Now, I am aware that no one appreciates excuses so I'm not going to give any to attempt to explain my absence (seemingly abandonment, no doubt) of this blog. That being said, the following list is simply a compilation of the things that have been sucking up every ounce of my spare time over the last four months.

1. I'll start off with the best of all: John and I bought a house! Well, I suppose it is technically a townhouse, but it is all ours! Here's a picture of John being super excited about our "Sold" sign on the day of our final walk-through. All of a sudden much of our time is consumed with home-ownerly things. You might be thinking, "Like what, Kristen?" Well, for starters, you have to buy a whole lot of stuff you never even thought about buying. Like a garden hose, for instance. Had we not decided to embark on the journey of buying a home I would never have known that there are hundreds of types of garden hoses in different types of dutys, materials, and colors. And then you need a nozzle for the damn thing. Ugh. Thankfully, John took the reigns on that debacle and picked out a hose for me. Seems to be working wonderfully, so I suppose it all worked out. But, homes have other time-sucking items too. Like rodents, for example. Just the other day John and I came home and found a tiny little mole crawling up the screen of our egress window. Though, upon further examination he wasn't just crawling, but also eating the screen as he traveled. And now, as a result, we have a window screen that resembles swiss cheese. And I can only imagine the varieties of screens we'll have to choose from when we try to replace it...


2. My main time consumption of all is something we are all too familiar with... work. I'll spare you the details (though, many are quite entertaining) and give a quick recap. I drive around Des Moines all day getting screamed at, cried at, cursed at and sometimes smiled at, and then come home and work on paperwork until the clock strikes approximately 10:00 and this happens:


Truthfully, I thought the list of why I haven't updated the blog would be far longer than just these two things, but it turns out it isn't. Regardless, I'm going to go ahead and take the plunge and make a mid-year (or so) resolution to start to update this thing more regularly again. Because quite frankly, there are tons of blog-worthy things going on out here in the middle of nowhere. Need a teaser of what's to come? Well, rumor has it that there's a butter sculpture contest at the Iowa State Fair and plans to feature a sculpture (we can only hope life-size) of Michael Jackson!