Shack to Home, Blog to Book

As if the blog itself weren't enough documentation, it has now become a book of its very own-hold-in-your-hand-proof that we lived through it and are still a happy little family. (The warm toesies are icing on the cake reminders of the happiness.)

Yes, the whole house-building thing was certainly a big project, and yes, putting together the book  brought back some anxious feelings, but it's nice that it's all so tidy in 110 pages. Just like it's nice that we actually do fit comfortably in a 20 foot wide house.

The book was done through blurb and is straight from the blog, including it all from our initial post on March 14, 2010 to the post on January 8, 2012.

The first page:



Easy-peasy-slurp-it-into-blurberezy, right? Well, the lay-out did take some time, as well as going back to find all the original pictures in their full resolution gloriness so they would be fit for hard copy. And then of course, there were a few gratuitous pictures thrown in there to tell the story a bit more- like my cliffsnotes version of the outside and inside for the final pages:

With this post, I realize it might be some crazy time-warpy thing to blog about the book that's about our blog, but consider us archived.
- J

TEN

It's fitting that as we celebrate a decade of marriage our daughter has a love of counting to ten- as in waaahn, twooo, treeee, foorrr, fiiibe, siix, seben, aaate, niiine, ten... seben, eight, nine, TEN! (clap, clap, clap) As we say in the elementary math world, ten is a friendly number, and for a while there it was healthy for us too, because whenever she would start to count she would simultaneously want one of us to get down on the floor and do sit-ups. Our little drill sergeant!

Ten is also a number that demands reflection, as well as suggests a look ahead. We know we've done a lot in the past ten years (or 14! since we met). As part of Anthony's anniversary card to me he unknowingly wrote this part of the blog:

10 Things We've Done in the Past 10 Years:

1. Moved across the country twice.
2. Visited at least 31 states and 6 countries.
3. Had a Natalie.
4. Demolished a house and built a house.
5. Flown to Hawaii 3 times...what's your favorite island?
6. Blogged about a part of our lives...we are SO American.
7. Gotten a dog that we were never able to stop from barking.
8. Never bought our own plates.
9. Shared at least 520 pizzas.
10. Continued to be very much in love.

Through it all we have learned that predicting what the next ten years will be like is an exercise in futility, so here's to just hoping that they are happy and healthy (and that maybe the dog will stop barking).

- J (& A)