June/July/August

I haven't updated in a while, I know I know.. but I just don't care about it as much as I used to.. I guess?
Regardless, I'll recap June for you and move into July thus far.

~I went to OCMD for the first time and wasn't that impressed. But the bachelorette party was fun! Our pink t's were super cute too! It was just really really hot that day/night!~I attended my cousin's graduation at the Farm Show Center.~Alex and I celebrated our anniversary with a trip to Bull's Head Pub (for him) followed eventually by dinner at the Penn Square Grille (in the Marriott) which was deliciously amazing!
~I got sick.. yuck! But missed a half day of work, yay!
~Took a mini road trip to DE to celebrate Laurel's birthday!~Spent Father's Day with our Fathers.
~My hair got blonder at my hair appointment a couple Saturday's ago. Next time I go I think i'm going to add in a different blonde color to give it more depth.
~I attended my cousin's graduation party and renewed my love for picnic food.
~I attended a 2nd bachelorette party at Duke's on the river than Moe's.
~Had a cookout with the Hix's and the Herr's which is always fun!
~Attended all the wedding festivities for Nicole and Jimmy's wedding last weekend. It was at Riverdale and it was gorgeous! The pictures that I've seen so far are amazing as well. ~Alex and I had a 4th of July picnic at our house with all of my side of the family there. We gave many house tours and had a great time with great food as always! It was also my dad's birthday!
~This coming weekend we're headed to OCNJ until Wednesday! Should be a fantastic trip (fingers crossed)!
~Through most of June I have been dieting and exercising more and have lost about 5 lbs. I'd like to lose about 10 more.. so I'm going to keep working on it. (It sure was hard with all the picnics!)
~The 24th we're headed down to DE again with friends for the Newark Food & Brew Fest. Alex and I went last year with Nick and Laurel and had a great time. This year hopefully Matt and Marci can go too!
~Hopefully we'll get some kayaking in sometime soon.. July's weekends are pretty filled.
~The 31st is the Malcolm-Sipe wedding that we're super excited for! I love weddings and I can't wait to find the perfect outfit for this event! This should be my goal for losing 5 more lbs!
~On the 1st we're headed to Bethany Beach til the following Wednesday with Alex's family. Always a good time and we haven't seen them since January so this should be fun!
~The rest of August is wide open leaving time for maybe a weekend beach trip and fun with friends and family. What a great summer this has been and will be!!

on/off topic?

I've realized after reading other peoples blogs that i'm rarely on topic. Maybe I should write whatever i want, then put the title to avoid this. I also don't think my blog is very organized. I don't tag stuff at the end of each post because there's so many topics in the post that it would be about a billion tags.

I digress..

So here's what's up..

Last night we made a pizza on the pizza stone for the first time. It was basically a disaster because i didn't separate the dough into two parts so we had a huge pizza that i didn't knead enough so it had huge bubbles and we couldn't get it off the peel so we had to maneuver with two cookie sheets and eventually got it off the peel and onto the stone. I should've taken a picture it was that bad.... and that's why i didn't take a picture! Needless to say, Alex will be taking over pizza duties! But it did taste good.. so is that all that matters? maybe on the first go round yes but from now on we want our pizza to look like pizza.

Yesterday i applied to a new job. Who knows if they'll even call me or whatever but I figured it was time to start moving forward. I'm going to start the appraisal classes soon and hopefully then I can figure out what i'm supposed to do with my life career wise.

I've been sleeping like a rock lately.. and waking up with allergies in one of my eyes. Talk about annoying! I never had active allergies until I moved to lancaster.. it's an allergen cess (sp?) pool.

Speaking of pools.. I really want a blow up one but Alex said no because it will kill the grass. I think I might get one anyway and put it in the driveway. Someone asked me if it's a hazard to unsupervised children though and i think the answer to that is no.. it won't even be that deep. I'll use it as a hot tub even though it won't be hot and there won't be jets.. but i'll have a raft instead and i'll float in my own private pool. Sounds amazing. Even though this week isn't deathly hot so I wouldn't be using it at the moment.

In other news, this weekend, sunday specifically, is our 1 year wedding anniversary. It really doesn't even feel like one year has gone by and at the same time it feels like we've been together forever (maybe cause we're soulmates so technically.. we have been). We're going to go to the Penn Square Grill for dinner on Sunday and possibly have a picnic on Saturday. Things are a little up in the air. I wish I could surprise Alex with a fun schedule of events but I'm not entirely sure where to go or what to do.

Our weekends in June are filling up fast.. hopefully we'll do lots of swimming, kayaking, relaxing, beaching, picnicking (why does this have a 'k' in it??, cook-out-ing, etc this summer.. I think we're on track to do so. Not to mention a couple more weddings!

Life

My mall trip yesterday was very successful. Picked up the sandals I wanted from Sears for $15.. the straw hat that I wanted from Charlotte for $7. Two tops from Hollister for $25 total (though I need to exchange one for a different size today). And then a pizza stone and peel $80 something from Williams Sonoma.

I'm so pumped to have a pizza stone, makes me want to make pizza so badly!! Though maybe not the best timing, shouldn't be using the oven so much in the summer time but whatever, maybe it'll fit on the grill??

The only bad thing was it was so hot outside and I have leather car seats... i will never get leather again! hopefully new cars with leather have a cooling function much like the heating function for the winter.

So i'll go back after work today to exchange the shirt and hit the liquor store for a bottle of yum to take for the weekend. I also need to find out how to make one of the most delicious shots ever, Perfect Storm. So i'll probably get the supplies for that too.

Today, through my normal hating work thought process, I started thinking about where i'll be in 5 years and will i be doing something i actually like a little bit as opposed to right now. I work in the morning for lunch time and then I work in the afternoon for 5 pm.. those are my only two work motivations. It's awful. There are two potential job openings out in the world right now that I was looking at. But at the same time, i'm going to take my real estate exam this week and start the appraisal courses so that I can be a trainee, which will probably require me to leave my job and work on that and probably get a part time job to supplement the income. Therefore I don't think I should even apply to any jobs because of this appraisal thing. I have to take two 30 hr courses and a 15 hr course.. all of this is online, so it shouldn't be too hard to accomplish but the waiting game is killing me. I still haven't gotten a promotion at my current job that was talked about back in january!! i get paid crap. I've been here 2.5 years going on 3! it's just insane.

Anyway, I keep thinking, should I be a teacher? should I just apply to another job? how will i ever have kids if we both have crappy jobs? when will this end? will i ever be happy working? why can't i just win the lottery? why does money rule the world? can we make the farm more of a money maker? buy some steer and pigs and grass feed them then sell the meat for money? i just don't know!

Ohh boy!

i love new clothes

So i'm always in need of clothing because i rarely go shopping and i tend to do an inventory and donate clothes every season. Since we sold our house and had a little left over after paying Alex's student loans.. we get to buy some summer clothes!

Alex doesn't need nearly as much as i do, he just needs some cargo shorts that actually fit, but he's set when it comes to polos, button downs and t-shirts. I should get the remainder of his balance after the cargo shorts..
So yesterday i was browsing online as I do sometimes and decided to look at Hollister since i haven't in a very long time, i'm talking years! i don't like shirts that say brand names anymore, so I haven't been there. They were having some nice sales though, and this summer i'm going to focus on dresses so here's some pictures of the stuff I got. I couldn't find the one skirt online today to steal the picture.. which is weird because they better not be out of stock, so i'm not including it. There was a 20% coupon code i found by googling (which i always google coupons when shopping online, there's usually always one to use whether it's free shipping or a % off). So i saved $16. Better than nothing!

So tonight i'm going to the mall to get some cute sandals that are on sale at Sears for $10 and hopefully a floppy hat from Charlotte Russe. Then hopefully I should be good to go for the beach trip this weekend...... even though the clothes above won't be delivered until next week (bummer).

I'm still excited to get them and try them on and all that. I needed to up my casual dress game, so this is going to help immensely.

Also, it's Wednesday and tomorrow is basically my friday! Can it get any better?!? (Of course it can, i'd be happier if it were 4:59 pm on Thursday. Too bad we can't fast forward through the boring bits of life.)

Weekend Update : Memorial Day

Well Thursday morning we closed on our house. No more Ross Street. I'm not really sad but excited that we can now pay off Alex's student loans. Currently debt free!! What a nice feeling. We're going to do our best at saving for the next year or maybe two before we have some babies. I will need a new car (new to me, used in general) when the baby comes because a Mercury Cougar with bucket seats just will not do with a car-seat.

Friday after work I did the grocery shopping for our party the next day and made a salad for the evenings events. We were having cocktails and appetizers at a friends, then going to see Sex and the City 2. Well.. our appetizers consisted of my salad, some pistachio pudding and some fruit.. hardly filling. Add alcohol into the mix and you have some dehydration and lingering hunger. I'm not sure why we didn't go get some food before the movie.. but i won't be making that mistake again. I did have a couple of french fries from McD's but that was hardly sufficient. Let's add into the mix that I hadn't eaten any carbs all day so I was in a serious coma due to lack of sugar/carbs/energy. The movie was.. terrible. So bad. Please don't go see it. Don't waste 2.5 hours of your life or $10 when you'll just want to leave after 30 min in. Two of my friends fell asleep and i just made a comment after every clique line after entering a new scene. I felt extra bad for the girls who forced their boyfriends to see it.. i'm scarred for life and i'm a girl. Never have i disliked a movie so much. I would've left had I not been with other people who I thought were enjoying it.. only to find out later that they were disappointed as well. And i'm not even a real fan of SATC. I only saw the first one earlier in the week and have never actually watched an episode. Regardless of the terrible-ness of the movie, i had a severe headache afterward from lack of fuel and it was so late that i didn't want to eat anything when i got home so i just went to bed.

Saturday morning we slept in til 10 am. I wanted to get up earlier that day but do to my 2 am bed time, i wanted to get at least 8 hours of sleep, even though 7-10 was hardly good. I had lots to get ready for the party later in the afternoon.. stromboli's, veggie tray, taco dip, etc. Alex had to buy the beer and later went to the liquor store. We probably spent over $200 on the party which i'm kind of disappointed with. I like throwing parties but I think i might have guests bring stuff the next time. I mean, the McH's brought Bruschetta which was amazing so that was helpful. And everyone brought gifts.. so we're pretty stocked with wine for a while which is really nice. The party was super fun, my mom got me and Alex the ladder ball game so that was played and later in the night we played beer pong. Dan was our resident bartender mixing up some of the best shots i've ever tasted and we did lots of laughing. It makes me thankful for all of the friends that we have.

We headed to bed around 3 am, so another late night followed by not much sleeping in. Mostly because i was sandwiched in our king size between Alex and Julia.. not to mention that i never sleep very well after drinking. Even a glass of wine at night messes me up. But when everyone was awake we had breakfast and chatted. Matt and Marci left and Nick and Laurel stayed until we left to go to different picnics. We arrived at the Beer Club picnic around 3:30 or so, ate good food and caught up with people we hadn't seen in a while, mostly that i hadn't seen. August is pregnant and due soon and I can't wait to hold her baby. The gender is a surprise which i think is so exciting! And yet seems hard because they can't buy any clothes until after the baby is born. Which they won't need much since it'll be summer and hot out but still, clothes are fun! We had some delicious pizza and really all the other food was good and of course there was beer there. I didn't have very much though.

Later we headed to where Nick and Laurel were, Laurel's sisters house. They have a pool and there were so many kids running around having the best time. Laurel's nephews are so adorable as well so very entertaining! And it was cooling down in the evening so that was nice as well. Around 8:30 we headed home because we'd been tired basically all day long. We relaxed and went to bed around 10 and had the best sleeps ever!

Monday I woke up around 8 am and tried to run around the block. It was mostly walking though. I ran for 2/10 of a mile which i tracked later.. not very much but hey, i did my best! You have to start somewhere and that's where i started. I don't want to be a marathon runner but I think it will help me get into shape. Now if it could just cool down after work so i could run without sweating gallons. After the run/walk.. i relaxed on the couch with a glass of water for a good 30 minutes while watching Kendra. Alex woke up around 10 am and we did some cleaning, dishwasher running and then headed over to his parents farm. We got a glimpse of one of the new kittens, it was orange and white, very cute but definitely timid. We hung out for a little while and then headed up to my parents house to drop some asparagus then over to my grandparents house to visit for a little and then to the Lerch's for a picnic. We spent the rest of the day there socializing and having fun and we headed home around 7:30, through a huge lightning storm where we saw lightning strike the ground right off of the highway in a field. Nuts! But cool. Luckily most of the storm had passed by the time we were on the highway towards Lancaster.

The rest of the night I spent cleaning the kitchen and vacuuming. We hit the hay around 10 pm and though i didn't sleep well (i like a firm pillow and i was using the wrong one) it'll be nice to have a 3 day week since I will be off friday as well.

Tonight we're having dinner with Nick and Laurel which will be nice, Wednesday I will be preparing for the beach trip, maybe going shopping and on Thursday i'll be making a themed cake for the weekend's events. Hopefully I can drop a couple lbs before hitting the beach on Friday. And I also hope it doesn't rain! :)

I told you May was going to be busy. And busy it has been.

I currently have some pictures on facebook of our house but here are some highlights.

Here's the living room with a view of the fireplace. We love the open floorplan a lot.

The dining room, tons of windows to look out on the backyard.

Kitchen. A little smaller than our other one size wise, but cabinet wise it's larger because we have a pantry in the laundry room that holds all the appliances we use once in a while.

Our master bedroom. Still needs some decor but we're loving sleeping in the dark and quiet compared to the hustle bustle city.

We closed on our old home yesterday. Never again will we step foot in there. I've already realized how convenient it was to live in the city, it's the center of everything and easy to travel everywhere from that point. I wouldn't trade where we are now but i'll miss the convenience.

This weekend we have plenty of picnics to go to, including our own housewarming party on saturday, so it should be a very eventful weekend. I'm going to try really hard not to eat carbs though, so wish me luck on that!

Next weekend is the OCMD trip for my friend Nicole's bachelorette party, so that should be fun. Hopefully nice weather.. but i need to get in a little better shape to be on a beach, so i'm really buckling down this weekend and next week. Should be a blast! Can't wait!!

Well I can finally post some pictures of the cupcakes/cake i made a couple weeks back!

And some pictures from the wedding from this past weekend!

So here goes nothin'

To the left you can see the final cupcakes on my countertop prior to taking them up to harrisburg. Of course it was super hot that weekend, but they faired quite well in the car. Everyone seemed to love them and my favorite were the strawberry icing ones on vanilla cake. The oreo icing was a whipped cream which i didn't really enjoy so i'll probably make that more of a straight buttercream next time.

To the right is the cake, which I was happy with. The fondant was being a pain in the rear though, i think my powdered sugar was too clumpy so it would do me good to sift it next time. But since i didn't have much extra fondant to decorate, i went out and bought a paint brush at michaels and used food coloring to paint on the flowers and words. We didn't actually cut into the cake while we were there however, due to the amount of cupcakes and food in general, and the chocolate fountain. But they ate it later on and t old me it was very good!

So this past weekend, Alex was in a wedding for our friends
Dan & Steph. Friday we went to the rehearsal dinner and Saturday the wedding. So below it's Alex and I with Matt, Marci, Nick and Laurel. The wedding was at Lauxmont Farms in Wrightsville, and the view was amazing. We just kept looking around that day because you could see forever. It was crazy! But they served Lambrusco, yess! and the food was delicious. The dancing was fun as usual and it was really nice to celebrate with Dan and Steph.

We also got to spend sometime with Alex's out of town friend, August and his girlfriend, Nicole who was lovely. I really wish that i had batteries for my camera so I could've taken more pictures. I don't like relying on others to take them.. even though Carolann did a fantastic job! Next wedding up is my friend Nicole's in July, which I'm a bridesmaid (hence the shower above). Can't wait for that!! Followed by our friends Phil & Ashley's wedding at the end of July!

Sunday was our first real relaxing day in our new house. After having breakfast with our guests, and eating at Saigon.. Alex and I relaxed the rest of the day, took a nap on the couch while watching step brothers, took a walk around the neighborhood then did some housework. Alex mowed and i cleaned up inside. We played some coin runner on Mario and probably just watched some more Tv. Nice end to an awesome weekend!

This week is going well so far. Tonight we're having Matt & Marci over for dinner, tomorrow we're going into Ross St to do some work, take some measurements, etc and Thursday Alex has a basketball game. Friday we're having the Hix's and the newly married Herr's over for dinner and drinks so that should be fun as well!! Saturday we'll be doing more at Ross and then going to Laurel & Nick's engagement party in the evening. Sunday I have a baby shower to attend, and then no other plans!

I really want to try to get into running.. or at least walking 3 times a week. Maybe I can throw some jogging in with the walking for bursts of calorie burning. Bathing suit season is almost here, and i'm going to OCMD the first week of June for a bachelorette party. So i need to amp up the exercising and eating right. I basically eat right but I need to focus on the exercise. I did pilates/yoga last night and feel great today so hopefully i can use this feeling to convince me to do it a couple more times this week since it's looking like rain a lot.

Well that's about it, so happy tuesday and here's to wishing the weekend gets here quickly!

Foods I love

I've kind of been obsessed with food lately. Not to a point of over-eating, i just think about it a lot.

So i thought i'd list some favorites that i've had recently or just all-time favorites.. for my life files ;)

*Risotto- Alex and I (mostly Alex) made an awesome risotto recipe back on Easter weekend for the meal with his family. It was to die for.. oh my gosh! Then i followed that up with a risotto dish at John J Jeffries which was also fab. Needless to say i'm making it for dinner tonight for friends and they'll probably fall in love too.. it's just so darn good.

*Sour Cream & Onion chips- Just bought some on Monday and i forgot how much i loved them! Especially because the Lays ones that look like pringles have the flavor on the bottom to hit your tongue right away.. smart! Luckily i regulated that because how easy would it be to eat a whole can of those!!

*Asparagus- Alex's parents have an organic asparagus farm so we get to enjoy some of that during the season (which is quite short!). Unfortunately we don't get as much as i would like, but Alex keeps talking about getting 5lbs a week.... i wouldn't mind eating it every night in different ways. Though i do hate that after-effect.

*Pita sandwiches- I recently discovered the pita as a bread substitute. And i love sandwiches, so now i get half a pita filled with mayo, turkey and lettuce for lunch everyday.. it's really taken the thought process out of making lunch in the morning. i still haven't mastered breakfast but i'm working on that (or am i?) Having half a pita is like 7g carbs and whole wheat so that's definitely do-able for my current food lifestyle.

*Picnic/Party food- I will always love picnics and parties for the food.. i love chips and french onion dip, salsa and taco dip, pasta salad, burgers, you name it! I'm looking forward to summer for these reasons!

*Fish tacos- Though i'm almost positive the price of fish is about to sky-rocket.. fish tacos are light and delicious. Season, pan fry or grill, shred and put in a taco. It's really easy, not to mention a lot healthier than beef. Though i can't knock beef because that's usually what we have.. though ours is grass-fed and basically organic from Malty, Alex's old steer. He sure is delicious though.. I think they should invest in another one because the meat is so worth it!

That's all I can think of for now, though i know there's more.. like an Isaac's Scarlet Ibis on Rye, yum! But I have to get back to work (boo!)

Tomorrow is friday! Yessss!

Settling in

Well we're starting to get settled, though we're not completely unpacked. The office is such a pain in the rear to sort out! I don't know how we fit so much in that desk before and I have a feeling i might leave a lot in boxes then go on a basement treasure hunt when i really need something.

I really wish that Alex and I woke up in the morning at the same time, maybe some day in the future we can manage that. One other thing is that the TV is a lot further away then before.. i may need to put on my glasses to see the DVR without squinting soon.. i might as well keep them there since i don't wear them much anyway. We're trying to work out the logistics of the kitchen as well.. where to put the cutting board, etc. We ordered our knife magnet yesterday so that will help too.

Tonight we're going to Pier 1 to check out the lamps and other decor and fun stuff.. i love that place! And then stopping by Forever 21 to see if they have the dress that I want for Saturday.. only problem is, i'm lacking in the shoe dept. and I also want to hit up Baja Tanning for a spray tan. I did my manicure last night and now i need a pedicure.. i wish it wasn't so cold outside because when indoors, i just wear sweats and long sleeve shirts as well as socks so painting the tootsies is difficult. ohh please don't rain on saturday, or be cold.. it's calling for low 70s right now so that should be fine.

Now we can finally get back to having dinner with friends.. which speaking of that, we need to stop and get some wine. We're having the McHenry's over for dinner (since they live a couple minutes away now, yessss!) for organic asparagus and coconut risotto. yum! can't wait!

We've Moved

Well we've finally moved into our new house. Once it's cleaned and unpacked completely i'll post some pictures.

I took off work on Friday and made multiple trips back and forth to the house to finish up the small stuff. I worked on unpacking a lot so that we wouldn't have too much to do on Saturday. We spent our last night in Ross on Friday night.

Saturday, everything went really smoothly. It looks so much fuller with all of our furniture inside. Alex is struggling with it a little so far because remember, this was his grandparents house and he spent a lot of time there in the last 12 years or so. Its a lot quieter than the city which is another thing he will get used to. I love the silence and it's an easy adjustment for me but if my grandparents lived there for so long I probably wouldn't be adjusting as well as i am.

Yesterday we did more unpacking and cleaning up. Tonight we'll do the same.. Our kittens are adjusting slowly. Saturday was a rough day for them because there were so many people in the house. But they're coming out more and more so they seem to be getting used to it.

We don't have many plans this week, other than dinner with friends.. and then a wedding this weekend, which we're really excited for. I'm hoping that the week flies by again and that we get everything cleaned/unpacked so that it's less cluttered and more homey feeling.

I'll post pictures soon :)

The first weekend in May

Was crazy busy.

I actually packed my camera cord so I can't show you the 4 batches of cupcakes i baked or the two layer cake that i decorated. Maybe when we move in, i'll upload them or add them to this post.

It all started on Friday, I took off work to bake the cupcakes. I got them all baked, as well as the two 9" rounds for the layer cake. I also did some moving that day and of course some TV watching. I also managed to make some of the icings and apply them. Not all but some. I also made the fondant for the layer cake that needed to set. I wasn't very happy with it but it would do.

Alex was away at a bachelor weekend so I made myself some dinner and watched The Proposal and went to bed. Boring, right? More like relaxing.

Saturday I woke up at 9 and showered. Put the fondant on the cake which was a feat and I actually don't remember what else I did, but eventually I headed to pick up Marci and drove to Harrisburg for Ashley's Shower.

I love parties, any kind. So of course this was a treat. I especially love party games and hanging out with friends and watching people open gifts. It's a bonus when it's a surprise party!

I got home around 5:00 pm and changed because I wore jeans in 90 degree weather. Terrible mistake! And headed to Carr's for a 5:30 reservation for Steph's bachelorette party. Little did I know, the reservation wasn't until 6:30 (i even checked my invitation later and it said 5:30!!) so I went upstairs to the beer/wine bar, Crush since Alex and I know the bartender and had some wine while chatting with him for an hour. They arrived, i was 3 glasses deep. We headed downstairs, had a lovely meal, tried to hit up Annie Bailey's with a 17 yr old.. no such luck. Back to the bachelorette's house for a movie, which I actually didn't end up staying for. Straight to bed.

Sunday, I woke up at 9 again. Thank goodness I took a vitamin the night before but i slept terribly. I had bought a paint brush and edible food coloring markers from ac moore on Saturday to decorate the cake. I didn't have as much fondant left over as I wanted, so I was forced in this direction. I tried writing Best Wishes Nicole on the cake with the black marker.... fail. I don't think the marker was made for fondant. However, i did have a basis to paint on the black food coloring. I then painted pink flowers and green leaves all over the cake with more food coloring and it actually didn't turn out half bad. Insert mental image here.

I packed up the cupcakes and the dip and all the other stuff I needed for the shower, stopped at the BP for ice and headed to the set up. It didn't take long to set up and everything looked great. Nicole wasn't very surprised but I think she had fun anyway. She got a ton of gifts! Which was fun to watch her open. It was a kitchen themed party so she got a lot of spices and everything kitchen related from her registry. Very exciting and fun! Afterwards we cleaned up, I hit up my parents for a couple minutes to drop off some extra cupcakes and chat. Then headed home to clean the house and try to relax. Alex and I watched Angels and Demons and went to bed. LONG weekend! Long but FUN!

I have a feeling this is going to be a long (but short) month. Each weekend is filled with stuff to do. Seriously, every weekend! We should get a couple breaks on a couple of the Sunday's so that's refreshing! Happy May!

Near Burn Out

So yesterday I made a list of things to do each day. Obviously this is hard to follow. Especially because the truck bed was still wet yesterday so I couldn't actually haul anything over to Martin. That knocked out about half of my list of things to do yesterday. Boo!

I was also sluggish in getting started because i'm starting to burn out just a tad. I think this is mostly because i've been packing, moving and unpacking stuff alone so far and I can't wait until Alex can pitch in... which is tonight! So we have a little bit to make up from yesterday and the stuff on the list for today which I tried to keep to a minimum since we have Cinco de Mayo plans. Hopefully we can get two trips in before 7 pm. Although to be honest, without the drill.. we can't do much on today's checklist anyway because we need the drill.. which is at Martin. So i guess i will be adjusting my checklist today.

I can't wait to go back to a normal schedule. We scrounge for dinner every night it seems. I actually bought some good stuff for lunch which is a nice change and i'd also like to start exercising more in the evening when we don't have to do moving/cleaning chores. Therefore, I'm looking forward to next monday.

The inspection on our house is going on right now. I hope that everything is good enough for the buyers. We will NOT be putting anymore money towards anything in there. There isn't anything that absolutely needs to be fixed or replaced. Plus they're putting a radon detector test in the basement... really? It seems crazy but whatever.

It's nice that it's already Wednesday. I'm happy about that. Mostly because I have off on Friday again to move. Should be productive.. other than that Alex has to go pick up plants or something.... really?? on the day before we move? that couldn't wait? excuse my frustration.

Back to work :)

i think i'm going to eliminate titles from now on

Last night i got some serious moving done, woo hoo!

Alex was busy picking asparagus and doing farm things so I packed up a bunch of our clothes, most of Alex's shoes, most of the pantry, the liquor cupboard and some other stuff i can't think of now..i packed my little cougar (since the truck bed was all wet from the rain) and then unloaded it all at Martin, then unpacked most of it so I could re-use the boxes.

I set up the pantry with our appliances, put some food in some of the cupboards, unloaded some clothes in the closet, swept the living room and moved the love seat to it's location, but it still needs it's feet put on. I put away all the laundry stuff and took our new sheets/towels upstairs. I took pictures of the kitchen to help plan where our stuff is going to go.

I took all the empty boxes and re-loaded the car.. i had to bring home the shopvac and a fan as well.. then i stopped at the grocery store and went home to eat some dinner.

day 1 of moving = success

Tonight i'm going to pack up the office and all the blankets in the guest room, as well as the closet in there. Move some more stuff from the pantry and hopefully a nightstand and some dining room chairs. I also want to move the van tonight and sweep out the garage.

I made a list of things that we need and i'm in the process of comparing prices online at Target, Walmart and Amazon. So far, Walmart is the cheapest for most stuff.

We're finally going to start moving

on wednesday, apparently.

i thought we would start tonight but i wasn't aware that alex has to pick asparagus tonight and tomorrow night since his parents will be out of town. so i'm going to spend some time packing today.. and cleaning, and probably taking at least one load over.. alone. but it's fine. there's lots to pack and lots to clean and unpack at the new house. We really need to move the pantry though, if we're even still doing that, who knows. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't.

there's also a car in the garage. i'm wondering what's going to happen with that. and lots of boxes, records and stuff in the garage... in the spot where i want to clean and put shelving so we can have a workable storage area. i just don't want it to still be there a couple years down the road. And if they need to store the van.. we can put it in the basement.

i guess i was thinking we'd have every night this week to get things moved so that we'd have only furniture left to do over the weekend. i'm hoping that's still the plan. i am taking off all day friday so that'll be a good day to get a lot of stuff moved and unpacked. i need to make a list of the rooms and what order we're going to pack/move them in.. that should keep me busy for a little.

i'm excited to be there, i just want it to happen quickly and not drag it out.

i'll tell you about my whirlwind weekend tomorrow and have some pictures to post.. it was a long one but definitely fun!

DONE painting.. forever!

Well last night we finished painting the ceiling. Hooray! No more painting, forever!

It was definitely a feat.. i taped, then hung the static sheet thingy around all the walls, and cut while alex rolled. glad i wasn't rolling.. the roller cover was terrible, it held no paint and you had to re-dip all the time! ok, i'll stop complaining because it's completed.

though we won't have time to get back there until sunday.. i'm thinking that will allow me to do a lot of packing at home because we do have a lot of furniture to take but we still have some boxes that will need to be packed up. next week will be dedicated to moving as much furniture as possible. hopefully i'll get to do a real good vacuum job on martin as well before we move stuff in. including the garage and basement. i just want it to look brand new, basically. is that too much to ask?? :)

plus we want to move the pantry to another closet and hopefully build some shelves or attach shelving somehow in the garage so that we can store stuff a little easier. i won't have to carry our tennis rackets and basketballs in my trunk anymore! i'll also get to vacuum out my car in the garage! we have a garage!!!

this weekend, alex will be away. that's two nights i have to spend alone. not looking forward to it, but at least i have the kittens to keep me company and sleep in the bed with me. i don't know how i'm going to feel about sleeping at martin without a security system, since we have on at ross st.. but i guess i will probably get used to it? alex fixed the front door last night too so that helps and he also installed the light kits on the upstairs ceiling fans.. talk about convenient. now we just have to get the other two fans for the living room and our bedroom, install them and we should be good to go. other than moving of course. i should get my thoughts in order with that and make a list. i love lists. even though i usually forget them at work and they're pointless then.. i still love them.

i also want to make a wine shelf. with the criss-crosses. i realize i just changed the subject.. again but try to follow along. i think it would be nice to have criss-crosses.. not to mention a place to store wine, and maybe even some liquor since we probably won't dedicate a whole cupboard to it anymore. i made a sketch.. building it will probably prove to be harder but we'll see.

that's enough ranting for today.. although i'd like to make a request. dear warmer weather, please come soon. i know you're going to arrive on friday and stay on saturday as well but if you could just come today.. or at the latest, tomorrow. i'd appreciate it. the whole cold thing in spring is getting old.. it's almost may. so get here! love michelle.

Alex is 26

Well Alex turned 26 yesterday.. on the 26th :)

I took lunch over to him at his office which is always a nice way to break up the day. After work i hit the grocery store for some things, including some of his favorites.. greek olives and sharp cheddar cheese. And i bought invitations for our housewarming party. We've had little to no groceries in our house for the past couple weeks because of all the time we've been spending at Martin.. kind of hard to plan lunch this way actually, so i've been struggling with that. i'm sorry that i want to eat puffy's cheese curls for lunch everyday. but they are made with real cheese so...

anyway. after i got home Alex wanted to hit up the jockey outlet for some new boxer briefs.. he hasn't really gotten new ones since losing so much weight after college and baggy boxer briefs are just like boxers.. which we both do not enjoy. TMI? oops. After jockey we walked through the expensiveness of restoration hardware and then went over to Bass. I swear, they always have 50% + 20% off and this is Alex's favorite store.. so he always gets a huge deal. He got 6 shirts for under $120... yeah, for real. and they're good quality aka lasts a long time. guys have it so easy.

by this point we were hungry and Alex chose John J. Jeffries for dinner because we had never been and it's all local/organic delicious so why not? i think originally we thought it would be too expensive but i got a 10 dollar grass fed beef burger with 2 patties no less.. so no, that's not expensive. they have small plates though that can add up. This was the perfect place for Alex though.. he had the surf & turf which was basically super rare beef and rare scallops (i'm sure it was all cured in something to 'cook' it), then he had liver and onions.. followed by pork belly on french toast, which he said tasted like an awesome breakfast. And i did get to try just the pork belly and it tasted like well cooked bacon with syrup on it. I got the burger as I said about but started with a Curried Risotto with shrimp and asparagus.. hello delicious. This was filling enough and i could only eat a couple bites of the burger and some of the shoestring fries. Of course I had dessert after.. cheesecake and Alex ate the rhubarb sauce that accompanied it. such a great birthday meal!

at home he got to watch whatever he wanted (which isn't normal) and i filled out some of our party invitations. i think he had a nice birthday.. it really stretched through the weekend and i enjoy celebrating so it was fun!

tonight i'm going to paint the ceiling in the family room and Alex is going to install the light kits for the ceiling fans upstairs. we also need to get the ceiling fans for the living room and master bedroom and also some duvet sets for the guest room so that things at least sort of match the walls or coordinate well. i can't wait to move innnnnnn. :) hoping this week blows by again, i already know the weekend will.. while being filled with fun. And then Sunday we can start moving stuff for reals!

The weekend and the sale

Alex and I have been waiting for the past weekend for months. It was the weekend of his grandparents estate sale. Very sad but also, exciting for us. The house is now empty. We still need to finish painting the ceiling in the living room and then do a really good vacuum and trash removal but this week (if we even get a chance) we can start moving stuff in. Definitely next week for the majority of the stuff. But back to the weekend..

Friday Alex spent all day unloading the truck with his family at the Amish farm where the sale would take place. I spent all day at work and headed over to Martin afterward. We had Saigon Cafe (vietnamese) for dinner and Alex was tired so we headed home and relaxed a little bit before heading to bed.

We were up bright and early on Saturday to be at the sale by 8 am. I had never been to an Amish farm before, so it was an experience. I learned that the kids that run around, and there were a lot of them in many age groups don't speak english until they're school aged. Even the Amish teens and adults don't speak english much, mostly pennsylvania dutch. I didn't speak to any of them other than when I got food at the food stand, which was amazing by the way. They drink soda and eat candy. These were sold at the food stand and all i saw during the day was little kids, some 5 and under carrying around a can of mt dew or the like. at no point did i hear a baby cry, and there were a bunch of babies around. there were no children having temper tantrums or children being nasty to one another. it seemed like such a close knit community. i'm sure there's more than what meets the eye but it was truly interesting to be there and kind of observe them.

Alex and i bought quite a few things at the sale. Some chairs and some household goods. Mostly crystal serving dishes, etc. I couldn't let it go to someone else for $1 so I bought it. I don't think the Amish really care much if they get a crystal pickle dish.. plus I wanted most of the pieces. We also got a lot that we kept at the house and didn't go to auction. We bought a 1940's china set and Alex bought some tools. It was a long day which was followed by some napping and then dinner at El Serrano's for Alex's birthday. They have the best margaritas and chips/salsa.. i could have that as my dinner alone!

Sunday we tried to sleep in but got up around 9:30am.. we went to breakfast at the Conestoga Restaurant and then stopped at Marshall's for a little shopping. After headed over to Martin to drop off the stuff we bought and for Alex to take some measurements. I put some stuff away and then we headed home. We relaxed until around 3 pm when we headed up to Harrisburg to my parents to have dinner and get the truck so we can move some things this week and next. We hung out and played some wii, watched the transporter 2 and ate pork/saurkraut.. which is Alex's favorite meal. We sang happy birthday and had carrot cake. We unloaded the a/c unit and picked up the truck and headed home.

Today is Alex's 26th birthday! After work we're not doing any housework, we're taking the night off and going to John J Jeffries for dinner. We'll probably watch a movie later and celebrate with some homebrew. I'm going to go to the grocery store after work and get him some goodies that I know he likes!

Tomorrow we're going to finish painting the ceiling in the family room and take a load of furniture over. Wednesday we're having dinner with his parents to discuss some stuff and Thursday we can pick up our furniture from Just Cabinets and I will be getting my hair done (and going blonde). This weekend is going to be busy, as I have a shower and bachelorette party to attend. We're going to Carr's for dinner, which i've never been so that should be yummy!

It's going to be a busy week, but it gets us closer to the move in date and next week we can take load after load of furniture over until saturday when the boys will be moving the big stuff. Can't wait to unpack! :)

Furniture!!

Well we needed a couple new pieces for the following reasons. First, when we bought furniture for our first house we got two sofas because really, sofas usually don't cost much more than a loveseat, so upgrade for another $50 we did. Now in our new house, we're thinking that we want to keep it open and having two large sofa's in the family room is just going to be too much. So we wanted to get a loveseat to go in the family room with one of the sofas. Well.. of course the line we bought from was discontinued and our couches are brown. So we ended up with this cocoa love seat. Just cabinets was having a massive moving sale and we got it for a steal! I checked out unclaimed freight and wolf's furniture before hitting this jackpot! And though Alex didn't see it, he approved it via picture text and it's very comfortable to sit in. The color will go well with the other brown sofa, and though the styles are very different, i think it will turn out ok!

Second, we now have an eat in kitchen, so we needed a table. Our friends Matt and Marci have a really cute pub table and so we wanted to get something similar in height but have the style match our current dining room set, at least in the wood stain. So we hit the jackpot again at Just Cabinets with something that's very similar to our dining room wood stain, the only difference is that the chairs have black leather cushions. It didn't come with the bench or the table extension, though i'm sure we could buy this if we wanted.. the eat in kitchen doesn't have that much space so we don't want to crowd it. Just 4 stools and a table. Another steal! We're very excited!

So that does it with the furniture needed. As the week goes on, the house is being packed up by Alex's mom/aunt/uncle for the sale on Saturday. By Saturday evening, the house should be relatively empty and hopefully by Sunday all cleaned up and completely empty. Just so excited to start unpacking what we've already moved into the basement and start moving in some furniture. We get our new stuff next Thursday so we'll probably take it there right away and set it up!

And here's a picture of part of the house i took the other day from the car while waiting for Alex.
I'm going to work on getting better photos when we actually have everything moved in a couple weeks from now.
Almost the weekend!
Happy Thursday!

paint dilemmas and other stuff

lowe's.. ohhh lowe's.

yesterday i went to get some more paint to finish the kitchen. their green wasn't coming out and they were having trouble and i was there for an hour. yep, a whole hour! talk about a waste of time. not to mention, when alex started painting with it, it looked lighter than what was already on the wall.... but we figured it would dry to the right color.

NOPE!!!!

wrong color. off by a lot actually. so now i have to go back to lowe's today, get a refund and hopefully a free can of paint in the correct color. which i don't even know if they can give me the correct color.. so that should be interesting! but talk about a pain in the rear.. we wanted to have everything completed last night and then hit this paint snag. alex was pretty livid. hopefully it goes smoothly at lowe's.. i mean, when i hand them a paint swatch, shouldn't they be able to match it??!??

anyway.. we have three showings today even though we're under contract. which means we have to keep our house looking nice and clean and put together. after this weekend it will be nice to start moving things.

it's freezing here at work which makes me a little less productive. i turned the a/c off but i don't think it's making a difference. i can't turn my heater on because the girl in the other room is on the same breaker as me and has her heater on, so if i turned mine on it would flip the breaker and i'd take out power to three computers. so i have my blanket on and i'm hungry and it's pretty awful.

i have class tonight.. it's the last full class thank goodness. it's very easy and the teacher just drags it out insanely. all i want is for her to do the chapter, and not include any personal stories, but honestly.. i think i've heard more personal stories over these 8 classes (not including 2 test classes) than i have about what's in the chapters. sure they're supposed to relate but i don't care about a couple you sold a house to 10 years ago or that you had to flip through a big book before the mls went online. so now tonight we're doing 2 chapters and then reviewing which means i'll be there the whole 6-9 because it usually takes over an hour to do one chapter, let alone two plus reviewing!! not looking forward to it. plus the class is so small i can't not pay attention because she'll notice. needless to say, i can't wait until this class is over! i might mention some of this in my review of her.

i also just want warmer weather. is that so much to ask? and maybe for gas prices to go down. you can't tell me that supply and demand is balanced at this point. there's obviously tons of supply and not as much demand and yet the price keeps going up. whyy?? oh yeah, greed. our country is really out of wack. school lunches are terrible and making the kids fat which will turn them into fat adults which our health care system can barely support. i know it's hard to lose weight but if you're going to get diabetes later in life because you're fat now.. just lose the weight and you won't get diabetes (in most cases).. i just don't get it. everyone is SO lazy!

i digress.. it's only tuesday and and i hate that the workweek is 5 days long. ALSO, i got a very late notice invite to a shower in a couple weeks.. on a weekend that i'm already super busy during. so now i'm going to have to take off work so i can get the stuff done that i need to do. it's insane. late notice though.. seriously? invites for showers should be out at least a month in advance, not 2 weeks. sorry for the venting. i should get back to work.... in my ice-cube.

what a weekend

seemed so long and yet so short.

we started painting thursday evening, we painted friday evening, we painted saturday and we painted sunday.

friday we finished the 2nd upstairs bedroom and it turned out awesome. we're in love with the upstairs colors.

saturday i had class until 11ish and then had to head early to martin drive because our kitten kali decided to be scared and climb into an open vent (stupid us for not making sure the house was kitten ready) and she wouldn't come out. so we kind of just ignored it because we knew she was scared and she'd come out eventually. so we moved stuff, prepped and painted the living room (or as alex calls it, the study) with a fresh creamy yellow. to my dismay this ended up needing two coats. in the midst of this domino seemed to have disappeared, so we assumed he went into the vent as well. i had the bright idea (hehe) of sticking a flashlight down there and my blackberry so that i could take a picture of the vent to see where kali was. well.. she wasn't far back and eventually we coaxed/scared her out. she spent the rest of the day under a dresser. but we couldn't find domino and he wasn't in either of the vents. we did a massive search and still turned up with nothing. until we found him.. we had mattresses and boxsprings in the foyer and he was in one of the boxsprings. i'm surprised we didn't look there at some point, or that he didn't respond to my meows or food or snicketies (treats). So regardless, they were then locked in the bathroom so that charmayne could run the shopvac and we could move some furniture. seriously long day. after all of that, i finished the yellow room. We started taping the family room so that we could paint that next. we chose a light green.. little did we know it was actually just white with a slight green tint. not ideal but we've accepted it. we got one whole wall done and then called it a night. ended with some wonton soup for me and pho for alex.

Sunday we woke up around 9.. got our house ready for the open house that was happening that day and then headed over to martin again. eventually we started working.. it always takes a little while to get moving, especially because the heat isn't on there and it was 55 inside and outside! so i finished the other small section of the family room, taped the kitchen and waited for alex to come in from mowing the lawn. we decided to paint the kitchen the same green that we used for upstairs (mostly so we'd have some sort of color and not just white with a green tint).. and i figured this would pull some green into the living room. Well i like the green in the kitchen, no doubt.. however the spots where we removed the wallpaper (the terrible, gluey wallpaper) were discolored. A second coat over just those sections made a difference but you could see the texture (even though we sanded ahead of time). So now alex has decided to patch it with spackle and we'll paint it again. While I was working on the kitchen, Alex and Charmayne were moving furniture out of the master bedroom into the living room. Since the living room is complete now it can now be used for storage before the sale. When those two projects were complete, i took a small break, i was tired and hungry and just blah. i began removing the wallpaper in the master and Alex started taping. After removing the wallpaper.. i was just done for the day.. exhausted. And since it's all taped and ready to go, it shouldn't take long to paint it tonight.

So after painting tonight, both the master and the 3rd coat on the kitchen after alex spackles and sands.. we'll be done. well not completely but until we move in.

This week Charmayne's brother and sister come to start packing up the house and getting things ready for the sale. the sale is on saturday and then the house will be empty. i can't imagine how sad this must be for them but it's nice that they're doing it together.

This week i have my last real estate class and a test on thursday. finally! also, last week we came to agreement on our house, so if all goes according to plan we'll close near the end of may!

Next chapter of our life.. here we come!

Upstairs bedroom 1

Here's a picture I took while we were almost done painting.. I kind of forgot to get a before, and i'm going to wait to get an after until our furniture is in there.. but here's a preview! it's from my blackberry so the quality isn't awesome but it's good enough for now! It was around 8 at night so it was pretty dark in there other than our painting lights.

we're really happy with the color that we chose. can't wait to see it all dry tonight!

We're painting another bedroom tonight and i'll be sure to post a picture of it later on. Really we want to get the whole house painted so i should really go in and take before shots so that i don't have to worry about it!

The weekend is going to fly by but at least we'll have all of our painting done. Then we'll have to do some cleaning and eventually move! So much to be accomplished in such little time!

Happy friday! Wish me a speedy workday!

color schemes for our new interior designs

finally.. i have a house that i really want to create pretty and simple designs. i knew this day would come! and though alex and i don't always agree on color choices for the walls.. we're good at discussing this sort of thing to find a common ground.

so here's a short run through of what i'm thinking.. i should create some inspiration boards for the rooms but i'm kind of lazy and i can't do it during work..

formal living room.. this is going to be our office.
paint: light creamy yellow
curtains: sheer white
accent colors: baby blue and white striped pillows and other navy accents..
(alex kind of wants raspberry for this room so I may have to throw some in for good measure)

family room..
paint: dull sage green
no curtains
accent colors: our couches are brown, so we'll accent them with other natural colors, tans, ivory and maybe some darker greens
other: there's so much natural wood in this room already and a red brick fireplace that we want to keep it simple. finally we'll have bookcases and also lots of storage in the cabinets underneath.

master bedroom..
paint: light gray
curtains: sheer turquoise
accent colors: possibly some deeper turquoise, but silver will be the main accent color
other: we got a nice bedroom suite when we moved into our first house, and alex has been using a chest of drawers that doesn't match. i really want to kick that into storage and utilize the closet space, since there's much more of it. so i'll be working on that.. i just don't think it will fit and the non-matching bugs me.

upstairs to the left..
paint: tropical bay (blue/greenish)
curtains: sheer white
accent colors/theme: we want the theme to be 'spa relaxation & freshness' so we'll have lighter blue accents, probably some silver trinkets, and i'm going to look for more stuff. the only issue with this is my furniture is oak. i'll have to see how that matches up with the wall colors and we'll have to get a new comforter to enhance the design.

upstairs to the right..
paint: belle grove moss (green)
curtains: sheer white
accent colors/theme: we want the theme to be rejuvenation and growth so we'll have other tints of green, some splashes of brighter colors. i'm not too crazy about the bedroom suite for this either but we don't have another option. So we'll probably keep the dresser out and store the chest of drawers. Also, a new comforter is needed.

dining room..
we're not painting this but there is a shelf that goes around the whole room above the doorways.. i've been trying to think of what to put up there but i'm blanking. makes me think i should start collecting something but i'm not much of a collector.

kitchen..
this is going to be the same color paint as the family room since they're connected, but we're going to try to keep it simple so there won't be any decor. We need a nice photo or piece of decor (which we might already have) to hang up there above where our new pub table and stools will be. i really don't like the layout of the kitchen, but it should be fine to work around.

i think that covers it.. tonight we start the painting which will continue through the weekend. i'm sure it will make the weekend fly by but we really want to get as much painting done as possible so hopefully we can at least finish 80% of it and then monday evening i can finish the other 20%. we just can't wait to move in.. i don't know about alex but i sure think about it all the time, and i mean all-the-time. and the month is flying by pretty quickly so i can't complain about that!

happy thursday!

i can't stop

this week i'm not really in the mood to be working..

since we've started working on our future house (removing wallpaper, etc) it just makes me think about how soon we're going to move in and all the stuff we want to do.. or i want to do.

we picked paint colors which is always a process and already bought the paint for the two upstairs bedrooms and the formal living room. Upstairs we're doing one greenish and one turquoise bluish and the living room will be a pale yellow. Our master will be a light gray and we're still trying to decide on the family room/kitchen. After removing the wallpaper we had a dilemma with our formerly chosen color for the living room, which was kind of a warm tan. There is natural wood trim and chair rails which has posed a problem for that color choice. It'll just be too much brown going on. And i can't for the life of me figure out a color that will go well with natural wood trim. i did some serious research a bit ago to find even one image that has natural chair rails and came up with nothing.

alex is going to go to lowe's tonight to get some dull light greens which i think might work. plus that will go fine with our brown couches.. we'll have to wait and see!

i have a list of things to think about when it comes to moving and things we will need.. here's a taste:
-decor for the dining room.. it has a shelf up high that wraps around the whole room, so i need something to put up there
-pub table/stools for the eat-in kitchen part.. i think i've found what i want but we'll see if something better comes along
-how we're going to use the pantry. the pantry is currently in the laundry room and right outside the kitchen is a hall closet. we're thinking of turning that hall closet into the pantry and moving the closet back into the laundry room.. and removing a door that blocks off the kitchen from that hallway/half bath/laundry room because the laundry room already has a door to block noise.
-do we get light kits for the ceiling fans, new ceiling fans or just put lamps in the upstairs bedrooms? there's about a billion switches in the house so i don't want to add more. it's going to be tough to memorize as it is!!!
-i want to replace the wall mounted lights in the upstairs hallway.. and the chandelier in the foyer but i don't know if it's really worth it
-if we decide to put one of our couches in the living room, we'll need another chair for the family room.
and more..

i have a giant amazon wish list for all of the stuff i think about..

we have another showing today.. i believe it is a 2nd showing and this is the 2nd couple that's had a 2nd showing so we're hoping that one of them ends in an offer this week.

i'm kind of cranky because i started a diet again.. it's hard to get away from bread, okay?? :) but i'm currently having a cookie because i'm a cheater. but i won't let it slow me down. i'm going to be burning some serious calories in the next couple weeks with all the house work and painting and moving. also after we move in i'll have a neighborhood to walk/jog around!

alright alright.. back to work!

Progress Report

We got a lot of stuff done this weekend.. and we feel pretty accomplished. But it's not over yet!

Saturday morning I had a test in my real estate class (i got a 90%!) and then Alex and I headed to Home Depot to buy a lawn mower and weed whacker. Then we headed to Martin to start the work.

Alex put together the mower/whacker and I started the wallpaper removal. It is a total process but by the end of the day I had the hang of it. Basically, we have to score, soak, remove the top paper, soak, scrape the rest off. Not too bad, just time consuming. Luckily we only had to do what equals about two 15 ft walls. After I had finished the family room, on Sunday (!) I moved onto the border in the kitchen. Must've been cheaper paper?? Because it had so much glue! Also, gravity was a biotch. It was a lot harder to scrape because of the angle and the glue situation so I only got 3/4 of the way done with that. I'll finish today hopefully and maybe (fingers crossed) get to move onto the master bedroom's border as well. I'm hoping that paper is more like the family room walls.. but maybe that's just how border paper is? no idea.

Alex got the lawn mowed, some stuff weed whacked, some tree's down, some planting and garden stuff. And since Alex's parents were over both days, they did some organizing/furniture moving, etc. One of the upstairs bedrooms is ready for painting, which Alex will probably start tonight.

Here's our coming week plans:
Monday: Wallpaper removal / painting
Tuesday: I have class and I don't know Alex's plans
Wednesday: Down to DE for dinner with Nick and Laurel
Thursday: I have class again..
Friday: Painting after work
Saturday: Class til noon and then painting all day/night
Sunday: Painting all day/night

Moving day is swiftly approaching. I really hope we can have all the painting completed by Tuesday the 20th. We'll see how long it takes to paint one room though and then we'll know if we can complete it by then.

Happy Monday!

Hurry up May, Fly by April

I would really love it if April would hurry up and be over. Not for any negative reasons.. I just want May to arrive.

It's already been busy so far. 10 showings on our house total. no feedback. no calls from our realtor. waning hope. wishful thinking. we realize it's the first week it's been on sale and people are being all 'indecisive' while they can before the 30th when the tax credit is up. but make a decision, people! and choose our house! we've been keeping it spotless which is nice, but we've been cooking dinner less. it barely looks like it's lived in.. not sure if that's good or bad? fingers crossed for an offer this weekend! (ha!)

i have class every tuesday/thursday/saturday so that takes up some time. and this weekend we have plans to do housework at the new house and then plans with friends in the evenings. I'm hoping to get all the wallpaper removed tomorrow and even start painting! Then continue painting all day Sunday. Dinner plans next week and more painting over the weekend. Then Alex's family comes up and the estate sale is on the 24th. Alex's birthday is the 26th so we'll be celebrating that. And then the following weekend is filled to the brim with activities. Alex and I discussed some of our moving plans last night, which makes me more anxious for that.. the actual move. It can't come soon enough.

So hurry up May and fly by April!

i wish..

i wish i were a funnier blogger but not a lot of funny things happen to me. i've been reading chelsea handler's book, 'chelsea, chelsea, bang, bang' which is just filled with funny stories. I think she makes her own fun most of the time.... by lying to her friends and family. None of it is ever hurtful, just entertaining.

i wish i knew how to work twitter. i have it and i tweet sometimes but no one has ever direct messaged me or tweeted at me with the @ symbol. sometimes i do the #trendingtopics but then i read other peoples and they're pretty boring. i mostly follow celebs and musicians and people who are following me. And other blogs from which i read. I have 24 followers and I only know 2 of them personally. Some people are just out for money on there.. speaking of that, i'd love to get paid to tweet.

i wish i had more motivation. i probably control this to some extent but i'm just not very good at doing something without a light at the end of the tunnel. i always need a light to work toward.

i wish i could make some babies right now. i think alex and i are ready but i want to make sure we both have good jobs that can support us before we start. this hasn't happened yet and the thought of going into appraisal and training for 2 years sets my start date even further back. not to mention the fact that i want to have 2 kids before i'm 30. i'm currently 25. i guess i have some time.

i wish they taught a 'life' class at school. most notably college. some people just don't know how to keep themselves organized, how to do taxes, how to set budgets and manage your own money. i guess they expect our parents to teach us but by the point we're in college, our parents assume we know how to successfully live on our own. key word, successfully. obviously most people can survive on their own, but what about survive and prosper.. lots of people need help with that stuff. alex and i are very lucky that we're pretty smart with the whole 'keeping our life together' thing.

i wish i could work until i was done working and be done. this would make me a lot more productive if i knew i could leave early if i finished all my tasks. i wonder if there's a company out there that lets you do that? oh yeah, real estate would.. hmm. Regardless, summer is a rough time to have an indoor job.. i never see the light of day unless i walk across to the other building for something i need that's over there. i wouldn't even know that it's raining. i also think it's nuts that we spend as much time at work as we do with our families at home. someone needs to shorten the workdays or work week to balance that out a little better. 3 day weekends! who's with me?? productivity would sky-rocket.. at least initially. hopefully someday i'll have this flexibility!

this is enough wishes for a wednesday.. maybe even a week! until next time!

Easter Weekend.. Recap

I love holidays.. and though i know they're going to get harder to plan in the future, they've been working out nicely for the time-being.

Friday I had off work, so i slept in a bit and then got some housework done. I feel like we're finally finished with the renovation-ish stuff and now we just need to keep things tidy and clean through the showings. I watched a lot of TV and hit the grocery store and viet my and even took a shower! That evening we met up with the Van Wyen family for a fabulous dinner at Iron Hill. I got over-stuffed though.. hate when that happens! Afterward, the younger generation headed to Matt and Marci's for some Seen It on Wii and some MarioKart. I love that we can do stuff like that with our friends and though it may not be super awesomely fun all the time, it's comfortable and it is fun in a different way.. perhaps even a better way.

Saturday we awoke from our slumber and made a trip to Martin because I couldn't find my spring-form pan and i forgot some ingredients for the risotto we were making for later. We got home and I made vietnamese spring rolls and Alex cooked up the risotto. We then headed over to the Brubaker Farm for an Easter celebration. Though there were no eggs or baskets or candy, we had an awesome lunch with delicious food. The risotto couldn't have turned out better. We had bbq chicken, the spring rolls, veggies and a cabbage/olive salad. Everything was great!

After our huge lunch we took a long walk around the farm, searched for the newborn kittens (with no luck) and relaxed. The farm is the perfect place to breathe some fresh air and relax. We had to leave a little earlier than we'd hoped because i needed to make a pie for my family's easter the next day, which i didn't have a chance to do earlier. So i made half of the pie and we headed up to my parents. I finished the pie there and Alex, Nicole and I went out for drinks to again celebrate Julia's birthday.

Sunday we woke up and went to church, came back and found our baskets. We played some mario brothers and eventually headed over to Da's house. Easter ham cannot be beat (it's the same as the christmas ham).. so lunch was wonderful. Relaxing followed.. we played some mother may i? and red light/green light outside and watched the 1st half of jumanji later on. Afterward we headed to my grandparents for dessert. We spent time together in the living room and my cousins arrived. We had some yummy dessert and headed back to Lancaster County.

We hung out with the Herr's and the Hix's.. Steph made some yummy spag and meatballs. They just put in an insane movie theater in their basement. Insanely awesome. We watched some Planet Earth and then watched Sherlock Holmes. It was good.. i totally kept forgetting that i was in someone's house. The couch was so comfortable I don't think i'll ever have to go to a movie theater again. It was a blast! By the time the movie was over it was pretty late, so we headed home and hit the hay immediately. It had been a long day!

This week we're looking forward to the showings. We have 4 already! So hopefully one of those will turn into an offer? Or maybe more than one?? Wishful thinking :) But we'll be spending some time at Martin Dr and I have class on Tuesday. I will be missing class on Thursday though because i'm going to see the princess's on ice with my sisters and niece. She's going to love it!

Can't wait for the next weekend.. Martin work during the day and friends at night. I want this month to fly by so we can move in! :)

Happenings

Lately, not too much has been happening, but at the same time.. a lot has.

It's mostly house related as you can see from previous posts.. getting one house ready to sell and the other house ready to occupy. This takes up a lot of time and leaves little time for other activities.

Luckily this past weekend, I took friday off and Alex and I completed the majority of projects. We put in phase 2 of the quarter rounds, we painted the 3rd floor hallway flooring and cleaned/packed/moved things all over the place. We were tired by the end of the day but felt very accomplished. The next morning we of course had to do some more packing/moving things to the new house. We're so lucky we can store stuff there! Then I hurried and wrapped a bridal shower gift and got ready and off Laurel and I went to Stephanie's shower. Very classy, great food and always fun! Afterward, I headed home, packed an overnight bag and met my mom at a turnpike exit to head up to Monmouth University to surprise my youngest sister, Julia for her 21st birthday which was Saturday. She was very surprised, so success on our part! We hung out at her suite while she got ready with her friends and then we all headed over to a club called The Avenue for the rest of the night. It was on the beach and was pretty awesome! Expensive, but fun!

Sunday morning we did some shopping (i didn't buy a thing!) and then had lunch and headed home. Too bad it wasn't nicer out this past weekend to walk on the beach. But when I got home we did some more housework and then got some time to relax together. Yesterday we did more moving of things to Martin.

Today, we meet the realtor after work to sign the papers to put it on the market officially. Tomorrow is the photoshoot, which we won't be home for. And then it will be up! Let the selling begin!! Hopefully someone wants to buy it! We still want to do more packing, tonight I think Alex is going to take a bunch of stuff to the Salvation Army. That should clear up some space.

I have my first class of my 2nd real estate course which starts tonight. I'm really hoping the teacher is as good as my 1st course and lets us go early. Wishful thinking!

So literally, that's all that's happening. This Friday we're having dinner with family friends and then of course it's easter! I have off work on Friday which will be nice to start removing some wallpaper at the new house and maybe even start painting! We definitely miss having free time to hang out with friends and family. It will be so nice once we're finally in the house in May and won't have anything to worry about again. But that's a whole month and week away! Here's to hoping time flies (which I know it will with as busy as we are!)

Happy Tuesday!

Painting and painting and painting..

Well we're making good progress on the house. Things are looking fresher and newer, especially on the 3rd floor. Though i don't enjoy the look of all white, i'm not going to worry about painting it a different color for the new owner. Everything is going to be white. Last night I finished up the hallway on the third floor, cutting anyway.. now I just have to roll a pretty small area and move onto the master bedroom ceiling. This should be interesting but not too hard. Main problem is the parts of the room where i don't have anything to stand on and can't reach the ceiling. This will be figure out though.

Alex will be working on cutting quarter rounds all day today and tomorrow. Hopefully it won't take that long but we need good measurements to start with (which i don't think he has yet?) regardless, it will look much nicer with quarter rounds in. Small dent in the wallet though, they cost over $1/ft and we have a lot of feet to put in. Guess we'll be moving some furniture around.. might as well move out the guest bedroom set (as much as possible) and the mattress on the 3rd floor. Lots of work this weekend to say the least! We really hope to get everything done though, do a master cleaning session, pack some more and maybe even get some prep done at Martin.

I grabbed paint swatches at Lowe's the other day and we decided on the final colors for the rooms. I'm not sure which job i'm going to give alex yet when it comes to painting.. i'm thinking about the cutting job because everything will be taped and errors won't be on the trim/ceiling, they'll be on the tape. Then I can focus on rolling a nice thick coat so that we don't have to do more than one. I think that's what's going to happen. With two people we should be able to knock it out of the park pretty quickly. The next two weeks on weeknights/weekends (minus easter sat/sun) we'll be prepping or painting and hope to have it all done by the 11th of April. Then we can have a free weekend before the sale weekend followed by another free weekend and then moving weekend. In the midst of all the free weekends, i'll have to start cleaning Martin as well so that it's spotless when we move in. Which we can't wait for!

In non-housework related news, I finished my first real estate class and the next one starts next tuesday. That will end the 20th of April. Not really sure if i'm going to go for the license, just kinda wanted to see what it was all about. I'm trying to find places to take Appraisal classes now and that's proving to be a more difficult feat. They sure don't make it easy! But it should work out. An online course would be best for my schedule but i'm up for taking in person courses too. Trying to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life is pretty hard.. but hopefully I like appraising. Plus, I just got a small increase at work with another increase coming soon.. an actual promotion. So that's exciting. Just don't know how long i'm going to stick around. I think maybe that's why some appraisers also sell real estate.. during the 2+ year training period you can't really have a full time job (i'm assuming) so you have to have something to supplement the income. If that's the case, at least I have the real estate education and i'll just have to take the test.

Not much else happening.. we hope to have all of this done soon so we can do some more social stuff.. we miss our friends :)

Housework Accomplishments

Well there haven't been many, but some. We have an extremely long to-do list involved in getting our house ready to sell and getting a new house ready to move into. We had a reality check after talking to a realtor and now we're kind of in stress mode. And i don't do stress mode. I'm barely stressed, and I don't feel too stressed right now, but that's because i'm not really thinking about it.

Here's the low down on what's up at the brubaker house..

This weekend we painted a bunch. Luckily, Laurel and Courtney came over on Saturday to help. They painted a whole room which i finished on Sunday. Friday night, I re-cut the 2nd floor hallway/1st floor living/dining room.. looks way better now. After painting, we headed over to a friends to hang out/watch the first 3/4 of the ugly truth. pretty funny. Saturday, up around 7.. shower, study, class 9-11:30. back home to have some lunch, clean and get ready for our meeting with a realtor at 1. she charges 7% commish so that she can have 4 and the buyers agent can have 3.. i don't blame her, she works hard. but this is a lot of money.. money we have but don't necessarily want to spend. ho hum. so we didn't sign, because we knew at 5 pm we would have a private showing which i will go into in a couple more sentences.

Laurel and Court came over at 2:30 and we painted until 4:30.. they worked on the on the 3rd floor back room and I cut in the front room.. this needs another coat. The paint is old and 'gloopy' and i really should just go buy a quart to paint with instead of using the old stuff. i may do just that! And Alex started the hallway which I took over but we didn't complete before 5:00.

The private showing went well? We don't really know.. because we were outside while they explored. They seemed super nice and they asked a bunch of questions.. they said it will either be within a month or later in the fall that they want to buy. But they said this is the nicest place they saw so far with a nice backyard, etc. So maybe that will help. We told them we'd hold on getting a realtor for a little so they could decide.. this really only helps us because it will save us money. We're going to fill out a sellers disclosure tonight and send it to them tomorrow and tell them they have until friday to let us know if they're serious. Which means i need to call the realtor and tell her we're going to wait until the following monday to make a decision about listing. It would be so nice if this couple wanted to buy it.. total wishful thinking but really.. could we get any luckier in life? that would prove that we could.

So after the showing, I relaxed, Alex went and fed the sheep at his parents and then i went to meet Laurel and Court at Rita's for the free ice. They didn't end up getting one, but i did.. mango, mmm! We headed over to Martin quick to show Court our new place. We will live 3 minutes from Ritas.. niice. And of course 3 minutes from Saigon Cafe which Alex loves. Best Pho in Lancaster he thinks. After that I headed with the girls to Marion Court for dinner and drinks, then bed by 10:30.. it was a long day.

Sunday we woke up at 8 am.. I did some more painting, finished the white room and the top trim in the front room after hitting Lowe's for some more white paint. I even painted some of the hallway.. not much left to go! Then we headed up to Harrisburg, lunch with my sister Jess and niece Makayla at Passage to India, over to my parents to chat for a while, then eventually went to my grandparents for my grama's birthday dinner. Headed home and watched the new series Life on TLC.. shower, bed.

So all that's left to do in our house (that we'll be working on this week) is:
-2nd coat cut on the 3rd floor front room
-finish the hallway/stairwell walls/trim
-paint the floor in the hallway
-paint the master ceiling
-touch ups in the master and guest room
-bottom trim in guest room
-quarter rounds on 2nd and 3rd floors
-packing and moving stuff to Martin (boxes and small furniture)
And then we're done! Can't wait for that moment! Then of course, the painting begins at Martin..
-paint the living room, master bedroom (after removing paper border), family room/kitchen (after removing wallpaper), and 2 upstairs bedrooms .. we have the whole month of april to do it, lots of empty weekends to fill with painting/moving stuff

Have a good week! Easter is almost here!

Paint colors

I'm not exactly the best room decorator, but i'm going to try really hard with this house to make it pretty. There is a struggle though.. or struggles. First, Alex is having a hard time picturing it as our house because he spent so many years there as a grandchild. I can understand this, but the reality is.. we're moving in. So let's get used to thinking about it as our house. I obviously have no problem with thinking of it as my house.. but the other struggle is that it's mainly traditional. The kitchen hardware has gold in them, which irks me but it's something i will not/cannot change. Gold hardware is my nightmare. As are the lights in the hall on the 2nd floor and the chandelier. I digress.

Alex and I decided on paint colors last night.. surprisingly painless considering our paint color dilemma with our first house. But the good news is, I will never pick the same colors from our first house so things can only go up from here.
We choose (these are all Valspar):
*Summer Wish (yellowish cream) for the office (which is the formal living room).
*Ancient Scroll (tan-ish) for the family room/kitchen
*Tempered Gray (purple hued gray) for the master bedroom
*Quiet Mint (which is a light blue mint) for one of the upstairs bedrooms
*Apple Slice (light pastel green) for the other upstairs bedroom

I definitely need to see a wall swatch of the yellow one, i really struggle with yellow on walls. Painting all of these rooms and the family room ceiling is going to be a giant project. But at least we get to tackle it prior to moving in.

Tomorrow I'm taking a half day to work on our current house and we have a meeting with our lawyer to talk business. :) I hope to get a lot done tomorrow and then on Sunday as well. Painting our little rooms shouldn't take any time at all.

We're thinking about getting a realtor to sell our home. I asked my teacher the other day about FSBOs and she basically convinced me otherwise, so I need to make an appointment with someone, don't know who yet, to get it sold for the best price and fast. If we have to pay a buyers and a sellers commission.. we need to make a pretty penny on the property :)

Happy Thursday!

It's official: We're moving

So last week we made the big decision to move. We're headed out of Lancaster City and into a lovely home in East Petersburg formerly owned by Alex's late grandparents. It's a beautiful home and we're very excited!

Of course, through this excitement is the reality that we have to sell our current home. Before we can put it on the market we need to finish up some projects in order to make it fully presentable.

When we moved in, it wasn't in the best shape. It wasn't terrible.. but everything needed painted, there were holes in some of the walls that needed patched, then we decided to rip up all the carpet and underlying vinyl tile to get to the hardwood flooring, while having the full electrical system updated.

Here's what we need to do:
*Finish painting the 3rd floor bedrooms: The front room was light blue with dark blue trim... i'm on coat 3 with the trim.. i will never paint trim any color other than white because of this, i don't know what they were thinking (that they wouldn't be the ones to repaint, probably).
*Paint the 3rd floor stairwell/hallway
*Paint the master bedroom ceiling
*Some patching and touch up painting on the 2nd floor
*Put quarter rounds in on the full 2nd and 3rd floors (these were removed for the flooring project.)
*Clean clean clean, organize and pack

We plan to have this done in a couple weeks so we can go on sale on Monday the 22nd! Then since we're selling it ourselves I have to make some copies of our flyers to give out to local real estate offices and the hospital up the street since we're in the 'zone where people who work at the hospital can live at some sort of discount (or program)'.

After we complete this work, it's onto the next house.. paint paint paint. We're going to paint the living room, family room/kitchen, master bedroom and the two upstairs bedrooms. Of course there's some wallpaper that needs to be removed first, i ordered wallwick yesterday so we'll see how that works. Picking paint colors is very hard though.. Alex and I have very different taste in that regard. He suggested a deep raspberry for the office, which is what the living room is going to be for us. I just can't imagine painting a room with a dark color for some reason. We think that we'll be done with all the painting by the end of April. Then the estate sale is April 24th, which will clear out the house.. and we hope to move in the 2nd weekend of May!

We're very excited!