Drumroll please...

I know, you guys have all been waiting on the edge of your seats... below you will find before pictures of our new house :-)

You can see the very plain front of the house, without even landscaping to speak of!

And here's another shot, with our very nice tree in the front that puts the whole front yard in the shade. It's perfect for Riley to lay under.

Here's half of the kitchen, before we worked our magic on it. I can't wait to show you guys the after pictures, because they are totally different!


Here's the other half of the kitchen, obviously without appliances still, but very plain! It's a really nice size though!



And here's our nice huge living room with the huge picture window in the front. You can kind of see the white fireplace. Someone painted over the brick with white. It's so ugly!

Here's a better (still terrible) shot of the fireplace. Just you wait and see what we did with that

:-)

That's all the pictures I have for now, mostly because my camera is dying and because nothing is working right on my computer. I promise to post some "after" pictures here very shortly.

Thanks for reading!

Wonderful Weekend Pa

So… after everything went crazy on Saturday, things got a little better. Joe proceeded me home after the “accident” and told everyone to leave me alone and not to razz me about it so when I got home, not one person mentioned my stupid mistake. After everyone left (yes, I made EVERYONE leave except one friend who was already asleep inside and he didn’t have anyone to drive him home) and Joe and I were home alone, we talked for a little bit and he told me everything was going to be ok and to stop worrying about it (yeah right!). We went to bed that night with the hopes that things are going to look better.

Sunday morning Riley wakes me up as usual, at about 7:30 AM. That is about the longest she can hold it from the night before. I get myself up and get some clothes on to take her outside and notice something really weird out the front window. First I realize Joe’s friend is already gone and then I notice that the doors and trunk on Joe’s car are wide open. What the heck? I know that Joe wouldn’t have left it like that, especially not overnight. I immediately assume it was one of Joe’s friends that left the car doors open before they left the night before as a prank of some sort, although I can’t quite figure out what the reasoning behind it would be. I do a quick inventory of the car and head inside to wake Joe and tell him what the heck is going on. I also call Joe’s friend to see if he did it. I talk to him for a minute and find out that his car was also broken into and his GPS and digital camera are gone. Joe looks around his car and notices that NOTHING is gone. Not even the 20 he left in plain sight in his center console of his car. We lucked out, but we felt terrible for Joe’s friend. And… before you ask. No… we didn’t file a police report. I had had my fill of police officers for the weekend and nothing was missing from Joe’s car. The only things that were missing were from friend’s car, and he was already gone.

AWESOME. I’m looking forward to a much better weekend this coming weekend!

It’s Been Awhile…

Hello there not-so-avid blog readers (for no other reason than because I haven’t posted in like 10 weeks… or so it seems!) I do apologize for the time, and frankly, I miss blogging and reading the overwhelming comments I get… but I’m in a rut so this has taken a backseat.

As you may know, Joe and I moved into our house this past weekend. By moving in, I mean bringing an overwhelming amount of boxes full of what I have deemed sh**. I have thrown away more in the past few days than I probably have in my entire life. I’m starting fresh, and it feels great. Unfortunately, the fact that we are in is about the ONLY thing going right in my life right now. Let me just tell you about my terrible (possibly the worst I have ever had in many years!) weekend.

First, Saturday morning I have to go pick up the moving truck. The lady behind the counter, while very nice, was way too nice for 8:00 on a Saturday. Long story short I get there and she tells me I’m not old enough to drive the truck. The cut-off is 25 and guess what… I’m only 24. Thankfully I tell the lady I have 3 people at least 25 with me. She proceeds to give me the keys anyway and brush off the fact that I was “underage.” Twenty minutes later we are on our way to the storage shed that has all of our CRAP! In a matter of an hour we had everything loaded up and ready to be unpacked “at home!”
Anyway, after a few hours of moving everything from the storage unit into my house, we were taking a break and some of my husbands incredibly idiotic friends show up with no intention of helping at all. They proceed to set up cornhole and bring a keg and hang out in our backyard. No… I’m not kidding. My husband gets home from work to the craziness and tells his friends he needs help moving some couches, I mean after all, they are drinking themselves stupid in our new backyard. They are pissed that we needed help because they just came to drink and figured all the moving would be done. That would have been enough to set anyone over the edge, right. Oh no, that is just the freakin’ tip of the iceberg people!

After a few more hours of moving, I decide to take the moving truck back. One of my friends is going to follow me and we are going shopping afterwards. What I thought would be a nice way to unwind a crazy hectic day. Well, we get all the way to the truck rental place when I remember that I have to put gas in my truck before returning it. So I take off towards a gas station that I thought would be easier to pull a huge truck out of, into traffic. I find this little (and I mean really little) gas station on the side of the road and don’t see any reason why I can’t get in there. I mean I’ve been driving all day and I haven’t had a problem. Boy was I wrong!

I proceed to pull into the gas station and I knicked the corner of the gas pump. I truly knicked it, I’m not trying to make what I did seem littler than it really was. So, me being the nice and honest person that I am (oh, and did I mention if I would have just left, they would have seen my enormous box truck!) I go inside and tell the foreign attendant that I bumped the gas pump. He comes out to look at it and says that it doesn’t look like anything to him, go ahead and pump my gas. So that is exactly what I do. Until I look over and see that the gas pump I hit (not the one I’m pumping gas from) starts uncontrollably spewing gas out of the bottom of it (not even where I hit it!) I go inside immediately, pretty much sick to my stomach by this time and tell the attendant to shut the thing off because there is gasoline EVERYWHERE! The manager (also foreign) comes out and starts yelling profanity at me and telling me what an f’ing idiot I am for trying to bring the truck into his gas station. Now he is going to sue me… yada yada yada. Now I’m pissed. I’m done with being upset. This guy is yelling and screaming at me over an accident. Not to mention the fact that there is now gasoline all over the place and pooling in the road. All I keep thinking is someone is going to throw their cigarette and I am not even going to get to enjoy my brand new house. The police finally show up and we file a police report and the very nice police officer pumps the rest of my gas for me and takes me inside to pay just to make sure someone doesn’t get hostile again. I don’t get a ticket or anything because it’s on private property. So when I get the rental truck returned and I get home like 5 hours later (no shopping) I call my insurance. They are so nice and tell me to expect a call before noon on Monday.

Yesterday I got the call telling me that they DON’T cover any vehicles that the cargo is separate from the passenger area. So basically, I’m up a crick without a paddle. I’m waiting on the next step and hoping that the man who owns the gas station has an ounce of human in him and just lets his insurance pay for it and lets me pay his deductible or something along those lines.

Moral of the story… check with your insurance BEFORE renting a moving truck. Oh… and don’t hit the gas pump!

I’ll continue with my **wonderful** weekend in my next post.

Coming Along...

So, there isn't a word to describe the exhaustion that I'm feeling. But it's all going to be worth it. Every last second of hard work. The long days at work followed by long nights at our new house (I still like saying it!) are coming to an end, and soon we are going to be living there. Just the two of us, in our very own house. I'm so excited that we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I know that this is a day early, but my husband deserves every bit of praise so I'm saying my husband rocks... Thursday!

Joe has absolutely worked his butt off. He has been getting up early (let me tell you, he is NOT a morning person) and trying to get some things done before going into work, and working after work until I basically have to drag him to bed. He stripped, restained, and refinished the cabinets in my kitchen... just because I didn't like the way they looked! He is replacing most of the light fixtures because they are horrendous! He is such a great husband, and such a hard worker. I'm not sure what he is going to do when we have everything done. He's going to get bored!

Anyway, I promise pictures are coming soon, from both our vacation and before pictures of our house.

Ten Things Tuesday

In light of recent purchases in our family, my ten things are… ten things we have to purchase before we can move into our new house :-)

1. Refrigerator. Although most houses leave their large appliances, we didn’t purchase one of “those” homes. Oh, and did I mention that the hole left for the refrigerator is smaller than standard refrigerators today. This should be fun. Thanks to my husband, who has searched far and wide, we have been able to find a few that will fit in there that are to our liking.

2. Range. Again, not left by previous owner. And to boot, we are very serious when we say we have to have a gas stove/oven. We have rented two different apartments with electric appliances, and I can’t cook anything on electric. Mind you, they were probably the worst quality appliances ever, but I couldn’t even get a chicken breast to cook in less than 5 hours without butterflying it or cutting it into little pieces, and who really wants to do that? Anyway, there is no gas line run to the kitchen, so guess what… we get to spend more money on that! Lucky us!

3. Microwave. Not a huge purchase, and actually the only reason we are buying one is because the owner left a spot above the range for a microwave, and it would look extremely stupid if we just put a hood there. Joe and I never even use the microwave. Joe is convinced it kills all the nutrients in your food, so… if you ever come visit, please use our microwave so it doesn’t feel like we spent a couple hundred bucks on NOTHING.

4. Dishwasher. This was left by the previous owner, but it’s white. Joe and I decided, if we have to buy our own appliances, we are going to go with stainless steel so the white won’t match. If you know anyone who needs a brand-spankin new dishwasher, let me know!

5. Paint. I refuse to live in an all white house. Not only does it get dirty extremely fast, but it’s boring (at least to us) so before we even move in, we are going to paint every room. Yep, you heard right, we are going to paint every room, including the basement. And… I HATE PAINTING. But it’s so worth it in the end!

6. Furniture. We have enough furniture to fill the living room, dining room, kitchen, and 2 of 3 bedrooms, however, we have a finished basement which I am making my husband put the 50” plasma down there because it will look way too big in my living room. So, we are going to put the big TV down stairs, which means we are going to need some couches and stuff to put down there for the guys. (For some reason, the boys are drawn to the TV and we end up hosting all big sporting events at our place!)

7. Electric Fence. The house we bought has a half-acre lot. Enough room for Riley to do all her running. Unfortunately, it isn’t fenced in, and we don’t really want to have to chase a black dog all around Tallmadge, so we are going to buy an underground fence to keep her in our yard.

8. Lawn Products. By lawn products, I mean absolutely anything you need for a yard. We don’t have a lawn mower, weed whacker, garden hose, and whatever else you may need outside. That isn’t my area, so I’m not even sure what Joe has planned for outside, but we are going to have to buy something immediately, as it’s been raining here for the past few days and I’m sure our grass will be nice and long when we get the keys Thursday!

9. Patio Furniture. We have a little concrete patio outside, which will be there only this summer and will be replaced with something next summer (Joe doesn’t know that yet, but I’m already making a list for next year’s projects HAHA!) We have a patio heater, because in Ohio it goes from 90 to 50 at night really quick. We also have a little fire pit. I would ultimately like to get something from Lowe’s that’s on sale, but I don’t think it’s in the budget until next year.

10. Window Coverings. I thought these were pretty cheap, however, I have found some really nice ones and guess what, they aren’t cheap! We also have a HUGE picture window in our living room (which I love) but to put blinds on that is going to cost us an arm and a leg!

Now, with all the stuff that we have to buy, I have to tell you that we got an awesome deal on this house. The gentleman who owns the house (for two more days) bought it as a flip a few years ago, and re-did everything. He even added another bathroom in the basement! The kitchen is brand new, as are the tubs, toilets, and showers in all bathrooms. So while I’m whining about all the expenses we are going to be facing in the next few months/years, we also have a lot of stuff we aren’t going to have to spend any money on, which is fantastic.

On another note, while we are both very excited, we are also very well aware that we are going to be broke for awhile, so if you’re going to ask us to do something, the answer is probably no… followed by an invitation to put on your paintin’ clothes and come over. Oh, and if you happen to have any spare change lying around your house, you can go ahead and put that in an envelope and mail it to us, as we are going to need any and all extra money! HAHA!

As always, thanks so much for reading, and I can’t wait to get some pictures posted. Look for those this coming weekend :-P

Vacation

Well, we are home. We had a great time and beautiful weather but I was ready to come home. Unfortunately, I won't be able to upload pictures for awhile because when I was packing to move out, I packed my camera cord too. Couldn't even tell you where it was if I tried, but I promise as soon as things settle down, I will post some pictures.

I'm looking forward to going through and reading up on everyone's lives while I was away and catching you up on the vacation, but frankly, I'm exhausted today!

One Heck of a Weekend

Well, to start things off, I am EXHAUSTED! Starting Friday night, Joe and I decided that we were going to move out of our apartment. We have to break our lease since it’s not up until January, which isn’t a big deal… except that we need them to get it rented…QUICKLY! As soon as they get it rented again, we are no longer responsible for the rent. So we figured, the quicker we’re out, the quicker they can get moving!

Friday night wasn’t bad for me! I packed up lots of boxes while Joe and a friend moved the washer and dryer, a couch, grill, and our elliptical from the basement. It didn’t look like fun, but there was no way I would be able to help Joe with those, especially with my knee! After those few heavy items, Joe’s friend bailed (smart man!) so Joe and I went out for dinner then came home and finished packing up boxes.

Saturday was a different story for me! I started my day off, playing with the crazy people at the cable company. Have I ever mentioned that I refuse to ever use that company, and will sit without cable before I will ever go back to them! Anyway, after that I stopped off at Home Depot for some nice big boxes. Then, home to continue packing. While Joe was at work, I packed, and made 7/8 trips to our storage unit. Joe got home and I was pooped. He was pleasantly surprised at how hard I worked while he was gone. After two more trips with Joe, we decided enough is enough. I went upstairs to take a nice little nap and was woken up by like 10 people calling (of course, always when I’m trying to sleep!) so I just got up, got a shower and we went out for the night. We went to a local German festival. It was lots of fun! We sat in the beer garden (which wasn’t good for my waistline, but very much needed, for my sanity!). We got home early Saturday night and turned in for the night.

Sunday was also crazy. Joe and I got up pretty early for a Sunday, went to breakfast and returned to finish up all the little packing! Joe’s sister stopped by and we filled her car with stuff that needed to come back to Joe’s parents house for our temporary living space. By four yesterday, we had everything moved out (even beds, mattresses, couches) I really mean everything! We went to dinner at Outback and I had a nice big cheeseburger! I didn’t care that Weight Watchers wouldn’t like that… I don’t know if I’ve been that hungry in a while! I only unpacked enough clothes to get us to work today and then I fell asleep on the couch.

I was a tired girl.

So to let you know, we are temporarily residing in Hartville, and my internet connection to my laptop is terrible. I don’t know how much I will be on in the next month, with vacation and everything too!

Keep us in your thoughts as we get unpacked, just to pack it up and move again!