Summer Series Part 3

This past 'summer day' was especially nice for me. Jon redeemed his Mother's Day gift for me, a super fancy massage at his hotel. Over the course of an hour and a half hot bamboo, mud, and oil all took turns shellacking my skin. It was delicious.

I then got to spend the afternoon with my best high school friend and her sweet babies before picking up my own sweet HP and having a nice dinner with the boys at home.

This past weekend I began tackling project house with renewed gusto. My house is adorable (I think)...too bad no one can see through the shrubbery.

Exhibit A

B

And C

So I broke out the clippers, a shovel and my gardening jeans and spent the better part of Saturday tearing up those half-dead shrubs. I also managed to severally bruise my arms and legs. Ouch.

Whew

The only reason that bush is still there is because I was too tired to finish.

It's a start! Oh hey, check out my little garden :) 

Peas and lettuce!

Garden 2.0

A weekend at home with HP is exactly what I need :) He chose to sleep in our bed for nap time, still there quietly snoring. H has developed my cold unfortunatley. It hung on to me for a full week and made me pretty miserable. Happily for him (us) it looks like its just a runny nose for him.

We had grand plans of burleying to his daycare's carnival this morning. But the weather was too nice not to spend it planting our garden and picnicing on the lawn. Spring has finally sprung.

This year's garden will have 2-3 planting seasons (depending on my level of laziness). The first growing session includes 2 types of peas (Sugar Sanp and Sugar Daddies-hehe), spinach and broccoli.
Session 2: tomato plants (cherry) and zuchinni
Session 3(?): butternut squash

Pictures to come (fyi- it's just a lot of dirt right now...)

Big Boy

HP is napping upstairs! On his very own floor mattress big boy bed! I was a bit more apprehensive about how he'd do napping than sleeping overnight. But yay him (so far)! I've had to lie on the bed with him both times now until he's asleep, and really that is more sweet than annoying. It was a little tricky today though as he really loves tangling his hands in my way-too-long hair. I had to do a Indiana Jones maneuver to get out of it. I quickly switched my head with Mr. Bear. I guess we are similar enough because I was free and tip-toed away.

In other news, we have laundry in the house again! I said enough was enough with the laundromat and bought a used washer for $100 on craigslist. I love that site. My father-in-law helped Jon get it connected and even fixed the gas leak in the dryer. Awesome, so no more crispy towels from being hung out on the line. That is not going to stop me, however, from hanging out the rest of the laundry. Sorry Jon.

House: Year One

It has been an entire year of home owning in Michigan! There has been good there has been bad and a little bit of ugly. But here we remain, more or less happy that we bit the bullet and bought.

In honor of the year I thought I'd highlight the good things that we've done here.

I finally organized that awkward kitchen desk space.

The dinig room got painted red (thanks Katie!), new curtains, curtain rods sans duct tape, and Jon put up our candle wall sconces.

Here's the before picture. I'll probably put those curtains back up for summer.

Does this look boring to you? Well, that's actually what I was going for. This back of the house area was CRAZY with weeds and allowed for an open-door policy to ants to head into the kitchen. Yuck.

Also, next month they'll be an air conditioner sitting on those cement slabs so we wont have to sweat it out this summer.

So after a whole year I think yes, I would do it again.

A Highlight of the House in 10 Pictures

It's hard to take pictures of a house and feel like it captures more than just the basics; room, bedroom, couch, etc. Frustrating.

So I chose to do a walking tour of my house using 10 of my favorite corners, crevices and nooks. Enjoy.

Welcome to my house!

It has been described as a hobbit house, or perhaps a bit trollish?

Ring the bell! H loves to grab the chimes and smash them first thing in the morning.

We are a family of minimalists...just the couch and rocker in the front room.

H's favorite cut out, I can see him jumping down from here in the future...

A view from the stairs, we love the wood floors.

Laundry chute! Check out that awesome wallpaper!

The french doors at the top of the stairs is ideal for keeping H from tumbling down. 

This is right above H's changing table. He loves to point at the pictures and hear about who is in them...yeah mostly just Jon and I!

Something about a curved shower makes me happy :) 

There you have it, some of my favorite bits about our very first house. Come see the rest of it someday!

Burley Babe

H is fast asleep in the burley, snuggled between a Boppy and Brobee. He woke up way early this morning. He sang happily from his crib until 6am when I finally decided his talking was turning to a more demanding tone.

It downpoured last night and I'm sitting on slightly damp wooden steps watching for signals that H is waking. It's a gamble taking him on burley rides in the am before his first nap because he tends to pass out and sleep for a shorter time than he would in bed. Oh well. Can't wake him now.

I am looking around this crazy backyard right now. It is so BUSY with things. The guy that lived here before had a thing for flowers. Yes I like them fine but wow, So many! Tulip, daffodils, tiger lily, a crazy purple bamboo-like plant, roses and then there are the fruit bushes. Raspberries surround the fence on all sides, an old growth grape vie is ranging free and a bizaar plum-like tree is growing knarly looking fruit. And on top of all this there is a gazebo smack dab in the middle.

We need to par down. Plus I's take a garden over flowers any day. It'll be a big project in the fall. A lot of work for a postage stamp sized back yard!

A New Address...but no Mailbox

Talk about feeling busy....

Here I sit in a semi-darkened house, on a sweet new couch with a nice new internet connection in my very first home. Whew. I. am. surrounded. by.boxes. The room is shrinking around me!

But let's update the good things list:
Katie is still a first-rate nephew sitter
Job is going well
I have an 8 minute commute to work
Katie made chocolate chip cookies for dessert
Jon is cleaning the bathroom
HP is sleeping in his new room

Now a list of the not-so-greats:
I DID NOT get into the ING marathon
I have a HOLE in my kitchen ceiling
The gas isn't turned on til tomorrow
No hot water

Wow...clearly more to say but not the time to do. Time to sleep.

Check That one off the List

We. Just. Bought. A. House. For real.

Reality is sneaking around the corner and when I wake up tomorrow I think I might start hyperventilating. Wow. But happily it's like 80% excitement and only 20% vomit inducing. That's a good enough ratio for me.

Packing party tonight with Jonathan, Jets Pizza and a movie!

ReFresh

March is coming to a close! Things are ending, new ones beginning. HP's last day of baby daycare was Friday. He was sad to say goodbye to some of his friends. However saying bye to a certain redheaded Parker was pretty easy. These boys are always in battle when I see them together. Crawling over each other, stealing toys and pulling pacifiers out of mouths (that's Harrison's favorite, he loves popping those plugs out of his friends mouths). Thanks to the triumphant return of Aunt Katie from Yellowstone and the eventual return of his grandparents he'll be in the care of family until August.

We exchanged our books and magazines yesterday at the library for a fresher batch. I LOVE magazines. I'm really into Whole Living and Natural Home (man I feel older saying that...). But honestly for any potential home buyer they're kind of addictive. Sort of like a bride feels about all those bridal magazines. I was reading it and enjoying a cup of coffee with HP pounding puffs into smitherines at his high chair this morning. I saw a lot of projects for my potential backyard. We drove there yesterday with friends and showed them around the backyard. I kind of felt like a trespasser... We happily noticed a million fresh flowers sprouting up all over the place. I've spotted a perfect place for the rain barrel and I'm contemplating where a little garden could work. As far as the actual buying of this potential house we're in mid-stream. Appraisal review this week, finalizing loan, etc.

~~~~~~~

Last March's goals were all health related and I'm happy to say I've completed them! We had our eye appointments last week, H has his a month from now, I'm getting my first total physical this week and our dental appointments are next month. Yay success!

Now for April's goals: make new healthy routines which include the following

~try new recipes for lunch/dinner

~play more (swim/walk/run)

~clean more (for real...)

Wow, me last year!

We're on the Move!

Lots has happened over the course of the week. I'd put them into 3 categories, because that is just what I do.

I. Baby H:

He went from being semi-mobile to a real crawler seemingly within the week. His daycare ladies must have been working him hard because he has launched into true crawling. In addition to that he is really into pulling himself up onto anything he can get his paws on. One of his favorite things to do is stand in his crib and slap the railing as loud as he can.
He is also being a champion sleeper. Waking up around 3/4a for a feeding then rolling back to his tummy for the rest of the night. We are really appreciating that. Will it last, eh? Perhaps.

II.House:

We actually made an offer on this house that we really like. It came back with a counteroffer and after a little discussion we decided to sign that too....whoa.
So now inspections on Monday will tell us if it's a lock. And then...I guess we go from there.
Here's a little written sneak peek on the house:
3 bedrooms all on the upper story, fireplace, bay window, fire pit in backyard, funny little carport, wood floors throughout, nice kitchen, built in 1930.
Things to update: windows! They literally have a pulley system to open them...

III. Me

I am getting back into the swing of working out. Awesome. Played volleyball at the staff v. students game this past week and am sadly feeling it in my arms and stomach. I so miss sports!

I went swimming, delightful! I need to get back into that.
And the house is located 2 blocks away from a bus stop that could take me to the street that I work on. That would be amazing to not have to drive over there and do all that back and forth. And honestly, that's getting way pricey!
Also, we paid off 1 credit card which puts me on track to make my goal of killing 2 by the end of the year! Yay!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

So this house that I like is a real.....um...good deal/first house/fixer upper/solid foundation/good start? All those words that you would use to describe Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. But that came out all right in the end didn't it? All it needed was someone to believe in it.

Here's the good, bad and ugly of my little diamond in the rough:

Good-
sweet wood floors throughout
arches all over the place
fireplace
screen porch
a partial white picket fence (for real!)
3 bedrooms
1 1/2 bathrooms in good repair
backyard with fences

Bad-
chipping, wood siding
old windows
unknown roof/furnace ages

Ugly-
wood panelling basement
appliances in the kitchen

Creepy-
we found out it's an estate house....the one thing Jon was not keen on was the notion of possible hauntings

There it is. Jon gets to see it for the first time today. I'm anxious to hear his thoughts. By the way this house is literally two houses away from the picture-perfect house that ruined me last week.

In anticipation of having at least ONE project in this maybe-house of ours I am currently loving this website:
http://www.younghouselove.com/ , now that is one crafty couple after my own heart.