“Where’s the cat?” That’s my title for the above photo. We are officially moved!

A week ago, our landlady called and asked us to move out 10 days early, giving us 6 days to move all our stuff and clean the apartment. It was the week when Madison was 90 degrees and 90% humidity everyday, the very hottest week of the year. Our schedule quickly became: haul heavy stuff in the morning, lunch, nap, haul lighter but still heavy stuff at night, collapse, rinse and repeat.

Since we only moved a block, we didn’t do much pre-packing and we simply rented an open bed trailer, making small trips back and forth. I learned that even if you are just moving a block, it still means you have to pick-up every item you own. And man do we own a lot of stuff!

Sunday night, apartment clean and keys turned in, it seemed unreal that we actually own and live in this house. It feels so very fancy after our ill-kept apartment with the bathroom from hell and a kitchen from purgatory. I’m so happy to be done with that place. Yay!

Now to begin the unpacking. Our goal this time around: Throw stuff out (or sell it for cheap)!

In Atlanta, we were content to live with our peachy, off-white walls and white, white trim. The whole house was uniform and neutral and chosen by the previous owner. It made life easy. Our new house spent the past ten years as a student rental and received the classic, rental white apartment treatment. Now it is time to face the color wheel. In the photo you can see little slivers of all the colors we picked for our first floor. I love the names of paint colors and I found a book called “Colors for your Home” by House Beautiful, filled with the best color descriptions. Here’s what we settled on:

Cream Puff (aka yellow): ” This is the color of light - sort of like creme fraiche and butter and sunlight and moonlight all mixed together. When it’s sunshiny, it becomes more creamy, but when it’s dark outside, it looks very bright and luminous.”

Bleached Linen (aka white): “It’s the classic formula. Linen White looks as if it’s been on the wall a long time, which works very well with old English and French furniture. But it can be a little too yellow, so I usually cool it down with pure white to make something a bit lighter and more sophisticated.”

Koala Bear (aka light green): “The color creates such a delicate, soft mood. I call it a non-color. It’s like being inside a beautiful egg. you don’t really know if it’s powder blue or gray or a pale olive, but it’s a color from nature, and it puts you at peace.”

Grasshopper Wing (aka dark green): ” Green is my favorite color. It’s just so soothing, and I think a library should be a soothing dark color. Wood, if you can have it. If you can’t make it this woodsy green. ”

Starless Night (aka blue): “I’m mad about this dark inky blue, as it gives great vibrancy and depth to a wall.”

Apple Polish (aka red): “It’s not too orange, not too blue - it looks like an antique red, a Pompeian red. Almost everything looks good with it.”

How can you not love color with descriptions like these? I’ll be sharing the final outcome of these wonderful color choices as each room is finished.

On June 16th we became home owners in Madison. Owning a house in Madison has been a dream of mine, long before SB, before…I can’t even remember…since I knew what it meant to own a house. In college I would take walks late at night, looking at the cozy homes on the Isthmus and wonder what house would someday be mine. After I met SB, we spent many beautiful evenings fantasizing about our own future house. The journey of home ownership in Atlanta did not deter our dream of our one day Madison home. Now, next week, we will move into this house. A house that we now own but is not yet our home.

For the past three weeks, with papers signed, we jumped into home improvement. The first day we picked out our first paint samples and began our new house PORP (project of ridiculous proportions). I’ve learned a ton and the house as our home has started to take shape. I can’t wait to know what our house will become.

There could have been no better way to spend the fourth of July than seeing a dear friend marry her true love. The celebration encapsulated the essence of their love, their family and their friends. The rain held off, the mosquitoes blew away and they danced into the night. I wish them all the happiness of their wedding day to carry forward to everyday.

I recently completed my ninth blanket, since taking up yarn crafting. For this blanket, I returned to my classic crochet ripple, but this time it is a bigger blanket in bolder colors. The little turquoise lines add extra pop to the pattern and it is all done in super-wash merino wool, for machine washability. Looking back on previous blankets I can see how my skills are improving and my aesthetic is developing.

The blanket is for the first child of the Crazy Rosie household and it needed to be vibrant just like their family.