Who knew cleaning the gutters could be so fun?

My Dad came over to help me clean the gutters. It was a beautiful but cold day out. Since Hope is the happiest when she is outside playing I thought this would be a great way to get her ready for a nice long nap.
It was a successful afternoon. She loved playing in the water. You’d think it was pouring rain outside with as wet as she was.  She decided to sit in the water and splash until she was soaked

 

Blossoms

One of my favorite things about Spring is the blossoms on the trees.  This year they came a little early because of the crazy weather that we have been having.  I have a walnut and plum tree in my backyard and I love to look at the blossoms on the trees.

It’s really too bad that the blossoms were only there a few days before the wind and the ran came. The blossoms are now gone….until next year. 

Cupcakes

I love cupcakes and I love cupcake décor so when I found cupcake kitchen décor at Kohls I decided I had to have the whole collection. I found some fabric at JoAnn Fabric’s that matched the decorations that I found perfectly.  I made two valances for the kitchen windows and I’m still working on the table cloth.

I had a cupcake themed housewarming party in January and received a lot of decorations that I had found at Kohls.

Kelly found this great picture of a Boston Terrier and a cupcake on the Etsy website.

It looks great.  I think everything has come together really nice. I’ve had a really difficult time finding pink dishes.  I never thought that finding the dishes would be the most difficult part of this project.  If anyone knows where I can find some please let me know.

My first Christmas in my house

I’ve been thinking about decorating for Christmas since the first day I moved in.  Trying to figure out how I would fit all my decorations in a much smaller living room than I had last year.  My original of putting the tree in the front window didn’t work but I think it turned out great and I love looking at the Christmas each night.  I wish I could leave them up all year long.

 

HOME SWEET HOME

Back in January I decided that I was going to purchase a house this year.  I didn’t really have any expectations and I had no idea how to do it but I knew if I was ever going to get to be a homeowner that now was the time.  Kelly was planning on putting the house that I was living in up for sale and had hoped to have it sold by the time Karly came.  Although I knew I wanted to buy a house the whole idea of it made me nervous and gave me anxiety.  So I put it off and put it off until it was too late.  Kelly put her house up for sale in April and it sold the first week that it was on the market.  I had to be out by the end of May.  I ended up moving in with Kelly and Dave the second week of May and Karly came just a couple weeks later.  After Karly came buying a house got put on the back burner.  Everyone's focus was on Karly and getting her well enough to come home from the hospital and then once she was home other things took priority. 

For some reason things in my life have always been just a little bit harder to achieve than normal.   I honestly never thought that I would be a homeowner.  I have always dreamed of having a house of my own but in the back of my mind I never thought that it was possible for a single person that makes just a decent living would be able to afford to buy a house alone. I tried to prepare by saving as much money as possible, staying out of debt and keeping my credit score high.  That way if the time ever came that it would be possible I was prepared.  I had learned to appreciate the things I had and be grateful for the opportunities that I had to experience new things. I was content with my life.  I have a great job that I love going to each day,  a job that allowed me to support myself and have a little extra at the end of the month to put into savings,  a great family that is loving and supportive,  a few really good friends that genuinely love me  would do anything for me,  2 nephews and 2 nieces that I adore and make me happier than they will ever know and a dog that I love. 

Then one day my Mom called and said that a house came up for sale down the street from her and she thought I should take a look at it. At first I was really resistive and didn’t want to go see it because I thought I would get disappointed and in my mind there was no way that I would ever be able to get a house on my own. She didn’t give up though and called me everyday for a week asking if I had called to set up an appointment to go see it. I decided to call, Sheri Midgley she had just got done selling Kelly’s house and she has been a family friend for several years.   Sheri got right on it and scheduled an appointment for later in the week .  I ended up  really really liking the house and thought it was perfect for me and Buttons.  I went ahead and put an offer on it.  After several days of not hearing from the bank that owned it the call finally came in.  I was out bid. I was really really disappointed.  After that one I kept looking at houses in the same neighborhood. I ended up putting offers on 3 other houses.  One of which I actually got and had a contract and then someone stole the air conditioning unit from it and the owner didn’t want to replace it so I ended that deal. At that point I was done.  I was tired of getting disappointed and I didn’t really see anything in my price range that I liked.

Then out of the blue one day I decided to look at a house that had been listed for awhile that I really liked but it was out of my price range.  It was my lucky day though. They had lowered price  that day and it was in my price range.  I had Sheri take me by to see it again and then had my parents look at and decided that this was the one!  I put an offer on it on August 16th.  Then a week later found out that there were other offers and the seller wanted time to think about the offers.  He finally decided to take my offer! I was so stoked and so grateful.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  I can honestly say that I have never been so stressed and filled with anxiety as I was during this process.  I was physically ill for weeks and was on the chicken broth, 7- up, yogurt and graham cracker diet for several weeks.  I vomited in more parking lots and public bathrooms than I can count.

On October 28th I was sitting at the table carving pumpkins with the kids and just started to cry out of nowhere.  I was supposed to hear from the mortgage company earlier in the day  if the loan was going to be approved. A few days earlier I found out that the bank had made a mistake on my credit report regarding an old student loan that had been paid off years ago but showed up as disputed.  It had to be removed from my credit report immediately in order for the loan to be approved. I thought it was going to take a miracle for the bank to notify the credit reporting agency and for the credit reporting agency to get it removed within the time frame that the seller gave us. All of the sudden that evening  it just hit me that I hadn’t heard anything from the mortgage company.  I took that as bad news.  But 5 minutes later I received the call saying that the house was MINE! I just needed to go to the title company to sign the papers the following week.  I couldn’t believe it.

 

Finally after almost 2 1/2 months I got the keys to MY HOUSE on November 1st!!!  I have never been so excited, proud, or grateful in all my life.  I had finally done it.  I finally had something of my very own that I worked really hard for and earned on my own.  For a few moments (in private) I shed a few tears.  I was getting ready to start a new chapter of my life and I am excited to see what will happen next.

 

The day had finally come!!!  The following day I went and ordered the carpet and had it installed a couple of days later.  Called the moving company and scheduled them for the day after.  My Dad and Dave worked really really hard for several days before I moved in to get an indoor/garage kennel made for Buttons. They mowed the lawns (I have a corner lot so there is a HUGE front and backyard) and installed locks in the house. And Dave spent an entire day hanging up blinds throughout the house.

 

Horrible picture but the only one I have.  Sorry guys!!!!

My Mom came in and lined cabinets.

Chris fixed the leaky bathroom sink, caulked the shower, and hung the blinds in my bedroom.

I choose the absolutely worst day to move.  The first big storm of the year. Moving in the rain stinks!!!  Hiring a moving company was the best decision and use of money that I have ever made.

After the movers left, Kelly came with the kids to help unpack.

     

Then Kelly came and spent the following week with me.  She helped me unpack and organize everything. She bought me shelves for the garage, a new shower head, a doorbell, more things than I can even list.  I truly have the most supportive and loving family and I couldn’t have done any of this without them.   They stood by me through the entire process.  Putting up with my tears, my disappointments, excitement, my vomiting, and never once was there a complaint by any of them. I will never be able to repay them for what they have done.

I also have to say that I had the best real estate agent around.   She walked me through everything and kept me calm when I thought I was going to loose my patients with the whole deal. Every single time I emailed her I got a response within 30 minutes.  If I left her a message she called me back within the hour. It didn’t matter what day it was or what time it was. She went out of her way to explain things to me that I didn’t understand.  She went above and beyond in every aspect of buying this house. So if you live in the area you should contact her.  Her website is http://sherimidgley.com

Here are some before and after pictures of the house. I haven’t gotten everything decorated the way it should be because I’m going to decorate for Christmas this coming week so I didn’t want to put everything up and then take it all down again the next week. I’m hoping this coming weekend to get the rooms organized a little better and all of the holiday decorations up.  I’ll put better pictures up then.

 

Family room  

Kelly and I put the cabinet together and hung it all by ourselves!

my room

Thomas’ room

Noelle and Karly’s room

So there it is My HOME SWEET HOME!!!  I have just spent my first week here alone and it is going to take sometime to get used to but I’m loving every minute of it. 

 

My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week!

This week was just one of those weeks.  Nothing went the way I wanted it to and and nothing went as planned. 

It all started at  beginning of the week when I started to think about packing up the house for the move. Monday and Tuesday night I came home after work and packed boxes until 10:00pm.  Tuesday I was yelled at by the CFO at work for something that I did that my boss specifically asked me to do.  There was never an apology by any of them.

Wednesday afternoon I got a call  from a lady at church that I team teach with (we teach the six year olds).  She had a family emergency and needed me to teach this coming Sunday.  I really wanted to tell her I couldn’t because I was so tired and felt so overwhelmed with work and the move but I knew that I should.  So, I said yes and asked her to drop the class materials off at my house.  When I got home from work they were there.  I sat and reviewed the lesson and thought it would be OK.  I hate public speaking and get really nervous when I have to.  I’m not really sure why teaching six year olds would make me nervous but they do.  To take my mind off of that, I decided to pack more boxes until Kelly and Dave would be there to drop Noelle off to spend the night.  Noelle and I played for awhile before Thomas was dropped off.  I got them both in the bath and into bed by 8:30.  At 9:30 I decided that I couldn’t do anymore and decided to go to bed.  I put Buttons in her crate in my room and went to sleep.  Sometime later I was woken up by some guys laughing.  When I first woke up I thought I was dreaming.  I laid in bed for a few minutes and then heard someone walking in the rocks in my backyard.  Still thinking I was hearing things, I looked to the window, from my bed. I saw two people at my window.  Now I knew I wasn’t dreaming. 

For those that know me, know that I have always been scared to stay home alone for fear that someone would break in.  I can’t tell you how many times I have thought about what I would do if I was ever in this situation. Once I was in it, I did nothing that I thought I would. 

I laid still in my bed until I could hear them walk away from the window.  I grabbed the phone next to my bed and literally rolled out of my bed to the floor and called 911.  I was lucky that I got a dispatcher right away.  She kept me pretty calm on the phone while I was waiting for the police to arrive.  All I could think about was how I was going to get to Thomas and Noelle if these people  got into the house.  The dispatcher asked me if I was armed and for someone that is scared to be alone, I felt really stupid to say “No” and that I didn’t even have a baseball bat.  It felt like an eternity but was really probably only 4 to 5 minutes the police came to the door.  They looked around the the backyard and around the house but the guys had already got away.  During all of my my talking and the police coming into the house and making noise the kids and Buttons managed to stay sound asleep.  Some guard dog Buttons is!!! 

After the Police left I called Kelly and told her what had happened.  I was still shaking like a leaf and was scared that the people would come back after the police left so she had Dave come and pick the kids and I up and take us to her house to sleep.  I honestly don’t think I have ever been so scared.  I’m thinking that they were young guys thinking the house was empty because it’s for sale and when they saw that someone was still living there they took off.  Regardless I have decided not to spend another night there.  I was planning on moving to Kelly’s in a couple of weeks anyways so I have decided to move in now.  I spent most of yesterday packing up the house and will spend all day tomorrow packing and hopefully by the end of the week the majority of the work will be done so the movers can pick it all up and take it to storage. 

As and added bonus to the bad week, Noelle woke up with fever this morning and terrible cough so I had to call for a substitute teach my Sunday school class.  I’m crossing my fingers that this coming week will be a much better one!!!!

On the positive side I love spending time with Kelly and the kids and I’m looking forward to being able to be here when baby Karly arrives.   

All the summer projects are DONE!

Back in April I decided to do a few home improvement projects. 

1. Order and install blinds for all the bedrooms. That was a success. Back in May I ordered the blinds and Kelly and I installed them in one afternoon.

2.  Decorate Thomas’ bedroom.  That also was a success.  I picked a baseball theme for him and finished it in two phases. He loves his new room and best of all I never have to fight with him to sleep in his own bed.

3.  Decorate Noelle’s bedroom.  This was my challenge.  I really couldn’t figure out kind of theme I wanted to do.  A lot of things and colors popped in to mind but nothing that I thought she wouldn’t end up growing out of to quickly.  Finally after a long debate with Kelly, I chose cherries.  I found some cute fabric at JoAnn’s and made pillows, a bed skirt, and a valance. I panted the walls white and had a plan of stenciling cherries on the walls but I couldn’t find one that I liked.  By the time I decided on something it was getting close to Kelly’s wedding and then my Mom’s wedding and I just couldn’t find time to do it. Finally last weekend my Mom came over and helped me paint the cherries.  We didn’t find a stencil so we painted them freehand.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  Last night I hung the shelves and did the final touches. 

I’m so glad that all of the projects are done and I’m pretty happy with how everything came out.  

 

One summer project down 2 more to go

The BASEBALL room is done!!!

I finished painting and decorating the majority of Thomas’ room last month but there were a couple of things that I still needed to accomplish.  I had in my head a fabulous idea of making a scoreboard for a headboard. Seriously who was I kidding?  It still looks great in my mind but reality set in and I came to my senses and decided to settle on an easier task and one that I knew I could accomplish. What? A framed poster of AT&T park.  I also wanted to get new blinds for the window since the ones that were in there were pretty old and didn’t look so great.

So, it’s done.  I hung the blinds a couple of weeks ago and today I hung the poster.   The best part of the whole thing is I haven’t heard “I’m gonna sleep in my Auntie bed” with the exception of once when he came in my room in the middle of the night.   Thomas’ loves his baseball bed and so all of the hard work really has paid off!!!