My fingertips are tingling.

After months of halfhearted occasional posts, I think I feel like blogging again. I hope so. It's like exercise for me in that I rarely am in he mood but I feel super excellent after. I just need to get back in the habit. Besides, I have loads to catch up on!

Justin and I moved into our new home. It is the best feeling ever. When the boxes are fully unpacked and the art is hung, I'll be eager to share. It's kind of a disaster right now though. The best part is having an entire room to make things and store products. I haven't had a real studio in a few years and I don't know how I managed.

Another thing I don't know how I managed without is a car. Neither Justin or I had access to a car for the past two years! We did lots of walking and train riding and, in general, enjoyed the experience. But we decided that the limitations of carlessness were getting too aggravating so we bought an old white Volvo and I think it's the best! We are reveling in our ability to go ANYWHERE at ANY TIME! I have some driver anxiety that I need to get over but I'm thinking that this manageable and exceedingly safe car will be the one that helps me learn to drive again.

I'm actually tackling a rather long and significantly out of my comfort zone trip this weekend. I'm driving across Massachusetts from Salem to Northampton for the Twist craft fair I'm participating in. I'm usually a bit nervous going to a big show but I'm extra extra nervous with a long drive to boot! Today, I'm getting in some driving practice and putting the finishing touches on my display. Wish me luck!

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Time for my monthly check-in. This time I'll spare everyone the "who wants to blog when it's so nice outside?" excuse and get down to the thing in my life that is so exciting and monumental that it brought me back to the internet so I could report.

The thing is:

Justin and I just bought our first home!

My life has been focused on almost nothing else for the past month. Right after I got back from vacation, we decided it was time to get serious about finding a place and after seeing a handful of homes, we found one that was juuuuust right. We decided to stay in Salem but the condo is a little less downtown. It's the first floor unit in a renovated yellow Victorian with lots of windows and a room for a studio! We move in on October 16th. Ahhhhhhhh!

I've been fantasizing a lot about what colors to paint the rooms (I'm thinking pink in the kitchen!) and about new light fixtures and getting some big art since we will have a few big walls. I'm worried that all our furniture will look runty in the new place. It's a big change moving from a studio to a two bedroom.

Justin and I are laughing at ourselves because we will be owning a house before we even have a car.

Lots more pictures on Flickr.

I forgot to mention these:

Last week I was overindulging in a fantasy about home ownership and pining away for one particular 1920s cottage for sale in our neighborhood. I was browsing the listing photos online and imagining my stuff in it's rooms and my garden in it's yard and especially my relaxed self in it's claw-footed bathtub. I dove so deeply into this dream that I began wondering what the neighbors would think of us when we moved in. I sketched a friendly little note to them and pictured myself putting it in their mailbox and them being utterly charmed by my neighborly-ness.

Sadly, I don't reasonably see Justin and I having the opportunity to buy our first home for quite awhile but that didn't stop me from printing the cards up anyway. For maximum sweetness, I was given permission to model the houses after Jessica from Petite House's little sculptures.