Shout-out to Uncle Jack!

Hello all! No, my Uncle Jack is not expecting a baby, although that would be blog-worthy news at the very least, wouldn't it? Rather, we would like to officially congratulate him on being a published author! Uncle Jack (my uncle) is a Lutheran pastor, and wrote an article about their family's experience with my cousin's brain tumor several years ago. The piece has been published in a Christian magazine and can be viewed here: http://www.lcms.org/pages/wPage.asp?ContentID=333&IssueID=23.
We have been running like crazy people the last week. I suppose it will be that way until we get moved and settled. I have a 2 page typed list of things that need to be done and places I need to call around the time of the move. I learned yesterday that we're probably going to have to go ahead and paint the whole interior of the house. We had originally planned to leave what the previous owners had, and paint in a few years once we had the funds and a better sense of our decor style. My painter, who painted Christa's nursery and bathroom (and did a beautiful job from the pictures I've seen), attempted to touch up some rough areas on a few of the walls. As it turns out, the previous owners had repainted a wall here and there, and failed to get an exact match on the color and finish. So the house is full of varying shades and types of paint - almost impossible to match. This caused a bit of stress for me, yesterday, as this is a project and expense that I wasn't counting on, and I don't have the first clue what color to paint the downstairs. It's a pretty open floor plan, so I'm stuck with a lot of ugly color if I get it wrong. The bright side, though, is that the green color that's on the walls now, doesn't really match our stuff. So, I've asked my very generous friend who has redecorated a couple of her homes over the years, and whose style I very much like, to go over to the house, pick a color that will go with anything and look good covering a lot of wall space, and I'll be surprised on moving day! After a de-stressing Mexican lunch yesterday, I'm really excited to decorate the house, now that I'm not limited by the trendy, but not 100% our style green walls. And I can't complain at all - this is the first hang-up we've had during this whole house buying process. (Well, that and my parents discovered yesterday that the house has a different lock for each door, and we only have keys to 2 of them! Not sure how we're going to fix that one yet - change all the locks to match??)
At any rate, we're still having a blast, but I could use a nap :) Gotta go get ready for church. I'll try to post some new pictures in the next few days.