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If you saw our house during the winter, you would certainly notice all the twiggy things that make up the front yard.  Almost literally.  Right now, they are no longer dead-looking twigs, but oakleaf hydrangeas in full bloom.  I never knew they had a scent to them, but we have so many, that they definitely carry a scent.

We are slowly emerging from our land of boxes.  We still have plenty to go, but I do feel like most everything we use/need daily is unboxed.  We are tackling some projects here and there.  This house is almost 31 years old, whereas our last house was new, so it’s definitely a different world over here.  For a while, everything we touched inside seemed to fall apart.  That was a bit discouraging.  Last weekend, we worked outside, and everything we touched outside seemed to fall apart too.  I actually leaned up against a tree at one point and it fell over.  A Tree!  Anyway, we still have a long, long way to go to make it feel our own, but it’s growing on me.

Samantha loves it!  She has so much space in her room (and oh, what a fun closet) and the backyard is endless enjoyment.  She has already fallen down the stairs once.  Maybe we’ve gotten that out of the way.  She makes “chocolate milk” outside which consists of lots and lots of dirt thrown into water.  She picks up big sticks and bangs around with them.  She finds giant leaves, and they really are big!

I see signs of spring and I’m loving being in the trees!

It’s official! We’re homeless (for a few hours anyway)!

We closed on our house (selling) this morning, and we’re closing on our house (buying) this afternoon. We’ll be moving all week, so if anyone wants to stop by, feel free! We’d love the extra help!

So I’m curious about other people’s air filters in their house. First off, our air filter is pretty large and apparently a strange size, so I can only get them at Home Depot. I can get cheap ones, but recently there was a sale on a nicer one, so I bought a pack.

Brian had the idea to write the date on the filter so you can always see when you changed it last. With the cheaper filters, we changed it about every 3 months. They were gross after 3 months, but not horrible. After a few weeks, the new expensive filter was disgusting. Really. I waited until a month had gone by, and then I went ahead and changed it. I can’t tell you the grossness that it had become. Ew. Just. Ew.

After having changed it, I looked at the new one that afternoon, and within an hour, it too had already turned from white to gray. It wasn’t severely gross yet, but definitely on its way.

So my question is: are we (Brian, me, Samantha, Molly and Maddie) THAT disgusting? Do I not dust frequently enough? Do I open the back porch door too often? Is the new filter just that good? What’s the deal? Should I use the new filters and change weekly until we get the house to a decent level of dustiness?

We like our back porch. The Mauters helped us build it shortly after we moved in to our house. As long as we don’t stuff it full of furniture, it’s a great place to relax.

Samantha, of course, loves anything outside. She just itches to get outside in the afternoons after her nap. She’s pretty happy on the porch, but would rather be outside in the backyard eating dirt, spreading mulch or picking azaleas.

Not so recently, the spline came off the bottom of the door that holds the screen in. Also, some bugs ate through some of the screen. And Brian put a hole in it doing something. Our door was needing some repair. One day last week, I opened the back door so Samantha could go onto the porch. Brian came home from work shortly after that. He asked where she was, and I told him. But, wait, she wasn’t back there. She was in the backyard. She apparently learned to crawl through the bottom part of the door where the screen wasn’t attached! I don’t really care about her being back there by herself, because she comes back into the house every few minutes. But, I didn’t realize we needed to smarty-proof our falling apart door. Silly girl.