I love beautiful days!!

We had a great day around here, the weather is beautiful and we got a ton of stuff done outside. We got some ornamental grasses that needed to be planted so we got that done and then we picked up all the reminants of summer projects. Then after that we cleaned up the back patio and moved the grill and furniture down. Plus hubby got some of the tubing buried so it is half done!!

What a wonderful and productive day :)

Garage

I'm happy to announce....I cleaned the garage. I didn't move anything out, but I "neatly" stacked things over in one corner. We have a huge space to the side of our cars but they have cool cabinets that I don't want to block. For now, it is all stacked, but eventually we will get through it and put it away (like when the basement is cleaned in order to stack stuff down there.
But at least you can pull BOTH cars in!!

Garage-CHECK

Family party

I am currently out of town visiting the inlaws. It was a really great day. Z and C wore themselves out playing with everyone. I'm looking forward to a week at home to finish products, but I love visiting!
More later!!

Outside of the House

Okay I'm going to cheat a little bit and give you the one major project that we have finished. This is what the house look liked when we moved in -- well close, the bushes were even more overgrown. And yes I stole this from the county assessors website but since I'm mad at them at the moment I figured all is fair (whole 'nother long story).

Part of our purchase required that we paint the house. Hubby didn't like the bushes or trees so they all had to go, especially the one by the garage because it had overgrown half the garage door. I loved the idea of the shutters, but they were a crappy plastic type that 'melted' when I tried to spray paint them (and yes I used the special plastic spray paint). I am still trying to decide if I want to get new shutters or if I like them like this. What do you think?

I picked the color, but it is blue-er than I had planned. It works well though. Now we are working on the garden part of it, but here it is, our first completed project.

Sleepless night

Tonight was one of those nights...the nights when your mind races a thousand miles a minute and sleep is elusive. So far I have done laundry, written emails, worked on homework that I have been avoiding, and now I am blogging. I really need to sleep.

I'm not sure I mentioned this before and am way to lazy to go look it up so I will mention it again. When we sold our house, we knew we needed to upgrade. We (hubby and I) had a couple of things that we wanted in our new house. I wanted room to expand and a large yard. Hubby wanted a ranch and wanted to be able to do some stuff himself. We probably looked at (and bid on) 20+ houses. Something always went wrong--the house sold while we were bidding, the yard was too small, something didn't feel right, you get the drift. 3+ months of looking, 2 real estate agents, and lots of tears left us searching. When we were 3 weeks away from being homeless we found our house. Loved the neighborhood, loved the yard, loved the house and really, most importantly, we were able to negotiate what we thought was a good price. Okay who am I kidding a great price.

Now 3 months later I am looking at a house that needs new floors, new paint, new counters, new appliances, new everything. I am also looking at 2 months worth of classes until I graduate, a hubby who is starting his MBA, and kids who need mom and dad (but if you ask C she just needs grandma lol). We still love the house, I just don't like the timeline.

Maybe it is because we can't seem to get a project 'completely' done. We got Z's room painted and the furniture in, but it needs to be rearranged and the carpet needs to be replaced and the wall stuff needs to be hung. C's room is painted and the furniture is in, but nothing is on the walls and she still needs outlet covers. They are small stuff but we can't seem to find an hour to get it done. Well actually we had an hour tonight, we spent it playing with toys and reading to C...pretty sure that was more important. (And yes we would have played with Z too, but the kid goes to bed at like 6 pm--and sleeps til 7:30 or 8:00 am. Man I'm lucky!!)

So tonight, as I am sitting here, I decided to visit my favorite blog on home stuff The Nester. I swear she wrote this post for me. It was front and center when I got on and man I think I needed to read it. Home Wasn't Built in a Day. I think I am going to make it my mantra. I am also going to start cataloging what we need to do, have done, and will do on here so you can all see my progress. Plus it will let me show off pictures of the before and after. This is not an all inclusive (are they ever?) list and does not include hubby's outside stuff, well except for getting the flower beds in. And remember I'm not in the least bit creative so if you have ideas for me, feel free to share.

Mom's new blog!

My mom started a new blog today (well I started it a while ago, she just wrote on it today). It is about the horses they have at the farm. Right now she only has 2 posts, but hopefully in the spring she will start posting all the cute baby horse pictures. Check it out:
www.cherryhilltb.blogspot.com
I'm sure she would love to have some hits added!

Otherwise in our life, same old same old. Hopefully more updates to come.

Haha once again I'm failing

Once again, I am failing to keep my blogging going. Probably something about a house taht needs to be put in order.

Though we have some great news around here...Z moved into his OWN bed, in his room which he is sharing with CW, and has gotten back to sleeping through most of the night. This was the norm until we did all the moving then the schedules went to hell. Mom is quite happy to have such a wonderful nights sleep again. Now if hubby would just stop coaching baseball in his sleep everything would be heavenly.

I read the most interesting blog tonight. I absolutely LOVE her writing, and given that she has a bunch that is similar to mine, it gave an interesting insight into the daily adventures. You should check it out here.

Remembering when

...I'm feeling a little nostalgic tonight

...five years ago, Justin was the furthest thing from my mind.

...four years ago tonight we were at the rehearsal dinner, celebrating that tomorrow was our wedding day.

...three years ago last month we were driving like crazy hoping to make it home before the doctors took my baby sister off life support. But her guardian angel was there, and though I spent three weeks living in a hospital room with her, she is alive today.

...two years ago next month I was able to meet the most beautiful daughter anyone has ever seen who made me realize exactly how precious life was.

...one year ago we spent the summer getting ready for Z and spending every free minute with Cw.

...tonight I remember all the reasons I am blessed...

I'm B.A.C.K.

Haha,
I think I've said that before. Well, never the less, I am. The last two months have been filled with wicked craziness. First, and foremost, we sold our house, became homeless for 3 weeks (during which time, my wonderful sister let us live at her house), and finally moved into our own new house. Also within this time, we had a beautiful wedding to attend (and be the Matron of Honor in) along with numerous other off the wall things.

Unfortunately, this whole process has left me disconnected and finding the need to be reflective of our life. Which can be good or bad, depending on the topic. One thing that has been agreed upon by dear husband and I is that with the new house comes the need to GROW UP. Granted, we have been married for 4 years (on Thursday to be exact), just bought our second house--which ironically has become an area of stress for me because everyone assumes it is our first and when I correct them they act like there is no possible way that we could be 25 and at that point but again a topic for another time-- and have two kids. But honestly with our other house we could do just enough to survive but not enough to be truly grown up. But that is going to change because that just doesn't cut it here. In the old house we could go a week (or three) without cleaning but this house is big enough that a week would require an entire day to catch up.

And since I am a planner by nature (which drives hubby and hubby's extended family NUTS) I figured a good way to be accountable would be to share with the whole internet!! My first goal is to cut out the amount of fast food/take out/ and eating out that we do. This requires planning so it seemed like a good place to start. I have been wildly trying to come up with recipes that don't bore me to death so this will be my task for the week (hint hint if you have one you would like to share, please do!)

Next week, I think I'll tackle cleaning :)

More Random Things...

I decided that my last post was quite a nice way to get out all of my thoughts so I figured I would try it again, granted it probably won't be 25, but we'll see.

1. Baseball season starts soon. Ha! I pretend to hate baseball, well I did for a long time. I hated that it made hubby and I live 4+ hours apart for 2 years, I hated that it was, and still is, the reason that hubby has to do more school, I just hated it. Now, well now, I kinda am starting to soften. I'm still not thrilled at the possibility of CW or Z being involved with it, because I saw the trouble it caused, but I'm getting there. Maybe in a couple of years...

2. My mother says I am lamenting on being 'homeless' We sold our house 3 weeks ago, and yet we still haven't bought one. But we found it! It's funny, I love this house but it scares the hell out of me. There is so incredibly much work to be done and I am scared of the possibility. But I love the house. And so does hubby.

3. This house is testing several of my previous random things because a) it scares me that we will fail to make it amazing, b) dad can't just say he likes it, though I swear he does because of his comments, but again I need approval darn it, c) it is big, bad, and scary--but totally worth it if we can pull it out.

4. "Gotta meet the hottie with the million dollar body...." I love NICKELBACK

5. We have 4 weekends, 5 weeks, to get this house packed and I'm gone 3 of them. Yeah that's going to happen.

6. Somehow, not sure how, I managed to pull a B- in my class that I flaked on. I was positive that I was going to be repeating it....

7. I'm really kinda irritated with the agent who is helping us buy a house because we wanted to put a bid in on Friday and he didn't have time til tomorrow--if it sells, I swear they are going to hear me in New York.

8. oooo Tide is on sale at Costco...haha I lead such a boring life.

9. The college is having a job fair for all of us with Masters so they can say they try to make us gainfully employed. I think it is a waste of time but I am going to look anyway because I would love to use my degree.

10. It is 12:29 and I'm not tired.

Okay that's it. off to figure out what I have to do for class this week. muah!