CAMPING

Over the Halloween weekend we went to Carpinteria CA, just South of Santa Barbara, and camped with Jeff's family. We had an amazing time! It rained a lot all weekend but we still managed to have fun. The camp site was right on the beach so we spent our time boogie boarding, looking at tide pools, reading, and watching the sunset. It was so nice to just sit back and relax, I don't think we wanted to come home. We also went to visit a Mission up in Santa Barbara and walked the grounds there. When we go on vacations like this I always wonder why I live in a desert?




While we were there we got good news, our offer on a house has been accepted!! Looks like we will be home owners by the end of the year.

About to be Homless

So, we did not get the first house that we put an offer in for, or the next couple of houses we put an offer in for, but we put an offer in on a house this weekend that is great. I am really excited and hope that everything works out with this offer, for once. It is in a great neighborhood, and will need little work to fix it all up. But, with foreclosers taking at least 45 days to process and close, it is now evident that Jeff and I will indeed be homeless for a while. Not really of course, we will stay with parents for a bit, but we will not have a place of our own for a period of time.

As much as I hate our apartment and the scary people who live there and break into cars and stuff, I am going to miss our own space. How does living with your parents work when you are married? Can I still cook our own dinners or do I just help my mom cook what she is having for dinner? Will we have to set days to do our laundry? Hopefully, it wont be for long, and we wont impose too much.

Strangely, I'm also really going to miss living in the first place that Jeff and I lived together as a married couple. No matter how gross, or dark, or scary, it was our home. I loved the time I got to spend with Jeff inside those walls over the last year. This next chapter of home-hood will hopefully be even better. I am grabbing boxes from work and starting to pack tonight.

AHHHH This stinks!

I just found out 2 more offers were put in on the house. We won't know till Tuesday afternoon if we got it or not. All this waiting is killing me. Crossed fingers and prayers are needed.

CATCH UP

It has been a fun last couple of weeks. We went up to Cedar City, UT for my Cousins farewell, which also happened to be on mine and Jeff's anniversary weekend. We managed to get a little alone time in, we took a walk in the park and ate at my favorite restaurant in Cedar from my college days.

He is so cute. I just love him.

His favorite part of my beloved Cedar City is this hilarious sign at Evans Cosmetology school. He laughed so hard when he saw it, he made me stop so he could take pictures. He is a dork!

It was also so much fun to spend time with all my family. We had a good time. My grandmother pictured below is so beautiful. I hope I take after her. I am blessed with two wonderful, beautiful grandmothers.

Then, on the 8th, it was Jeff's Birthday. He is a few months younger than I am so I'm always glad when he finally turns the same age as me, then he can't tease me about being old anymore. I made his favorite jello cake.

I got him an electric violin, I was so glad he liked it! I love listening to him play so it was sort of a gift for me, but he really needed his own violin too. We went over to his parents and all the family in town came for a traditional Bame B-day.

This weekend we just spent relaxing, so I decided to bake my first pie. I made an apple pie from scratch. I'm still too scared to taste it but I hope it turned out alright. I don't have things like a rolling pin or an apple corer so I just made due.

We put an offer in on a house this week so I needed something to occupy my mind. We are still waiting to hear if the bank is going to accept our offer but I can't help decorating the house and planning in my head. I needed a distraction and pie is always a good distraction!

Tonight we are going to see We are Scientist and Kings of Leon so that will be a good distraction too! The tickets were part of my anniversary present for Jeff. We are Scientist was the show we saw on our first date years ago. Since it was the paper anniversary I gave him the concert tickets, a scrap book of him when he was little, and cuff links made from vintage typewriter keys. It was all paper themed.

Keep your fingers crossed for us on the house!

1 year later . . .

During the last year of marriage I have found that a lot of little things about me have changed that I never expected to. I am much less independent than I have ever been before. Being single for 25 years, I was use to doing things on my own. But now, as my sister says, I am whooped - hard core. I have compiled a little list of things that are different since we were married almost a year ago.

1. I fully expect to never take out my trash again.

2. I was once someone who assembled my IKEA and Target furniture all by myself without any electric power tools. Now, when we buy new furniture I get Jeff his bag of electric tools and tell him to have at it.

3. I use to sprawl out and take up my whole queen sized bed. Now, I can't go to bed without Jeff snuggling up next to me.

4. I watch sports.

5. I don't take time to read my phone, computer, or TV manuals anymore, I just have Jeff show me how to do it.

6. If Jeff works on the weekend, I have no idea how to occupy my time. This is where my nesting projects come in handy.

7. I feel my heart sink a little every time I see a little kid. I can barely wait to have kids, be a mother, and see what a wonderful dad Jeff is going to be.

8. We go out less, I read more.

9. I cook.

10. I don't bother searching for new music or bands that I might like, I just have Jeff upload new play lists of bands HE thinks I might like onto my ipod. (I've actually found a lot more and better music this way).

Basically, what a lot of this list says about me is that I have become useless and lazy since getting married. With that aside, I love being married, and maybe it isn't such a bad thing to rely on someone else to do certain things. I really do feel like we work as a team very well. I can't imagine being single again living day to day without him. I loved being single, I loved being independent, but I love him A LOT more. Lets just hope I do eventually get off my butt and take out the trash myself!

Projects

So I've been doing a couple projects to keep myself busy lately - I'm still nesting. Here are couple of my favorites from the last couple months-

We needed storage in our office/guest/garage room. It is a room with many purposes and requires storage. So this is an old target dresser that I wasn't using anymore, being from Target, it was cheap and the drawers broke after just a year. So I decided to turn

it into shelves.

I painted the inside that same color I painted my old 50's school desk and stapled some Old Navy wrapping paper to the back. I had the paint on hand and the wood was maybe $10- and I kept myself entertained for an hour or two.

I put our record player,

some records and bins for

Jeff's school stuff. Not the

cutest thing in the world but it

works and it was cheap.

These curtains and pillow were my favorite project though. I made these for Heather's Birthday. The yellow matches her couch perfectly! The gray on the sides match her kitchen.

I am such a bad seamstress; every time I make something for someone else I swear that I will not put my sewing inefficiencies on other people and masquerade them as gifts. I conclude though that I can't help it.

I like to make things with my hands, no matter how they turn out. I think it is a sickness. I guess we will see if Heather actually ends up hanging them up, even with all the mistakes. I did have fun though, The two curtains and pillow just took a couple days after work and a Sat. morning. I only stressed out once (when I made a big mistake that could not be fixed) but I hope I hide it well. Next time I will be sewing for myself though.

Scavenger

My favorite blog Apartment Therapy has this post called "Scavenger" where they showcase super neat furniture finds from Craigslist. I drool over all the great things they find in places like Chicago, New York, San Francisco and LA. About a week or so ago in LA they showed a Crate and Barrel Petrie Sofa, in a perfect color for my house, for get this - $500. That is such a great deal considering the store price is $1500! Things like this make me drool all over my desk at work and make me wish I live in a real metropolitan city.

I thought to myself today, after looking at a great danish styled mid century modern kitchen table - maybe, just maybe, Las Vegas has some hidden treasures. So I went on a "Scavenger" hunt of my own on our local Craigslist site. I often check Craigslist for little things I think I need, but never really look with the idea that I could decorate my whole home with this stuff. Today, while searching for random things, I found some really neat stuff.

This sofa was found when I searched for "antiques." True, it is kind of out there, but I'd love an old piece like this to put in like a casual basement type rec/play room someday. It is just fun and makes me grin. But priced at the same $$ as my beloved Petrie sofa it doesn't seem like that great of a deal.
Seriously, how fun would these be? The couch and chairs are gross, and probably smell like smoke since this set came from a Casino Furniture Liquidator, But the yellow coffee table and side tables are adorable. They have good lines too so if bright yellow isn't your thing you could just spray paint them a high gloss white. Not bad. The whole lot is $250, but I'm sure just the tables alone couldn't be that expensive.
This lamp is kinda cool - and at $10 it is a deal. Just that large of a round shade would be 3x that much at Target.
The last is my FAVORITE! Seriously a rare find in Las Vegas. An actual Eames Atomic Chair. A perfect chair for the atomic testing valley. If I knew how, I would snatch this up and re- upholster it like that. This chair is just $175. It was posted last week so I'm sure it is gone. I guess I should do random searches like this more often.

These finds might not be as great as the ones featured on the Blog but I was pretty impressed with what little Las Vegas had to offer. I'd still really love to live in real city like San Fransisco though. . .