Because I can't think of anything else to blog about.

Maybe I should - Find time to go to the gym. Go to bed earlier. Read my Bible more.

I love the smell of - grilling, flowers, and my husband.

People would say that I - can be a spaz at times and freak out over stupid, little things.  I also like to think that they would say that I'm a nice, compassionate person.  Haha.

I don’t understand why - I can't make friends.

When I wake up in the morning - I hit the snooze button twice, then try to get in the shower before Tyler because he takes too long.

I lost my willpower to - Resist diet coke.  I'm trying though.

Life is - a huge blessing.  I am blessed.

My past made me- Who I am today, although I can't say that I love who I used to be.  I'm just glad that God is a forgiving God.

I get annoyed when- I have to wake up early, people are rude, I have a fat day, or when I hear about the Clinton/Obama drama.

Parties are not a good time to - be shy.

Dogs are - a lot of work (especially when they pee all over your new house), but they are a good step before kids.

Cats are - Stupid. (Sorry to cat lovers)

Tomorrow is - Friday. Which means I'm headed to Iowa for a wedding... again.

I have low tolerance for - People with lukewarm convictions, spoiled kids, and people who refuse to forgive.

I’m totally terrified of- Losing my husband/family members, not being able to have kids.

I wonder why I thought my life would be- different than it is.

I always knew I would - marry Tyler, be best friends with my sister, be successful.

Never in my life have I - been tempted to smoke.  Gross!

High school was- fun and stress-free.

When I’m nervous- I stutter, get quiet, and avoid eye contact.  It doesn't happen very often though.

One time at a family gathering- I knocked over the VanKooten Christmas tree.

Take my advice- Don't take a single moment for granted.  Especially in your relationships.

Making my bed- Is something I do when I have time, or when company is coming.

I'm almost always- Planning a vacation in my head, thinking of ways to give back to our parents for all they've done, thinking about my husband, missing friendship.

I’m addicted to- the internet and diet coke.

I want someone to- surprise me with a vacation to Bora Bora.

Did you miss me?

I'm baaack!! :)

Well, here's an update.  Monday we were able to get into our home a couple hours earlier than expected, so Tyler, Tiffany (ty's sister), and I drove our 3 vehicles out to our house to start unpacking our cars.  The cars were full of "breakables" - stuff we didn't want to put in boxes.  So once got to the house we took some pictures, unloaded our cars, and immediately started painting.  It was a HOT day in Kansas - the high that day was 87 and being the cheap-o I am, I refused to turn on the AC.  (If you know my Dad, you are probably thinking I sound just like him.)  Anyways, we painted the master bedroom first and that literally took forever.  We used an entire gallon of paint in there and I'm not really sure why... the walls just seemed like it literally sucked the paint in or something.  My family showed up around 7 pm and they changed into their painting close and we all painted until 1:15 AM.  We got most of it completed, except for 2 of the walls in the living room.

Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early and before heading out to the house, Mom and I made a pit-stop at Home Depot to pick up a lawn mower.  Our previous owner was a nice guy (NOT) and didn't mow the lawn for at least 2 weeks before we moved in, so lucky us... we had the longest grass on the street on move in day.  We headed out to the house and finished up the painting.  It took a while because the living room has 20-foot ceilings, so it took a lot of time.  We finished around noon and our incredible realtor stopped by and brought pizza... Tyler and I were so blessed to have such an incredible realtor to work with.  Anyways, that's a whole different story.  Everyone left after lunch to go pick up the moving truck and start tearing down beds/tables/etc at the townhouse.  Mom and I stayed behind to clean up the painting mess and I did a light cleaning on the house before we left.

The loading and unloading of our moving truck was the easiest we've ever had.  All of Tyler's co-workers came (4 of them) and along with my entire family and a few helpers, we had the truck loaded AND unloaded within an hour... and that hour includes the time it took to get to the new house.  It was incredible!  We were so thankful to have so many helpful hands.  :)

Ever since then, Tyler and I have been unpacking... it's never fun to unpack but we are so excited to be in our first house.  Unpacking has taken so much longer since we have so many more options for where to put stuff.  As of today, almost a week later, we literally have less than 5 boxes to go through, so that's exciting.  Yesterday Tyler and I hung all of our decorations in our master bedroom, but other than that, no other walls have anything on them.  It will take time... or so I hear.  :)

Here's a few pictures for you!  Sorry for the long post.  I feel like I have lots to say but I don't want to bore you.  :)

 



And the painting begins...





And here's a sneak peak of the final product...

 
(The office)


(Downstairs - it's hard to tell the paint color, but it's a pewter color)


(Master bedroom - wall color is a chocolate brown, tray ceiling is a beige color)


(Living room... the fireplace wall is a brown color, and the other two walls in the room are a few shades lighter.)

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Last but not least I wanted to share a picture of the beautiful flowers that Tyler's Mom Jodi and Jon sent us as a housewarming gift.  They are beautiful and it meant so much to us to receive these at our new house! 

 

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So there's a little preview of what our last week has consisted of. :)  

Thank you to our friends and family for helping us pack, load, paint, and unload... and Tiff even helped us unpack some.  THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I'll be back later... I need your advice on some curtains.

Adios!

Just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm going to be M.I.A for a few days.  We get possession of our house tonight at 5 and we'll be painting tonight and all day tomorrow, and then moving our stuff in tomorrow night.  I am so excited right now - you can't even imagine.  My parents and friends will be helping us tonight and tomorrow so if you live in the area and like to paint/lift heavy boxes, feel free to join the party.  :)

When I return you can expect some crazy posts - I'm sure I'll be obsessing over the flower garden that I know nothing about, paint colors that I'm unsure about, trying to find and buy furniture that we both like, where to buy not cheap not really expensive curtains, how to stain our deck, where to find bedding for the guest rooms that I like, how to paint stripes, etc etc.  And for all you non-homeowners, I'll try to not always talk about our house.  :)

By the way - if you want our new address let me know!

See you soon!

WE CLOSED!!!

We are officially homeowners!!!!  You can't even begin to imagine how excited we are right now.  It sucks that we can't be in the house until Monday night, but it will give me a couple more days to finalize the paint colors before moving in.  :)

Have a great day!

Ahhh...

Just got back from an hour long massage.  I think it was one of the best hours of my life.

Diagnosis...

I went to the doctor, and apparently I have a "severe" ear infection and vertigo.  If you don't know what vertigo is, it's when your brain basically sees "up" as down, and "down" as up, so obviously it makes you dizzy frequently.  She gave me some ear drops along with a pill to take 3x's a day. 

Thanks for the prayers.

Have I mentioned that I hate packing?

If I had a million dollars...

I would pay someone to come pack up my house. 
I absolutely hate packing. 
I hate packing even more when I feel so dizzy that when I turn my head I see spots. 

Lovely.

Pray for me.

I'm sick... and I don't know what it is.  I've had this "bug" of some sort since Thursday, and it has left me feeling nauseous off and on, dizzy, and really tired. 

I'm mostly upset because I desperately need to go to the gym... but, health comes first, right?  (That's what I'm telling myself to make myself feel better..haha)

Thanks for the prayers.

To my Mom... :)

Happy Mothers Day!!!  I love you so very much!!!

On the road again...

We are headed to Iowa this weekend for Tyler's cousins wedding.  We are dreading the drive... not only because of the drive itself but because of the outrageous gas prices.  I'm sure it will be worth it all to see the entire family again.  :)

I hope everyone has a great weekend and a Happy Mothers Day!!

Random.

- I realized today that I'm addicted to Diet Coke.  I tried going all day without it and got really antsy, moody, and just plain cranky by the end of the day.  So I had a Diet Pepsi at dinner.

- I hit the 74 pound weight loss mark today.  Strange... especially since I feel so frumpy lately.  Funny how your mind plays tricks on you.

- Tyler and I have been married for 1,035 days today.  Despite our tense relationship recently due to stress, I was reminded today how much I love him.  I cannot wait to spend the rest of our lives together.

- It makes me sad that people love to gossip, especially about situations that do not affect them personally.

- I learned today that fertility peaks at the age of 22.  Tyler's exact words when I told him that were: "That's nice." 

- I also learned today that it costs the Feds 8 cents to make one penny.

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That's all.  Aren't you glad you just wasted 2 minutes of your time to read this?!?  :)

Status: pending.

I guess I'm retarded and JUST NOW noticed that our home listing says "PENDING" instead of "active"!!  I told Tyler that and he got a huge smile on his face.  We both just seriously screamed out loud.  Woooohooooo!!!

I also just noticed that our neighbors home is also pending, which is exciting since they are asking soooo much more for their home.  That is good news.

Swee-ta!!!!! :)

Moving dates.

Even though a lot of my readers live far away and I have never met some of you, I still thought blogging our moving dates/times would be an easy way to let everyone know when we are planning on making our move.

We close on the 16th (in the AM) but we don't technically get possession of our house until 5:00 on the 19th (Monday).  Therefore we'll be in the house at 5:01 on Monday night (hehe) starting to paint, and all day Tuesday (the 20th) painting.  Hopefully we'll get most of it done, or at least the bedrooms, before we move the rest of the stuff in.  We are going to plan on moving our big furniture and boxes during the evening on the 20th, around 6:00 pm-ish.  We really don't have that much furniture to move so we are thinking we should be able to get it done in a "quick" evening.

If you want to help, send me an email or text and I'll give you more details!

Paint colors are stressing me out.

Here's a quick run-down of what I'm thinking for color choices.  The problem with our house is that every wall is white.  In all of the other houses we looked at, I liked most of the colors of the walls and knew I'd leave a majority of the paint colors the same.  However, in our house, I literally have  blank slate.  There is nothing, nada, on the walls. 

The kitchen

   

I am doing a striped accent wall with these colors, with the second color as the "base" and then using the other 3 colors as stripes.  Then I'll use the base color throughout the kitchen as the kitchen wall color also. 

Living Room

 The walls will be this color
 And then the wall that has the fireplace I'm going to do a couple shades darker, so something like this.  I would rather do a color, but I can't figure out what color to do without it being so permanent that I can never change my decor.

Office



Blue!!!  Crazy, huh?  This isn't the exact shade, but I'd like to do a slate blue of some sort. 

Basement



I'm not completely sold on this, but we want something light and airy since the basement is so open and bright.  Any other suggestions?

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So, what do you think? Likes/dislikes?  HELP!!!

Weekend recap.

It's Monday morning, and I feel like my weekend didn't exist.  I hate that feeling!  It comes from having an extremely busy weekend, and even though it was a great weekend, it was just very busy.

Friday night after I got off work I headed to Columbia.  I love going to Columbia - I seriously feel like it's a vacation everytime we go.  I love the town, the atmosphere, and being with my parents.  It's a 2 hour drive, which I dread, and it started the same way it always does.  Me taking my phone out of my purse, placing it on my lap and hoping that someone, anyone, will call me and talk to me for 2 hours to make the time fly by faster.  I tried calling my sister, my best friend from college, and neither of them answered.  Okay, now what?  I started texting a few random people, but after those "conversations" died down, I was bored.  I put in one of my New Life CD's and started singing along with my favorite worship leader ever (Ross Parsley), and then it hit me.  Why do I always have to be doing something?  I turned the music off, shut my phone off, and sat in silence.  To be honest, it was awkward at first.  It was weird.  So, I started praying outloud.  I went on and on and on about everything in my life that is going on, cried, sobbed, laughed, screamed... I probably looked like a whack-job to anyone passing me.  But it was the most rewarding and fulfilling 1.5 hours I've had in a long time.  You see, even though God already knew the millions of emotions I am feeling in my heart and mind, He still desires and wants me to talk to him about them anyways.  He knows why my heart feels broken, why I go from feeling discouraged to feeling ecstatic in a matter of moments... He knows it all.  But He also desires and craves times where we just talk to him.  I arrived in Columbia and felt refreshed.  It was absolutely amazing.

Saturday we woke up at 6am to start the garage sale.  This wasn't your typical garage sale, it was NUTS.  The subdivision Mom & Dad live in was completely packed out, they estimate that 10,000 people go in/out of that subdivision on garage sale day.  It was nuts.  It was totally worth it though, because Tyler and I made $220!  I expected to make around $100, so that was a nice surprise.

Sunday we had church, I went to the gym, and then we spent our afternoon at Home Goods, Pier 1, and Home Depot.  We are getting sooooo excited to be in our house, it was fun going around to different stores and talking about what we want to do with the house.  OUR house.  Our very own house.  :)  We are so excited.  If you have any paint color ideas, feel free to throw them at me.  I think I finally figured out the kitchen/dining room colors, so now I'm stuck on the living room and basement.

Sorry to ramble on and on about nothing... blogging is such an "outlet" for me, I truly enjoy writing and I hope I don't bore you to death.  Thanks to all my faithful readers.  You are loved!