From Storage to Dinner in 8 Hours

What was once a storage room (this morning) is now nice and cozy! (With a pretty cool heater on the wall there, of course)

A perk to the tiny house -- you can touch the couch in the other room from the couch in this room -- almost. :)

Lentils and Rice for Dinner with Caesar, chips, and salsa

When did Missionaries get so young, and I got so old?  It feels like only yesterday Janelle Black and I 15 were 15 years old writing poetry about marrying a missionary. Barf. However, I did. And he is adorable. See? The one in blue... so cute.

Let's start with this morning. Welcome to mornings at the Fellow's. This morning we woke like every morning ... On the floor. Crap, boxes, and junk all around us.

Well, mostly we keep all the boxes etc in the front room, and we try to keep the family room a little bit peaceful with room enough on the floor to plop our hideaway bed mattress each night. The front room however gets worse and worse the longer we live here. As each arrival has rolled in from the storage unit -- via Tim and the minivan -- our front room has started to look more and more like, um, a storage unit. When we woke up today, as always, we were not quite in the "storage room," but we were an arms length away from all the crap and boxes -- because when you are in a tiny Victorian house, you are an arms length from everything in your tiny Victorian house. So, again, we woke up, smelled the battle of the boxes an arms length away in the next room, and unlike every other day, we could not ignore it because today we were having COMPANY.

The missionaries were coming for dinner in 8 hours. It was go time. If you have to push yourself into having house guests when your house is ghetto and you really want people to like you, the Mormon missionaries are a great place to start. We cared enough to start cleaning, but not so much that we worried about being shunned or declared uncool (or dirty) if the project didn't get finished.

So, basically the day started, and we both jumped out of bed and started cleaning. (That's a nice story, but now I actually remember seeing Tim still laying on the floor in bed after I had been up cleaning the kitchen and making breakfast for 40 minutes right before I headed up stairs to start my 12 hour work day, but I am not holding a grudge.) We all eventually did our part. We had to clear out all the boxes and piles from the front room and clear a space for the real guest of honor -- the dining table -- which was hiding in the car. So, we moved our piles up the stairs, went through them, gave away some stuff, and then made new piles. We brought the table in from the car and moved an old ripped chair that came with the house into the car for its trip to the dump. We successfully distracted the kids while we threw some of their stuff in the Good Will ("Second Chances") pile, and we packed away the winter clothes and the boxes of crystal goblets that are still unopened from our wedding. I also, YAY, got to unpack my boxes of herbs and seeds, which made the house feel complete to me, and then there was just more cleaning, more moving, and more deep thinking about how to find everyTHING a home in this tiny Victorian house.

So, we did it, and then we cooked and greeted, and there you have it. A dinner party at The Victorian. Super fun and a great excuse to get our act together. There are still places in the house that look like they drove off the Red Mountain Pass, but it will do for now. It is coming together.

And a bit of fun trivia for the Non-Utah Mormons. This was the very first time in our 10 year marriage we have had the missionaries over for dinner. In Utah, you never get the chance -- those crazy Utahans will fight you for the 1 night a year your ward has the honor. Hilarious. It's different here, and I am sure we will be seeing these sweet church elders quite regularly -- since we are 1 of 2 Mormon families in Ouray.