What do you do on your weekends?

I dream of doing nothing, ok not nothing. But relaxing, camping, hiking, fishing.....

When I am dreaming I miss the days we lived far away and didn't own a house. Between the house repairs and helping family I miss our old lazy weekends where we wished for things to do. Most of the house repairs are things that haven't been fixed in 27 years so I am hoping we are getting caught up.

My husband says he is caught up enough at work that he is taking the whole weekend off! Let me tell you it is VERY rare the poor guy doesn't have to go in for at least 4+ hours on Sundays. We took a trip to Home Depot this morning and bought 3 new sprinkler heads. Out of the 4 we didn't replace earlier this year 3 died this week. He also fixed a post on the front porch that was rotten and is doing something with our water pipes. I am SO grateful that he is VERY handy! I like to think I am fairly handy but I would have no clue how to do half of the things he does. So I would like to tip my hat to my husband for working hard every day in the week whether at work or at home.

Yea for a whole weekend and for things getting fixed. Now I better get back to jobs I am supposed to be working on to help him get finished. :) I cant wait until Labor Day weekend though as we are actually going up to the mountains and fishing. Yea for a break!

Garden in July

So I haven't been real good about sharing photos of my garden. I have been eating lots of sugar snap peas and have tons of little tomatoes, jalopenos, and various bell peppers growing. We are eating fresh lettuce and should also be getting squash soon. Next year I am upgrading my pea trellis so I can have double the plants. I love my garden boxes! Don't tell my husband but I really wish I had room for more!

Our grass is coming back from having mites and looking good. What a GREAT summer!

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Virtual Shopping Trip in my Head

I feel like going shopping right now. For lots of things! I think I could spend several thousand easily dreaming.

Here is my rather extensive list:

Closet

   -New Black and Brown tall leather boots

   -White and navy cute flip flops

   -New cute shirts

(One of my friends just gave me at least 5 pairs of jeans 10 pairs of shorts and lots of pants that don't fit her so I am set, and she buys nicer things than I do)

Kitchen

   -Fridge

   -Gas Stove, need my dad to run a gas line for it. (October)

   -Microwave hood, so I have more counter space. (October)

   -Dishwasher that matches, this at least works all the time so it is not essential.

I may need to rethink these because the prices went up A LOT on the fridge and Stove since last week.

 

Laundry/Cleaning

   -New vacuum, that actually sucks (Sam's Club has the best price on a Dyson)

   -Washing Machine/dryer that are energy/water efficient and don't smoke if loaded 1/2 full.

And since I am obviously dreaming I would go buy my husband his Jeep Rubicon (still used). 

If everything showed up all at once then what would I have to dream about? I think I easily just spent about $25,000 in my head....

What are you dreaming about?

Are you Organized?

I am an organizing freak. To some degree I think it is a problem....I don't seem to function very well when my brain is thinking about a mess. Because of this we have a TON of baskets, jars and small containers in pretty much any drawer/cupboard. I took a few, ok a LOT of pictures of my baskets. Honestly, these are just some of my containers and I am always on the lookout to make our house more organized.

Magazine/book basket, from World Market

Dog Toy Basket, from Pier One

Green tubs, from the Dollar Tree

Laundry Room closet baskets, also from the Dollar Tree

Cube shelves with baskets, both shelves and baskets are from Ikea

Baking Ingredients in jars, from World Market

Guest Towel Basket in guest bath, from Michael's craft store

Master closet baskets, from Lowes

Laundry baskets, from World Market

Master Bath makeup basket, from Walmart

Apothecary Jars in Master Bath, from Michael's craft store.

Baskets in Master bath cupboard, from Walmart

I have so many more! All I can say about this addiction is that my storage choices have made moving every year easier because we always have storage that can move around the house. In my crazy mind being organized makes our life less chaotic. A lot of our decoration in our house are the baskets/jars, I am not much for decorating items that are not functional and can't rotate to another place in the house if needed. All of our baskets (minus the laundry room) coordinate and have moved around our homes every time we have moved. I still buy things with that thought in mind even though we have bought a home and are staying.

How do you organize your house?

Photo Friday #4

A quick view of what has been going on around our house.

Plant Table in the family room, my seeds are not growing as fast as I would like. :(

I FINALLY got dirt into my planter boxes. Two truck loads! My arms hurt....

The shed, still minus a roof. It's hard to tell but I have painted the siding the color our yellow house will be transformed into. We have had a lot of wind lately as you can see from the tar paper.

Rock Planters where my iris's are slowly peeking through.

I had the yard aerated Wednesday. Hopefully this will help the shape of our backyard. It is in sad sad shape!

New baskets for laundry. One for whites/light colors and one for darks. This way I can carry them up and down the stairs and fill them up with clean clothes to put away.

View of closet with laundry baskets and new baskets on the top of the shelf. Finally a system that will work better and looks better.

Have a wonderful weekend! I get to learn how to shingle this weekend!

Backyard Beauties

I am resting from moving gravel yesterday. We are getting there on the yard so that the fun/pretty things can start taking place. YEAH!!!!

I thought I would share my amazon purchases that cost me $2.03 after using my free gift cards. I am a member of several survey sites that give Amazon cash or one that gives me Lowes gift cards. Personally right now I like the Lowes cards better. But this is what I ordered with my Amazon money.

A new snazzy set of gardening tools, my current shovel is plastic and it wont cut through the roots in our backyard. And I ordered some colorful bulbs for along our back fence. My budget on plants for the back yard is pretty non-existent this year since I need to put plants in the front yard (we have none). So I am excited to have a few bright colored beauties for the back.

Weekly Money Checkup

1. The most I’ve spent this last week was $60 going out Friday for a friends birthday, we even went dancing. We rarely go out as it is so expensive so it was a treat.

2. Today I feel back on track towards money. We are finally getting back to where we were early December. Getting back on track is REALLY hard.

3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was dig up our yard with my husband. We finished digging up the old sprinkler lines and moved them. Our AWESOME neighbor Dave gave us some extra sprinkler line that he had, so far we have spent under $10. I am pretty sure both of our bodies hurt today.

Backyard mess after we cleaned up the giant piles of dirt. Our shed will be taking up this space very soon, along with some plants and landscaping as there really is none.

4. I will consider this week a success if I measure out the space in the yard for dirt/rock/weed fabric/sand/flagstone. Man we have a TON of work left to do. This weekend we altered my original plan to save ourselves a little work, it is yet to be seen if it saves us any $$$.

5. My ancestors are Scottish/Irish/English/Native American on my mom's side, her great grandmother immigrated to the U.S. as an indentured servant from Scotland for her Uncle (I share my birthday with her). After paying off her debt she   became a traveling tenant farmer like in the "Great Gatsby" all over the western U.S.  My dad's side is almost all German with the exception of his one Grandmother that was Dutch. It was from her where the name "Mamo" that I use refers to my Grandmother.


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Piece of Candy or Entire Store?

These last few months I feel so blessed. I have been like the kid in the candy store that didn't just get one piece of candy but received the entire store. Yes we have had setbacks the last few months as but life is good.

These last few years we have worked so hard to pay off my student loans, our credit card debt (mostly from school), and build up our savings. Each time we moved it would set us back, moving is expensive even when most of it is paid for. And every time we had any extra money we would put it away. Our only splurge has been traveling home to see our families the last 5 years.

Now that we have finally purchased our goal (a house) extra money is like that most awesome Christmas you can imagine. We have never allowed ourselves to really go all out until the last 2 weeks and after allocating most of our tax refund I figured it was back to being good. Well this morning my husband says "What do you think about going and buying bikes this weekend?" I was a little taken aback as we are almost back on track and almost have paid off my car and our new furniture (my recent medical bills stole that fund). Number one I was wondering where are we going to get the money to buy decent bikes? Then I remembered its March! March is the month my husband gets a bonus from work! I totally forgot because it always goes straight into our savings and is forgotten because face it that isn't much fun.

I SO feel like I have been given the entire candy store. Almost all the things that have been on my old wish/dream list have materialized the last 10 months. I feel so blessed and lucky and excited. Mostly excited that my husband who is the rock behind motivating us to be good and saving is allowing himself to have some fun. Though I don't think I am buying him a birthday gift as he now has gotten ski's and is getting a bike, I am only making him a cake. :)

After March we are getting back to our old selves. This shopping behavior is addicting!  Please note anyone that knows me personally and how much we have moved....I do NOT want to move EVER again. I haven't even included all the garage items my husband has been collecting since we moved here. Moving sounds SCARY!

Happy Wednesday!

House Shopping Spree

So I went a little crazy yesterday...

I was planning on just going into Bed Bath and Beyond for some cream colored curtains for my family room. Of course I stopped by World Market as it is right next door and usually in first place for my favorite decorating store. These are some of the things that came home with me.

Kitchen Chair cushions $6.38 each :)

This bird print, he pulls the colors from around the room in. I have a thing for birds lately...I also got the frame for under $5 on clearance.

Aqua/teal and red pillows. I wish the true color of the aqua photographed better.

Pre-made store front that you can draw on for our nephew. I figured there will be gifts for the new baby and the soon be be older brother loves boxes. We can draw on this one to keep him busy. :) And yes I know a plain box would be just as good but as I am not buying appliances I don't have any. :(

The dining room with the outline of where the snazzy new rug will be going. What do you think of the new light my awesome parents helped me with?

I also made a quick trip into Home Depot and came out with a red umbrella and an umbrella stand. I love to eat outside in the summer and the sun is so bad on our back patio it was near impossible. I am so excited that my family room is starting to look like I want it and we can eat outside this summer. I know I have been saving to get most of the items I bought today but I spent more than I usually do in a year the last 3 days, I love my items but after scrimping and saving for so long it hurt! My husband is going to have a heart attack because as long as he has a tv and couch he doesn't care what is in our family room or if it goes together. That and he thinks I have an obsession with pillows.....and I do!

I finished the day off with dinner with my Mamo and going grocery shopping with her. I now totally understand why she never has anything to eat, she buys weird random items. Tomorrow I am cooking and freezing meals for her.  Hope you had a wonderful Monday!

Torn at what to do first....

I am super torn at the moment. I feel like I didn't get enough done inside the house before spring and there is so much I want to do. I know I have awhile but I have a lot to do outside this spring/summer. I have big plans that need planned and budgeted for. Here are a few items I need to do:

-Visit nursery and ask about prices for the plants I will need for the front yard beds.

-Determine what ground covers I want to use in backyard area.

-Price out building raised garden boxes. Should I go with Redwood or Cedar?

-Check with Pioneer (gravel, ground covers etc.) about prices for whatever we decide in backyard, some bark for front yard beds, and some soil for my garden boxes. I also want to see how much flagstone costs as I have a plan to increase the patio but it will have to wait until next year.

-Move sprinkler heads, I think we will only move one and cap the other one off as it wont be needed with the new yard arrangement.

- Rototill front yard beds.

-Build garden boxes, fill with old rock and new soil. Plant, marigolds, lots of peppers, tomatoes, lettuce,and acorn squash for sure.

-Lay foundation for shed, we are debating between concrete and blocks.

-Build shed....we need helpers. :)

-Plant new plants in front yard, currently we have none.

-Lay new ground cover in front and back.

-Transplant current Butterfly bushes to cover up electrical bushes next to shed.

Man just typing that is making me wonder how we are going to get it done. I also have to buy new shutters for the outside of the house, repair and repaint the trim. My family is supposed to be rebuilding our cabin's deck early summer as well. I don't think we are going anywhere this summer. Anyone want to come help?

Lost Paint

So I am sitting here waiting on paint samples to dry.....I finally got my husband to stop working on his 4-wheeler and help me take the 7foot long mirror hanging in my craft room off the wall. It only took almost 10 months to convince him to help. Who hangs a mirror that big in a small bedroom anyways? And hangs it crooked? Now it is sitting in my dining room, I hope it doesn't stay very long.....

Anyways when I got kicked out of the garage because my husband is collecting so many garage tools my saved paint can lids disappeared. Not good, so I have a bunch of sample jars trying to remember what color it was I painted my craft room. While waiting I am doing some internet window shopping.

I am thinking about this rug in three sizes for my dining room, den off of that room, and front door. Not super exciting but they should help keep the floor cleaner from the dogs and since all three areas are open to each other I think this is the best choice as I have pretty wild/vibrant colors everywhere.

We are getting a shed for the backyard with our tax refund, 3 rugs and the rest is paying off my medical bills. Nothing very fun but usually we put the little we get in savings so I am excited that we are getting some things we need/want this year. Now I am just waiting for our tax refund to show up so I can do some real shopping. :)

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend and not watching paint dry!

:( House Update

I thought I should share a quick update on our lives. Yesterday the home inspection wasn't as smooth as we had hoped. The house had some minor issues like any older house would and two fairly large issues. It needs a new roof as the current one is at the end of its life and the furnace is in the same boat. :( This morning we requested they have a new roof installed and a few electrical items fixed. Nothing compared to the inspectors list which had 28 items. Hopefully the sellers realize we were being reasonable not asking for more. My Uncle thinks they will see that seeing the report. Hopefully the heater has some life in it so we don't have to use up the government rebate right away instead of putting it back in our savings. At least a broken heater doesn't let water leak into the house if it goes bad, it can be fixed easier.

The positive out of the inspection is that nothing else was really bad, and those issues are just maintenance items that are worn out. Another good thing is that it has all new windows which flip inside for easy cleaning. I am trying to look at the upside until we get a response from the sellers. It's nerve racking for both of us. I hope everything goes ok since I have no clue what we will do if it doesn't. I really don't want to think about that....

Another upside, I acquired 2 old side chairs from my mom's friend Peggy. They bought a house down the street from my parents and it was full of junk. She gave the chairs to me for $5 each so tomorrow I am painting them black and reupholstering them. Hopefully they turn out as nice as I am picturing them in my head. My camera is charging so I will share tomorrow and Tuesday. I am excited to have something to focus on for the moment.

Hope you had a good weekend with no stress! Now I am just looking forward to Colin coming back as I dropped him off at the airport and wont see him for 2 weeks. :( That is one of my least favorite things about moving between states. Enjoy your week!

Transformation of Our Lives

From Far Away....thought I would stop in and say hello. The last week has been pretty busy driving down to Colorado and searching for houses.

We started out the week Sunday by planting trees and doing yard work for my parents. Maybe we needed to get warmed up for our own house. Monday and Tuesday we looked at 27 houses. My poor Uncle hurt his ankle Sunday night and was sporting a boot making him hobble while showing us houses. Poor guy has not had a good week and we are praying for his household.

We found a house though! Even better they accepted our offer in less than a day and didn't even counter offer. I am so grateful we had my Uncle to help us. It's nice when you have someone that you trust completely with the entire process. I know neither of us would have felt that way with another realtor. He cut out all the houses he knew were in less desirable neighborhoods and explained every question Colin had regarding the contract etc. In addition to that great news we are scheduled to close May 4th and have the inspection set for Saturday before Colin heads back to WA. Even better they are paying ALL our closing costs! I will take some photos Saturday to share, one of my favorite parts is it backs up to a green belt and has no backyard neighbors.

Now I just have to sit and wait. Cross your fingers that the inspection goes smoothly. I am amazed and happy how smooth everything has already gone. Have a wonderful weekend as it is almost here!

Fantastic Monday and the last Few Days

So I have to share a very small tidbit of info. This is so far has been the BEST last few days.

1) The whole moving plan/buying a house. (See my last post and the last few months if you need to know why.)

2) An email about writing patterns for textile designer.

Since I haven't written about #2 and the details are limited due to her publisher etc. I will explain briefly. Basically I can use my skills that I acquired during college and over the years from sewing. It would be doing technical design from her ideas basically writing and drawing out the directions and plans for different items. Then making sure my directions work. Similar to what I sent to manufactures while working at Cabela's, only I have to also make the item. I know I am a bit rusty using my software but since I am home I have time to refresh. Yeah! I am excited to see what she has designed that needs my help but also to be using my degree. Bonus is it will pay slightly and I will get credited for my technical work in her upcoming book. I knew there was a reason I started following blogs and spending endless hours checking out numerous sites!

Anyways I am aligning a few things on my end to make sure I can complete everything she needs in the time constraint for the publisher before I commit. Either way it gave me a boost of excitement and pride that I am still useful in something that I really miss. This Monday ranks at the top of all Mondays!