Bad Bad Blogger...

Wow...almost 2 months have gone by since my last post :(

TONS has happened!

I will list everything that has happened and then will make some individual posts with pictures I PROMISE!

I hosted a cupcake swap at my house

We had a house warming party

We got a new PUPPY!

I got a new car!

We went to Bisbee for Springs wedding!

We finished the hall bathroom!

I think thats all the excitment for the past two months! Our one year wedding anniversary is just around the corner! Where does the time go?

Bathroom Ideas

Does this work????

The towels, Shower curtain, bath accessories and towle racks we have laready... everything else is ideas to do in the near-ish future...

Weekly Meal Planning

Man where does the time go? Today marks 2 months of being a home owner...how does that happen? Time just slips on by.

Now that we are moved in and getting settled we are back to preparing meals at home! (Thank god, If either of us had to go through another drive through we were going to lose it) I've decided to start planning our meals a week or so at a time...this will help us with our budget, with eating healthy and will cut down on standing in front of the fridge with the door wide open asking what we should eat for dinner tonight time!

I set up an excel spreadsheet with 2 weeks laid out, I have a grocery list to the side and am going to try to inventory our pantry/fridge so I will always know whats on hand and what we need for certain recipes! Im pretty excited about this!


I went on Rachael Rays site to find 30 minute meals, so we can ease ourselves back into cooking. So here is the next 7 days meal plan.

Today: Whole Wheat Penne with Cauliflower Sauce
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/rachael-ray-30-minute-meals/Whole-Wheat-Penne-with-Cauliflower-Sauce

Thursday: Cracker and Parmesan Crusted Tilapia
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/rachael-ray-30-minute-meals/Cracker-and-Parmesan-Crusted-Fish-Fillets

Friday: Pasta Arrabbiata with Eggplant
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/rachael-ray-30-minute-meals/Pasta-Arrabbiata-with-Eggplant

Saturday: Apricot Poppy Chicken with Dill Potatoes
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/rachael-ray-30-minute-meals/Apricot-Poppy-Chicken-with-Dill-Potatoes

Sunday: Grilled Shrimp and Grits with Spicy Salad
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/rachael-ray-30-minute-meals/Grilled-Shrimp-and--Grits--with-Spicy-Salad

Monday: Creamy Parsley and Pistachio Fettuccine
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/rachael-ray-30-minute-meals/Creamy-Parsley-and-Pistachio-Fettuccine

Tuesday: Grilled Salmon with Wild Rice
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grilled-Salmon/Detail.aspx


I will also be trying to blog on these dishes as I make them!

Whats a STEAMPUNK?

So after much debate...we tossed out the idea of going with an old world/tuscan feel with our home decore and decided to go more towards steam punk...as it incorporate the old school traditional stuff that I like, and the funky modern stuff that micah likes.

Thankfully all the colors that we had already picked out and started putting onthe walls goes with this new scheme.

I put a couple inspiration boards together, its more fun and creative (Which is SO us) The funny thing is, we already had some of these elements in our house...now we just need to pull it together for an over all feel/look :)

I Can Haz Wedding Porn Now?

Here are a few little "boards" I whiped up of some of our wedding photos!

O is for Olivia!

I saw this cute felt book online a few months ago and decided that I wanted to take a crack at it for my niece Olivia and spell out her name in pictures. I have never really done any hand sewing (Just stitching up a hole in clothes, nothing crazy) And I have never done any felting...so I went into this project pretty much blind and hoping that it would turn out half as cute as the one I saw online.

I started it in March, I worked on it just about every night after work, sewing for about 2-3 hours a night. And I spent one whole weekend sewing for about 6 hours a day! I finished it sometime around the end of April, just after Olivia was born :) I estimates that I put about 50-60 hours into this book.

Sooo here it is. Be kind, it was my first time.

O is for Octopus
L is for Lion I is for Insect

V is for Vegetables

I is for Ice Cream Cone

A is for Alligator (Micah drew this one for me, and then I cut it out!)The End...I just realized this is a boring page, it needs some bling :(

House Updates Part Deux

Man! Being a home owner sure isn't easy! Ever since we got the keys to our house on May 8th Micah and I have been over there every day doing something to the house to get it ready for us to move in!

The first project was getting the popcorn ceilings out of there! They are soooo gross and not very pleasing to the eye. We called around to see what it would cost to have a professional do them. The quotes were between $3,000 and $4,000!!! Even if we HAD that kind of money I don't think we would spend it that way. So Saturday the 16th, Micah, his good friend Felix and my brother Tallen were assigned to the task. If you wanna see how its done, here is a link to a video. It cost us $700 in supplies and they had the whole ceiling scraped down in one day!

Project number two goes hand in hand with project number one. We then had to retexturize the ceilings. We started it on the 20th and finished on the 25th. We are going for an old world/Tuscan sort of look in the house, so I wanted a really rustic looking ceiling, a flat boring ceilings just wouldn't do. So we bought some sort of joint compound stuff for dry wall mixed it up and slowly by hand spackled all the ceilings. That was some serious labor! But OMG is it the coolest prettiest ceiling ever! We painted them Behr Swiss Coffee. We had a TON of help on this project from Josh, Tallen, Muriel, Becca, Chet and Kris. With out the help from them, Micah and I would still be standing on chairs spackeling.

This isn't the best picture, but you can see the ceilings are finished, the new fans (3 total) have been hung...and those grandma drapes in the background are gone as of last night!!!

We will call project number four the sanding of the kitchen cabinets. The previous owners fancied the 1980's bone white wash method....

This does not suit our tastes or go with the over all theme. So these are being redone. I took all the doors off and labeled them so they can go back in the right spots. Muriel got all the cabinet bases sanded and now we have a pile of doors waiting to be sanded. Then we can start the staining. We picked out Bombay Mahogany. I cant even wait to see the out come!

Project number five is painting the walls. Its been a fun looong process. Picking out the colors was a process all in its self. My friend Brittany who is getting her degree in interior design came and sat with us one Sunday afternoon and helped us pick out colors and how to use them. Micah and I grew up in houses that always had white walls, so now that we can paint colors we had no idea where to start. Here is our swatch wall...the FC and AW are out of the running. My friend Ashley came over and pitched in on the entry way wall, which we are painting in Behr Sly Fox (Its the SF color in the picture above). The dining room is being done in Behr Wild Porcini

We have ideas for the bedroom and our offices, but no paint swatches on the walls to show for that. Things are coming along nicely. We wouldn't be nearly this far along with out all the help we have received. Which we are so so thankful for! Stay tuned, more updates to come!