Bump Update: The First 20 Weeks

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Magical Engagement Photos by Samantha Paige Photography

I absolutely adore looking through our engagement photos. They are so beautiful and our photographer, Samantha at Samantha Paige Photography did an amazing job capturing our love for each other, our excitement, and the beautiful country we live in. Find her on Insta @samantha_paige_p that's where you can see snippets of her amazing work.

I love her light, bright, and airy look. It makes these magical times seem even more so. 

We wanted to do a fall shoot (we got engaged in August) and something that was a bit more formal. We already have beautiful winter photos, we will have gorgeous summer photos from our wedding in 2019, and this spring we should get some cute maternity photos.

 Here are a few of my absolute faves:

Making Our Rental Feel Like Home: Bedroom & Bath

I won't lie to you, friends, I very seriously miss my GIGANTIC old bedroom, huge closet, attached master bath, and wood floors. I loved that I had room for a chair, bed, dressers, desks, nightstands... all the things. However, what I've quickly realized since we moved is that we don't really need all of those things. In many ways it is much easier to keep the bathroom cleaned without it, I have less places to stack items I don't need in the bedroom, and cleaning is much faster with less floor to mop or vacuum. 

Our new room is probably just over half the size of our old one. Here's a small angle of what the master looked like when we first toured:

Making Our Rental Feel Like Home: The Kitchen & Dining Room

We spent a lot of time after we moved in making the house cozier for us. We love the kitchen and dining room area, but it definitely lacks in storage and the washer and dryer are in the kitchen right there. That was a compromise, for sure. At our old house it was off of the kitchen but separate enough that it worked. I wanted to make sure that it was at least as attractive as it could be. Having a place with a washer and dryer hook up was big, so dealing with it in the kitchen and not having shared laundry seemed a fine trade.

A Messy Biz Announcement!

So, we think we should probably tell you about another thing we've been working on during our year of crazy change! 

Finding a Rental in a New City

After owning a home for nearly 10 years, it was super weird and super hard for me to transition to being a renter. I spent a ton of time looking into different places, locations, and types of rentals.

A few key things I realized about renting in a city, specifically Denver, Colorado:

1. It is very expensive. Full stop. We pay $1400 for a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom duplex 15 minutes from downtown Denver. It has a giant yard, garage, and fireplace. Our mortgage in Grand Junction was $870. Ouch. Some things we lost in this rental: A/C, 2nd bath, 3rd bedroom.
2. Private rentals seem to be better. They are more willing to work with you, are friendlier, and much more accessible for maintenance. They want to protect their investment. I eventually found ours on Zillow.com.

5 Things to Know About All This Messy Business

Moving away from my home town has been quite the experience. There have been so much to learn and so many new roads and directions to figure out! There's also been learning the ropes of my  teaching job at my new school and designing new coursework and curriculum for classes. We have way more freedom to do different activities and lessons here, but that means I have to build or rebuild a lot of it from scratch. Because of these tumultuous changes I've taken a break from blogging and we have tried to focus on our new life here.

Now! I realized just how much I miss it and am going to start all over, even if I never become a mega popular blogger where I can leave my day job to communicate and write all day with you guys, at least I have a spot where I can have a great time talking about things that are important to myself and others at this stage. So! Here are 5 things you need to know about This Messy Business moving forward into the new life and phase of this little bloggy and I'm excited for a fresh start!

Back in 2010 

In 2013.

1.  I am a 27 year old high school English teacher and Speech & Debate coach! I've been teaching high school for 5 years now.  I love all things reading and talking. I am hoping to incorporate more book reviews, suggestions, must read lists, and even some lesson inspiration. 
2. Brennan and I are engaged! We are going to be getting married on June 15, 2019 and I gotta tell you... I love wedding planning. If I were to forgo teaching I would totally go into the wedding planning business. It's awesome. 
   
3. I started this blog when I was 19 or 20 to document remodeling and renovating my 3 bedroom 2 bath manufactured home in Grand Junction, Colorado. We sold it in under a week in July 2017.  You could read all about how I staged it to have it move quickly here.
   
   
4. We are primarily a plant-based family! We are working to shift all our products to cruelty free and vegan. Brennan has been vegan for 4 years and I have been working to transition into that same lifestyle.  We love when we get to do a CSA with a farm in the summer, hopefully we find on like what we had in Grand Junction here in Denver! 
   
5. We now live in Denver, Colorado and it is a huge change! We are hoping to go on more adventures that I can document and share with you, try out different awesome restaurants, and find cool neighborhoods. We want to purchase a home in the next 3 years so we need to explore the right place for us.  Right now, we love renting. Read all about why here!
   

I'm hoping reinvigorating the blog and widening my scope from the previous years will make this a place where I can enjoy others, collaborate, and share some fun pieces of our lives. What do you think makes a successful blog? What do you like to read about?