Big Girl Pants

So, as you know by now I am currently going through the process of buying a house. To clarify, I am buying a house where Nick, Finlay, and I (and hopefully a future Hall or two) will live together, but I am the only decision-maker and/or action-taker in the bunch! Obviously, Nick can't participate from Afghanistan so I'm on my own here, which has really forced me to step up and put on my big girl pants.
Tonight I had to negotiate our mortgage and secure our homeowner's insurance policy all on my own. This was a daunting task! Fortunately, I knew that I had Nick's full support in this, and I'd gotten a few good pep talks from my sweet Daddy, and everything worked out great - more than great! But if you told me a year ago that I'd be doing all this by myself I'd have laughed in your face.
I really was nervous about this all day - stomach churning, barely able to concentrate! So I had to give myself a little reminder of why I'm doing all this. Below, you'll see one of my motivations - my new fabulous kitchen! Clearly, it's not finished, but I'm pretty sure that once it's done it will be about 10 times the size of my current kitchen and at least 4 times bigger than any I've ever had. Since I cook a lot (not necessarily well, but a lot all the same) I am holding this little slice of heaven as my motivation to keep pushing through this process, even when I get super-stressed out about all of these very grown-up tasks I'm learning how to complete.
As both my parents have reminded me, everything for this house is really falling into place - I definitely think that it's divine intervention, the way that everything is working out, but I still tend to get stressed out!
In other news, Nick has Shingles so please say a little prayer for him. They've popped up on his back so you can imagine how painful and uncomfortable that is, and how un-fun it will be during the 7-10 days he spends making his way home from Afghanistan. It's just 10 days now until Nick leaves his forward operating base - hooray!