We actually did it! The bed project is complete!

Three's Company!

This past week was a fairly busy week for me. I babysat for the little girl I'll be nannying twice and spent some time with her mom. I really like the family a lot and think this is going to be a great job and break from teaching for the year.

I've had quite a few orders from mostly family members so I've been working A LOT in my chinese sweat shop this week. I did get an order from someone in Texas and that was my first order from an unknown person without them messaging me first. I think my small business is slowly starting to grow. Hopefully, I'll continue to have a few more customers each month! Keep spreading the word. I've got a lot of friends out there who will be having babies in the next year so I'm sure I'll be gifting lots of Little Posh Tot products to them all.

Josh and I made a mad dash to Ikea on Sunday after he finished playing golf. What was supposed to be a relaxing evening at home turned into a shopping spree. The bed we wanted in our spare bedroom has been out of stock. I've been stalking the website and we missed our chance to get the bed two weeks ago as they had just sold out again. On Sunday, I noticed later in the day that the inventory on the website changed from 0 to 12. So, Josh and I made the 30-45 minute drive to Schamburg, Il. We checked the website through Josh's I-phone along the way to make sure they weren't going to sell out before we got there. These beds go like hot pancakes so we definitely won't have an original bed in our house, but it will be a popular one. I just wish I had invented the things... they can't keep them in the store.

Our mission yesterday was to begin putting the bed together b/c my daddy is coming for a visit!!!!! Three's company, right? He'll be here Wednesday through Sunday. I'm going to pick him up at the O'Hare airport on Wednesday by myself. Pray for me... this will be a huge challenge. I don't really drive on any of the interstates around here. I'm pretty much petrified of them. I'm planning to leave very early to give myself plenty of time in case I get lost or take the wrong exit. Josh and I got half of the bed put together last night and we will hopefully be completing the remainder of the bed tonight and tomorrow. Josh and dad will play golf on Friday and I may tag along, who knows. We are going to go to a Cubs game on Sunday before Dad leaves to go back home (Boo... I'm sad already thinking about it) and we may try to go into the city one of the other days. I haven't been brave enough to try out the train but I think this may be the perfect opportunity for us to try. For those of you who know my dad and I really well, you know this could be a disaster. Neither one of us has even a good sense of direction so it will definitely be like the blind leading the blind. It will provide a great memory however and probably tons of laughter.

Gotta go get ready for my dad's grand arrival! This is only the beginning of our guest list. Soon to follow are my brother-in-law's family (David, Amy, Rachel and Grace), my in-laws (Cliff and Phyllis) and my great friends Rebecca and Jeremy.

Who's next?????

Lately, I've been craving sweets because I've been trying to lose some weight and the more I deprive myself of them, the more I crave them. So, I decided to make peach cobbler to satisfy my craving and to treat our company last night. I mention this to Josh and, to my utter shock and surprise, he tells me that I'll be eating it alone. He doesn't like peach cobbler! WHO DOESN'T LIKE PEACH COBBLER?!?!?!?!?!? I don't think you can claim to be from the South and not like peach cobbler. I think most of you would agree, right? This is such a shock because I can't believe I'm hearing him say this. Peach cobbler is one of my all time favorite desserts and I can't imagine living a lifetime without ever making or eating it again. I'm also shocked because I never knew this about him. I knew he was a picky eater but how can you not like peaches? He said he would try some but he didn't and I don't think he will. Our company didn't want any either so I'm stuck with whole dish of it. I'm going to send Josh to work with it tomorrow and hopefully the guys there will eat it up!

Today has been a great day so far! I sold my first embroidered gift set without them messaging me first to someone I don't know. I'm working on getting it stitched out as I'm typing. This is very exhilarating and little by little I can see my business is growing. Some day... not a day anytime soon.... but some day in the distant future, I may just be able to stay at home and embroider for work! How great would that be? Josh is out golfing with a friend today so I have time to work on this project. When he gets home, we're planning to go to the pool. It's a beautiful day and we want to take advantage of the nice weather.

The Unveiling of Josh's New Toy!

Yesterday was a BIG day in the Pitchford household. Josh is off on Fridays and I live for those days because I'm mostly at home all by myself during the day until I begin working. So, as you can imagine, I live for the days he's off and we can plan to do something together. Our big plan yesterday was to go grocery shopping!!!! Real fun, right? Well, it turned out to be. We went to our favorite place first.... Costco! As soon as we walked in the door, we saw that the flat panel t.v. that Josh has wanted for about a year now was ON SALE! We've been saving for this purchase since his birthday last year and we had enough saved to purchase the t.v. and the HDMI cables! So, we decided to go ahead and make our move. After we finished our shopping there, we headed over to Sam's because we had seen a Sony Blu-Ray disc dvd player on sale there last week. Lucky for us it was still on sale! This is Josh's early b-day present from me!

He came home and set everything up right away until he realized that the cable box we have doesn't have a HDMI connector. He's going to try to switch that out with Comcast today so that the t.v. will do exactly what he wants it to do. I'll be without a working t.v. all day today but that's okay because, believe it or not, I have a long list of things to do.

We are going to help out Josh's friend Zach with his truck. He needs it moved from his work to his apartment because he bought a new jeep. We're going to help him out with that tonight and he's going to come help Josh move the old t.v. out of our apartment and have dinner with us. Our first guest... I'm very excited! I cleaned earlier this week so all I need to do today is tidy, get everything prepared for dinner, exercise and work on some embroidery projects. It's a great day to be inside too because it's been raining, thundering and lightening since late last night. I'm not used the storms they have up here. The one thing about them is the thunder is really LOUD. It sounds like there's a giant drum sitting right over your house. I got up shortly after Josh this a.m. because it was so loud, I could no longer sleep.

Well, I have a lot to get started on today so I better get going!

Until next time...

So... after saying "I do" only a year ago, we found ourselves celebrating our anniversary in a completely different state no where close to the Carolina coast. Our anniversary weekend was perfect! It started out with a leisurely bike on the lakefront path in downtown Chicago. After retiring from the beautiful bike ride, we rested and enjoyed a delicious lunch at the famous Harey Carey's in the Navy Pier area. Our day of excursions was concluded by a breath taking view of the city on a tall ship. The evening, though, was the most perfect part of the trip. We started out with drinks at the top of the John Hancock building and then enjoyed dinner just one floor below at a window table. We were lucky enough to view part of the lake as well as the Navy Pier. Fortunately for us, there were fireworks scheduled for later that night so we purposefully extended our dinner so that we could view the fireworks from above. It was spectacular and I'll never forget all the effort my husband put into making it an unforgettable first anniversary together.

After all the fun, reality began to set in that I wasn't leaving and I did have a somewhat of a rough week last week. I was very homesick and I wasn't having any luck securing a job. I have decided to be a nanny while we are here. I was turned down by three families and this was not only discouraging but it was very stressful because Josh and I both need to work. We have been living in the Dave Ramsey world since the beginning of 2009 when we went through Financial Peace University together. During that time, we have been able to save, save and save some more. This is a wonderful feeling and if you haven't taken the course, you should! It will set you free and Josh and I will never be bound by a creditor again. Although it has been helpful for us to build up this sound nest egg, I tend to take it too far sometimes and refuse to "borrow" from our savings if we legitimately need it and this usually doesn't go over very well.

So, to make a long story short, I was really depressed last week and wanted to move back to South Carolina and felt like we would never make it financially here in this great state of Illinois, but God came through! I received six different nanny offers last week and have accepted the one I think was meant to be all along! I'm feeling much better about everything and Josh and I celebrated today by eating out! We haven't been out to eat since my mom left and he's been dying to have a chicken hero from Nicky's. It was definitely worth the wait.

I hope you enjoy reading about life here so far. I'll be back soon to update you again.... It's time for me to finish my chores for the day.