Project365: February 13-19

February 19: I had a dentist appointment today. I would have taken a picture from my cleaning adventure but I figured no one needed to see the tools of torture that they use on their victims. Instead, I took a picture of our headboard. Peter’s parents had this charming old headboard laying around in the basement and were kind enough to give it to us. Fact: this is our first headboard since being married. It’s a nice and welcoming change.
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February 18: It’s that time of year…bring out the Girl Scout cookies! Peter surprised me this afternoon with a box of Samoas AND Thin Mints. Um, yum! Sharing isn’t easy…just sayin. I didn’t grow up with these cookies. I don’t even think I had a GS cookie until after I married Peter (I could be wrong). But it didnt take me long to become a fan of them. My favorite are the Samoa cookies. What’s your favorite?

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February 17: Scones for breakfast. Toasted Coconut-Cranberry-Orange scones at that (my own combination). Yum.

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February 16: Family pictures went up today. Simon helped me and was constantly pointing out that “momma” and “daddy” were in them. He gets this big grin on his face when he walks up and down the stairs now. I think he loves his little family. :)

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February 15: We went shopping at 2 thrift stores today. This made me happy. I won’t lie, shopping at any kind of thrift store makes me happy. I love waking in not knowing what to expect. The thrill of finding a good deal is exciting and fun for me. I’m crazy like that. Today, I found the unexpected. I totally wanted to buy this as a prank gift for one of my many friends who are expecting…or hold on to it for myself for whenever I concieve another child. But I couldn’t force myself to pay $6.99 for something that is scientifically proven to be only 50% accurate. Haha!

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February 14: I made heart-shaped pancakes this morning in honor of Valentine’s Day. I realized soon after making the batter, that I was all out of syrup, so I quickly made up some strawberry “syrup”…which turned out quick yummy and made the pancakes all the more valentinesy. These were also special pancakes as they were the first thing I made in my new kitchen. Love!
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February 13: Simon’s first bedtime story read to him in his new room.

Knitting.

I've been all about knitting lately. I sat down last night and took out my current project (mittens for Simon) and knitted for 30 minutes. It was so relaxing...and just what I needed after a stressful week. 

I've set my crochet hook down and have picked up not 2...but 4(!) needles in happy anticipation of what my multiple needles will create. I can't thank my mom enough for showing me how to work with double-pointed needles (dpn).  It took me quite a few tries, getting used to the awkwardness of using more than 2 needles...but I conquered and came out a winner. I still don't like starting off a pattern with dpns, but the more I do, the easier it gets.  My very first project using dpns was an owl. A very cute owl at that. Once I dig out all of my yarn treasures, I'll post a picture of it (I still have to create felt eyes and such for it - so, for now it's a cute little blind purple/yellow owl).

The more I learn, the more I love working with yarn.  I think my next project will be fingerless gloves. They would come in quite handy (ha, no pun intended) for when I sit down to blog, or text, or...knit.  I will leave you with a few pictures of my *hopefully* upcoming projects.  (I doubt I'll do them all...but I can dream).

Project365: February 6-12

February 12 | I bet you didn’t know that shopping carts can make moving out of a third floor apartment easier, did you? Well they can. Elevators are also quite helpful. The combination of the two is dynamite. Bring in 8 wonderful friends and family and you’ve got it made. Today was the great move (in case you didn’t know, and haven’t been following our year-long adventure). We’re exhausted. Although we’re surrounded by boxes (you can’t escape the glare of packing tape), our bed is up and it looks so welcoming - I want to be there.

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February 11 | I almost posted another picture of our packed boxes - just because they’re seriously taking over the entire apartment. But I didn’t. Yay for me. I decided to post a picture of my current favorite magazine. I received my first issue in the mail a couple of days ago and sat down and devoured the first half of it today over lunch. I’m so inspired! I can’t wait to read the whole thing and hopefully create some fun stuff for our new house. :)

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February 10 | Today is my Dad’s birthday. I miss him - darn miles that separate us! Today we also bought a fridge for our new home. I also got my hair cut, packed another couple thousand boxes…and received my first valentine in the mail. Isn’t it sweet?! Check out Jill Denton’s Etsy page - she’s so creative and inspiring!

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February 9 | So many boxes!!

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February 8 | Today was a fun-filled day. Even packing boxes put a smile on my face - we’re one day closer to living in our house! Yay!  Nothing makes me happier than making new friends and spending time with them…and my sweet already friends. I got to do both today (thanks to my wonderful husband who worked from home today so he could watch Simon). This morning I met 4 amazing women at my Titus 2 group and then this evening I got to meet another wonderful person who I’ve only known over the Internet. SO fun. I also got to hang out with my lovely MN. friends. :) Sometimes, I feel so incredibly blessed - tonight was one of those nights. So why the picture of the necklace? I dunno. I was lame tonight and didn’t take any pictures of today’s fun activities, and I’m having a bad face day - so a picture of an unique (and somewhat heavy) necklace that I wore tonight will have to suffice. I’m still trying to decide if I like it or not…thoughts?

February 7 | Monday is my laundry day. I usually have the laundry room all to myself on Monday mornings…and if I’m lucky all of the machines are in working order. I guess that’s one thing that I’ll miss about apartment living - the multiple machines. 2 loads done in half the time! I won’t miss paying $2.00 for each of those loads though.

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February 6 | I woke up this morning, horrified to find myself wearing green nail polish. On a normal day, that woul

d have been fine, but today was Superbowl Sunday and my Steelers were playing against the Green Bay Packers. Green was simply unacceptable. I quickly painted over them with one of my team’s colors: black. Even though the Steelers lost, I’ll still remember the feeling of satisfaction as I painted over the green with the black.

It's the little things...

Mmm, hot coffee on a cool morning. I think I'm going to appreciate my coffee more at the house than I did at the apartment. It's been a big adjustment getting used to the cooler temperature of an old house. Especially when you're used to living on the top floor of an apartment building where it was 80 degrees with the thermostat on low. Yeah. I'm getting flashbacks to my childhood, for sure. I even broke out the slippers (I haven't worn slippers in YEARS). Poor Peter isn't used to it though, it's a bigger adjustment for him than it is for me. Simon doesn't seem to notice the difference. He's always moving, so I think he's just fine. Plus, his room is the warmest room in the whole entire house - score for him at nighttime!! The sunshine that comes in through the windows during the day is incredible. I love it! Every room is lit with this fabulous natural lighting. It not only warms up the house during the day, but it also adds adequate lighting for my daily tasks.

Simon has been waking up wet every morning...again. He goes through these spurts where he'll wake up dry for a few weeks and then BAM he's wet every.single.morning. for about a week. Why is that?! Anyway, on a normal day that would have been really frustrating for me as I would have to try and gather a full load laundry to help me feel better about spending $2 in quarters to wash a load. It was a huge ordeal too, lugging everything (full basket of clothes, laundry detergents, etc.) down the hall with Simon in tow, hoping that there was an empty working machine. Now it's so easy. I just gathered his wet stuff this morning, got him settled in the living room with some warm milk and trekked down to the laundry room with a small load of whites. So nice!

As you can tell from this post, it's the little things that are making me happy today. :)

Homeowners take 2.

We own a house. Whoa. We've owned a house for 8 days now. Double whoa.

I kind of feel like deja vu when it comes to owning a house. Especially last Tuesday when we went through the final walk-through, signed a million papers and got patted on the back for going into debt for the next 30 years. Walking through our home seemed so surreal. I've been down this path before, only to be disappointed. I have to keep reminding myself that this time it's different. We bought the house from normal people - it was a normal sale. We weren't working with a heartless bank and sellers who didn't speak the same language as us. This time it's for REAL. Sigh. I hope the deja vu feeling goes away soon. It probably will once we're all moved in.

February of last year we started looking for a house. It took us a year, a couple dozen walk-throughs, a long waiting approval period, hope, excitement, a failure of a purchase, tears, fears and more tears...another dozen or so walk-throughs, deciding between two amazing houses, another waiting period and now happiness. As cliche as this sounds, God really did have a better house/location for us. This house will be more of a challenge for us, financially - but I know without a doubt that God would rather us depend on Him rather than money, so I'm looking forward to the challenge. Being on a budget will be good for us.

There are so many things about this house that make me feel happy. The first thing that stands out is the exterior. I adore yellow houses. I grew up in a yellow Victorian house and there's something about moving to a new unknown state and city (even though I've been here for almost 5 years - whoa.) and having something close to you that reminds you of "home", that is quite comforting. It's just one more thing that God has brought into my life to make me feel welcomed here in the beautiful Twin Cities. The other thing that stands out is the red door. I've always had a thing for red doors (an obsession really). I even had conceived a plan in my mind to try to convince my husband to buy me a red door for our future house. Guess I can toss that persuasive plan away. ;)



The backyard is luscious and full of life - even under knee deep snow. You can see little fir trees and a couple apple tress (yes, we have TWO apple trees in our backyard) and come Spring, flowers and flowering bushes will be popping up all over the place. SO exciting. I'll have to come back and blog about the backyard (and the sweet former owners) in greater detail some other time.








The pictures of the interior pretty much speak for themselves. Who wouldn't love this layout (okay, I suppose having a bathroom on the main level AND upstairs would be nice...but better upstairs with the bedrooms than down, I think - another advantage of having it upstairs - you get some exercise every time you have to go pee-pee. Ha! Can you tell I have a 2.5 year old?!). ;)



The kitchen is a lot bigger than our current kitchen...you can fit more than 1.5 bodies into it. ;) If I could change one thing in the kitchen, I would add a back door (it currently has a side door) just off of the kitchen, near the basement stairs. There are a couple of windows that let in light, but that's about it. I would love to have a way of seeing Simon playing outside. For now it works though, seeing as there isn't a full size fence in the back yard to allow him to play by himself. Maybe someday we'll get brave and come up with some money to put in a door and a bigger window...and a fence. That would be nice. :)



The basement isn't finished but has much promise of a toy room and a cheery laundry room. I'm going back and forth about having my craft room downstairs in the basement or up in the "guest room". Ah, so many possibilities. Simon's room boasts of the most storage. There's a walk in closet that has a ton of space. I'm thinking Christmas stuff and seasonal clothing will go on one side and a fun play area for the other, for little-boy-Simon.



The Guest bedroom is semi-connected to our bedroom. We'll probably use it as a closet/office/craft/sewing room for now. And once we get our Queen size bed (buh-bye full size), we'll have a bed in the Guest room - I'm thinking I'll try and make it look like a daybed and will use it as a "couch/work space" for now.

I'm so excited about this house. We have yet to meet the neighbors, but we've heard from the former owners that they're super nice...and many of them have kids. I'm so looking forward to this Spring, for many reasons. I can't wait to garden, to play outside with my son, to explore the neighborhood, to have outdoor parties, to bike and run, to spend time across the street at the playground with the other mommies...ah, I could go on and on. All I can say is that this is going to be a great year. :)
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Now we just have to focus on packing up our 1,000 sqf apartment - we move on Saturday!! The huge piles of snow and the cold temps (thank goodness it's going to be above freezing on Saturday!) are going to be two of the hardest things to work around. We're SO grateful for friends and family who have offered to help with the great big move. Hopefully we'll still have those said friends once this whole ordeal is over with. ;)

Project365: January 30 - February 5

February 5 | Today was a tall cup of coffee day. Simon woke up every hour, starting at 1am last night. His nose was stuffy/runny and it was hard for him to breath…therefore making it hard to sleep. Upon hearing his pathetic cries, I would stumble in, wipe his nose, mumble a prayer for him as I caressed his blonde locks of hair and than stumble back into my bed, 2 minutes later. This happened about 5 times total. So yes, Dunn Brothers to the rescue! :)

February 4 | I changed my lock screen wallpaper. This picture makes me happy for so many reasons: 1) The time 7:55pm, because sleepy boy Simon is now sleeping. 2) The day - Fridays are pretty awesome and 3) It’s a whimsical piece of art of a girl in a yellow dress knitting. Love! :)

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February 3 | I just finished knitting my very first pair of mittens…owl mittens at that! I guess you could say I’m going dpn crazy, now that I know how to use them - lol! I came across this easy pattern (originally posted by a fellow Tumblr knitter: rainydaynyc) and I had to give them a try. I did make a small change to the right mitten, making it so I can text-and-wear. Ha! Here’s the free pattern for anyone interested: http://kelbournewoolens.com/giveahoot.html

February 2 | One of the few perks about apartment living is that they plow the lot where you park. Our apt. complex posts signs throughout the building stating the date and time of each plow session. At the bottom of the page they give clear instructions on moving your vehicle…and if you don’t, you get towed. They plowed today. This is how we found the lot 2 hours later - empty (our car pictured). After seeing how sore and wiped out my husband is from shoveling out our new driveway, I have a deeper appreciation of the plowing of our apt. lot.

February 1 | We bought our first house today!! It’s a yellow house with a red front door. This makes me happy. I kind of have an obsession with red doors. And yellow houses make me smile too. It’s charming and cozy and I can’t wait to move in! But first we have to pack up our old place. Yeah.

January 31 | A highlight for Simon is to help with taking the trash out. It’s quite the journey down to the dumpsters. You go down four levels and across a wet underground garage. He loves to carry the light stuff and won’t let me help, even if he starts to show signs of distress. ;) He’s so precious and such a good little helper. :)

January 30 | One of our great finds when we moved to our current apartment was the “Donut Hut”. Their donuts are SO yummy. The best part is, they’re just down the street from us. I’ll miss them when we move. And so will my butt.