Ch-ch-ch-changes

That's what we've been up to the past few weeks, lots of changes.

• We found a house to move to for the next five months. A ridiculously tiny house. We went from having plenty of extra room for our belongings, to having way too much stuff. Tons of things, not tons of room. We lost more than 50% of our square footage. It has--out of necessity--helped us purge our junk, or at least be much more selective about what is worth weaving between as we go about our daily lives.

Here it is, the grand palace. This is the view of the north wing. Ok, that's actually the house in its entirety. All 1100 square feet.

• We also switched congregations. We are in a brand new ward with lots of old folks. We went from working in the nursery, to not even having a nursery. Seriously, lots of octogenarians. I believe we are one of four couples under 40. Everyone has been very welcoming and friendly. And the building is only 100 yards away.
  

• Relationship changes too. We are figuring out how to like each other despite being in each other's personal space 24 hours a day. Ok, except when I'm at work. I just keep thinking of that old song, "love grows best in little houses." Its probably a good thing there's not a Jack or Jill yet.

We have had some fun figuring out how to deal with these changes. We spent all day Saturday building a shelf for our kitchen. It is the largest room in the house, but only has 5 cupboards, not nearly enough room for all our appliances, dishes and food. The shelf turned out pretty well. It is perfect as far as utility goes. It could use some help in the decorative department, but by the time we finished building it, I wanted to put it to use. I didn't have time for the bright red paint we purchased to color it.


Not so shabby huh? It suits the intended purpose very well. We needed to get the million dollar microwave off the coveted counter space. And it holds all those appliances and big dishes quite nicely.

I'm a little worried that by showing a picture of it we will get tons of requests for shelves. We aren't ready to jump into that business yet. Sorry folks.


Dan went ahead and made this handy little space saver. We don't have a pan cupboard or any sort of pantry. We don't even have a hall closet in this house. He did such a great job, angled it and everything for easier access. He's a dandy.

Probably the best part of this new living arrangement is the back yard. In addition to its vastness, it has a little treasure. We found this little nook that was built in to the fence by the patio, complete with a latching door and shingled roof. It looks like an outside cupboard (Thanks, but we would have preferred another one in the kitchen instead). We haven't been able to determine what it was designed for, but we have come up with our own uses for it.


We are glad we found a place to live for our last 5 months as New Mexicans, even if we don't really fit.