The House: Guest Room, Guest Bath and Nursery

Getting the guest room, guest bath and nursery completed was the easiest rooms to do. As soon as the book cases are done we can finish the loft and office. The living room, kitchen and master are going to be the hardest.

The following rooms are not finished 100%. We have plans to paint the rooms and there is a picture that needs to be hung in the guest room but that really is about it. Oh and we have to get blinds up as well. Dave took the measurements and hopefully he will get back with us soon about that.

Guest Room:

Yup, if you have been following the blog you will be a bit confused as I had been calling this room the nursery from the get go. Based on the size of the room and where the doors were the furniture we had fit a lot better in this room then the other so we made this the guest room.

Excuse the curtains we are having to use as blinds

The bed and the book case/dresser are Brian's when he was growing up

The bed is made with hospital corners just like Daddy taught me :)

The bed is supposed to be a full but all of the full sheets barely cover it. It is fine for now but when I start feeling rich I am going to get a set of queen sheets and blankets so that our guests aren't fighting trying to keep the sheets on the bed as they sleep. One of Gramma's paintings is going to go right above the head board

Guest Bath:

Yup, that is the shower curtain from our master bath in the apartment

Me and the towels I got to go with the shower curtain

While I didn't like the pepto bismal pink bathroom, I did like our shower curtain in our apartment. Plus when we paint the guest room and nursery the shower curtain should go with both colors which I think will help tie the rooms together. I was reading someone's blog about how you should have towels and sheets specifically for guests. Since our bed now is a King all of our old sheets are now used for the guest room (until I feel rich and buy a set or two of Queen sheets for the guest room) but I did feel that it would make it easier to have specific towels for the guest room. I chose these light teal towels for this bathroom. The closet behind me holds the sheets, the matching bath towels and blankets for the guest room and the nursery. There isn't that many for the nursery just one set of twin sheets but when we get more that will be where they will go.

Nursery:

Not much to see at the moment. The furniture I am planning on putting in here wont be here till July when my parents move down. Because of that, this is probably going to be the first room to be painted after the Master Bedroom as it will be empty and easier to do. Currently it is where I am storing my craft supplies. I am not sure what is in those bags....I should probably find out shouldn't I?

So that is what we have "finished" so far. The kitchen, living room and master bedroom are getting there. We are waiting for a few things to get done but I should be able to post pictures of them soon. The dining room is almost done, we just have a few more boxes to unpack so that will probably be next.

My 27th Birthday Party!

I was thrown a wonderful birthday part by the girls at work on the 20th! Remember the people I went to see the haunted house with back in October? These are the same girls! We have plans for nearly every month to get together! January they threw me a birthday/bachelorette party, in February I am hosting a wine tasting while doing wii Zumba/Lets Dance, in March Sherry and Janet are throwing a St Patty's day party and that is as far as we have gotten so far. I am having so much fun and I am so glad I met these girls. They are so helpful at work and so fun to be with after! I finally feel like an actual adult since I have a social life now!

Anyway we first met at a sushi place in the area that Anna and I live (Anna and I are basically neighbors). I did not try the sushi but I had the hibachi plate with a tnt roll (tnt roll=fried sushi) which was very yummy! I did not get any pictures but Anna advised that I should get a small even though we were there to pig out and boy was she right! The small was more then enough, hard for me to imagine what a large would be. Anna and Kelly had the same thing I did and Janet and Sherry had various sushi rolls. Everyone enjoyed their meals and I am excited to take Brian there!

We did have some drama though! Kelly showed up one week early and then Janet and Sherry showed up at the wrong location on the 20th! The restaurant is called King Kong sushi and there are two locations, one at Broadway and one where I live. Well, they went to the Broadway one. Anna, who was orchestrating the whole thing, was so embarrassed that she didn't make the location clear enough but it was definitely a good laugh. I think Anna did make it clear enough and Janet and Sherry were just so excited to come they didnt pay much attention. I have done that MANY a time and as far as I was concerned it only made the night better as we had something to laugh about as soon as Anna realized no one was mad at her :)

After dinner we all drove to Anna's house. Her house is so cute and she really is almost our neighbors. Our neighborhoods touch and if there weren't two houses in the way I could walk to her house. I thought we were just going for a glass of wine and girl talk but they planned an actual party with a cake and presents! I even got to practice my proper southern poses. ALL southern girls put their hands on their hips in pictures....us northern girls haven't really figured out what to do with our hands so when Janet, Anna and I take a picture together it is quite comical as it is clear that I am NOT a southern girl. Janet was awesome and took pictures for me!

Anna and Sherry opening the wine

Kelly (Left) and Sherry (Right)

Me showing off Anna's present!

Me and Janet...I am trying to figure out how to hold a glass of wine and put my hand on my hip

Sherry and I

Sherry being funny and me with my southern belle look

Me blowing out the candles on the cake Anna made me!

Me buy the presents and decorations!

Me opening Kelly's present

Me laughing at Sherry's present :)

Me and Kelly's present!

I had a wonderful time! The girls are all so sweet and funny. The evenings go buy so fast but I love how we all found each other. If any of the girls are reading this: Thank you! The gifts and cake were unnecessary but greatly appreciated! Can not thank you girls enough!

Fitness Update:

Wow, it has been awhile. Still now washer/dryer....well not a working set. Dryer is fine, washer is not working. Frustrating but I am plugging along.

Probably about the biggest piece of news is that I am in training for a 10k at the end of March and a 5k at the end of May and maybe some other tiny races in between/before. My friend Janet wanted to join works walking/running club as I may have told you (cannot remember and too lazy to look back) and as a good friend I allowed myself to be suckered into joining her.

While I will keep up with what classes I am taking and enjoying and what I am doing, unless I lose a significant amount of weight or inches I probably will not do a picture post. I really don't see me getting that much smaller and the camera isn't capturing my real size.

I am officially a medium on top and a size 8 on the bottom. I last weighed 145lbs but that was before I started gaining muscle back. I feel like even in the last week I am looking more toned then I did before I had to take the break to move. I did have to take the wedding dress in at least an inch on each side. If it wasn't clear I had lost weight before, it definitely was when I put the dress on.

Anyway on to my schedule. The running club is not meant, in my eyes, as something that takes away from my current work out plan but something that adds to it. Christina, the manager of our gym) is suggesting "Hal Higdon's 10k Training Program" (don't ask me who he is) and I was able to adjust it to work with my current class schedule at work. His program is for 8 weeks so as I get further I end up doing more)

Monday:
Per Hal: Stretch and Strengthen which will be the lunch class of toning and the evening class of boot camp

Tuesday:
Per Hal: Cross training which will be Step at lunch and Zumba in the evenings

Wednesday:
Per Hal: Running (at first 2.5 miles working my way up to 3 miles) in the evening and Rep Reebok class at lunch (toning/endurance/strength)

Thursday:
Per Hal: Cross training which will be Zumba during lunch and Mind/Body (intense yoga) at night

Friday:
Per Hal: Running 2 miles each Friday and strength which will be Triple Threat during lunch (toning)

Saturday:
Per Hal: rest day

Sunday: (Yes I am going to have to run on Sundays :( )
Per Hal: Running, starting at 3 miles and by the end of the 8 weeks, right before the race, I should be running 5.5 miles.

I didn't really have to do that much with Hal's schedule. He originally had me running Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and resting on Friday's. That didnt work with the class schedule so I just switched it up a bit. Also apparently doing the elliptical is not close enough to running on the treadmill to count :(. I started this on Monday, hopefully I will be able to keep up with it. For the days I am running outside of Sunday, if it takes me less then an hour to run the allotted miles I will walk the rest of the hour.

Lets move on to pictures shall we?

Yes Brian is laughing at me trying to take pictures of myself and not helping

I am much tinier and thinner then these pictures show, especially the hip area. Oh well.

The next posts I have up myself are my bachelorette/birthday party thrown by girls at work, fashion show of the great clothes I found and the Master bedroom and guest bedroom

Is it Saturday yet?

And I do not even know if I want it to be Saturday because that isn't any less busy. I will hopefully write a real post this weekend but I wanted to at least put a synopsis up as it has been 8 days since I updated.

1) I turned 27 on the 15th. Brian, my parents and I spent the time in Charleston looking at houses, eating WAY too much and just enjoying each others company. A real post on this later.

2) House is moving along. Bedroom furniture arrived so we are starting to put clothes away. Our bed doesnt require the box spring but Brian had it put in anyway so now the bed is ridiculously high. Brian LOVES it....I hate it. Once I am up I am fine though curious to see how close we would be to the ceiling fan we have yet to buy but I do not like getting up or down. The king size was a good move.

3) My friends from work are throwing me a bachelorette/birthday party on Friday. A real post with pictures from that awesomeness. We are going to eat a sushi place (never had sushi before so we shall see) and then hang out at Anna's house who incidentally lives in the next neighborhood

4) Washer and Dryer are still not here but I gave up waiting on them and am using Caroline's washer/dryer. Because of this I am back at the gym. I started Monday and boy am I sore! Janet, one of my friends at work, somehow convinced me that I should join the running club at work so now we are signed up for a 5k and a 10k. I have two goals: 1) finish and 2) hopefully stay running the whole time...maybe not fast but I do not want to walk at any point if I can help it. Goal number 1 is more important then goal number 2. I will do a separate post on my new regime but let me just say running is not for me.

5) I got some birthday money for work clothes so I went shopping! I never used to understand how people could go nuts with shopping. Whenever I would go I would end up in tears because nothing fit me right so I was lucky to find something to spend my money on let alone somethings to make me spend too much money. Well, with the weight loss and tone I can definitely understand how someone can go overboard. I had a very successful trip and it may have been the first time in 27 years I did not cry shopping for clothes! First time for everything right? I plan to do a photo shoot as well for this.

6) Work is going well. We have another test coming up on the 27th so I am studying very hard. We have had overtime offered to us even though we are still trainees so I have been doing a lot of that. Still having fun but I had my first bawler.....not crying, absolutely bawling. I felt so bad, I could definitely understand her frustration and I tried to make her feel better but I think I ended up just making it worse. Definitely not fun, I was able to resolve the situation by the time the phone call ended but I just felt so bad for the caller. :(

Anyway Saturday is more overtime but after that a bridesmaid and I am going to get our dresses fitted and if there is time Brian and I are buying our wedding bands. Less then 6 weeks.....

Whew!

The house is coming along. Everything is fixed with the plumbing and the wiring, we are now just waiting till the end of the 30 days to get the final touch ups. The USPS still has yet to validate our address and we did our mail forwarding a week before we moved....do any of you know how long it takes for the USPS to validate an address? Fortunately our bills are mostly electronic but we have things we need to order and are currently stuck using other people's homes.

The wedding is within 2 months. Two of the bridesmaids dresses are in, I haven't heard about the other girls. I am getting my dress fitted on Saturday the 21st and hopefully Brian and I will get our wedding bands that day as well. We may have an issues with getting Pansies (the flower that inspired it all) and I frankly don't care that much. I would still like them and we will still try but if we can't find pansies oh well, other flowers will work just as well.

I have been working tons of over time while it is being offered. Our goal is to make 1 extra mortgage payment each year (just doing that will knock about 12 years off the loan, making 2 extra payments doesnt make enough of a difference to make it worth the effort or struggle). So to do this we need to save $115 each month so at the end of the year we can make that payment. My idea is that the first $150 (yes we like to over estimate, it usually works in our favor) I make in overtime each month will go towards that. Any money from overtime after that will be used for whatever we decide needs it more at the time. Right now it is Brian's credit card, it might be projects later on, or it might just go to savings.

I am working on getting the house ready for pictures but cleaning/organizing is still hard as we are still missing things we need. This weekend my parents are taking us to Charleston for my bday but we are coming back on Sunday (my actual birthday) and I think Brian and I are going to use that as the big push of getting everything we can organized so I can start taking pictures and showing you.

I will leave you a picture of our bath tub in the master....

Yes those are the big fluffy cow, big fluffy duck and big fluffy penguin that almost take up the entire seat of Brian's recliner hanging out in the same tub with plenty of room. I am in heaven :)

The House and projects 2 :)

Here is the updated project list. We tried to order it by first doing things we need to do and then by things we would like to do. We also ordered it by ease....like it is easier and better to tile before you paint, etc. There are some things that may fluctuate based on time and money but this is what we are thinking about.

Want/Need

Blinds

Lighting for master

Ceiling fan for master

Paint master

Paint dining room

Paint garage floor

Spice rack for kitchen

Tile master bath

Tile office bath

Tile half bath

Tile guest bath

Tile utility room

Tile porch and patio

Paint kitchen

Paint living room

Paint upstairs loft/office

Ceiling fans for downstairs

Dishwasher

Grill

Dining room set

Patio furniture

TV's for loft and office

Coffee table for loft

Shelving for office

Four port hub

If you can remember our list from WAY back then we have the washer/dryer, refrigerator, bedroom set (YAYAYAYAYAYYAY!!!!!) and our friend Dave is making is making us some book cases for the Loft. Brian is SO excited about his loft and office and he has some great plans for it. I have been trying to leave everything up to him but he keeps asking what I want. I try to say "no, it is your room" but he never likes that answer.


The biggest thing causing a hick up/delay is the blinds. We have 15 windows that need blinds. We should do the rooms that absolutely need them first, I think everyone agrees. Because of Brian's light sensitivity that leaves 2 windows that can wait to have blinds but at that point there is very little point to leaving those 2 windows for later. We first tried with Lowes but the Lowes person never called us back...apparently he didnt need or want the business. Then we tried with Costco's contractor and they were awesome...but expensive. They wanted 7k to do plantation shutters throughout the house! I am not sure this house is worth shutters that cost 7k. Obviously we aren't looking to do that. So we are looking at other options. Our friend Dave is a builder and he measured all of our windows for us and is going to Lowe's/Home Depot and see if he can get us a better deal. Blinds are not cheap, even the cheap ones aren't cheap. We don't want to put up cheap ones we hate to replace them later since we will end up spending more money that way so now we are trying to figure out how to get ones we like cheap enough that we can do it. Once we figure out what we need to do about blinds we can start to see what project we can scratch off the list next.

Missing my puppies

The house is slowly but surely getting there. There is still plenty the builder's need to fix but we are getting organized. We did the surround sound last night and will do the game consoles tonight and the living room will be done except for some few things. Bedroom set will be here on the 14th so that will help in the master bedroom. Brian's book shelves are going to be done in two weeks so that will help with his loft. We are still trying to figure out what to do about blinds, one of our builder friends measured last night to see if he could get us a much better deal but that is about it for now. There is a list of projects but everything else can wait.

So I am just stuck missing my puppies and I found these pics on my phone and I thought I would share

2011: A Year in Review

.... And what a year it was!

January 2011:

-I got to play with some pretty cute babies!

-I celebrated my 26th birthday in Charleston with Brian
-I completed three projects which I haven't updated since then so I will have to do that again
-Read some good books and attempted and failed a 30 day challenge

February 2011

-Brian accepted and started working for the Cable company he is at now
-I realized I shouldn't drink caffeinated coffee
-Started my knitting project that I haven't finished and have changed the scope of :)
-Played with some more cute babies
-Watched the Superbowl, celebrated VDay
-Ate some really good meals that we either cooked or found at a restaurant

March 2011

-Played with the babies some more:

-And read some more books...

April 2011

-Picked up starfish from the beach
-Played with the babies
-Knitting took up a lot of time...

May 2011

-Got my baby fix:

-Went shopping for a dresser that turned into this house.....
-Shared more recipes
-Kept on knitting

June 2011

-Revamped our budget
-Talked about the possibilities of this house
-Met another cutie

-Shared more recipes and knitted some more
-Accepted and started the job at the insurance benefit where I am today and started my journey with the fitness center

July 2011

-Started updating my fitness routine and it's results
-Started enjoying your typical M-F work hours
-Babies no longer played with on a regular basis :(
-Shared our menu for the month
 -Became engaged, wedding set for 03.03.12

September 2011

-Signed the paperwork for this house
-The babies turn 1 and meet

-More recipes and fitness updates

October 2011

-House started being built so gave plenty of updates about that
-Shared more recipes
-Started seeing real results with the fitness center and my new ways of eating
-Started hanging out with friends from work

November 2011

-More and more updates on the house
-Christmas Ideas
-Fitness updates

December 2011

-Very little happened other then finishing the house

This year was very busy but a very good year. The house has and still is a major source of aggravation and as I sit here today, we have less then 2 months until the wedding. I cannot wait for the wedding to be over, yes of course to be married to Brian but also to have life slow down and one less thing to worry about. Still have no idea what song Brian and I will dance too or where we go for the honeymoon

Goals for 2012:

1) Survive the wedding
2) Finish the knitting/sewing project
3) Update scrapbook and recipe folder
4) Plan for baby :)
5) Continue on fitness routine and lifestyle

We have moved in!

We moved on December 31st and were thankful for the three day weekend and movers.

On Friday I helped Brian pack and then went to Time Warner to cancel our cable after that I went to the house to meet the wiring guy and For Brian and the movers. While the movers didn't take everything we expected we were very glad we used them. Quick, friendly and helpful. After the movers left, Brian and his friends Al and Gary helped bring more stuff over from the apartment while I emptied boxes. I got most of the kitchen put away and most of the boxes in the rooms they were supposed to be in. We spent the rest of the evening unpacking and trying to organize our chaotic mess. Poor Brian did unfortunately find out we had plumbing issues when he tried to shower that night and no, we did not stay up for the New Year.

Sunday we woke up and Brian and I went to the apartment to pick up the rest of the stuff. Brian then went home to unpack while I cleaned the apartment. I met the boys home at 12:30ish and took a bath and we all went out for errands. We took Gary and Al out to lunch to thank them which took far too long and then we went to order the bedroom set Brian and I picked out from Ashley's Furniture and pick out a king sized mattress. After that we came home and did more unpacking and organized.

Monday Brian and I went to pick up some more tension rods and curtains to temporarily solve the window covering window and pick up some food. After that, guess what! We did more unpacking.

At this point the house is getting there. The plumbing issue is resolved but now there is Internet wiring issues. Things need caulking, paint needs touch ups and the microwave is not venting outside. We have let head builder know and will add to the list as things come up I am sure. The house is as organized as it will be without projects being finished. Brian can't finish his office without the Internet, can't finish the loft without the book cases can't finish master and guest bedroom without bedroom set. And it won't be clean until we can get rid of the trash.

We are definitely enjoying the new house!