Back to Business... and Busyness...

We are so delayed in updating our blog.  There are a lot of excuses--- Goodness, maybe they're even legitimate! Hahaha! Here they go: I don't know if you know, but we don't have Internet at home, so we update our blog at our lunch break, usually, at Missionary TECH Team, or after hours now.

Another thing maybe you didn't know... we're pregnant. I was in my second month during the last post--- when Matt was in Cameroon. (He got home safely, by the way!) I began working half-days, so I could be sick at home instead of sick in the office. :) Half-days are the way of life for me, still, since my amazing manager is so flexible---as long as TECH isn't hurting for help. Several days I've stayed all day or late to help ministries, but if possible I cram as much work into my mornings and then head home for rest or to teach lessons. 

So maybe those are the two main reasons why our blog was on hold... ?  We're doing very well! We're excited for Christmas for sure!

We went on deputation last month. Deputation is a ministry update visit where a missionary runs around like crazy telling friends and family about what God is doing, and then they return to the ministry often without a moment to take a breath. FORTUNATELY, we got several moments to breathe before we got home because when we got back to Longview, things moved very quickly!  Here's a look what's been going on:

- Unpack after trip (of course)

- Got home and found the fridge had been off due to a circuit thing during a power outage, and we had rotten food, including a rotten turkey in the freezer to take care of. And then that smell... oh, how it's lingering. Fortunately we were in great spirits & didn't really get bothered by it all! (Praise God for that miraculous work in our hearts!) So we scrubbed the fridge... twice.

- Doctor's appointment and ultrasound.

- TECH Women had a Christmas party, and I played music for it.

- Started private lessons (teaching) back up.

- Took care of Jones boys

- MTT Christmas social

- Northwood women Christmas banquet (I got to prepare the special tradition of the Good and Perfect Gift, the devotion, craft and a song! Matt was one of the servers--- boy, I wish I had a photo! He was quite handsome!)

- Northwood church Christmas Potluck (Matt and I got to do the special music: a fifteen-minute musical medley of the Christmas story, walking through all the Scripture on PowerPoint slides accompanied by illustrations. This took a lot of prep, but it was neat worship as a couple; Matt took care of coordinating the slides while I sang. I guess we were "the entertainment.")


- For chapel at MTT, Tom Brewington (our part-time, retired mechanic) and I did the entire chapel full of music with our stringed instruments. It was a blast!

- MEANWHILE while all of this is going on, Matt has been working extra hours most days to finalize the report for Mbingo Baptist Hospital in Cameroon. This week he has worked over 40 hours... and it's Thursday morning!  (He hopes to be done this morning, so the hospital can receive the report in time to propose it for funding.)


- Tomorrow night we have an event that Rebecca Friedlander, Matt and I are putting on at her dad's cabin called The Patchwork Christmas. I'll share the flyer with you, so you can get a better idea. (See below)


- Christmas Eve we are hoping to pack our house with friends who are missing their families or wanna be together for supper! We're making a turkey and ham, along with all kinds of sides and snacks. I already started baking. :)

We are really excited for all God's let us do! Please pray that we are sustained and that our attitudes glorify God. We REALLY long to have opportunities to help bring people closer to Jesus through all we're doing... especially tomorrow and Saturday.  Please pray that we, too, would have VERY intimate times with Christ.  Someone once said that when you're busy, you're like a speedboat: the faster you go, the more shallow your bottom is in the water. We want deep times with God that bless Him... not shallow moments. :)

This is the Patchwork Christmas flyer we handed out.

From Jan Schill

I received an e-mail from Jan, Bob's wife!  She shared some great information, and she gave the go-ahead to pass it on to you as well.  Here it is:

Monday evening, August 8, 2011

I finally made contact with Bob on Saturday morning.  Matt, the architect who is with him, had SKYPE on.  We couldn't talk, but could Instant Message.  I found out they had arrived safely and were settled in at the Mbingo hospital.

Sunday morning Bob called me on SKYPE and we had a great connection for about 15 minutes.

He had attended the Mbingo Baptist Church that morning.  He estimated there were about 300 people there.  They preach in English and they give a summary in French. 

In the afternoon, they took a jeep ride around the hospital property.  He said it is a huge area.  On the site are mountains, dams, waterfalls, a landing strip.  They also have a helicopter.  The hospital treats about 80,000 people a year with about 10,000 of those staying at the hospital.

They have never had a comprehensive Master Plan done or done any preplanning before building..  There are about 1,500 buildings on the site.  I'm sure many are very small.  They are needing to expand so Bob will begin the plan while there and finish it by the end of December.  The hospital has received some grant money, so need to have a plan to show them.

Bob said there were quite a few American doctors around.  He thought they stayed about one month and during that time work with and train the Cameroon doctors.

Bob said they have mostly western type food.  It has rained almost everyday.  He thought they would be working in another building, but decided it would be easier to set up in their rooms.  He and Matt each have a fairly large room with 2 or 3 beds and a bathroom. 

Bob said he was feeling good and enjoying being there.

Jan


 
Thank you for praying!!!  Please keep it up!  :)

Bob and Matt at TECH working on a model of a church.

Bob and Matt working

I Got to Visit with Matt....

Hi, All!  Yesterday, Sunday, I talked with Matt on Skype for about an hour and a half.  It was really nice to catch up on everything... but of course I thought of more to say afterward, so it was great that he called me again today! 

He is doing well.  He seems very joyful, and he's doing a lot of hard work creating charts of the measurements and buildings' needs. (Soon he'll work on drawings.)  He's met some really neat people--- all of the doctors are Americans, it seems.  Indigenous people work at the hospital.  He said many of them speak "Pidgin English." He said it's pretty hard to understand them even though it is a form of English. 


He is staying in a motel-like building.  He has his own room, so he didn't know the answer when I asked if Bob was sleeping enough. (Bob is notorious for working late into the nights...)

He said the food is kind of like American food, and it's pretty good. Tonight he had home-made doughnuts at Dr. Sparks' house. He is the main doctor who organizes the volunteers, I gathered.  He said he DOES miss my cooking, but that those doughnuts would be pretty hard to beat.  :)

He said Bob is doing well and creating these amazing drawings.  Matt is in awe, I perceived.  I'm so thankful (as is Matt) that he has this great opportunity with Bob.  

Please keep praying for their health, safety, and productiveness for The Kingdom!  :)  THANK YOU!!!!

This is Mbingo Baptist Hospital where Matt is at work right now!

Matt's Haircut!

Just wanted to share a few pics with you!  Matt convinced me to cut his hair, since he is about to go to a part of the world that is very conservative.  So I have two motives for this post: 1. Show you his new hair. 2. Introduce you to some awesome guys he is grateful to know.

Matt with his full beard and growing hair on the left.  His hair got about 2 inches longer than this.  Next to him is Ron Peacock (our awesome friend and pastor at NorthWood Church) and Matt Freid (our friend from NW Church).

Matt with longer hair and less beard next to his very good friend Rob White.

HIS HAIR IS NOW CUT!  Taken Sunday, July 31, 2011. (He's next to me! Oh, and when he saw this picture, he asked me why there was lightning coming out of his ears... ahem... it's just some pretty lights we have up at church on the walls... not lightning.) :)

Some Updates

I've been weak at writing... I'll try to update y'all on the goings on!

Matt IS going to Africa in a week.  He'll head to Atlanta where he'll meet Bob Schill; from there they'll fly to Paris, then into Cameroon, Africa.  The work? They need to work on some designs for an existing HUGE hospital in the area.  Western hospitals are rare, but needed.  You can read the info in our last post, if interested in Cameroon. Please pray Matt will be effective as a teammate, and also come home safely to his waiting wife.

Our house is almost done! It has been 8 months since we bought the house, and we've had some wonderful help with fixing it up. We've gutted the entire thing and had the electric done, the walls insulated and rebuilt, we mudded, sanded, painted, put flooring down (in a couple rooms we had to put a FLOOR down...), built counters, cut cabinets from existing cabinets donated to us(!), cut trim for the rooms, doors, window, began sewing curtains... All of this in 6 rooms.  We are GRATEFUL for this house. It is the cutest thing now... still quite quirky, as both of us had NEVER done any of this, really, before.  But it's wonderful! Praise God for how He provides!

Some TECH Team responsibilities are changing. I'm a graphic designer at MTT, as you probably know, and in the last few months, my manager has started focusing me on advertising-like projects. PR kinds of things.  I'm having a blast.  Still doing the design work, but I've also started on our Facebook presence, e-mail ads, bulletin ads, and program ads. Pretty fun stuff! 

What else? Feel free to leave a comment regarding anything I should blog about, as I've been feeling a little bit uncertain what to put up!  Thanks!!!  :)

Cameroon (also spelled Cameroun)

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon (French: République du Cameroun), is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The country is called "Africa in miniature" for its geological and cultural diversity. Natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas. The highest point is Mount Cameroon in the southwest, and the largest cities are Douala, Yaoundé, and Garoua. Cameroon is home to over 200 different linguistic groups. The country is well known for its native styles of music, particularly makossa and bikutsi, and for its successful national football team. English and French are the official languages.

This is a pic I found on Wikipedia from Cameroon.

In 2001, the literacy rate of Cameroon was estimated to be 67.9% (77% for males and 59.8% for females). Most children have access to free, state-run schools or subsidised, private and religious facilities. The educational system is a mixture of British and French precedents with most instruction in English or French. Cameroon has one of the highest school attendance rates in Africa. Girls attend school less regularly than boys do because of cultural attitudes, domestic duties, early marriage and pregnancy, and sexual harassment. Although attendance rates are higher in the south, a disproportionate number of teachers are stationed there, leaving northern schools chronically understaffed.

The quality of health care is generally low. Outside the major cities, facilities are often dirty and poorly equipped. Endemic diseases include dengue fever, filariasis, leishmaniasis, malaria, meningitis, schistosomiasis, and sleeping sickness. The HIV/AIDS seroprevalence rate is estimated at 5.4% for those aged 15–49, although a strong stigma against the illness keeps the number of reported cases artificially low. Traditional healers remain a popular alternative to Western medicine.

... AND BOB SCHILL IS TAKING MATT THERE IN 3 WEEKS TO WORK ON A LARGE "Western" HOSPITAL!!!!  (More to come!)

Becoming a Texan

It's been a HOT couple of weeks!

We have had high humidity and temps around 104 degrees F.  Up until about 5 days ago we did not have air conditioning in the house, either!  We were fixing up the house with fans on and hoping for great cross-breezes.

But, alas, it was a difficult feat... and we were defeated.  :(

So we ran to Home Depot and picked up an air conditioner to put in the dining room, and WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT MADE!  WOW!  We actually enjoyed working in that room!

Then Friday, after my lessons, I got a call from Gail asking if I was still at the church and would I come over for a second.  I said okay, and ran over to her house.  Ron stuck an air conditioning unit in our car!!!  They happened to have a spare unit!  They just handed it to us, free of charge!

So now we are sleeping a lot better, let me tell you!

Yesterday we came home from TECH Team, and when we got in the house it felt so nice!  The dining room unit was on very low (to help the floor adhesive cure), and I went into the bedroom to plop down on the bed.  The bedroom felt great, too, only the air was off!

I said, "Matt isn't it crazy how our house feels so nice, even though the air isn't even on in here?"

Matt reached over to turn on the unit, and noticed the temperature. "Yeah, especially since it's 92 degrees in here!  You're becoming a Texan!"

I guess that's the latest news... I'm becoming a Texan!

Spring Newsletter!

Coffee House

Matt and I are still helping put on coffee houses at NorthWood Church.  Please pray for the First Fridays.  We have a crowd, at times, that really needs to see people who know Jesus.  We want to be a good witness as we put on the coffee houses.  Thanks.


Here's the pic going with the invitation for this month.  Thought I'd share it because the sweetest man in the whole world is in it....  :)



 

(As they say in my family... S.O.P.)

Black and White Ad

This ad is (obviously) B&W, and will be 8 1/2 x 11 in a pastor's conference booklet.  I'm so excited to be able to design it.


I don't know if it's official, or anything, but my manager has talked to me about changing my job description.  He'd like me to be on top of "new media." This means keeping our website up-to-date, facebook, and advertising for TECH.  It means keeping our displays current and literature accurate.  I'm excited because this is my area of interest FOR SURE.  Part of that being because I can be corny in the ads. :)  I do "corny."

(Note: The 1/4" bleed is left on this image.  It will actually be cropped, I guess you could say, for the ad.)

Praise God for Board Meetings!

This week/weekend the Missionary TECH Team Board is here! The week or two before the board arrives, there is a nervous tension in the air.  Things start getting tidier, the rules get a little stricter, the refrigerator gets... bleach-e-er?

Anyway, all this happens, and it made me wonder if the Board was to be dreaded because people dreaded those last two weeks. (Side note: Matt and I were NOT here last year for board meeting.  We went to Judson to represent TECH Team.)

Let me tell you that Board meeting week is anything BUT dreadful!  The board members are SO loving! They've walked around and greeted all of us as their arrivals were sporadic. Several of them spoke in our chapel times this week, and the Team was more encouraged than we've been in a while!  The Board is excited about TECH's ministry and where God is bringing us in the future, and sometimes that excitement slips away from those of us at the office.  PRAISE GOD FOR BOARD MEETINGS!


A couple is staying with us at Stone House, and I got to meet them just this morning.  They are the kind of couple you wish you were related to, you know what I mean?  Their last name is Ellison.  Please ask God to bless their stay with us and their time with TECH this week.  They are a treasure!

The Board... the only picture I have of them... :)

Matt's New Animation

 

This animation is Matt's second at TECH.  It is of the Missionary Village Ministries outside of Longview for pilots-in-training who want to be missionary pilots.  Check it out!  

(NOTE: In order to do this animation, each building needs to be designed then rendered.  It's a very long process... The peeps at TECH are very proud of/ impressed with him.)  :D

Something I Noticed...

 (A Note From Molly)


Right now, honestly, I feel a bit overwhelmed. We've been working on the house every night, unless we've had a meeting at church, and the house is coming along--- though not a single room is TOTALLY finished.  It's a HUGE project that we're in the middle of, and there is a learning curve involved (though Matt is incredibly skilled!).  We've traveled up north three times in two months, and we're going back to Elgin next week... I just finished unpacking two nights ago.  Meanwhile, we've gotta get the house ready to move into SOON.  Matt wants to be out of Stone House by April.  (How we can do that amongst all this traveling, I don't know.)

Matt let us rest Saturday evening after supper, instead of working, which was such a treat!  Also, last night we quit working around 8:40 to get some things for the house Wal-Mart, and we went home to relax afterward.  THAT was also a treat!  :)  Those moments, I think, are helping me get through the other days with long hours.

I guess you could say I'm behind in a lot of things at home... catching up on laundry, cleaning, organizing, packing to move; it's tricky.  Meanwhile, I feel like I'm living in chaos and can't quite escape it.

It's been a hard couple months.  You know that I just posted info about Grandpa Christy.  He passed away two weeks after Larry passed away here at TECH.  I'm emotionally drained.  I used to feel upbeat, but I don't smile as easily as I used to.  I still smile though.  It's just harder.  And I definitely feel the need to smile... it's not pretend... it's just hard.

Something I noticed, though, is that last year around this time I felt the same.  Psychologists say depression comes in cycles.  Maybe they're right... 

Something ELSE I noticed is that I didn't blog much last winter, just as I didn't much this winter.  But something tragic happened last year in February, and I didn't even blog about it.  I didn't blog about most things last winter because of my depression... maybe I wrote more on my OTHER blog, but I didn't post here.  My grandpa Johnson passed away.  I can't even begin to describe how sad I was when I realized I never blogged about him.  My sister, Sarah did.  It was beautiful.  She blogged numerous times. 

Do you ever realize (much after the fact) that you have neglected to do something, and because of that you may have hurt people's feelings?  I feel like I did that by not blogging about Grandpa.

Matt and I made a trip to Minnesota over Christmas with our family to see him.  We also were able to make it to his funeral early February last year.  I can't believe I didn't blog about any of it.  I was sure that I had blogged... but maybe I just thought about what I WOULD say.

I hope I can write about Grandpa HoJo soon.  I'll try.  Each of my sisters had a different relationship with him... I'll only be able to write from my perspective, of course.  I just have to get through a couple of things here first.  :)  Grandpa's post will take time, because I'll want to have some fun picture to share with you.

Prayer Requests

My sister brought it to my attention that we hadn't updated our prayer requests for a LONG time!  If you are on our prayer team, please click on the "Current Prayer Requests" tab, OR click here!  :)

Thanks, Sarah, for noticing!!!

And thanks, everyone, for praying for our ministry at Missionary TECH Team!  We are grateful!

Grandpa Christy

The last two months has spun by us.

Matt's grandpa passed away in January. We had just spent several days with him in Iowa, when we traveled up North last month.  We drove back up to his funeral on January 30th... Nine days after Larry Wiklund's funeral.

If you didn't know Matt's Grandpa Christy, I wish you did.  I have a suspicion that he is a LOT like Matt will be in 40-some years, if that's Matt's lifespan.  This is how I knew him, which I didn't know him as well as I wished:

- He would smile as I spoke and encourage me if he thought I was being hard on myself.  

- He was one of our faith-supporters, and he faithfully went to church a few blocks from his house.  

- He never interrupted.

- He worried about Grandma when he found out he was sick. 

- He had a garden and nurtured MANY indoor plants.  He got a kick out of his Christmas cactus that bloomed twice!

- I remember when we pulled out a bunch of old photos last March... a year ago now.  He was so excited to talk about the different things that everyone was doing in those photos.  Grandma and he both seemed to have a great time remembering together with Matt's mom, Char.  I was so glad to be there, observing.  Not many people have moments like I had watching them.  I feel lucky.

- He'd give plants away to Matt and me, and he'd give us thorough care instructions.

- He worked for many years in a grocery store, and he also took care of others' crops.

- He told me he would really like to be my grandpa a couple years after Matt and I got married.  No one had ever told me they wanted me to be a part of their family before... I felt very special, and I cried a couple minutes afterward.  (Fortunately we were just pulling out of their driveway.)

- He really liked his bird (a love bird) named Peaches.  He talked to her like she was his granddaughter.  It was so cute... and she loved him too!  She'd sit on his shoulder.

- He was stubborn.  He would do exactly what he thought was right and stand up for it.

- He wasn't fancy, nor did he try to be anything he wasn't.  He claimed that he was a simple kind of man, and I really liked that about him.  I wish more people would be as brilliant as him and shed away life's unnecessary complications. 

- He had spent some time in the army... even in Germany, I think.  He talked about several adventures while we were in the hospital visiting, one of them being how he met Grandma through letter correspondence! I think their love story should be turned into a movie!  He talked about how proud he was to tell everyone he had a girl waiting for him back home.  That makes me smile.  He served as a cook, and Matt said he could crack more than 5 eggs at once!  I think he told me Grandpa would do all the egg-cracking for meals up until a few years ago.  :)

- Grandpa liked a good conversation.  He liked to sit and talk, but sometimes he'd just listen.  And he seemed to like it.

- Grandpa and Grandma came to visit us in Longview with Dan and Char (Matt's parents).  We did several different things, but I remember Grandpa getting excited about the boat trip on Caddo Lake.  He thought that was spectacular--- and it was!  He reminded us afterward about what the guide had taught us about the birds and plants... it was neat.

- Matt said that he used to always eat Grandma's oatmeal cookies for breakfast!

Of course no matter where I stop in talking about Grandpa Christy, I won't be done. There are always more things to say.  I think what I've put may have given the right impression of who he is... maybe.

I just wanted to mention him.  We've been going through a lot in the past two months, and it's all hard to process if we don't take a step back and look at it all... here's just a glimpse, I guess! :)

UPDATES!

So much to say--- so little time!  Stay tuned!  We'll be adding information about the follow sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat topics:

- Our three trips up North in the past 2 months
- Our House updates
- Spiritual changes
- New and excited jobs here at TECH!
- Missionary TECH Teammates... lots of changes going on.

... and more! 

Stay tuned!  Same scrappy blog!  Same scrappy bloggers!

Surprises and Trials While in Cedarville, Ohio

As you know, lately we've been basically writing about the new house and our projects, and we don't share too much personal information anymore, other than our newsletters or prayer requests.  But today I'd like to share some personal info, if it's okay.

Cedarville... Without snow!!! (Not taken by us!)

We're currently in Cedarville, Ohio, at a missions conference.  We are two of about 100 missionaries here, and it's been really neat learning from the other missionaries on our recruiting adventure.  We even ran into two missionaries from Josiah Venture who serve in the Czech Republic and know our good friend, Bonnie!  What a treat to have that connection. 

And speaking of connections, the people who are housing us during this conference are the Johnsons.  They work at Cedarville, and have been gracious enough to open their home; they even came onto campus to see us during supper last night because we haven't seen them much with the busy schedule of the conference!  (Very sweet of them!)  Anyway, turns out that another of our good friends, Darryl, is related to them!!!  Mrs. Johnson is Darryl's grandfather's sister (his great aunt)!  What are the odds?!  How fun.

In the midst of the fun and interesting experiences we are having this week and know we'll have with family next week, we are also incredibly sad.  On Tuesday morning we found out that our friend, Larry Wiklund, a TECH missionary, had passed away earlier that day.

Larry had a struggle with rheumatoid arthritis, another kind of arthritis as well, and he was treated for Alzheimer's.  He retired in April 2010,, and the Graphics Department is still working to get a foothold after losing his presence in the office.  

Matt and I have known Larry for a year and a half, and in that time he has become very dear to us.  His death is a shock, and we're grieving.  

I share this knowing that you'll pray for his family, the Wiklunds, and I hope that you'll pray that TECH be a comfort to them.  :)

Thanks.  

... And We're Starting to Get Tired!

As you may have noticed, this has been a big couple of weeks!  We have been working hard on our new home, which we lovingly call The Peach House (because of it's brilliant peach color).  We are on an adventure with this thing!  We wanted to share a bit of that with you!  Here is a little bit of what we've been up to in PICTURE form.  Not everything is here, nor is everyone that has helped us.  We are missing several photos...  but I think this will give you an idea.  We haven't taken a snapshot for a few days, but that's okay.  Here's what we have SO FAR!

While Matt's Parents, Dan & Char, were here...

The carpet from the bedroom with the old toilet.

(We had a surprise work crew for most of a day!  The Harding family came over!)

Dan Harding with his son, Jonathan.

Our door is always open!--- Figuratively, that is.

The first window installed in our house!

The Harding girls working/sitting.  :)  

Dan and Jonathan

Hardings stuffing leaves!

Ron and Gail Showed up with CHIC-FIL-A and helped us for an evening!

Replacing the ceiling... Dan, Matt and Ron.

Dan working.  See the dust?

Ron and Matt holding up the ceiling.

Dan is putting in the screws!

The wall next to the window (this is sideways)... pre-caulk.

The kitchen before Molly cleaned it...

Ron, Char and Gail.  And snow???? No... dust.

Looks like this is when Ron lost a contact.

Another Day of Work!

Char is a VERY hard worker!

Dan is too!

Getting the tack strips up from the floor.

Dead carpenter ants.  Whew!!!!!

The insulation is going up!

The toilet is in!

Hmmm... where do we start?

Space heater and candle... it is helping the house smell, er, better.

True Texans.

He's so tough.  :)

Insulation is moving along!

Joel and Vic spend some time helping us!

Joel removing nails from the trim.

Matt and Vic installing the bathtub

Slight problem... the tub is 2 inches shorter than the space.  

Yikes!  It's not level?!  How can that BE?

Sheetrock! (1st Bedroom)

2nd Bedroom carpet is coming up and paneling down!

Missionary TECH Team Work Day!  MAN we got a ton done!!!!  What a loving group!

Kay and her son, Alex at the TECH work day!

I spy Lynella cleaning up the mess!

Brenna and David in the 1st bedroom working on sheetrock!

Tim working so fast he's blurry!

Peeling the paneling and sheet rock off the wall

Tim working on the bathroom door.

Matt installing a new, beautiful window into the 2nd bedroom.

Brenna getting up tack strip.

Lynella fighting the carpet and WINNING!

With all of the help we've received, we are moving quickly!  Check out our PH Page!

And now for today.

Today was full of BIG purchases!  Matt told me we're fine, and not to worry--- that we won't continue to spend money like this.  I'm thinking that he's right, so I'm not worried.  We bought our flooring today!  We also bought two colors of paint--- one for the walls and one for the trim! I'm very excited about these things!  We also bought some rollers and things like that... things to help us with the painting and trim.  You know what ELSE we bought?  A vanity!  Matt had originally planned on building one, but The Home Depot had one for $40, and Matt thought that was worth it!  I imagine that it's worth his saved time and stress, plus it has the built-in sink, and it's pretty.  We were given a faucet by Joel's friend, so that's one less expense!  (Our faucet leaked.)

All that to say, it's been a big day.  I'm so tired, and Matt is pretending to be asleep right now.  But before I go, I wanted to share some photos with you!  We're moving along!