A New Look

It's time to show pictures of our new hometown! My picture header is now the cute town square where we live. The gray and white building on the left is Crouch Hardware Store and our apartment is directly above the store. No, we don't have the cool front-facing windows, but it's still within walking distance of almost everything in town.

Last Friday night, our town showed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the first of a series of summer movies on the square. Where's the screen? Apparently, the Wachovia building is painted a great shade of white for showing movies on its window-less side. J and I had a blast! :-)

Photo courtesy of www.visitedgefield.com

A New Life, A New Name

What words can really describe a much-anticipated wedding to your best friend? :-)

The New Apartment, Part 2

Time flies when you're having fun (and getting married in a week!) :-) I finally have pictures of our new apartment - email me for our address, if you would like that. We're moving furniture this weekend, so eventually, I will have before and after pictures.

From the living room facing the front door

(I'm excited about having my own washer and dryer - see the utility closet to the left)

The kitchen (lots of nice cabinets!)

Our bedroom

The view from our window

The Key

OK, so it’s not my key, but well, let me explain.

Like the excited first-time apartment-renter that I am, my first thought was to post a picture of our new apartment keys on my blog. I’m thrilled with our new home, and nothing is more symbolic to me of a new home than the key.

The only problem is I’ve always had nagging doubts about keys. I’m the girl who wondered if all the little diary keys were the same. They certainly look that way. Even now I sometimes wonder how every automatic door opener can have a different frequency so it only opens the specific door to which it belongs.

Anyway, I just had to Google search to find out whether people could copy keys from pictures of them. *sigh*

So in a perfect world where crooks can’t copy keys from pictures, the above picture would be my key. :-) Pictures of the apartment are forthcoming (when J sends them to me!)

Days of My Life

When I worked as the office manager of a US Senator in downtown Richmond, I encountered all sorts of strange situations and crazy...I mean, interesting...people. There was the lady who thought she was registering multiple complaints on a bill by calling dozens of times a day using different names, until I recognized her voice and realized she was picking names in sequence from the phonebook. There was the man who wanted the Senator to do something about his neighbor who tickled his feet by operating a magnetic device next door. And there the homeless man who lived in the alley next door and gave me "presents," like a baby bird who fell from its nest. Try explaining why you have a baby bird in a Kleenex box on your desk to a boss who's having a bad day. ;-)

Working at a public university has had its share of interesting experiences too. One of the first calls I took was from an irate circus manager who was upset because his elephants were too tall to fit in the door of our gymnasium where the circus was being held. :-) His elephants were unhappy, he told me, and so were their friends the zebras. I'm sorry, sir, but I can't make the door larger...

Even when things were supposed to go to alumni relations, it could get interesting. Some large companies like to give gifts to our upcoming graduates to promote their businesses, but don't always notify us of what they were planning to do. I walked into my office one day to find 300 goodie bags of Gillette body wash, deoderant and razors stacked neatly on most of my available floor space. Of course, I shouldn't forget that later in the week Weyerhauser paper company decided to "Go Green" by delivering 300 saplings to my office as well. I stacked them on top of the Gillette boxes and wrote a sign that said "Don't Ask."

But today was really fun.

I got to meet Robert E. Lee and his wife. :-)

We must be on the reenactor route because the Pickens-Salley House where we work is a 1860s mansion donated to the university. Maybe I'll get to meet Stonewall Jackson too...

The New Apartment...Part 1

After a couple months of prayer and searching to find an apartment that suits our needs, Joseph and I signed our first lease! We will be living in Edgefield, SC -- a rural Southern town of about 3,000 people and plenty of history. Most major signs in town boast the fact that the town is "The Home of 10 Governors" and I've heard there is a nationally-known potter with a shop downtown.

Our apartment is right downtown. We'll be living above a hardware store on the town square -- very picturesque, and within walking distance of the bank, post office, library, and grocery store. I can't wait to get the keys tomorrow and post pictures!

Wedding Warning!

This is a warning to all my readers...few as they are! :-) To give my wonderful family and friends access to pictures of wedding details, I plan to start posting lots of wedding pictures here. You are hereby forewarned!