New Car Smell

I've heard a lot about that "new car smell," but have only ever experienced it once that I can remember. (I hope someday I'll experience it again with a shiny blue Toyota Tacoma...). Some people love that smell (or perhaps they just love the fact that they have a new car), and some people hate it. Nevertheless, the smell eventually fades as the newness wears off.

Before I got married and moved to Tulsa, I had the idea to start this blog about all of my Tulsa happenings as a way to keep in touch with all my friends and family back home in Ohio. Tomorrow marks Etienne and I's one month anniversary of being married, and it hit me that the new car smell is quickly fading on my new life here, and if I was serious about blogging and staying in touch with everyone, I'd better get on it. So here I am.

It's been an interesting month to say the least. We got off to a great start! The wedding was absolutely beautiful and I had a great day start to finish. And then we spent the honeymoon in Disney World (I wanna go back so bad!!!) and enjoyed a day at the beach on the way out of town. It was glorious! But I'll blog about that some other time. We got home to Tulsa at midnight Friday a week after the wedding. We literally couldn't move through the living room because of all of the STUFF jammed in it. We were certainly blessed with gifts for our new marriage.

However, I had my work cut out for me. It took awhile for us to unwrap and sort all of the presents, and go through all of my boxes from moving. Then there was the matter of cleaning.... Oh my. Etienne has owned the house we currently live in for six years, during which time he has had about 20 different roommates. Thankfully, some women from church came over and cleaned the bathrooms for me while we were on the honeymoon, but I still scrubbed the bathtub another two or three times and it grew shades lighter each time. When I got to the kitchen, I finally realized I was cleaning up after 20 men and six years of bachelorhood. It took a lot of elbow grease, but I really didn't mind. I got to bond with my new kitchen quite a bit. =) And now, the kitchen is sparkling and doesn't take much to maintain.

We did a lot of traveling this first month, too. Florida was quite a bit of time in the car. The next weekend we went to the Memorial Day meeting in Ozark. The next weekend we went to Kansas City for a wedding... With all the traveling and trying to get the house together, it was easy to distract myself about the fact that this wasn't just another trip to Tulsa. That I wasn't going home. Because I was already home. I didn't do myself any favors by distracting myself, to say the least, because then I just exploded after awhile. I cried like a baby (finally) and called my mom and cried and cried and cried. And then I was fine. It's hard for me to accept that Tulsa is home; I have a lot of loyalty to Ohio. So I've decided I have two homes, and that's okay.

That's basically my first month out here in a nutshell! I'm having a pleasant time figuring out my own routines and which grocery stores are the best (I'm a regular at Aldi now). Laundry is actually kind of fun for me because I hang all the clothes on a line outside. We have a tiny garden with a grand total of 8 plants (big plot of land, not many plants. Kinda silly lookin). I planted Morning Glory by my little section of picket fence my father-in-law built me, and will be planting sunflowers courtesy of Heloise Besse this week. I'm a member at Gold's gym and have a great time working out with Etienne.

(Funny story real quick... The other day we were working arms, and I had little 5 pound dumbbells doing a tricep exercise on a bench. This guy next to us asked Etienne to come spot him for a minute and he picked up these MASSIVE dumbbells - I don't think they come any bigger than those - 135 pounds at LEAST and starts benchpressing them. I was literally laughing at how pathetic I looked next to him with my teensy little 5 pounders. It's always a walk of shame in the gym for me, but I'm getting stronger! Maybe one day I'll be a hoss). So far Etienne has liked everything I create for dinner. We had my in-laws over for dinner last week, and our first overnight guests stayed with us last night (the lovely Krull family, minus Lori and Rachel, on their way to Cedar Creek Camp).

Slowly but surely I'm figuring out how to be a wife and keeper of the home. I'm not looking forward to throwing in the wrench of getting a job, but I guess it's gotta happen sometime. But before all that, we're going to conquer a rather exciting task....

REDECORATING!!!! I am truly excited for this. Right now, every room and ceiling is the same shade. Somewhere between brown and gray. I cannot wait to transform this place with color! Of course, I will post before and afters of each room as we tackle them. Stay tuned! More exciting posts a surely to come!

For now, I just want to say, I miss you all terribly and think of you often. I hope I can come home for a visit before school starts, but I'm not pinning any hopes on that. Please don't hesitate to call or text me! I'd love to hear what's going on in that part of the world. In the mean time, know that I'm doing just fine and Etienne continues to be the best husband I could've prayed for. I'm happy in my own little way with my new life. Frankly, though, I'm glad that new car smell is fading, and I can feel more like Tulsa really is home. But that will never diminish Ohio's place in my heart, and all the love I have for the people there.

Love,

Elizabeth

Etienne and I in a swirling teacup at Magic Kingdom! This was before the swirling....