Pup-cakes

Happy birthday to our cutest and most annoying puppy!

April 2015

April 2016 - 1 year old!

To celebrate, I decided to make pupcakes! It was totally last minute, so I found a Pinterest recipe with all the stuff I already had and whipped them up to cook during dinner. After bath time - time for pupcakes!

 

All the pupcakes got a simple peanut butter cream cheese frosting. The puppies' got some sausage and a dog treat. The humans' got chocolate kisses.

Kaden almost tried the wrong pupcake - but the chocolate are human approved!

It's snout-licking good!

Animal Wrangling

J goes out of town for work a lot.

Usually he's back within the day or two, but it's become a tradition to get K a stuffed animal while he's gone - most often, a Ty "Beanie Boo" - essentially what took the place of those Beanie Babies that were all the rage in the early aughts. But with big, glittery eyes.

Imagine at least one trip a month (sometimes more!) over the past 3 years. That adds up to a lot of Beanie Boos! Add to that the other stuffed animals kids get as gifts or prizes, and we've got quite a menagerie on our hands. K is never without the Boo of the Moment, and for awhile we would cart the whole crew back and forth every few days from mom's to dad's house. As the group grew, it became more difficult to manage, so we stuck to just one at a time, and the others were split between houses.

Even with the Great Beanie Divide of 2014, we still have a TON of stuffed animals. Maybe it's lingering trauma from the time I found all my stuffed animals in the donate pile, or maybe the fact that she legitimately loves each one of these things, but we can't bring ourselves to cull the herd yet.

So I needed some tricks to keep them all off the floor (and out of the puppy's mouth). We started with a big, pink bucket. It worked well to keep the majority of the toys in an area the approximate size of a big, pink bucket. It did not work so well to find Jinx or Ollie on the night she wanted to sleep with a black cat or pink polka dotted octopus. So I tried Pinterest and found the perfect solution:

Shoe hangers. They worked perfectly as "Beanie Boo Apartments", and she loves deciding who gets to sleep next to whom. It also lets her see everyone, so she can rotate through some of her old favorites as well as new friends. It filled up quickly, and I've added another beside it since I took this photo (there's a bit of an overlap to accommodate the handle, so we're currently 7 x 6 with a few spaces left to fill). 

I went for the classic hammock-in-the-corner for the larger, more sentimental animals - easily pulled down if requested, but out of the way when not being used. The Power Ponies are lined up on the dresser and ready to have their hair brushed, and the big, pink bucket is still in use for big stuffies that get more action.

Gosh, this kid has a lot of toys. 

So far, it's worked. Since October, her room has been the only one in the house that is consistently clean. She gets a quarter for making her bed each morning - if her toys are picked up. But honestly, the combination of having a place for everything to land with a puppy that will chew on toys / shoes if you're not careful has really made that plan stick. 

Any other tips to control the clutter? We did do a gentle culling during the move, and we'll do another at birthday time (I'm going to try one-in-one-out method) but there are still way more toys out than I'd like.

 

Headband Hanger

When K was a baby, her aunt made her this adorable bow hanger: 

It worked fine for most of her bows, but unfortunately we had no way to keep her many, many headbands together. I tried (photo above) to fold over the ends of the ribbons and secure them with bows. Unfortunately, a) she has more headbands and b) as soon as she wanted one of those bows, the whole thing fell apart. 

Since we love the hanger, I wanted to do something that would enhance its usefulness, without being a permanent change (just in case I screwed it up royally). So I went to my ribbon stash and found a pretty good match for the existing green polka dots! 

Option 1 was to put a third strip between the other two. This seems like a more natural fix, since the ribbons aren't exactly the same. Unfortunately, it also means the headbands will be covering the left and right ribbons. 

Option 2 is to add the new ribbon in front of the original. The ribbons wouldn't match, but it would leave more space for hanging headbands. 

I got started looping the ribbon, using hot glue to hold the headband loops in place, and figured I'd make the decision between option 1 and 2 once all was said and done. 

In the end I went with... option 1. It seemed like the easiest way to attach the ribbon without making a permanent change. Just a little hot glue to the back...

And here is the finished product! I may change my mind in the future about the 3 ribbons, but for now at least her headband collection has a home!

A Bit of Polish

We've had a problem recently. With hair brushes. 

K hates to have her hair brushed or combed in any way. Unfortunately, curly hair left to its own devices tends to become dreadlocks if you don't get a brush through it now and again. I blame this for the reason that brushes keep managing to disappear in our house (she swears that she's not hiding them)... 

So when I went on a new brush run earlier, I thought I'd try something to make hers a little more personal - maybe it will stay around longer.

I was afraid to use my paint pens, since I was pretty sure it would chip off. When I was a kid, my mom wrote my name on everything in nail polish. So why shouldn't I try the same? I looked up a My Little Pony font and copied it onto her brush with some purple polish (and glittery top coat). I did try some paint pen highlights to clean up the edges. With a leaky pen, leaving it alone might have been a better idea, but here's the finished product: 

She loved it, and wanted to make one for me. Unfortunately, my new brush is black - so I gave her my old brush (the gel handle is leaking) and some sharpies. Here's her masterpiece - she wanted to point to our name for the picture: 

I guess now that means I can't get rid of my old brush, either... 

Since last time...

Hey, guess what takes up a lot of time when you could be writing blog posts?

Getting married... honeymooning... moving in together... holidays... busy season at work...

... but since I don't really have that many readers, I guess it doesn't matter that I've skipped a few (or 6 months).

I'm finally starting to settle back in to regular life, so hopefully I'll be back here soon!

Mental Note:

When you move, the first thing you should do is change your address on the wedding registry. 

Sincerely, 

The Girl Who's Been on the Phone with Macy's for 30 Minutes and Counting

Three angles

There are approximately 3 angles from which this house looks clean / unpacked:

Sitting in the front room, looking to the back. 

We don't have a dining room table yet, so bonus clean!

The living room. 

This was supposed to be the dining room (according to the floor plan), but then we bought the biggest sofa known to man and needed more wall space. 

The kitchen.

All the stuff is in cabinets, so this was the first "clean" room in the house!

I don't live there anymore

After several days lugging everything I own across state lines in 90+ degree heat, subsisting solely on pizza and sheer willpower... I live in Indiana.

(Justin says this makes me a Hoosier, but I beg to differ. I think Hoosier is a state of mind. Don't let him quote Wikipedia at you.)

I was cleaning my old apartment until well past 11 pm tonight. I'm not much for scrubbing usually, but it was cathartic today. I just had some time to think about my life, and where it's going. As I cleaned my way out of the apartment, turning out the lights as I mopped room by room, I felt like I was saying goodbye to my youth in a way. This was my last "bachelorette" pad - I'm trading in my life of solitude (and knowing everything is exactly where I left it last) for a precocious 5 year old, two rowdy puppies... and the love of my life.

July Stitch Fix

On moving day, I had one extra box to take over - my Stitch Fix! It showed up just as we were taking a load to the new house. It's been awhile since I've scheduled a fix (and I got too busy to direct this one much), so I was excited to see what was in it!

(I apologize off the bat for blurry, poorly framed, phone pictures. I'm in the middle of moving, for crying out loud!)

So far so good...

In the past, I've requested colors and patterns - because I always love them on other people, but never seem to pick them up in the store. I was glad to see lots of color as soon as I opened my box!

Right on top was a shirt that seemed right up my alley - the Fun2Fun Bosley V-Neck Blouse. It is made of a super-light material that will be great in the summer heat, but (most importantly) wasn't see-through.

It has an key hole in the back that means I'll probably have to wear it with a strapless bra, but I think it adds more interest to the piece. 

Verdict: Loved it! Kept. 

I've paired it in these photos with another piece, the black Margaret M Emer High Waisted Cropped Trouser. 

I think these are a stitch fix staple, because I received these in my first fix - as did a few of my friends! My coworker Sally and I refer to them as the sisterhood of the traveling pants, because they look great on everyone. The cropped version, though - looked like I was wearing my kid sister's clothes. 

Verdict: Cropped pants rarely work for me. Returned.

Collective Concepts Rilo Button Up Blouse

I went back and forth on this piece. It is a different style than many of my clothes, which I usually welcome. In the end, the pattern was a little too camo-meets old lady for me, and I knew I'd never really wear it. Now that I'm looking at the pictures, I wonder whether I made the right choice. I like it with those jeans...

Verdict: Returned

Hailey 23 Kerrigan Dress

This dress had a stretchy blue top and lacy-textured bottom. I went back and forth on this one as well, especially since it fits my wedding theme, and I thought I could wear it to a shower or something. In reality, I didn't love the bottom half and don't think I'd wear it enough to justify the expense. 

Verdict: Returned

Zad Ahmad Mixed Bead Earrings

I don't often keep the jewelry that I receive in Fixes, since I am so particular about what I wear. I've been tempted to take it off my fix list, but I'm glad I didn't. I love these!

Verdict: Kept


Considering Stitch Fix? I've been doing it for almost a year and I always love getting a new box! Sign up with this link and I'll get a referral credit!

Some photos of my favorite Fixes (or at least the ones I've had professionally photographed):

This blue dress is SO comfy. I can dress it up or down with jewelry or cardigans.

(photos by All Angles Photography)

I asked for a white shirt with a little detail that I could use as a staple with pants or skirts, for work or weekend. Loved this one (and that both came the day before my engagement photo shoot)!

Moving Day!

I'll just leave you with this...

My apartment

This is what my apartment looks like right now.

Fingers crossed I'll be ready to move on Saturday!

We own a house!

This afternoon, J and I took off work early and bought a house.

As you do.

The process involved signing / initialing a LOT of paper (they gave us our copies on disk - saving trees!), but I'm so grateful to Mike Ryan - our realtor, Guaranteed Rate - our mortgage company, and Kemp Title agency - who made the whole process go so smoothly!

I am also grateful to the previous owners, who left wine in the fridge :)

Knocking on wood...

To date, this process has been deceptively easy. We found a house. Made an offer. It was accepted. Inspection was clear(ish). Appraisal was great. The loan went through.

We're a week and a half away from closing, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Justin suggested getting my utilities switched, and I balked. I realized that I'm subconsciously not even packing 100%... just in case.

Inspection update

So yesterday was our inspection.

I was so nervous, but it went really well. There are a few things we'll need to update or fix - our A/C is past it's designed life, but still working well... for now. Something about resurfacing box gutters seems to solve 90% of the rest of our problems. Overall, the bug/radon guy and both of our general inspectors (we had quite the team over last night!) have told us the house is in great condition for it's age, so I feel so. much. better.

Also, if you're in the Louisville / S. Indiana area and need home inspectors, I'd recommend Home Team. They were awesome.

While the fellas were at work crawling through every imaginable space in the new house, I got to spend some more time measuring and mentally placing furniture. Somehow I completely missed the fact that there is no closet in the master bedroom, so that might get swapped with the former guest room. The room is a bit darker, but there is a hanging rod in the 1-ft deep closet (?!?), so I feel like I'm already ahead of the game. Also, I will be sleeping in my bedroom, and I like the dark. So maybe not such a bad thing.

I was going to include a screen shot of the floor plan here, but apparently this app makes you pay for that. I mean, it makes sense - but not worth it for this post. So just make it up in your head and I'm sure that's exactly right. Or probably not.

Anxiety

I feel a little erratic, looking at what's posted on here - it's like hooray! boo! exciting excitement yay! AAAAGGGHHH!

But I also think that's consistent with someone who is buying a house and getting married and oh yeah decided a puppy would be a fun addition to the mix. Most of my life feels a little hooray! boo! exciting excitement yay! AAAGGGHHH!

Today's AAAGGGHHH - the inspection is tomorrow afternoon. I am deeply afraid the house is going to fall down. Or that the ensuing appraisal will fail. Or that the other shoe will drop, in general.

Crossing fingers.

Colors

I love reading home improvement and family blogs, I have for years. My friends and I laugh when we catch ourselves referring to the decisions of John and Sherry (RIP YoungHouseLove) or Katie and Jeremy like they are people we know personally.

Part of realizing I am not Sherry Petersik is what led us to buy a home that needs less TLC than Justin's current home. I love watching people put a room together board by board. I don't love spending my weekends doing home improvement work. This is something I now know and have accepted about myself.

That being said - I was reading the most recent post on Bower Power and followed a link to an older post about paint schemes. She had painted rooms haphazardly as they were completed, and now had a hodgepodge of paint colors to keep track of. Since we haven't lifted a brush in this new house yet, I thought it would be a good idea to pick a few basic colors we'll stick to throughout the process. I actually like many of her colors as a starting off point.

The top row is meant to be wall colors, the bottom is accents. Perhaps this is where I'll start my planning as well.  It's based around Justin's favorite, gray, with several of my favorite bluey-greens. Since our house is currently a beige-y taupe, we need to shift the color palette towards gray while also recognizing that there are things like brown-based tile to deal with.

Stay tuned for updates!

Today's "mood board"

So I know it's a stretch to call these mood boards, but I like to get a visual for what I'm hoping the room to resemble.

Here's the upstairs bathroom now:

Again with my sketchy use of the Behr ColorSmart website (there were no bathrooms that resemble anything like a normal bathroom, so I fudged it with a mud room):

My goal is to bridge the beige tile with the gray we're planning on painting the house. I think I'll use blues and teals (which are my favorite anyway) for the rooms where we can't get away from brown tones. The color here is majestic blue. The curtain is the closest I can find to one I got at Target. It's pretty close, but it's a window curtain instead of shower. I don't know why they haven't posted the new collection on their website yet.

I like the way the white pops on the dark blue, so I might switch out the mirror for one with a white frame. I love that this one has a shelf!

We'll also have to find a towel storage option. I'm a fan of hooks over the door, which I've already got in place at my current apartment, so I'll just have to see if we can make it work for a family of 3.

The Fun Part!

So I'm overselling it a little, but I do think this is kind of the fun part of buying a house.

1. No problems yet - we haven't had the inspection, so I can't worry about whether the ___ is going to collapse or explode or ... whatever else could go wrong in a house. 

2. I haven't spent any money yet (earnest money aside, but I'll get that "back")

3. Now I get to draw floor plans and pick colors!

I'm going to do this in a mood board rollout, because I think that sounds fun and it's my blog and there's probably no one else reading this anyway.

So this is our bedroom now:

And this is how I envision it:

This is our bedding set, superimposed on one of those online color-picker things. This happens to be Behr Nile River.

Our bedroom has wainscoting, which I find totally appropriate. Right now the walls and wainscoting are painted the same beige color, but we’re taking it back to the more traditional white. The furniture is a hand me down from my aunt, and at some point (SOON) we'll have to build a closet. Because this house, while big and gorgeous, has closets about 1 feet deep, max. No hanging rods or anything. That might be the first project I hand over to mom when she comes to visit. ;-)

A Change in Plans

So on Monday we looked at a lovely, well-kept, craftsman-style home. On Tuesday we made an offer, counteroffers happened Wednesday, and by Thursday... it was clear this was not going to be our new home:

While we were waiting for the (ultimately disappointing) counter offer, I found this house:

It had just gone on the market that day. It was 700 square feet larger, for 20% less - a few blocks away, but facing a busier road (hence the price break). Everything that concerned us about the first house (small bedrooms, and only 3 of them) was solved in spades in this house - we could make 7 massive bedrooms and still have living space if we wanted. And what we loved about the other house (old house charm and lots of "introvert spaces") were still there.

So yesterday we made an offer. Today they accepted it. Now the roller coaster begins!

Amazing!

I have a dear friend who is also facing some autoimmune challenges.

To be fair, she's been handling her health challenges gracefully for far longer than I. With this unfortunate head start, she also has a few unique insights for pain management - that don't conflict with my NSAID pain relievers.

Recently she recommended peppermint oil.

I have had various friends use / sell oils for years now with mixed results. Some swear by it, others haven't seen a big difference. They're not cheap, so I held off. But with my most recent flare, I was desperate for some relief. I knew they sold oils at my chiropractor, so I was in luck. I bought a vial after my appointment yesterday and tipped a little on to the offending right pointer finger.

The pain went away. Immediately.

To be fair, I'm in the midst of a huge flare and still woke up this morning sore in just about every muscle and joint. Reapplying the oil today helped, but didn't take away all of the pain. I am so grateful, though, for a new trick in my arsenal.

Everything I read about Rheumatoid Arthritis is so doom and gloom. I know that these blogs and message boards are a way for people with RA to commiserate and validate the way they feel, but what I really want is to find a community like the one my friend Liz has for "girls with IBD and ostomies inspiring one another" (Girls with Guts) - a place where I can get tips like this, or celebrate the strong days, without constant stories of how I'll be in a wheelchair by 40.