A New House, Lots of Travels, and Other Not-So-Important Updates

Internet, I know…. it’s been FAR too long. I wouldn’t be surprised if you decided to just give up on me by now. I promise, though… I’ve had very good reasons for being a little absent over the past couple of weeks, not the least of which is this:

Yup…. our very first, very own house! (And yes, I did use the real estate listing photo, because A) it was taken several months ago when the yard was still green and looked nice and the sun was shining and B) because I haven’t had the time or motivation to take any “real” photos. :) ) Jamie and I have been talking about buying for awhile, because we wanted to start writing a check every month to ourselves instead of someone else, and we’ve just been itching to take on all the pros and cons of home ownership. Now we’ve got twice the square footage of any apartment we’ve lived in thus far, a huge fenced-in yard for Gretchen (which she still doesn’t quite know what to think about), a kitchen that’s bigger than a closet and has- gasp!- windows, and all sorts of other good stuff. Of course, my list of projects is already a mile long, but I keep reminding myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I’m really glad we decided to rent for a year or so here in Birmingham before buying, because one thing that has really struck me in this whole process is how important location is. For a long time, I was so focused on the houses that I refused to acknowledge the flaws that would make resale a nightmare (namely: LOCATION). But as our search went on, we absolutely fell head over heels in love with one area in particular: Crestwood North. It’s the kind of neighborhood where the houses are old and unique and adorable (think cottages, bungalows, mid-century ranchers, and tudors) and the streets are lined with mature trees. My biggest requirement for our house was that it have LOADS of charm. This one was built in 1935 and has all the original hardwood floors, moldings, crystal doorknobs, etc., but the nice thing is that the kitchen and bathroom were completely renovated by the previous owners in keeping with all that original detail, so there’s a lot less for us to deal with as far as the major projects go. We all know that the fate of mine and Jamie’s marriage hangs in the balance every time we attempt to be handy together, so charming and move-in ready? We’ll take it!

But back to Crestwood. Another huge draw for us was how community-oriented this area is. It seems so very, well, suburban of me to say this, but they have a very active Facebook page and Yahoo group, and the neighbors actually know each other. We’ve only lived here a week and have already met half the people on our street. When I mentioned on Facebook that we were moving to Crestwood, two of my photographer friends, Heather and Emma, both excitedly told me that we would be living super close to each other. In fact, Heather dropped by yesterday and showed me that I could see their backyard from our backyard. Crazy!! This is definitely a popular neighborhood for young couples and families and creative, kind of offbeat types, so needless to say, it’s pretty perfect for us. Even better? We’re a five-minute walk from a huge fenced in park where Gretchen can run every day and play with other dogs in the neighborhood and from the church we’ve been visiting, Redeemer, and we’re a ten-minute walk from Crestwood Coffee Company and Urban Suburban Antiques. Dangerous!

This whole process has been a little scary and stressful at times, but I would say that all things considered, we had a fairly smooth experience. If you’re looking to buy soon, I would highly recommend our amazing realtor, Gusty Gulas, and our “mortgage guy,” Josh Cornutt at SouthFirst. They made everything about as enjoyable as buying a house can be. ;)

So basically, between buying the house, subleasing our apartment, packing, moving, unpacking, and traveling to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, not to mention the 8 weddings (one of which I second shot with the incredible Gail Werner in Indiana- LOVE her!) and and tons of portrait sessions I shot in October and November, this fall has been insanely busy, but has also given me a lot to be thankful for. I’m excited about having a couple of months of downtime and holiday festivities before the 2012 wedding season kicks off in February, but let’s be honest- I’m sure I’ll find countless ways to stay crazy busy, between working on the house and working on the business end of things. Maybe I’ll squeeze in a nap or two. ;)

And since the winter is pretty slow as far as blogging sessions goes, I want to get back to blogging some good FAQ posts and things of that sort in between blogging some of the weddings I’ve gotten to second shoot this year. If you have anything in particular you want me to discuss, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to address it in a future post!

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and are enjoying the beginning of the Christmas season! Nothing puts me in the mood quite like A Very She & Him Christmas and Candy Cane Oreos. I mean, I’m totally NOT eating Oreos at 1:00 pm or anything….