After the dust from moving had settled a bit, Nick and I discovered that our house has a smell. And not a good smell. It's somewhere between 50-year-old-paint-in-a-vacant-house and dead rodent. On Tuesday, we caved in and bought a Glade Plug-in. We had never tried one before and spent a good 20 minutes in the isle of our grocery store scratching and sniffing the various boxes. Finally we chose Passion Fruit (or was it mixed fruit? Well, something fruity.) after determining that Fresh Air was far too mild. The device is really quite advanced. It has scent intensity levels. We set it to level five and now can't decide which we like better: intense fruit or mild rodent.

On Saturday, my parents drove up for a visit and gave us an oriental rug that used to be Grandmary's. It's a pretty rug, but it reeks of oldness and smoke. We spent Saturday morning hosing it down and scrubbing it before rinsing it about 94 more times. (It's wool, and it retains moisture and soap beautifully. Also the smell of nicotine.) Finally, after letting it dry on the porch for 3 days, we moved it inside only to discover it smells worse than rodent and fruit combined. It smells like a very large wet dog. Perhaps a pack of dogs.

Enough rambling for now.
...And as a reward for your patience,
some interior house pictures!
(Please ignore all of the little piles...we're working on them!)