Lots of stuff going on!

Well, it’s been awhile since I updated so I do have some news to report!

Most of the footings are done! Last Friday, they were able to complete the footings for three sides of the house, leaving just the last short side and the retaining walls. And the basement walls and the porches, but that will all come. We went out to see everything that night, and Yoshi branded the footings while the concrete was still wet – so now we have footings that look like Hollywood Blvd with the footprints! It was pretty funny.

We also had some more gravel hauled in, and I believe more concrete is being worked on today! Yay!

We ALSO are very very close to getting the electric poles set and hooked up. I believe that will happen in the next few days after all the paperwork is processed correctly. Let me tell you, it’s a little more involved to decide where you want to place the last big pole…you have to think of things like where the stabilizing wire will end up and still at the same time get it as close to the house as possible to avoid spending more on the wire to actually hook it up to the house. It was a process, that’s for sure. Hopefully we will be happy with the results of our choice – it’s a little late now to change our minds!

Last weekend, we planted 60 flowers! (They were little.) I wanted my flowerbed to be beautiful and full so it will look nice if someone wants to look at our house. Unfortunately, we haven’t had too much interest lately, but I’m due to relist on a couple websites, so once I get that done, hopefully things will pick up. This weekend we are going to a fish fry at A’s parents to thank everyone who helped with his grandparents’ sale. There are quite a few people invited so it should be a pretty happening place! 

Rain does not help you build houses!

Well, we are at a standstill as far as visible progress goes…still nothing but stakes in the ground. It has been raining every day or night for the past two weeks. Which hopefully will help make this summer a little better and more bearable, but does not contribute anything productive to my house!

We have been working behind the scenes a bit though. This morning A met with a representative from the electric company we will be switching to, and they have started working through the process of arranging new poles and lines and getting easements across neighbors, etc. I don’t anticipate any problems there, but according to A we will have a couple of different options. I hope it goes well…we don’t want any neighbor disputes this early! Well, ever, but definitely not before we’re even there to dispute with.

We have posted our current home on Craigslist and I linked to it on Facebook trying to get the word out. I emailed the local paper last night with information to post our house there. It’s hard to sell by ourselves just because when you google houses for sale in the area it only pulls homes that are listed with a realtor. Which we would like to avoid if possible. We may have to look into that down the road if we don’t make any progress. I don’t want 2 houses at once!

In other news, A and I are really missing setting up a garden this year. It just wasn’t feasible with the house building (once we get going, I’m sure it will take a ton of our time since we are planning to do so much ourselves), and with us possibly moving at any time if we sell our house. We really enjoy that process of working the soil and planning the placement of the plants and what type of plants to even get! We feel a little lost now because that’s what we are typically doing this time of year and our new house hasn’t started taking up our time yet. We are hoping to get a couple of big fertilizer tubs from Grandma to plant a single tomato plant, and maybe a pepper plant in – that way they will be portable! But we just haven’t gotten that done yet.

Yesterday I (FINALLY!) finished my “house book”. Which is actually two books – I took two 3 inch 3-ring binders and organized all our house materials brochures and ideas and tips and phone numbers and forms and paint chips and all that stuff. They are pretty cool if I say so myself, and I think they will be helpful when it comes to actually choosing and purchasing materials. Everything is now in one place and is portable – we will just have to decide which book we need and take it with us! I’m anticipating the collection of information shrinking as we eliminate products and that eventually I’ll have it down to one book. Which will be a very nice memento of this very complicated process we are navigating!

Some Tidbits for You

I know I have been gone a LONG while (that seems to be what happens constantly, right?) and I have no promises to be back consistently yet. But I will try.

We have been up to quite a bit actually. Why don't I just give you a rundown?

*We have a garden started! You knew that was coming, didn't you? We managed to get everything planted right before the super-long-raining-forever streak started. So the plants are growing pretty good. We have tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, squash, cucumbers and (my favorite) sugar snap peas! Hopefully my peas don't get burned up in the crazy hot weather.

*A and I went with my parents, sister, aunts and cousin to tour the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. It was fantastic and I so want to go again! I was absolutely flabbergasted (there really is no other word for it - just ask my mom) at the violence and horrible conditions that were endured there - by guards and prisoners alike. It was unbelievable. If you would like more information and don't think I'm totally crazy, you can go to their website and see all kinds of cool stories and information...and book your own tour! (Come on, you know you want to!) Go to www.missouripentours.com.

*Both my sisters have graduated - one from high school and one from college. I feel so old.

*We put in beautiful landscape blocks around my brand-spanking new patio. Colored and stamped concrete - it looks fabulous! And now I have flowerbeds. With no dirt right now, but flowerbeds nonetheless! I cannot wait to fill them up.

And finally:
*I have determined we need a spare key for our front door. I have determined this because...last Friday I locked myself out of my house and had to borrow my neighbor's phone (I had locked my phone in the house, too) to call my mom to come and let me in my house.

So.

We need a spare key!

Oh my has it been busy around here!

This weekend is my first ever rummage sale. I'm rather excited about it. That's probably because I've never had a rummage sale before...

Anyway, that means my little bitty house is full to bursting with stuff to sell! My mom hosted The Great Purge of 2011 at her house, so she had a lot of stuff, plus my Grandma and mother-in-law are contributing to the little box of stuff I would have had on my own. You know. If you don't count the books. I have plenty of them for sale.

This weekend we mowed our jungle...ahem. I mean we mowed our yard. And then A let me use the tiller for the garden by myself - we both laughed at that. I'm not the fastest study on that we'll just say. (It ran away with me a little bit...literally.) But now my sugar snap peas and green onions are planted, so hopefully they will grow! I have been wanting peas ever since last year's garden, but we didn't get them planted in time.

My two sisters are both graduating the next two weekends - one from high school, one from college. I feel old. And then there will be a graduation party. I'm kind of excited about this, because I won't be the center of attention and can just sit and visit unobtrusively. I hope there's cake.

I think A and I are going to watch a movie tonight. We were loaned 3 of them, so we'd better get started!

And maybe I can convince him that it's really a good idea to get rid of stuff...maybe we can find some more rummage before Friday.

Well, well, well, the snow has finally melted...

...at least for now anyway. And that means we are starting to plan out our garden again. I sincerely hope we manage to proportion our plants better this time (and have an eatable number of cherry tomatoes!).

It also means spring cleaning. Well, kind of. I cleaned out my books - and I am getting rid of a LOT of them. (But I'm keeping more!) I've decided to try and sell at least a few of them, along with some other things, at the annual city rummage sale. Should be interesting, if nothing else!

Tonight the weather is so nice, I sat out on our porch for awhile and read my book while I waited for A to get off work. Or I should say, I TRIED to read my book. Yoshi was preventing this quite easily by dropping his slobbery squeaky toy in my lap to play fetch with. You just can't ignore something that slobbery when it is dropped in your lap with the obvious design of getting you to throw it. SOOO...I threw the toy. And threw it again. And again. And again. And so on. Until the dog was so exhausted he could barely stand. And he was still fetching the darn thing! (And following all his commands very well - I couldn't NOT throw it.) At least he got his exercise tonight!

Catching Up...Again

I'm not very consistent anymore...sorry about that. Seems like the same old stuff going on around here all the time, so I guess I'll have to work to get a little more interesting!

*Yoshi, the once very sick dog, is now very NOT sick. Which is good. If you don't mind getting mud on your clothes every single time you get around him. (We're still working on the whole jumping/staying down thing - he IS getting better!) He's still being given quite a cocktail of 3 different medicines, one of them twice a day. The free dog is now a very expensive dog. Good thing we love him so much.

*We are starting to wonder when we should start getting our garden ready. We're not very good at this sort of thing yet, seeing as how it's only our second go-around. All I know is I want some sugar snap peas! (But I don't know how to grow them yet!)

*My sister-in-law just had her gall bladder out on Tuesday, which if you know her (and I'm sure many of you reading this do)was a slight bit worrisome because of all the POSSIBLE things that could go wrong. Everything went super smooth though, and she is on the road to feeling much better. (Those pain pills she's on don't hurt anything either...she's just a bit looped!)

*This weekend I will be going (with all the family) to see my sister compete in her first (and last, because she's a senior) flags competition. I'm excited to see it, and I'm sure they will do excellently.

*We've been getting rather creative in the kitchen - a product, I'm sure, of being a little more confident. Which leads to more disasters or misses (as in, not very tasty) than we've had before. (I made cream cheese corn as a side the other night, and about died from too much cream cheese and not enough corn. Yuck. I think I may stick to the crock-pot and large gatherings for that one.) Tonight we made pizza with pork sausage and red onion. And lots of cheese. It was pretty good, but I think I prefer other meats.

*A coworker is due to go on maternity leave any day (and I do mean ANY day), so that should liven up what has been a very slooowww time. I will have plenty of work to do to help keep up with her stuff, that is for sure!

*A's birthday (26!) is this weekend. I'm having a terrible time getting any presents for him. Everything is not coming on time (internet order) and I can't find anything in the stores to be a smaller present so he at least has something to open! Ugh. Stupid Walmart and there cutting back on CD stocking. Bummer. (Plus, they didn't have any brown dress socks. I need some in the worst way.)

There. That should give you something to ponder for a bit.

Catching up

Sorry I left you all hanging for awhile...my changes did not come about, sadly. I had applied for a new job, which would have been a wonderful change. I got an interview that went extremely well, but I was not chosen for the position.

So I'm still where I was before, career-wise...

I have a big-time project that I have been working on for about a month now though, and that has broken up the monotony very well. My office is putting together a cookbook! And I happen to be the editor. *takes a bow* Thank you, thank you.

I took it upon myself when it was suggested that a compilation of all the wonderful recipes we make there would be awesome to start the whole project and my boss is totally supportive of the idea. I should have it done be Christmas so I can start cooking wonderful things! And I don't think the whole thing will look too shabby on my resume either...

A and I have been having a blast with Yoshi. He is almost one (the best we can figure, his birthday is in January), and he is hilarious. All. The. Time. He likes to chase his tail, and to pretend that his feet are attacking him. Which means that he has to roll around on the ground like a crazy thing and try to catch his feet, which are very slippery, apparently. He is VERY good at playing tug-o-war now, too. He's stronger than me, that's for sure. (You try tugging against a 100 pound dog who is NOT a fat 100 pound dog and see how you do!) We love him dearly.

We saw a test in a magazine that would let us test his DNA...which would mean that we could figure out what kind of dog he really is! Awesome! Downside - it costs $60. So we are still thinking long and hard about that one.

A and I planted more bulbs this afternoon before he headed back to his parents to do more deer-hunting. Springtime will be lovely around here if they come up!

Tata!

I'm back!

Well, I have officially been notified that my blog is stagnant. Sorry about that. There has been a lot going on!

A and I bought a new car. It is delightful! A 2010 white Malibu with a sunroof. I am already addicted to XM radio and we only get it free for 3 months. Dang. I particularly enjoy the “On Broadway” channel. I’m strange, I know. But I love it. Even the songs I don’t know.

I went to a Pampered Chef party last Thursday…and was one of only 3 attendees! It was odd at first, but turned out to be quite fun since it was just me, Mom and M, along with the hostess and the consultant. We got really quite goofy! And I got talked into…hosting my own party. Which I’m extremely nervous about. I’ve never invited this many people to my house ever. I’m already cleaning my house. My party isn’t until August 10th. I’m a little overzealous to say the least. But by the time I’m through my house will be fantastically clean! I’ve rearranged the office a little, too, and will probably rearrange a little more. What is it about people coming over that throws us into frenzies of cleaning? We all know nobody really notices all the little projects that are completed, and yet we do it anyway…but it sure is nice when it is done!

This weekend I’m also in a friend’s wedding as a bridesmaid. We have been best friends since 5th grade, so I’m excited! It’s going to be really pretty with pale green dresses and orange flowers. And I have orange nail polish for my toes to complete my outfit! I know it will be really fun, and I can tell already that H and D will have a wonderful life together if their relationship now is any indication.

Last night we picked a gallon ice cream bucket full of cherry tomatoes. I know. That’s crazy! I really truly thought that some of those 12 plants would die. No such luck. Next year I think we will plant 2. That is IT. Who knew we had such green thumbs?

And in the words of Paul Harvey, now you know, the REST of the story.

Hidden treasures, Epic weekends and Twilight!

Last night we picked 2 cucumbers, a regular tomato, a Roma tomato, and about 5 cherry tomatoes out of our garden. This would not be that exciting in itself (except that I’m always excited about getting to pick stuff!), except that the 2 cucumbers were absolutely huge! At least 8 inches long, and we had NO IDEA they were there! Either we are not very observant when we are checking for cucumbers, or they were wearing camouflage….I vote for number two. ;)

This past weekend, Yoshi (who by the way, is now tall enough to be petted without bending over, at only 5 ½ months old) had his first ride in the back of the truck. Despite being nervous at first (and really who wouldn’t be?) he totally loved it! He kept trying to bite the wind and got so excited that he just had to let it all out and barked at everything, including the wind. He also thought it was pretty cool to put his front legs up on A’s tool box and look over the top of the truck cab (don’t worry, he was tied in so he couldn’t fall out). It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. This dog may eat a lot and grows like crazy, but he makes our lives so interesting I have no idea what we did with ourselves before we found him. He is fantastic.

This weekend may also be an epic one because…I could possibly be getting a new car! We don’t know for sure if that will happen or not, but we have been shopping around and getting quotes, and now we’re having a dealer order in a car. So hopefully all goes well!

Tonight A has a meeting in town, so I think I may spend some time tying up my pole beans. They are looking rather pitiful and not at all climbing like pole beans should…

And P.S. I saw Eclipse Friday with my sister M, and it was fantastic! By far the best movie of the series in my opinion, though I will always love the books much more. I’m rereading Twilight now, for about the 5th time. (I just couldn’t stand not to after watching Eclipse!) Now I’m waiting for November so I can go see Harry Potter 7, Part 1!

4th of July Recap

Well I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Ours was busy, if nothing else.

Friday night we went to a local fireworks show, which was very good. Saturday we went to A’s parents’ house for a bbq and to visit with everyone (A’s grandparents came down to visit, too). Sunday was full of baking beer bread and cookies. We took some cookies to our friends’ that evening when we went to a bbq there and then to watch BIG fireworks. It was all very fun, but I was glad I didn’t have to work Monday so I could rest!

Monday A was off too, so we worked on cleaning the house and started putting knobs on the new cabinets. We got all of them on the doors, so all that’s left is the drawers. They look great! That afternoon we went to test drive some vehicles and to Menard’s. Yes, again. (You’d think we’d get tired of that place by now, wouldn’t you?) We bought a new ceiling fan for the kitchen and a new light to put over the kitchen sink. (The ceiling fan needed replaced because you can’t turn the fan on without the light or the light won’t come back on.)

I’m really liking my new kitchen...I will be glad though when we get the flooring put in, too, though and it will be finished. I’ll be glad for a break from home improvement projects.

Last night we got a cucumber, a bell pepper, a tomato and 2 cherry tomatoes! (We didn’t mean to pick the pepper or one of the cherry tomatoes…they just came off by mistake!) We should have a few more cherry tomatoes to pick tonight, too! I’m so excited that our garden is finally producing a bit more. I was worried about it there for awhile!

Oh yeah, and Yoshi is still growing in case you wanted to know. We had to expand his collar again this weekend, and now he’s so tall we can reach his head without bending over!

How does your garden grow?

Ours is officially producing! We have picked two (little ones) Roma tomatoes and 1 regular tomato, and one cucumber. We have tons of baby tomatoes all over every plant. It is wonderful! We haven't eaten any of it yet, but I can't wait!

Oh yeah, and in other news, I officially have a working dishwasher now. Sweet!

Blogging? What's that?

Oh yeah...sorry I've been kind of absent from posting. Summer came, and with it came oodles and oodles of stuff to do.

Work is so crazy busy right now (which I like because the days absolutely fly by) that my normal "think of blog ideas" time is gone! I'll try to be a bit more regular (because let's face it, my life is just that interesting! heehee) with posting but until about July or so I may be pretty sporadic. I'll give it the ole best shot, though!

So let's try and get back up to date...

Our garden is doing fantastic! At least to me - it's our first garden together and we have very limited space - it is so COOL. We have 17 cherry tomato plants that we grew from seeds (I really truly though some of them would die off) and 4 regular tomato plants (with baby tomatoes already!). We also have one eggplant plant, which we are fighting bugs off of pretty heavily, and 7 bell pepper plants. Then we planted a row of beans (which we surprisingly successful as well...I hope we like the taste!), a row of green onions (I know, kind of late for these, but whatever), and a row of cilantro. We have 3 tiny squash plants coming up, along with Italian salad blend and parsley (which may or may not grow since we soaked the seeds for 3 days instead of the recommended overnight). All that is packed into a 16 by 16 foot square! Needless to say, I have been wishing my size 11s were just a tad smaller...

Yoshi is about 6 times the size he was when we found him, and he is hilarious. He's gangly, and clumsy, and enthusiastic and sweet. And much less bite-y than before, which is a huge relief. Especially to my fingers. He has discovered that dirt clods are tons of fun to shake around really hard.

We redid the bathroom! New floor and new toilet (2 3/4 inches taller than before! Which is a lot when you and your husband are both 5'11" and the previous one was only 14 inches off the ground...). I love love love the new floor. It looks so much cleaner and nicer. And it feels better on bare feet. *Sigh* I just love my bathroom now.

Friday our kitchen cabinets are due to come in, if we read the receipt right. I'm very excited about this, too! It's one of the last big "redo" projects we have left, before we can REALLY enjoy our home! As much as I love the new bathroom, the kitchen is going to be 10 billion times better... (insert a small squeal of excitement here, please)

Well, that's about it for now! I'm extremely enjoying the warm weather outside. We have a lot of trimming and sprucing up and GARDENING to do, so its nice to finally be able to do it. Now if only I could get the freckles on my arms to even out for the wedding I'm in on July 31st....

Busy busy busy...

Sorry for the lack of interesting posts lately…actually for the lack of any posts at all.

At work our busy season is starting, so I don’t have a spare minute there and since its getting warm again outside (despite what the past couple of days would have us believe) there is a lot to be done when I get home, too!

This past Friday was a state holiday – probably the last one of its kind. No more Truman’s birthday. I got all sorts of projects I’d been meaning to do for awhile out of the way – I vacuumed my car, unpacked 3 more boxes in my spare room and did up every bit of laundry there was to be done. I got to hang my sheets outside, too, which was awesome! Anyway, that evening A got off work fairly early so we decided to make it a sort of “date night” and go out to eat and shoe shop and just have a good time. So we ate dinner at Bandana’s, which was delightful, and then made our way through Pier 1, where I almost broke some little bowls, Petco, where we spent too much money on a Kong for Yoshi (toy that holds treats inside—he loves it), and Shoe Carnival where we both got a pair of tennis shoes and I got a pair of super comfortable flip flops. I’m still not sure I should have spent that much money on them. And no shopping trip is complete in my book without a stop at Barnes and Noble, where I bought “T is for Trespass” (which is turning out to be excellent, as expected) and A got a new bible with a camouflage cover. Very successful trip.

Saturday we cleaned the house like there was no tomorrow, because my friend H from about 3 hours north of us was making a trip down to see her new niece and was going to stop by with her fiancé to see my house for the first time. I wanted to make a good impression! Which I think we did. We showed off the house and then went to lunch at Chili’s (can you tell we ate well this weekend?) with them, and watched the movie Iron Man 2. Which was pretty good, but I think it would have been better if A and I had seen the first Iron Man… We didn’t get the grass mowed, but had a good time nonetheless.

Sunday was Mother’s Day, of course, so we were up bright and early at 7:00. We ate breakfast, made no bake cookies to bring to lunch and dinner, walked the dog and got ready for church at 9:30. Then we went to lunch at A’s parents’, A moved a bush for his mom and we helped them plant their tomato and pepper plants before the rain moved in this week. After that planting, we rushed over to our house so they could help us re-till our garden and plant our tomato and pepper plants. We have 12 cherry tomato plants, 4 regular tomato plants, 2 red pepper plants, 1 yellow pepper, 1 orange pepper and a couple other sweet pepper plants that we didn’t quite manage to get done in time. We dismantled the dog pen (made of cattle panels and chicken wire-he wasn’t going anywhere!) and moved it around the garden to keep animals out, and then put up the new kennel we bought at Orscheln’s for Yoshi. By that time, we were hungry! And headed over for supper at my parents’. It was tacos. I love tacos. We watched some tv and ate cake that my sister M made and decorated (very tasty) and then went home where we crashed (figuratively). Very tired, we were.

So as you can see, we were quite busy this weekend! But very successful.

Wonderful Weekend Review

Wasn’t this weekend fabulous? I think it was anyway.

Saturday, A and I went to his grandparents’ house to help them spread a load of gravel on their driveway. I helped weed the flower bed…there was a worm. It grossed me out. But I got sent home with two big bunches of hostas (I’m not really sure how to spell that, but they are pretty leafy flower things), and we got those planted at my house that evening. Whew! Hard work!

Yesterday, went to church, then ate some scrumptious leftovers of Wonton Sausage Cups we made Friday night. Delicious! I’ll post the recipe.

After sausage cups came Yoshi’s first bath! He was very good, and only shook twice. Now he looks twice as big as he did before because his fur is so darn fluffy! If I had a camera hookup here I would post a picture, but alas, you will have to wait. We did a superfast housecleaning after that, because A’s parents were coming around 2. His dad helped A put some sheet metal around our falling apart shed, so it will be more sturdy and weather-proof. His mom helped me weed beggar lice plants from under my grapevines (I know, super cool, right? I can’t wait to get grapes! We found out we have a fruit tree, too and its blooming! It smells fantastic and is so pretty! I think its an apple tree, but I really have no idea. Anyway.) and his sister played with Yoshi.

I made tacos for supper and they were delicious, too. (Good food weekend for sure.) Gardening does a really good job of making you hungry apparently. It worked for me anyway.

After his family left, A got set to weedeating, and I watered my hostas and new lilac bush (Yay!) and washed dishes and did laundry. We were both really tired. A’s hand was numb, too from weedeating, so next time he’ll have to split it up a little more I think. It still wasn’t 100% this morning, but it was better, so that’s good. We were both so tired last night we went to bed a half hour early or so, and I slept like a rock!

Hopefully we will be able to get some more projects done this week, because next weekend we are going shopping at the surplus store for floors! Wahoo!

We made it!

I just want to say that I am SO glad Friday finally made it.

Last night, our furnace was acting up again. Great. But this morning it seemed fine, so maybe it was just letting us know it had a bad day or something, I have no idea. But we’ve pretty much decided that we’re going to have to do some research and get a new one put in before next winter. Which isn’t surprising at all considering the thing is as old as…well, me. And hasn’t been taken care of well at all, so its really amazing it has lasted this long.

But anyway. We’ve been watching our little seed pots diligently, and still no plants. We may be just a little impatient, seeing as how we only planted them about 5 days ago. Or maybe it was 2 weeks. Heck, I don’t know. Hasn’t been that long, let’s just leave it at that.

I’m on Day 4 of my 30 Day Shred tonight, and so far, so good. We’ve both (me and my workout partner) kept up with it so that’s very good. Considering I’m usually terrible about keeping up an exercise program once I get started.

We’ve finished going back and forth with our photographer about our wedding photo book (the last part of our package) proofs, and it has been sent to the printer’s. I’m very excited to see the finished product, because the proofs look fantastic!

We also managed to (finally!) get our wedding announcement in the paper this week, so I’m feeling like a tiny celebrity. Well, maybe not, but it’s fun to have your picture there nonetheless.

This weekend will be myriad birthday celebrations and lots of birthday cake! Have a great weekend!

We have bookcases! And a healthy plant!

My books have a new home! Or well, some of them do. We bought 3 bookcases this past weekend (1 tall and 2 short), and even though they are black and don’t match my house AT ALL, it is nice to not have books strung out in bags and boxes across the floor. We had to rearrange our guestroom to make room for the bookcases, and I have to say I like it better now. Which really means nothing to you since you don’t know what it looks like. And I really can’t show you since I didn’t take a before picture. Whoops.

Does anyone know how often you should water seeds? I’ve kind of just been guessing, but without a plant to judge by I have no idea how well I’ve been guessing. And I really need help in the plant department. I mean, I almost killed my philodendron the other day.

Yeah, those plants that can’t be killed. I almost did it. I totally by accident discovered the problem (not enough water, when I thought I was drowning it!), and now it is fabulous.

But it almost died. I really feel for our garden. It looks to be a season of ups and downs for it. Literally.

Also, a friend from work will be doing the 30 Day Shred with me! (Well, we’ll be doing it separately. But together in spirit? Oh, you know what I mean.) I told her that I would stop giving her gifts for Farmville if she skipped out on me! I probably really wouldn’t, but it sounded good. And really it wouldn’t work out so well for me, because she could just stop helping me and then my horse stable would never get built. But I digress.

So tonight is the (new) first night of the 30 Day Shred. Hopefully I don’t die. Figuratively. (Or literally for that matter.)

Sunshine makes me productive.

This weekend was very successful for me, but I still didn’t get my seeds planted. Darn it.

I did, however, work up an area about 4 feet by 6 feet to start our garden area, catch up the laundry, haul a bag of incredibly heavy dirt from the shed where it was stored to our porch, vacuum the ants (dead) from our windows, and make meatloaf and mashed potatoes (and I only cut myself twice peeling potatoes! I know, I’m cutlery challenged. Don’t call me to defend anyone from or with a knife. Ain’t happening.)

That was just Saturday afternoon! And my sheets smell wonderful now from hanging them outside in the awesome sunshine. *happy sigh for sunshine*

Yesterday, A and I went to his parents’ house to celebrate his sister’s 26th birthday. A good time was had by all, and she had a very good birthday. (Whoopee cushion + S = a red-faced non-breathing laugh for about 5 straight minutes)

Hopefully we will manage to get the garden worked up more and the seeds planted before the rain comes this week…

Skipedeedoodah!

The sun is shining! It makes me feel like skipping everywhere I go....except I'm not quite brave enough to go skipping where anyone might see me do it.

So I'm mentally skipping!

I bought some seed starter potting mix today so hopefully we will be getting our little seeds planted so they can become little baby plants soon!

And I totally got hooked on the Planet Earth show that was playing last night on the Discovery Channel.

TTFN!

Spring Fever!

Not too much going on in my world today…

*Did our taxes last night. Whew. Glad that’s over. Big refund coming from the house tax credit. But I could do with a bit more funds until that comes…really, who couldn’t?

*Tonight will be full of random tasks that really need to be done, like laundry, paying bills (oh, joy), and checking into whether or not we need little pots to start plants for the garden (now that really is an oh joy!). We also need to finalize the draft I have started of our wedding announcement (yeah, yeah I know. I’m a procrastinator. At least I’m doing it now!) and check over the proof of our wedding photo book so we can let the photographer know if any changes need to be made. Like I said, busy busy!

In random news, I’m very anxious for spring to arrive. I’m ready to get a puppy and be able to run and spend time outside. And I’m ready to start improvements on the house when we get our nice tax refund back!

Fish frys, Playdoh, and NEW STUFF! Oh my!

Well, boys and girls, this weekend was certainly packed chock full of entertainment.

Saturday was a beautiful sunshiney day, and after the necessary errand running in town to the bank, post office and my parents to get the baked bean pan and visit my cats, A and I headed home again where we just basically puttered and enjoyed the nice weather. That evening we went to A’s parents for a fish fry—I brought baked beans, which I am proud to say turned out very well. Not quite like Mom’s, but good nonetheless. Everyone said so. Just ask ‘em. Well, ok, maybe you could just trust me on this one?

Anyway, after we all had lots of yummy food everyone settled in to play cards. A and I ended up (kind of by default) being the “babysitters” of J and J, the two kids, ages 4 and 1. Lots of fun! And let me just say, if I wasn’t before I am now an expert PlayDoh ball roller. I can make them faster than you can say “bah” in the words of the 1 year old. But oh boy, can you say exhausted when we finally got home around 11:30? Well, I could.

Sunday after church we headed up to the city to buy cereal bowls (we broke one and had a coupon and decided that we needed more anyway because we kept running out), a birthday present for A’s sister and a new computer chair. We ended up getting all that plus a brand spanking new knife set and all the seeds for our garden this year (which we CANNOT wait to start!). This was a little more than we intended to get…but let me explain.

First of all, our knife set was junk. Every single knife in the set was serrated. Every. Single. One. Even the paring knife. Do you have any idea how difficult peeling a potato is with a serrated knife? Well, I do not advise you find out if you don’t know. You might lose a finger. Or something. Anyway.

We decided to use some of our wedding money to buy a better set and we had a coupon to Kohl’s plus the Kitchen Aid and Chicago Cutlery brands were both 20 % off. After much agonizing and hemming and hawing, we finally decided on these:

Which so far seem to be fabulous. (And pretty.)

We also filled out our cereal bowl set in these two colors (we already had six blue ones, one broke, so we replaced it and bought two in the red color):

Our computer chair searching was also successful, as we were able to find one for only $25 at Staples that is light years ahead of our old chair comfort-wise. Which is all I care about for my Sims marathons important computer work. Here’s the one we picked (we got the gray one…which I think totally looks black.)




All in all, a very successful and enjoyable weekend!