Making an effort; making a change.

Anyone who's in their mid-to-late 20s, hell, maybe even early 30s has these bumps in the road. Some have to wear gross bridesmaid dresses, but themselves never find time to date, some have kids, divorce, health issues, and just some never grow up. Whatever we are facing we feel like no one understands us. Let me tell you, I get it.

I understand when you say, "Even in a room full of people I feel alone." I get it when you say, "I know this will make me sound like a terrible mom, but I pretended to have explosive diarrhea just to have 15 minutes alone." I get it when you say, "I don't drink, but I will buy the next round." I have been there, I'm still there most days. 

We all work so hard at what we do, stay at home mom, office employee, Barista, over night shifts. We have these jobs, tasks, to do lists that never ever are finished. We focus on something until we're cross-eyed and dizzy. 

I'm a part time employee at an exterminating company, I work in the office. I come home, I clean, I cook, I organize, I do homework, I try to not throw up from stress, I lay down every couple of tasks because I'm tired. Worn out. Done. 

My 9 year old whines, all the time. If he's not lying that is. He refused to shower for 10 days, and told me he showered "Friday", no you didn't. I know because I told you to shower because you had gym, and you smelled like you fell in a pile of dog shit, on top of a dead chipmunk, coated in sour milk... Then I have tasks in the house I need to finish, with a whining able child is telling me I can't throw away a single item. Who cares if I have 10 balls of the same yarn, I can't throw away that 1/4 ball that's tangled because he needs it untangled to use as a zip line for his 1048592017748401 lego men throw about his room. This is the exact reason I make a cup of tea and hide in the bathroom. "Mom, are you ok?! Can I play on your phone?!" 

I try and be social, as much as my awkward self will let me. I can't hold adult conversations because everything revolves around, work, babies and going places... As much as I try to keep up, my work I have to keep certain things confidential, so all the funny things get left out, I have a 9 year not a baby, I will play and watch your kid though, I love kids. Oh I go 2 places, Maine and ikea. Basically if it's not work, home or target, it's Maine or ikea, no one wants to hear about it all that much. Because when you visit my house, you'll know exactly what items came from Ikea.

Yes I will buy a round of drinks, because 1. It's usually only 3 of us out and about and 2. John and I don't drink alcohol. So it's cheap enough to buy you 1 drink. I don't expect the favor in return, I'm a slow soda drinker, and it's usually too late for me anyways. Did I mention I wake up at 6am, to make sure my significant other is in the shower by 6:30, my son is up by 7 and we're all ready to go by 7:32! 

I don't know if I'll ever be in a wedding besides my future one (no news on that front) but I'm happy attending them, though I usually dance with children, cry like a baby and give gifts that you would never register for, or I give you a card, at some point, if I don't forget it in the car. 

So, yes I get it. 

I get health scares, pregnancies, party planning, getting fired, job hunting, failed relationships, buying a house, and finally I get that sometimes you just need to talk, with a willing ear, that you don't sleep next to. I usually make coffee or give Oreos to the children in the way! 

I get it. 

Spending more today, to save for the month!

We have settled into our home. Not completely unpacked buy I'm told that comes with time. 

We do weekly shopping trips, most weeks it's just for perishables; fruits, veggies and grains. However there's always that one week a month where I nearly faint at the check out line!

We have BJ's membership, my grandmother put me as a secondary card holder, so I utilize this and nearly abuse this card. 

We love BJ's, their gas is about 8-15 cents cheaper per gallon, at any given time than a normal station. That's awesome since John drives 60 minutes a day! Then there's the perks of non perishable items, and freezer friendly items! 

John has known for years I cook, and I do it pretty well. I make my own sloppy Joe sauce, which he has dubbed "shut the front door Joe's" but we go thru chicken the most. It just seems to fit our budget and our meal plans. 

We get our chicken tenders at BJs, we usually buy the 5 pound bag, and divide it into 5-6 meals! You definitely don't need more than a pound of chicken per meal when you have other sides!  We try to alternate the weeks that I go big with what meats, this week I was stupid and bought 2 roaster chickens, each will be no less than 2 complete meals, so 4 nights worth of chicken for $9.50? DEAL! That's less than $3.00 a meal! 

I also bought 3.5 pounds of hamburger, this will be about 4-5 meals. I'm making a chili, I'm going to be using lots of tomatoes, peppers, onions, BEANS and maybe 1/2 pound of ground meat. Again, the more extra things you add the less you miss the meat! We use about 1/2-3/4 a pound for sloppy Joes, since I make them from scratch, I add carrots, onions, celery, garlic and sometimes black beans. Hamburgers are usually the biggest hamburger thief, but I opt into making a meatloaf over the hamburgers, it goes over a lot better. 

Besides the 2 weeks we buy the expensive meats, we typically spend between $45 and $60 a week on groceries. We cut out soda, we don't buy food inbetween shopping trips. We buy a lot of veggies, you can add the "trio" to nearly anything. We also take advantage of farmers' markets. Why not?! We get zucchini, squash, onions, garlic, peaches, beans, berries! All for a great price and we support local farmers! Besides that they're always willing to give us the beat up lettuce or carrot greens for our pet rabbit! I spend between $6-$10 on fresh farm stand food a week. 

We bought a 25 pound bag of rice a few months back, for $12 at BJs, still making about 3 meals a week with it! Adding veggie or chicken stock to it really adds a new flavor and makes it difference. We even make rice with vanilla and cinnamon as a healthy alternative snack!

We bought a 4 pack of organic whole wheat pasta, at BJs, for $3.99, that's at least 7 meals! I try not to use pasta more than once a week, it really bothers my stomach so I watch my pasta intake. 

We bought an 8 pack of black beans, $4 I believe, 2 months ago, we use one can week... 

We buy milk and cheese weekly, and bread. As easy as a loaf of bread is to make, Irish Soda Bread was a huge hit and I have a post about it on my blog, it isn't an everyday bread... Despite john's beliefs. 

We have impulse items, and I usually try and buy snacks for Larry's lunch that lasts more than 1 week. This week we bought Gogurts- $8 for 32, and Pretzels- $7 for way more than I need, they'll be going out to trick or treaters! That's at least 4 weeks worth of school snacks, for $15, we forgot juice boxes so I'll make Lipton tea and put it in his reusable bottle and use up the $8 container that makes 32 gallons of tea!! (It's lasted us upwards of a dozen lemonade stand days, and 2 parties!!!) 

It's about buying items you don't get sick of, and buying enough that you won't, we never buy the same cereal twice in a row, we alternate and try and get a healthy option: $3.79, at wegman's I bought a 2 pack of Shredded Wheat! I love it! I eat it with milk, I warm up the milk on cold days, i eat it dry. I love it. John picked out fruity pebbles. Again if we start getting tired (yeah right) of it we'll make larry snack bars for school with marshmallows, butter and fruity pebbles! 

The most wasted item in the house? BANANAS! I buy 3 pounds at bj's for 1.49 and by the next shopping trip, I'm making banana bread! 

I hope this gave you some ideas and if you have any questions, please ask! I'm always happy to share recipes, ideas and just be helpful! 

I cook as if there are 4 of us, because that way john always has a lunch the next day! 

June 7th 2014 yard work and ideas

I'm slightly obsessed with Pinterest. I check it more than I check Facebook and Instagram combined. I like what it's about, the set up and the ability to search for just about anything. 

I want a fire pit. I know we don't have a ton of friends, but I think just having one is good for us. It will give me a place to stay warm when Larry has people over, it'll give me an excuse to try and be more social. So I pinned 4-6 fire pits, sent the link to john and said, "pick one" he picked one that it is near impossible to find the damn curved edging stones! Thankfully our friends The Romilios had 7 of them, so we're just making the fire pit a combination of 2 fire pits we liked. 

Another highly searched item for myself are crafts, particularly crafts that I used to make, and want Larry to know the fun of not having technology to let you use your hands. I know it sounds counter productive me using technology to show him, but they have so many "pony bead keychain patterns" ahhhhh!! Remember making those lizard keychains?! That's what that search result will show! Every single damn keychain us 80s-90s kids made during summer camp. 

I also was Gimp champion of the world! (Self proclaimed) I had every color imaginable. I would make lanyards, and key chains and zipper pulls. There wants anything I couldn't make! I had a go-to color combination, black, that weird whitish glow in the dark and pink (also glow in the dark) I called it 2x4 even though it was actually 1x2. Everyone loved when I'd do a swirl twisted one. 

I love Pinterest because I can find simplified instruction that Larry can understand, because I'm way too mathematical for most people when it comes to explaining things. I encourage you to embrace the nerd within and go Pinterest search an old craft you loved to do, and share it with your kids, a friend or just your Pinterest board! 

There is really nothing better than reliving your childhood. I remember one year my grandmother, Meme, bought all the makings for American flag safety pin brooches. We had the teensiest glass beads, and we had the pattern mapped out, took a few trial and errors but by the 4th we had so many pins we were giving them to anyone who would wear it. Twenty years later, Meme still has hers!

Larry loves perler beads, we make just about everything with them. We don't use them all that much because we have a small dog that would eat the beads, but I think we're buying pony beads this week, because frankly I need a stegosaurus keychain, and so does his teacher!!!

Hope you have a crafty, fun and safe summer! 

Manda

 

Here's Larry with his Komondo dragon project, that he received 100 on. He used cast plaster and paper bags, paper towels, a little felt and some paint. We really had fun shaping and setting everything up, this was not a Pinterest based item, this was 100% imagination, and a book about Komondo dragons. I helped very little and am so incredible proud of the outcome and the final grade. The teacher acknowledged his stand out work and his incredible habitat. 

This project probably took 7 hrs from conception to completion. 

DIY DOOR KNOCKER

So this is something I thought was awesome. I love all things vintage. This door knocker is pretty amazing. It was on the door when we bought it, I could not even contain myself.

Here's the door knocking prior to the facelift.

It was simply screwed on the door, I found a flat head screw driver and held it in place with one hand and unscrewed it with the other. I found a good work surface to inspect and prep for the next step. 

I bought the 3 pack of brushes to remove the flakey old cast iron from the door knocker. I was not 100% sure what style would work best, and the men at Home Depot were not sure either. So the three pack was perfect option.

Get all cracks and crevices, just to make sure there is nothing in the way. We want a nice and even coat of Spray paint when it gets to that stage.  This means FRONT AND BACK.

I took the spraying outside and set up shop in the outside kitchen, because it was well vented and who cares if I get some spray paint on some linoleum. 

The front was sprayed, and needed to dry. I was so impressed with the details that popped with just one coat, I felt like it wasn't coated enough.

Second coat made me feel like it was ready for the door.

I let this bad guy dry for a few hours, and I took my time, and put it back where I took it from. It came out exactly how I envisioned.

The before and after! 

The amount of little tiny details I didn't notice initially really were on display after the second coat. I wanted to share this easy and fun DIY that I am proud to have as a greeter to our guests! 

Come and knock on our door! 

Early June Update

This is more of a what to do when you're tired and ready to cry about everything. I have had some health things pop up since my last update, so I've been extra busy. Work has picked up, I work in the pest industry, which I love my job, and it's actually my crazy escape place. My health is up in the air, as I have an appointment on the 6th that should be telling me more things about what is going on. The house! The thing we come to this little thing for, well let's get to the meat and potatoes.


The First half of May.

So here we go, My high school friend Chris H came by to help us one weekend when John's Brother was away. I am so lucky that even though I only hand 1 friend help out, he worked like 3 of us. He really kept us on track that weekend, I owe him big time!  We tore up the old floor, and the old plywood. We found out that the floor had a pretty significant pitch to it, which is bad for flooring choices, but ok in the long run. We will work with it. We laid the new plywood down, and also got one of the two supporting walls up that day Chris was helping. We enjoyed Subs from the corner store and some sodas. I love living within walking distance of small stores with good food. We're also about a half a mile for a great fishing location.

We have electrical almost done, HVAC system is almost done and our plumbing is ALMOST done. We are going to natural gas, because it's the most logical option, and it's allegedly free after we get our deposit back! Biggest and most exciting step, WE HAVE WALLS IN OUR KITCHEN! AHHH!

 The Living was also started in the past few weeks, we decided that the tacky fake brick behind the tiki god wood stove were not going to be part of our house. This is strictly because they took up valuable floor space, and we don't really need a wood stove when we have an HVAC unit that was paid good money for. Besides, Larry has asthma and the Wood burning stove would irritate it if we did use it.

We were keeping the cabinets in the living room since we're not living there yet it made sense, but the dumpster was being picked up this past weekend, so it was a much needed removal, so I made a few Vine videos of John being super manly and breaking down the cabinets. We are not keeping for basement storage. Who sells 4 cabinets that are the most awkward sizes ever? NOT us! We still have a handful left for a lemonade stand (I will post that DIY) when we get that far, and tool storage for this handy man.

The Living room had an amazing bookcase around the Bay window, it was taking up nearly a foot of space into the living room, and Larry kept stepping on it when he would climb into the window. The steam heaters used to sit under the bookcase causing the wood to be bent and starting to be brittle. The walls were obviously in rough shape after the removal of the bookcase. 

Traveling home from Lowe's has become a great game of, hold this, make sure your drink doesn't tip, and pick a CD and you're not changing it in the 2.5 miles from the house! This is my view from the passenger seat of one of the many weekly trips to lowe's. Strapping for the ceiling, and 2X8s for the walls, and the door framing. 

I'm a high strung person for the most part, I hate leaving things unfinished. I think this is why I crochet and cross stitch so fast. I sometimes have to stop, take a breath and remember that this is going to be my house, that WE are going to be living here for a large chunk of our lives. We are investing in this beautiful piece of land, and this amazing house. We are lucky to have each other. I keep picking out all these meals I want to make in the new kitchen, and books I want to read in the living room, and music I want to listen to in the library. I just wish there were more people to share this experience with. I think that's why I started this blog about the house, I feel like the people who care the most about my experiences are hours, states, and oceans away. This is something that I will look back at and be like, "You know what, I'm proud of every bruise I earned from that house." 

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to come see more of the house, I'm so excited about it all and I really am proud to say I'm dating an amazing guy, who's family loves me.

What are you most interested in seeing in my house?!

Amanda

Our House! First Week. (image heavy)

  

This song is what makes everything worth it. Our House Cover.  Let's just start with that. This is sums up all the reasons why we are doing all the hard work we are doing.

This is our house. The front yard is charming, and we are excited it is ours.
We fell in love with this Foreclosure. We knew it was the house for us.

We officially became homeowners Friday May 9th. Catch up on that stuff with This post!

 Let's pick up where we left off.

This is our front door knocker, I'm going to take it down, take a wire brush to it, and then repaint it. It needs a fresh face, and the current door, may keep bugs out, but it's in rough shape.

We started with what looked ok, but soon enough we learned that there were some issues with the addition in the back of the kitchen, so turning that lemon into lemonade we are going to have a definite Kitchen and a definite Dining Room. Which in my mind means, MORE COLORS!

These are some shots of our BEFORE DEMO Kitchen. I want to keep you updated as possible, so you know that this is not a day project, this is a long haul project, considering it's only been a 4 man crew over the course of 5 days, it's impressive.

 This is 3/4 of the Kitchen. The floor is torn up where we were checking structural issues.  Not too shabby, right?

This is the part that's not pictured. The Cabinet on the right was taken down, to check on the structural issues. So That's the before. 

  Can we talk about my amazing BAY WINDOW! It looks out  over my 1/2 acre back yard. Do you want to build a Tree House? Because We just may do that too! 

This is the super happy Home Owner, and a great photo of Larry sitting in my favorite spot in the house. Love the Living Room's Bay window! 






We were all really excited, until we had to start working. I mean we tore up from the floor up. Saturday was the start of Demolition. We took down the cabinets, then the walls. We had some electrical boxes that made us swear some colorful words to the past home owners.

STEP ONE: CABINETS!

This was between the cabinet take down and before the walls came down. It's so insane thinking about how different this is going to be. I get a little teary-eyed because I know it's all worth it, the sweat, blood and tears, they came with a reward of making this house our home. For the first time in a long time, I've been so incredibly drained and emotional. It's worth it. I keep telling myself that this way it's going to be my dream kitchen and I don't have lingering thought of who could have cooked in this house before. I love when there's a history to the home, and this home had a great one. The original owner was a Mailman in the town I was born in. He used to help my mom out during the winters and drive her home from work if it was snowing. He was amazing. He did a lot of work, not much of it permitted. When he passed away, his wife sold the property to a family. A couple and their daughter. I guess the husband was a little strange and would take his 4 dogs to the back of the property and just sit. That couple got a divorce and the wife moved out and the home went into a foreclosure. That begins our Legacy and the Kitchen Facelift.

So now that you know a little of the back story, let's share Demolition photos!

STEP TWO: WALLS

Jay doing the taller parts! 

They say many hands make light work.
We can all admit we love a man that cleans.

He really is a blessing of a future Brother in Law

Larry doing his part.

John and his Brother taking care of business.

It took about the full 24 hours to take down the walls and clean it all up. It was a big difference in the kitchen's appearance. 

STEP THREE: THE CEILING! 

John's Brother went over after he got out of work, with Dad
and got the ceiling down for us, this is clean considering what it looked like.

After about 1.5 hours of clean up. Cement board
and sheet rock is a bad combo, NEVER DO IT! 

Found in the ceiling, which means, a mask is more than a must
Mouse droppings are really bad to breathe in, it just got a lot
more disgusting in here.

Welcome to Home Ownership. Suck it up and get to work.

 So that's where we stand, today, Thursday May 15th 2014!

What's the worst thing about owning a home? Share your horror Stories with me below!

<3 nbsp="" p="">Manda

New Home!

So, we did it! We took about a year, we looked at almost 100 houses, we were outbid, we had rejected offers, we had a hard time hearing no! We are happy to have this beautiful house, with an amazing yard and a lot of work to be done.

We bought house! We got the keys yesterday! The thrill of a house was short lived, we went changed the locks, bought a bunch of demolition items and had our first 2 guests! We came back to my current home and slept, ok I didn't sleep, I laid awake and tossed and turned last night. This morning we went to Target, I bought snacks, water and starbucks COFFEE. We got to the house around 9am, we didn't hesitate a second. We started tearing apart the kitchen.

We posted the stove and the dishwasher on Craigslist, we are going to try our hardest to reuse the cabinets. We are on a budget despite how it may look. We took the moulding down, popped up the countertops an tore the cabinets off the wall. A lot of manual labor, and can you believe that it took 5 hours to tear apart a kitchen that measures 21 feet by 13 feet! Our living room is now cabinet city!

We are so excited and really want to just finish all the hard stuff so we can get to the fun stuff like painting!  We are hiring friends to do the HVAC and the Electrical, and my dad is building us bookshelves (for my library)

The kitchen was stripped to the posts and beams today, and when Larry and I left at 1ish, it was only 1/2 done.

I'm not allowed to help with the wall stuff, I do have medical issues that are making it hard to keep up, but I will be posting pictures all along the way, and I will be sharing colors, tools and prices in future posts! Keep up with us!