New Home 2

After Daniel and Little Kevin came back from Clarksville, we cleaned all the baseboards, the cupboards and blinds. The next day Kevin helped me paint( he did so much, he painted our closet and finished our room so that our bed could go in) so I could do some cleaning for the couches and in the garage so they could bring stuff in and not track in a ton of dirt, while Little Kevin (hopefully no confusion there) and Daniel loaded up the storage unit and couches and head board into the uhaul. They were lucky to have gotten it all in one load and not have to go back to Arlington to get the storage unit boxes. We did have to go to Arlington to get the office furniture from Daniel's room, but we were able to do that the same night so we didn't have to wear Kevin out for a third day in a row.

Once we got all the stuff into the house, Daniel had to go to the store for something, can't remember, seems like we were constantly spending money last week. But while he was gone I ordered some chinese food ( we had planned on having chinese and a camp out on the living room floor the day we closed, but the utilities weren't on and closing a few days later messed up the plan since we needed Kevin Friday morning) and hung some drapes on the dining room window.

 Dining Room BEFORE

Dining Room Now

Living room BEFORE







 

Living Room Now

Garage

 

These are our amazing shelves that Kevin and Daniel put up. Our garage can now fit all of our totes and my car! This is picture doesn't show all the shelving or all of our totes. We are still deciding if Daniel's truck should go in or not. I do enjoy having the extra space for my projects so we will see.

Guest Bathroom

I am very proud of this bathroom. It was the first room that was completed. I still would like to get a basket or something for on top of the toilet.

Daniel and I love our new home and are so excited to start entertaining and having people stay over.

New Home 1



Daniel and I closed on our house December 8th. It was a rollercoaster of a week and it seemed that nothing was going the way we wanted it to and I'm sure the sellers were just as much on edge as we were.  We were intitially scheduled to close on Dec 6th and we had the whole week planned out so we could clean and prepare our stuff at Kevin and Carolyn's before we moved, but since we did not close until thursday our days had to all mush together. Also we were told to switch the utilities into our name 3 days before we closed, but the city would not allow us to do this because they first needed proof that we were owning the house. 




After we signed and bought a new knobs for all the doors, I went into work and sent off the paperwork so that we could have water as soon as possible so Daniel could start cleaning and Daniel headed out to the house to change the locks and take all the before pictures and get stuff piled up for the garbage. When I called him to let him know I was on my way he said that all he had done was take all the before pictures and was working on the locks.

My goal in going there was to tape the master bedroom so I could paint it the next day. Originally, Daniel and I were both going to take Friday off and go out to Clarksville to get the dining room table from his Grandma's, however, since we did not close until Thursday I thought it would be best to stay behind and let him and Little Kevin handle the trip to Clarksville because I was not really needed there and I did need to get the walls painted. Also you lose an entire day with the trip to Clarksville because it is 4 hours each way. When I got to the house on Thursday it looked the same as what we had seen on Monday during our final walkthrough and I found it interesting the things they left, but the main thing I noticed was how gross the baseboards were and that I was going to have to wash these before I did any of the taping and I had to dust the inch thick layer of dust from off the fan. We did get the water turned on that day and the gas, but not the electricity so I was washing with freezing cold water and the sun was quickly setting. Needless to say, I did not finish the taping, but only had the ceiling to do when I got there in the morning.

BEFORE




Here is the room as they had it

 



I know in this picture the walls don't look green, but they are I promise! The next two are proof. Also I don't understand why you would leave your expensive tv mount, I guess it would be nice if we had a tv to mount in our room, we don't, we just have one which I think is plenty right now.



The other thing I don't understand is why they didn't paint this little square under the mount, but anyway this is a different persepective, I am at the door and you can see our room is pretty long therefore you can imagine how long it took me to paint all by myself.

At 7 the next morning we were up and ready to go. Daniel went to pick little Kevin up (yeah, we took him out of school so he could ride in the cars for 8 hours.) and I loaded up my car with as many kitchen items I could to relieve the computer room and guest room that we had taken over. I got to the house at about 8 or 9 finished taping and was hoping that the lights would come on soon because of course, it was overcast which is great for photos not great for painting, not to mention it was pretty cold in the empty house. Luckily, after saying that out loud I heard the heater kick on and some beeping and rejoiced that I had joined the 21st century and had electricity!


  


This is the color of 3 of the walls, it's castle stone

We knew that we needed to have a pop of color since our bedspread is cream. So this is Vintage orange, it turned out great, and not too bright 

 

And we just added a dresser. I was looking at a thrift store at another dresser and the owner said it was $100 and I turned around and saw another dresser, she said I am selling that one for $10. I said ten dollars! She said yes and it comes with the mirrors and the night stand. So I called Daniel and told him about the great deal and bought it right then and there. The best part about it is there was another girl who wanted it a week ago and she was calling to see if it was still available!

So we both loaded it up in Daniel's truck and got it home in the garage and I painted it. I used some of the paint the previous owners had left in the garage, so all I spent on it was $12 because I had to buy sandpaper. Not too shabby I say.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and this was my first one with Daniel's parents. They were kind enough to let us cook the meal. We decided to do it very similar to how my family does it so that it was more familiar for me. It was the first turkey that I have cooked and it turned out pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

 He came out a little crispy on the wings, but who eats that part anyway ;)

 We had the Dow recipe sweet potatoes, orange cranberry sauce, orange buns, Frog Eye salad, another jello salad with fresh cranberries/celery/pecans, olives, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing (like Granny's), cornbread dressing that Daniel made, and two types of gravy.

 This is my cherry pie, I think the crust came out good, and yes I made it myself, but I think the filling could have come out better. We also had a pumpkin pie that Daniel made that was tasty, however I did not get a picture.

This is my fancy, shmancy table cloth and centerpiece.

Overall, I am very happy with how it turned out. I think it was successful and I look forward to making the meal again, but adding our own twists. I think we will probably make a little less of everything next year too.

PS Turkey Alfredo is a good way to use your left over cream and turkey.

Lasagna Rolls

We found this idea in the Kraft magazine. We cooked lasagna noodles until they were cooked put still firm so they wouldn't tear or be too slippery. Then we took ricotta cheese( the magazine recipe called for cream cheese, but we had ricotta and what is lasagna without ricotta, it could be good with cream cheese) mixed with some chopped spinach ( we bought it frozen and then just thawed and put in about 1 cup) and Italian seasoning.
Then we spread the cheese on the noodle, rolled it up and topped with a tomato sauce. On some we used Italian sausage and others we left vegetarian. Finish off with a sprinkling of mozzarella.

They were delicious and a great play on lasagna.

Butterfly park

It has been awhile since I have posted and I thought since I am alone this afternoon that it would be a good time to catch up on my posts. 

It seems like all I have to blog about is parks so surprise surprise it's another park. We went to this park because it is on one of Daniel's routes that he used to drive by every week. Butterflies seem to be the running themes at parks. In most parks there are sections that are reserved for the butterflies that are common and the wildlife so that we can appreciate it and have a park.

 But here we both are with the butterfly

 Leaf hopscotch

 I thought it was pretty neat that they put the shape of the leaf along with the name of it from the surrounding trees in the park.

 This is the caterpillar. It is made of a sponge like material