The Adventures of Matt and Laura

Merry Christmas and a Happy NEW Year!

2010-01-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

I hope the joy of the Holiday Season is still keeping your hearts warm as you prepare for the upcoming winter months. I can't remember the last time it was this cold for this long in Georgia... no really, I can't remember because I wasn't even ALIVE the last time it was this cold for this long! We inhabitants of the Southern states freak out when weather turns like this. I'm happy to report, however, that we have survived and are now looking with fondness as the days pass and the warmth of summer gets closer and closer :)

January has brought lots of new changes to the Godfrey household... well, really only one big change. At the end of this week, I will be leaving the corporate world that I've been apart of for the past 2 and a half years to be self-employed. This is both exciting and scary. Exciting because it's what we've been praying for for the past year and a half, and scary because our prayer was answered in the way we hoped and now we are trusting in a way we never have before.

Matt will continue working with State Farm and I will be working from home planning, designing, and directing weddings. I'm also trying to learn my way around a sewing machine so I can make window treatments, pillows, duvet covers, and other such items that I currently know very little about making. I have a few pros taking me under their wing so hopefully by the time I come OUT from underneath their wing, I will be a sewing MACHINE! Well, not an actual sewing machine... more like a... forget it, you know what I mean. :)

I don't usually make resolutions, but Matt does, so being the submissive and respectful wife that I am, I made some this year. Most of them are really silly and not even worth mentioning (I mean, does anyone really care whether I eat french fries or finish painting our bonus room?), but one resolution that has a certain relevence to this blog is that I will be trying to blog weekly. We'll see if that actually happens. But hey, so far I'm doing GREAT! Now for the rest of the year... :)

LG

Happy Fall, Y'all!

2009-10-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hello!

It's finally here! The summer months are over and we've entered into what I consider to be the most marvelous three months out of the whole year! To celebrate the coming Fall season, Matt and I have a freshly painted fron porch and have decorated appropriately, with mums, hey, and of course.... PUMPKINS!

We're still working away inside the house, but have finally got it to the point where we can just "live" and not constantly work. We're very thankful for this!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Matt and Laura

To Microwave or Not to Microwave. THAT is the question.

2009-08-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have to admit something, well two somethings.

A) I'm a bad blogger. I get a blog and then forget that I have one. Woops.
B) I'm now considering myself a reformed blogger and I am determined to become consistent! We'll see how the goes.

Ok, now that confessions are out of the way. I have a problem. I have a love/hate relationship with my microwave.

When Matt and I bought our appliances, I said I didn't want a microwave because I've heard about junk being emitted from the "waves" when they're um Micro-ing and I wanted nothing to do with that. But Matt REALLY wanted the microwave and since the lady we bought the appliances from "threw it in for free", we ended up with one.

Now onto the dilema. I love this microwave because it's now covering the large and unwanted hole that's been daunting me from above the stove. It looks so nice and tidy now.

I hate the microwave because I've heard stories about it altering the molecular structure of your food. I don't know what the means, or if it's bad. I just know it sounds bad, well, and I feel smart when I use that sentence to explain to others why I don't like microwaves. I don't, however, feel quite as smart when they ask further questions. I usually end up trailing off and then ever so subtly changing the subject.

I love the microwave because it makes pop corn.

I hate the microwave because I've heard it's dangerous.

Does anyone really know the answer?

For now, I am content to stick something in the microwave, turn it on, and run like heck to the oposite side of the house as it, well, alters the moelcular makeup of popcorn kernels.

Drama, drama, drama. . .

2009-05-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

When Matt and I first made the decision to buy our house, we knew we would have quite the to-do list ahead of us. As far as we were concerned, the house was definitely not move in ready so we had our work cut our for us. I'll spare you the details only because I've already given them to you, but our biggest undertaking was going to be our kitchen. We hired a pro to do the dirty work for us, i.e. desiging the layout, ordering the cabinets, and installing them, and assumed that nothing would ever go wrong. After all, we had been praying a LOT for this kitchen... we were looking forward to smooth sailing. Unfortunately, that's NOT what we got...

So our cabinet guy, who Matt and I have affectionately nicknamed Marvy, was great in the beginning. He designed an awesome layout and was a really good communicator. We were excited about the ideas he had and really enjoyed working with him... in the beginning.

It all started when I sent Marvy's office manager a credit card authorization to take out the first amount due for the cabinets, the rest was due upon completion of the job. Matt happened to check our bank account that night and realized that they had actually charged us the full amount. What? Similar to going to a restaurant, leaving a $2 tip and then the restaurant taking $200. Not cool. Marvy "humbly apologized" for the mix up and got everything cleared up.

We were hoping the drama was done, but we were wrong. After we submitted the order for the cabinets, we got a call from Marvy saying that they would be 2 weeks later in getting here! NO! Patience is not something I'm good at, and to be honest, I don't even pray to be good at it because I know God will give me more trying situations to have to exercise patience! No thank you. It's just a constant battle with me and I wasn't thrilled to learn that our move in date would have to be 2 weeks later. Womp. Womp.

As the days passed, I actually became ok with the idea of the cabinets coming in later because it gave us more time to focus on other stuff. The time I became, um, not ok was when it then became later, and later, and well, you get the drift. Finally, we got a call from Marvy saying that the cabinet company still hadn't shipped and they weren't returning calls so he was going to DRIVE to Alabama to pick them up. At this point, I didn't care if he had to paddle to Hawaii in a dingy, I just wanted my cabinets!

Finally the day of reckoning had arrive. Marvy had redeemed himself and we were on our way to a completed kitchen. I was on my way home to see my newly installed cabinets when I got the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. I ignored it thinking I had just built up a lot of expectation so that's why I was nervous... either that or the Peanut Butter Cup Perfection from the night before was coming back to haunt me.

When I got to our house, the installer person was packing his stuff to leave. He informed me that the cabinets were done and told me I could go in and take a look. I walked swiftly through the back door, repressing the urge to run...

When I got into the kitchen, I looked, then squinted, then walked closer to look again, before I realized. . .

these were not the cabinets I ordered...

these inemic, pasty, pearlized, monsters looked nothing like the beautiful painted ivory cabinet I had picked out. What happened?!

So what did I do when I found out that the WRONG color custom cabinets had just been installed in my kitchen and the installation man was leaving? I did what any normal person would do: I held it in til he left and burst into tears as I ran from the cabinets upstairs into the guest bedroom. I immediately called Matt and tried to explain, through my sobs, that the wrong cabinets were in our kitchen. Note: He thought when he heard my crying that I just really loved the cabinets. Wrong-O.

Matt encouraged me to calm myself down and call Marvy. It would do me no good to keep crying so I held it together.

Marvy was quick to offer his "humblest apologies" but insisted that they were the right ones. I insisted in return that there was no way under the sun that I would have ordered a cabinet that looked like that, especially considering that it was ugliest cabinet I had EVER seen. He said he would look into it so he would call me back.

One aganazing day later, Marvy called Matt, as if to say he didn't think I was emotionally stable enough to handle a simple conversation. Pa-lease.

He informed Matt that he did in fact write down that I wanted Ivory, but his office manager (same girl as before) keyed in the wrong number and that's how we ended up with the anti-cabinet in our kitchen. He said we had a few options to fix it... we could A) Live with it and maybe we would learn to like it. Riiiiight. No. or B) We could use the remaining money that we owed for our cabinets and pay to hire someone to come fix them. Neither option sounded right to me. I thought it was HIS responsiblity to fix the problem since it was THEIR mistake.

We mulled over the options and decided that if Marvin wanted to have someone come in and paint, we would have to approve what it would look like before we would let him do the whole kitchen. AND if it didn't look like the ones I ordered, they would need to re-order the correct cabinets.

One week later...

Marvy calls me. He asked if he could come by to discuss our options with me. The company told him what they would and would NOT do and he needed to coomunicate that to me. I assured him that he could just tell me over the phone because I didn't want to wait until the next day... he then went onto explain that the responsibility for the wrong color being written down was MY fault. EXcuse me? He then went onto inform me that he thought I wanted pearl cabinets so he wrote that down. He said one of the forms I filled out for CC authorization had the color written on it and because I approved, it was now my fault. I informed HIM that the CC authorization was supposed to be for the CREDIT CARD and he didn't tell me he even wrote anything on it. We went back and forth, and back and forth until I finally told him my people would be calling his people...

When Matt got home, I dropped the bomb on him. After talking it through we both decided that we were either going to drop kick Marvy in the head, or we were going to stop working with him all together. We chose the latter and decided we would not pay them anymore and use the money to fix them ourselves.

Thankfully, we found a professional cabinet painter in the Atlanta area who has been marvelous to work with thus far! She's prompt, trustworthy, and afforable... three things that mean the most to us. Plus, she's doing a smokin good job on my cabinets.

I know this was a long story, but I figured most of your were probably not sleeping well at night wondering what was happening in our house and with our cabinets. Rest assured and sleep tight tonight, my friends. The cabinet drama is almost over.

Thank goodness :-)

Progress

2009-04-29T10:40:00.001-07:00

Well, demo is done-o (wow) and now we are moving into the renovation part of our little extreme home makeover. Tuesday's demo was a HUGE success thanks to all our friends and family who came out to release their pent up aggression on our old ugly cabinets and floors:) We felt like we were doing them a favor. I mean, who doesn't love ripping stuff apart?

Wednesday of last week, flooring installation began, and yesterday night, floors were done!

Tomorrow is the scheduled date to install the cabinets, but it looks like it might not be until Friday. It seems that no matter how many times you say "They must be installed on THURSDAY" people still seem to think you mean "I don't care when these things are installed!" Oh well!

We feel like we've gotten a lot done but there's still so much more to do!

We'll keep you posted!

Matt and Laura

We're Closed!

2009-04-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

Does my typing look different to you?? It should because now I am a HOMEOWNER! Matt and I had a breeze at closing on Friday! (PTL!) We had a super nice closing attorney and the whole thing was easy shmeasy.

The above picture is us with our awesome agent! His name is Jon Nelson and he's just the best!

We went out to dinner with Matt's mom and dad on Friday night to celebrate being homeowners and our waitresses name was Misty and she had a mountain on her shirt... our neighborhood is called Misty Mountain. What?! God is too cool for school and I love it when He does crazy stuff like that!

We had a little scare this morning when we heard on the news that the hardest place hit in Woodstock was... du du du dum... our STREET! No! No worries though no house of ours was harmed during the making of this storm ;-)

Demo starts tomorrow and we're ready to go! Before and After, here we COME!

The BIG Day

2009-04-16T11:11:00.001-07:00

Well, when our agent asked if we wanted a 45 day closing, we agreed thinking that 45 sounded like a good number, having no idea it would be the longest 45 days of our LIVES! But alas, the days have passed like they promised and tomorrow is our close date! We're praying for no hick ups or speed bumps and would really like a smooth ride into homeownership!

Thanks for the prayers!

Matt and Laura

162 Dials Drive

2009-04-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Remember the part I said about us being really BUSY? Well, there's a reason for that... we are in the process of buying our first home!

Let me start by saying we LOVE this house and God way outdid Himself with this one. I love a good story so let me tell you about this one...

We'd been looking for houses for a while, and by "we" I mean me (Laura); and by "looking", I mean stalking our agent's web site on a daily basis looking for a steal! If I had my way, we would have found a $350k foreclosure for a fraction of the price, but when those weren't exactly, eh, surfacing... we started looking more in our own price range.

The search had gotten rather discouraging so I made up my mind that we should just wait til the summer to buy a house... this way, we would start looking in the Spring and then find something to buy mid-Summer and maybe I would take a break from my search for a while-- "maybe" being the opportune word there.

God has a fun way of brining us to the end of my rope RIGHT before He shows up big time, just so I know it's Him doing the work, and not my mad home finding skills.

I was taking a walk with Asher (my youngest niece) when she asked me when me and Uncle Matt were going to buy a house. I told her "when God gave us one" and then asked her if she wanted to pray to ask Him to um hurry up... not my most shining spiritual moment, but she didn't know the difference. I'd rather her talk to him for real anyway :-)

She prayed a precious prayer on that Sunday afternoon, and apparently she's got a better shot to the Father's ears than I do ;-) because the next day, as I was looking, I found this one :-) our house!

We went and looked and at first were a little taken back because the homeowner had cats... and dogs... and it SMELLED! But the house was SO cute, we both loved it... even enough to see or, well, smell past the um smell :-) Wow.

Most of you know that Matt is not a risk taker. As much as I'd like to say that I am, I'm really a little more whimpy than I'd like to admit... especially when it comes to BIG decisions that I've NEVER made before. Yikes.

We prayed and prayed. Got big time butterflies in our tummys. Then we made an offer.

She countered.

We countered.

Then we agreed.

It was sweet and we are STILL pumped!

The house is sort of a fixer upper, but because we got it at such a great price, we're going to be able to make some serious improvements before we move in. We're gutting the kitchen and re-doing the floors before we move in.

Yes, you heard me right.

We may be crazy but we think that it's worth the investment and we're really looking forward to the outcome! It's going to be like our very own HGTV show! It make take longer than half an hour to complete, but it's ok, we're gearing up!

SO! Now you have many lovely "before and after" posts to look forward to. Aren't you excited?

Love,

Matt and Laura

Welcome to our world!

2009-04-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Ok so, much to my dismay, I've heard from more than one person that ever since Matt and I got married almost ten months ago (woo hoo!) that it appears as though we've fallen off the face of the earth! I won't even attempt to make up excuses except to say that we're just BUSY.

Sad, I know :-(

Any who, I couldn't think of a better way to keep in touch with all our friends and family then to blog about it. Up to this point, I haven't made a very good blogger, but because I want so much to keep you as a part of our lives, I'm reformed and will vow to try my best to not make this the only blog. What a shame to waste such a great blog name, right? ;-)

Welcome to our world, friends and family :-)

We hope you will enjoy the adventure with us!

Love,

Matt and Laura