Let me begin by saying HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I hope this new year has been all that you hoped for it to be.

So after a 4 month hiatus from blogging.... I have returned. I have really missed blogging and being able to share my thoughts. It was hard to make the decision to stop blogging especially since I had just started. But it was the best thing for me to do at the time. What have I been up to? I'm glad you asked :). In the past four months I have been continuing with my frequent doctor visits, the homeschooling of my son; and taking care of our newest addition, Chipmunk, and attending the Commander In Chief's Inaugural Ball. We also went through the ordeals of house hunting and moving (more on that headache later), now reorganizing/decorating our new apartment. I have also been doing research on several things, one of those main things is blogging. I want to make this blog all that it can be; whatever that means. I've been paying attention to some of my favorite bloggers and getting tips on how they run their blogs. While I still feel there is tons more to learn, I feel equipped to begin again.

So I will start with our most recent occurance: moving. We have been in our new apartment for about 2 weeks now and it's still kind of hectic trying to figure out how best to store and arrange our things. While this wasn't the place we really wanted, it seems that this was the best choice, pricewise and otherwise. We started our hunt in December with hopes of finding a townhome or single family home to rent (we are a young military family so we decided purchasing was not a good choice for us now). My husband was recommended a realtor that was said to be good so we called her and signed on the dotted line. In the beginning she was great! Showing us tons of beautiful homes and giving us advice and information on the area; as we are relatively new (been here a year). Our lease was going to expire the first week in Feb so we had tons of time. But then it happened.... The holidays came and something changed. She started showing us less options and more importantly less impressive options.

I don't know if something in her life occurred but she became difficult to reach and just unsatisfactory. Several times my frustration level hit it's peak. My husband not wanting to start over with a new agent convinced me to keep with her and he would talk to her about our concerns. Needless to say it didn't really change and when it was all said and done she caused us to lose two great places. One because she did not contact us back in time and the other because she did not "present" us well to the prospective landlord. So with only a week left we had to start looking for an apartment. And we found one; 3 days before we had to be out of our current place. While we didn't get the town home we wanted (one of them had TONS of living space and a DOUBLE OVEN ARRRGH!!!); this apartment turned out to be just what we needed. With only a short time left on my husband's assignment to this area; this apartment was bigger and cheaper than our current place and cheaper than any of the town homes we saw with a better commute. Additionally, it has some lovely features I am excited to put to use. Small things like all black appliances and clean white cabinets in the kitchen and a separate vanity in the master bedroom will surely keep me smiling; and saving major bucks in rent and gas a month will most definitely keep my husband smiling. Now for the fun of decorating and reorganizing. Updates on the progress will be posted soon.