Happy First Anniversary!!!

To us and our house!!!

We moved in one year ago TODAY. How crazy is that... time has flown yet it also seems like Moving Day was sooooo long ago. While we LOVE our house, we have not loved all of the things it has brought with it. The yard we absolutely fell in love with has been a much bigger project to keep up with than we had anticipated. It now takes Jon a full 4 hours (at least) to mow all the grass and we have not been great about keeping up with the weeding, which means it's a couple-day project just to pull those. We do love being outside though, and it's so beautiful when it's kept up.

The other major problem we are facing is our foundation. Yes we live in Texas, and yes foundation work is pretty standard for everyone eventually here. However it's not so common on 2-year old houses, and we're not too pleased to get to be the ones to deal with it. Our cracks started appearing a month or 2 after we moved in and we've been through one round of cosmetic repair work to fix the damage including drywall and new tiles. However, the cracks started reappearing almost immediately after they were fixed, and now our bedroom door doesn't close properly, and the outside brick has a huge crack through brick and mortar. The Builder has finally agreed that the foundation is in need of repair, and the process is already underway to fix it. The foundation company has made us feel confident in that it will be a minimally invasive process, at least compared to what it could be. They will not even need to enter the house, except to do the actual measurements once the foundation is being raised, and will only dig holes through our garage floor and one on the outside of the house, which they will use to tunnel under the office. I think the 3-day procedure takes place the first week of August, and the Builder will be back out shortly thereafter to repair all the cracks AGAIN.

Of course, looking back, we might have made different choices in moving here. Now that gas prices are so high, and we have a baby (two things we didn't plan on happening when we bought this house), we probably would have chosen a smaller, more expensive house closer to both of our jobs. BUT-- we knew God brought us this house for a reason and we're confident that things will be taken care of with minimal impact on us when we decide to move from here. And we do love our house.

So, on today, our first anniversary, I'm treating the house to a full cleaning. Well... let's be honest... a pretty good cleaning. There's only so much I can do by myself with a 3-month old. I've already scrubbed the tub and shower and can I just say YUCK. How can a place we go to get clean get so dirty???? I might next tackle the baseboards and vacuum then call it a day... but we'll see what else I can find.

**UPDATE**

I went ahead and just deep cleaned the bathroom from head to toe. I mean, I even scrubbed all those little ridges in the cabinets and doors- all the funny places where lint and dust collect. Feels SO much better. Now the question is - do we think Jon will notice?