home in progress.

We've been in Wichita for a week and two days now and it's going well. Our home feels homey. We are really enjoying our housemates, Lauren and Daniel, as well as our across the street neighbors, Kenzie and Cora, and many of the other family and friends here in Wichita. We are on the job search and feeling somewhat positive. I had a job interview on Friday for a paraeducator position at a dual language elementary school, which went quite well. We've also both applied for jobs at the YMCA. We're trusting that God will provide some good work for us before too long. Josh is starting to make a thesis-work-time schedule. We're both training for a half-marathon in October, so we've been enjoying running along the Arkansas River. In the past week we've been fixing up our room and bathroom a bit. Lauren and Daniel's house had a lot of work to be done when they bought it, but they did a lot of the work before we even arrived. Willis put in new windows in our room and various other awesome people painted, put in a toilet and got carpet installed. We are pretty thankful for all the hard work that went into our part of the house. Besides the attic, our room is the only room upstairs. We really love it! Here are some pictures of the progress we've made this week.

Bed Area:

Desk Area:

Both of our desks came from Meme and Willis' house. They graciously gave Josh his desk and my craft table was given to them, but they were hoping to give away to anyone in need. My table has a leaf that flips up when I want more space for projects and flips down to keep our room neat and tidy. Josh really likes studying at home, so it's great that he has his own desk to work at.

Closet (located in the bathroom):

Details:

After getting the basics down, we started decorating our area a little bit. I made curtains out of tablecloths that we bought at a thrift store and we've put up a lot of art on the walls that we've been collecting. The portraits are from Kelly Baker's senior art show (I'm in the middle!). We got a fun elephant ear plant at the farmer's market and it's sitting in a basket that Grandma Ann gave us for our wedding. Our bathroom has required the most work so far. We put up two mirrors, towel racks and did some painting, but we still need put in new carpet, tile and a new window at some point. We really enjoy spending time in our little spot. The rest of the house is great too! Our kitchen is wonderfully functional besides the non-working oven, which isn't a huge deal right now because we have an awesome toaster oven. The four of us living here are pretty much on the same food page. We are all vegetarians and interested in sharing meals together, so we've developed a cooking rotation for Monday-Thursday. Last week we ate dinner together every week night and occasionally others from the neighborhood have joined us. Another cool feature of the main floor is the chapel, which is a room set aside for prayer, worship, meditation and yoga. The four of us plan to have prayer together at least once a week to start.

It's been a good week here and we're excited to see what else is in store for us in Wichita!