard rains.  I had to pull over the other day while driving on the interstate because the sheets of rain were so hard, I could not see anything.  Right after I pulled over, the FedEx truck that was about 6 cars in front of me was moved by some strong straight line winds and hit the car behind it too.  I was glad I stopped when I did, and after about 5 more minutes, the rain left and it was sunny again.  Strange weather, I tell ya!  Then the night before last, we had HARD rain from about 10 to midnight... and I mean HARD rain.  I think it probably rained close to 4 or 5 inches during that time.  I know it was about 2 inches in Nashville, but we're an hour east of Nashville now, and the storm definitely dumped more than 2 inches here.

Anyway, I think those are the major things that have been happening here.  We've been busy, if you can't tell lol.  Hopefully I will be able to catch up some (oh yeah, and still post pictures from the wedding in WA, which was over a month ago now... ugh).

Skink

Since my mom asked what a skink was, here is a picture of the little guy that was in our living room yesterday.  This picture was taken with my phone, so it's not the greatest, and he didn't really want to hold still either.  And mom, Jason told me it was a skink. :)  PS... I don't know how to make this image smaller since I took it from photobucket, so click on the picture to see all of him... sorry.

Just to let you know...

We are a little bit MIA right now due to not having internet up at the house yet.  The only time we can get online is at work, at our rental house still, or anywhere else that has wireless internet for free. :)

We have slept in the house for a couple of nights now... after a rough night of getting some things moved, which included english muffins rolling down the hilly driveway, a refrigerator falling on its side (luckily not the one for the kitchen), and a crunched back quarter panel of Jason's pickup--oops.  Oh well, those are the battle wounds of moving.  I'll get more in-depth about those things later, but now I should get back to packing more stuff here at the rental.

Oh yeah, and I found a blue-tailed skink in our living room this morning. :)

KEYS!

We are officially homeowners now!  YAY!  And with the house, came 10 (count them... TEN) keys to the house!  I don't know what these people did with all these keys, but 9 of them are the same, and Jason says that those 9 go to all the doors, to the lonely 10th key we have no clue what it goes to.  I guess we'll have to go around all the doors of the house and find out... maybe they gave us one they didn't mean to give us.  But at any rate, we own a home... weird thought!  Jason took the first load of stuff to the house... just some small things and stuff we never unpacked here because we knew we'd have to move it anyway.  So hopefully within the next week or two we will be all moved in... the nice part is the fact that we don't have to technically be out of this place until the end of August, but we're obviously aiming for WAY before that!  Whew... we really feel like grown-ups now!

House Picture, Part 3

One last picture... my mom found this picture online and hijacked it from the realty site she was looking at.  This is the outside of the house.  You can see the basement door, the deck, and the window on the right side is the master bedroom window.  Around the right side is where the main door to the house is, and that's where you enter at the utility room area.  Does that help with some visualization?

House Pictures, Part 2

So if you haven't read part 1, go read that first!  Ok, where was I?  Oh yeah... into the master bathroom.  When you walk into the master bathroom, to the right you have a nice walk-in closet, which you really can't tell how big it is in this picture, but it is very good sized.  It extends left when you go into it.
To the left when you walk in the master bathroom you have the vanity, toilet, and bath/shower.  Yes, there is only one sink in there, but we're used to that, and I don't really think it'll be much of a problem for us.
Alright... to backing up to the living room... remember the little cove on the right that led up the stairs?  Well, here are said stairs.
And this is the upstairs room.  It is HUGE as well... hence the futon and tv on the left, and bed on the right.  And the open closet, as well as the open door to the unfinished part of the upstairs... definitely space for more bedrooms or living area.  Eventually we will add on there!
And here's a close up of the unfinished part.  The door swings out into the unfinished part, so you once again can't see how big it is, but this is about half of it, so double that size, and that's the unfinished part.
And back down the stairs we go.  I think that lavender color is going to have to disappear!
Then over to the door in the living room that leads to the unfinished basement... and this is the stairs to get there.  We're going to have to put railing on that eventually, but for now, while we have no children and then small children, they won't be going up and down those stairs unattended!  (Yay for a door to keep them out!)
This is part 1 of the unfinished basement.  As you can see, the current owners have made this the man area, which it will also be for Jason... thank goodness!  All of his hunting and fishing stuff can go down here and I don't have to trip over it all the time!  There is a wood stove in the back left corner, which we will be using to heat the house in the winter so we don't have to use the propane.  The current owners said the wood stove heats the place up real well, so that's good.  The door on the left leads to storage area under the deck.. you'll see that in a bit.
This is the second part of the unfinished basement... if you put the last picture, this picture, and the next picture side by side left to right, you could pan the entire basement.
And the last part of the basement.  That tank on the right is for the water, which is pumped up from the city water line down below.  the inspector was impressed that the pump was at the top of the hill with the house because he has seen some where the pump is down below and the water pressure is not nearly as good... but this house has good water pressure, and the tank is automatically refilled when the pressure in it declines to a certain psi.  The owner showed us how that works too... that way we don't get confused when it's ours!
This is the stairs leading back upstairs... and the door leads directly to outside... so Jason can come directly inside from doing whatever and I don't have to yell at him for getting my upstairs dirty. ;)
And remember the door leading to the storage area under the deck?  Well, this is it.  To the right and to the left of the door.  Yes, it looks a little bit messy, but hey, it's under the deck... not heated or anything, and they will be cleaning it!  Oh yeah, and they kept their dogs in there when they were puppies, so of course it's going to be a bit dirty!

So that's the house!  Sadly, I wasn't thinking clearly and forgot to take pictures of the OUTSIDE of the house, but really there's not that much to see because it's on a hill and you can't get a good picture of it... all you end up seeing is the cinder blocks and part of the deck when looking up the hill at the front of it.  The siding is grey, and has a tin roof.  That's about the extent of the outside you need to know about.  This will be our house... oh, and 13.02 acres that comes with it... which is almost all wooded, and the current owners have killed turkeys and deer this year on it, so Jason is happy.  The owner showed Jason some hot spots too, so he's ready to get out there!

Now if only we could get my car up the driveway!!  Oh, did I forget to mention that??  The owners put some rocks on the driveway intending to help with traction, but in reality it made the traction absolutely horrible, so my car tires spin at the switchbacks.  We have a few ideas, but are pretty sure that getting rid of those little rocks will help me get up there!

House Pictures, Part 1

In order to make sure that everyone is able to download all the pictures in a decent time, I've decided to post more than one post with pictures of the house.  Oh yeah, and if you didn't hear... we're buying a house! :)  We had our home inspection yesterday morning, and the inspector said he didn't see anything that would keep him from buying the house.  I personally think he was pretty impressed with the house overall, and noted it was "very well-built", and "they knew what they were doing" when they hooked up the electrical box... and other similar comments.  So here's the view we couldn't turn down... absolutely gorgeous, if you ask me... and I can't wait to see what each season brings to this view from our (soon to be) deck!
This is to the left looking off the deck down the driveway.  That is a shed down below that will most likely house Jason's boat. 
This is the living room.  To the right is the deck.  The previous owners still live there, so that's all their stuff you see.  The door goes down to the basement, which you'll see later.  And on the right side where that little cove is, is stairs to go upstairs.  Yes, that is sage green carpet... just what I like!
This is the kitchen... which behind me in this picture is the living room.  Yes, there is no dishwasher, but I've already decided where I would like to put it, and it shouldn't be too difficult to install because the downstairs unfinished.  Just to the right of the picture is a door to nowhere... like they were planning on extending the deck around to the side of the house too.  We'll eventually get that far, but not in the next few years unless someone wants to gift it to us. ;)
This is the dining area.  It is technically an eat-in kitchen, but has plenty of space, and once again, out that window is the deck.  I love the HUGE windows... but the drapes will have to go!  Oh, and the flooring is laminate, but it's still in really good condition.
This is the main bathroom in the little hallway off of the kitchen and living room.  This will be the one everyone uses when you come to visit.  I realized it is VERY hard to take pictures of bathroom... but it's pretty basic: bath/shower, toilet, and vanity with sink and mirror.
This is the entrance to the walk-in closet in the soon-to-be nursery.  This room is right across the hallway from the master, so it'll work very well as the baby's room... but the wall color will change because a baby can't have brown walls!
Here is another view of the nursery room.  That gives you an idea of the size of it... two twin beds in there currently, and that tv that's in the previous picture.
This is the back door/utility room/mudroom area.  This room was also hard to take a picture of.  To the left is a nice coat rack area, and to the right of the washer and dryer is a big deep sink, so that'll be nice to have so Jason won't trek in the outdoors when he's done hunting or whatever!  No, that washer and dryer will not stay, but we have our own anyway.
This is the master bedroom from the hallway door.  It is HUGE.  They have a king size bed, and it still looks small in that room, so our queen bed will really look small.  To the left (not in the picture) is a nice open area that could easily be a little office area, or possibly space for my crafting habit.  The door in the picture goes to the master bathroom... which will be in the next post!

New things for everyone!

Jason got some new clothes for interviews... right down to the shoes.  Can you tell I dressed him? :)
I'm trying to convince him he should dress like this more often because I think he looks spiffy!
And here is his work "uniform" aka black pants and a white polo with SECURITY on the back, and the company logo on the front.  Today is his first day, and he's work 12 hours to get his training over and done with... they REALLY need people, so they want him to work as soon as possible.  The nice thing is that he's working at the mall across the interstate from us, so it's like a 2 minute drive... and he could ride his bike to work if he really wanted to.  Oh yeah, ignore the hungover, high, not so happy look on his face... today was opening season of deer hunting (with a bow), so he woke up EARLY to hunt, came home and took a nap, then went to work... he's really just tired in the picture, not hungover, high or anything like that. :)
Jason got his pants yesterday, and they weren't hemmed at all, so the ones he's wearing today are safety pinned for now.  I decided I needed to learn how to hem pants, so I searched online, and found a video on youtube showing how to hem pants... and TADA!  I can do it!  This is my wonderful hemming job.  For my first ever time doing it, I think I did pretty darn well.  The entire time I was doing it, I was just thinking about how Gramma would be so proud to know I learned how to hem pants. :)  I guess tonight I'll do his other pants.
More new things for us.  Last night we bought the fridge on the far right for $100.  It's a year old, and the only thing wrong is it is missing one of the bottom drawers (and I think another shelf), but for $100, it was REALLY hard to pass up, so we got it because the other fridge (next to the freezer there) just wasn't cutting it.  There's a freezer in the top part of that little fridge, so you can imagine how small the fridge part is.  The night before last we bought that chest freezer (in anticipation for a deer being killed soon). :)  Craigslist is our absolute favorite place to get things!
Our other find from Craigslist, but we got these like the second day we were here... our washer and dryer.  They work VERY well, and they were only a year old too, so they should last us awhile.
And for good measure, here is our living room.  I know, it's kind of messy right now, but it gives you an idea of the size and whatnot.  You can see our new recliners which are VERY comfy, and the futon on the right.  The tv is GREAT being on the wall, and doesn't seem so huge now that it's not in such a small apartment.  I still need to get an audio pier for below the tv to put all the boxes on (dish box, vcr/dvd, Wii, etc), but we're getting there.  By the way, see Taco sitting on the carpet there??  Yeah, that's how small he is in this house!  Haha

That's about it for now.  I've been applying left and right for government jobs all over the area, but of course those take awhile to hear back from... so it goes.  I'm hoping to get a retail job or something to hold over for now... time to get out and apply for those! :)