It's all in a name...

This post's title is multi-purpose:

Post Title Purpose #1: To publicly laugh at myself. I have to admit that my number one reason for delaying in updating the blog is not having a clever title for the post. Kind of silly, but true. [As a side note, lack of pictures is a close second, but I convince myself that it's better to at least write something, even if I don't have photographic evidence of the work that's been done!]

Post Title Purpose #2: To explain yet another delay in house renovations. My closest friend from Bucknell changed her name this weekend! :) I had the ultimate pleasure of being the Maid of Honor for the very lovely Amanda. In addition to celebrating love and standing up next to a wonderful friend, it was wonderful to scrub the semi-permanent renovation dirt from under my nails and wear something other than work clothes. I also didn't mind riding out the remainder of the heat wave in an air-conditioned hotel!

Congratulations to Nick & Amanda on a beautiful day and a beautiful relationship. I love you guys! Congratulations, also, to another dear friend, Jillian, who also changed her name on Saturday. I was terribly disappointed at the overlap of dates of these two weddings, but I was there in spirit for Jillian as well! Kudos to facebook for confirming that Jillian was a beautiful bride!

Post Title Purpose #3: To expand upon the name of my blog. "Finding Former Glory." When we were house shopping, Justin and I tended to name the houses we visited. "Jail house" (the place with the metal bar divider in the living room). "Ugly chimney place" (name self explanatory). "Cozy danger" (a lovely place that we disqualified due to the scary landing at the top of the steps that was just asking for someone to fall down). One house that particularly stuck out for me was one that Justin called "No former glory." This house was (like most we saw) a fixer-upper. However, we noticed that being relatively new and relatively shabbily-built, there wasn't a lot of charm or previous beauty that we could restore. Seeing that house was a turning point in our house search, as it helped us to better understand our intrinsic wishes for a home (and, obviously, inspired my blog title!)

This is beginning to be a very long introduction to a very simple, and exciting announcement. I was thinking of all this former glory business today when we were at the house. We pulled up the carpet in the living room and den. After also pulling up the carpet pad and the linoleum, we found beautiful hardwood floors. (!!!!!) We had suspected that the floors might be nice [I have a picture from inspection of Justin pointing this out, which I would show you if they were easily accessible at the moment. Please see aforementioned lack-of-photo disclaimer], but after the kitchen ceiling discovery, my hope for the under-carpet discovery was hesitant to say the least.

However, this evening under all these layers, WE FOUND FORMER GLORY! The floors are not only beautiful wood, they may not even need refinished. The center of the living room is still practically gleaming (minus the dust we stirred up in the process). The outer edge has some black paint (we're not sure exactly why), but I've been pretty successful thus far in scraping this paint off with favorable results for the wood there, as well.

What a rewarding feeling to restore something to its original splendor. We're a long way from saying that for the whole house, but these floors certainly feel like a great first step!

In the other good news department, a few other announcements: 1) my first "solo" day at work (without the former coordinator) went well. 2) I found a fabulous little apartment to rent until October, so I'm pretty thrilled to be upgrading from the air mattress. 3) Word on the street is that people actually read my blog. Woo hoo for readers! :)