Iowa Girl Meets... Oklahoma!!

Hello, friends! Greetings from the Sooner State!!

My parents and I arrived in Enid on Sunday night, where we met up with Pastor Thomas House and Larry, one of the elders of Redeemer Lutheran. They gave us a tour of the church (beautiful!!) and my new house (more on that later!). Larry then treated the four of us, plus Pastor's wife Audrey, to dinner. My parents and I then spent the rest of the evening cleaning my new place, courtesy of the bucket of cleaning supplies Jessie gave me as a going-away present.

Monday was move-in day. Pastor House and Ron, one of the trustees, helped us unload the Budget truck. Between the five of us, unloading took no time at all. (Speaking of unloading, we also had some excellent people help us LOAD the truck on Saturday. Thanks, Mike and Julie!!) After we got all of the boxes (and furniture) (and vacuums donated by cool people) into the house, we put together my futon. And by we, I mean Ron and Pastor House while the rest of us watched and tried not to break anything.

The rest of the day was packed with unpacking, various visitors from Redeemer stopping by, and trips to Wal-Mart, Lowes, and Marquis Furniture. We finished it off with a trip to Braum's for the best ice cream in Oklahoma before heading to the hotel and watching an episode of Castle.

On Tuesday morning, my parents left to return to Iowa and I was on officially on my own! Predictably, I spent the day... unpacking. I also had my weekly mentoring phone call with Pastor Jay and met some people over at Redeemer. Wednesday I was at church most of the day, organizing my new office, meeting people, and observing the Midweek school. Thursday was similar; I spent a good part of my day planning for my first week of work. (I officially start on Monday.)

Fridays will be my day off, so I'm treating today as such, even though I haven't started my job yet. I slept in, did some more unpacking, did a load of laundry and hung it out to dry on the clothesline in my backyard, and organized my kitchen and bathroom. The rest of my house is not quite organized yet, so you'll get more pictures of it in the next couple of weeks. For now, here are some pictures of my kitchen and the sign over at Redeemer!

I was welcomed on a sign! (Yes, I did notice that they spelled my name wrong...)

Also this is not a complete sentence. But it's still cool!

Here we have my kitchen table, complete with homemade napkin holder and table runner, embroidered cat from my grandma, and a book (because I need it, that's why).

And here are my favorite mugs. They're decorative AND useful!

And finally, I bought some plants for my kitchen!