Adventures in Home-Buying: Phase Two
So, before we embark on Phase Two, I feel like I need to clarify my last post a little bit. I just want to be clear that the Pre-Approval process wasn’t easy for us NOT because we aren’t financially fit or are unable to buy a home at this time, but because I was very anxious about the whole thing. When it comes down to it, I am a pretty frugal person, and the thought of having a mortgage—even though we already pay a very high rent—was really scary to me for whatever reason. So just in case it wasn’t clear: we are very financially stable and have saved a lot of money up to buy a home. Pre-approval was “hard” for ME because I had tons of questions and was very anxious about the whole thing. Just wanted to be sure that was clear.
So, next up is the fun stuff!
House hunting! I personally love house hunting online, and was a big fan of it before we ever decided to buy a house. It’s just cool to see what’s out there, and I like seeing what people do decorating wise. One of my favorite things is to look at the million dollar listings and see what those houses are like. We’ll never own a million dollar home, but they are FUN to look at!
What’s even more fun is actually looking when you know you could end up in one of the homes you see. I’ll admit, our house hunting has been a bit willy nilly these first few weeks. We’re kind of all over the place!
One of the houses we plan to see. Blurred for privacy!
I think one of the first steps in house hunting is narrowing down your wants and needs. Ours was a short list:
At least 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
2 car garage (attached or unattached, doesn’t matter)
Nice kitchen. For us, this doesn’t mean GOURMET. It just means nice enough that we don’t have to do anything to it for a few years if we don’t want to.
And that was it. We started with plugging in our price range and parameters, and searching the entire county for available homes. We’re not tied to any one specific neighborhood or suburb, so we thought, hey, let’s look at everything! This turned out to make things a bit harder for us, because there are a lot of homes on the market right now. Needless to say, our heads were spinning.
Luckily, we met with a realtor who helped steer us in the right direction. He asked great questions to get us thinking about where we want to be, and I think we’ve narrowed our search area down to about three ‘burbs. Still a lot, but we plan to head out this weekend and drive around to check out neighborhoods and see what we think!
Another house we plan to see. Blurred for privacy!
Here are the things we’ve been thinking about on our house hunt:
Narrowing our focus. Once we decided our budget, we started to narrow down the areas we want to look.
Making a list of our wants and needs. These will be dependent on many factors. How long do we plan to live in our house? What IS a want vs. a need? For example, to us, things like hardwood floors & granite countertops are wants, not needs.
Driving around. Realtors are GREAT at taking pictures to make real estate listings look their very best. It’s important to us to drive around and scope the neighborhoods, to make sure they’re what we’re looking for.
Thinking about things like schools & commute times. B already works a lot of long hours during the week, so we want to minimize his commute as much as possible so that when we have a family, he’s not spending his evenings driving home from work rather than spending time with us. There are pros and cons to different areas, and we’ve been thinking not only about commute times, but schools as well. We plan to live in our new home for quite a few years, so we want to make sure we’re in the best possible area for our family!
So there’s part one of Phase Two! I’m excited to drive around this weekend and check out a few neighborhoods. Next week, I’ll introduce you to our awesome realtor. Spoiler alert: I met him on Twitter! Three cheers for social media.
If you were buying a house, what would be your wants and needs?
Adventures in Home-Buying
In case you missed my announcement on Twitter a few weeks ago…we’ve officially started the home-buying process and we are so excited! Though to be fair, our home-buying process started awhile ago…over two years ago to be exact. That’s when we sat down and mapped out a five year plan for the direction we wanted to take our lives after our wedding! This was done informally, at first, over dinner dates and such, but took on a more formal approach after our honeymoon, which is when we altered our savings plans and took a closer look at how we manage our stock assets, retirement funds, life insurance, etc. so that we would be on pace to buy a house in 2012. And now, here we are!
I thought I would blog much of this process as there doesn’t seem to be much out there that’s NOT written by a real estate or mortgage professional. I find most of the content on buying a house out there pretty drab and mostly common sense, and I would definitely have been more interested in reading people’s personal stories. So here is ours!
The first step in buying a home is generally the pre-approval process. This occurs when you go to the lender and apply to be pre-approved for a mortgage. The bank will tell you, based on current financial information, how much you can budget for a home and how much to expect to pay for closing costs, etc. I thought this would be a super easy thing and we could walk into a bank and walk out with a pre-approval 2 (or 24) hours later.
I thought wrong.
I wish people would TALK about the pre-approval process. Most people just say, “Oh, we got pre-approved, la-di-da,” and are on their way. A lot of people say “pre-approval was easy peasy.” For us, it wasn’t so easy, and I wish I had known it could be this way ahead of time! So why wasn’t it easy for us?
First of all, we didn’t do our research. We assumed we would just get a home loan from our current bank (which is actually a credit union). We have some of our other loans there—auto loan, a few student loans—and thought, being loyal customers for over 10 years, that it would be perfect to get our home loan through there.
So, we went to the bank, filled out the online application, and waited for them to contact us. 72 hours later, they contacted us, detailing an exorbitant amount of costs we had to have on hand for closing. We asked a few questions, and got a few non-responses. Being first time buyers, we had hoped for a little more communication and DEFINITELY a little more explanation, but that wasn’t the case with our bank. So, we withdrew our application.
Needless to say, it was a huge bummer and caused me some major anxiety. Here we were, with plenty of money in the bank, a nice stack of assets, excellent credit scores, and hopes to buy a new home, and it seemed our bank didn’t want to lend to us. Scary and heartbreaking.
Back to square one. This time, we were committed to doing research and finding a bank or mortgage company who would be more understanding of first time buyers and the many, many, MANY questions they may have. We asked for recommendations from friends and family members, and looked at several different companies to compare rates, fund and down payment requirements, etc. Ultimately, we settled on a company that as of now, we couldn’t be happier with. They made the process relatively easy (though there was still a lot of paperwork!) and their customer service has been excellent.
Second of all, I failed to take into consideration our student loans. While it’s my understanding that student loan debt is generally considered the best kind of debt to have, of course it’s still a factor in how much you can afford. B went to a private, out of state school for pharmacy school, and as such, he has a lot of student loans. I have some from college too. We are very aggressive in paying them down and plan to have all of our loans paid off in 10 years, rather than the standard 20 year rate that most people pay at. So while that’s all fine and well, it is still a factor in how much home we can afford.
Thankfully, B had already planned for this. I am so lucky that my husband is the MOST pragmatic person ever, because he was able to talk me off the ledge when I got cold feet about buying a home. Because yes, I did get cold feet and thought maybe it wasn’t the right time for us after all. But once we sat down, went through all our financials again, and looked hard at what we wanted our purchase price to be, my feet warmed up and I realized we still had all of our ducks in a row. Because for us, it makes more sense to BUY now, then it does to consider renting again. And although the prospect of taking on a mortgage is daunting to me, I know that in the long term, it will result in us being more financially fit than we are, even now (and I feel pretty darn good about where we are now).
After all that, we were able to get pre-approved for a budget that fits with our needs AND wants. And I feel comfortable moving forward, knowing that purchasing a home right now is the right decision for us!
So the moral of the pre-approval story is: do your research and make sure your ducks are in a row. Ultimately, if you’re financially fit and have planned ahead, you’ll be better off in the long run!
Stay tuned for the Phase Two…the fun stuff: finding a realtor and actually looking at homes!
Another Favorite Dish
I previously wrote that risotto is my go-to dish…and it definitely is. But over the course of the last few years, I have put together a repertoire of dishes I can easily put together on nights when I don’t feel like cooking or am fresh out of new ideas. This dish has become a new favorite of ours, and I always have the ingredients to make it on hand!
May I present Emily’s Coconut Curried Potatoes with Peas:
So easy to make, minimal ingredients, and tastes delicious. This dish is a real winner in our house. Just the right amount of spice makes it a comforting & flavorful go-to!
Get thee to Emily’s blog and try this recipe out. You won’t regret it!
Happy Weekend, kids! Posting next week should pick up as I debut a new series…Adventures in Homebuying. Can’t wait to bring you along for the ride!
Bury This Book: Red Mist, by Patricia Cornwell
*Bury This Book will be the name of any negative book reviews I do. I figured since I’m The BookWORM Wife, Bury This Book was kind of appropriate…right?!
Writing this book review really pains me. I don’t like to write negative reviews in the first place, but even more so when the author—and the book series—is one of my favorites.
Red Mist is another novel about medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta written by Patricia Cornwell. The plot, from Amazon: Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women, where an inmate has information not only on Fielding, but also on a string of grisly killings. The murder of an Atlanta family years ago, a young woman on death row, and the inexplicable deaths of homeless people as far away as California seem unrelated. But Scarpetta discovers connections that compel her to conclude that what she thought ended with Fielding’s death and an attempt on her own life is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale. And she is the only one who can stop it.
For whatever reason, I cannot give up on the Scarpetta novels, even as they continue to get worse and worse. This book is full of self-indulgent, long-winded paragraphs that do nothing to advance the plot. What’s worse, Cornwell’s writing feels really forced and the characters are no longer likeable…yes, even my beloved Scarpetta. The novel just feels really…looooong. And there’s not enough plot twists or turns to keep me turning the pages, which is crucial when writing a thriller or mystery novel. When I initially started reading this book, I had high hopes—it seemed as though, in those first pages, that Cornwell was back and writing Scarpetta novels with a vengeance. Alas, that feeling didn’t last long and the book was a struggle to finish.
With every Scarpetta book I read, I keep hoping they will get better. I LOVE the earlier books. Post Mortem remains one of my all-time favorites of any books I have ever read. Kay Scarpetta and the cast of characters surrounding her felt real in the earlier books–they were all well-rounded, well-developed and believable as parts of her life. As the series has continued, however, there has been a sharp decline in Cornwell’s treatment of the novels. For me, this decline was most noticeable starting with 2003’s Blow Fly and in the books since then. Now, 19 books in, the characters are just shells of their former selves—even Scarpetta. Her marriage to Benton feels hollow, and her interactions with other characters feel sad and empty. Lucy and Marino feel as though they’re on the periphery the entire time, when before, they were so involved in each case and story line. In truth, I feel like I am watching my favorite characters die. As much as it pains me to say this, I think perhaps it’s time for Cornwell to put the Scarpetta series away for good, as it’s clear from her writing that even she no longer cares about the characters. And yet, I cannot seem to give up on this series. I think it’s because I’ve read them all from the beginning and I just keep holding out hope for some glimmer of the novels I once loved.
Anyone else a Scarpetta fan? How do you cope with the death of a series?
Eleven Things…With Changes.
Of course I have to change the rules, right?! Mindy was nice enough to tag me though, and since I am kind of having writers’ block as of late, I thought this might be a good way to get the words flowing again!
Rules:
- Post these rules. Check!
- You must post 11 random things about yourself. Ok, fine.
- Answer the questions set for you in their post. Sure, no problem.
- Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer. Nope. Just answer the questions I was asked or make up some of your own. I am lazy and I don’t do these memes normally anyway.
- Go to their blog and tell them that you’ve tagged them. I was tagged on Twitter, not on my blog, so I guess it’s ok to break this rule too!
- No stuff in the tagging section about “you are tagged if you are reading this”. You legitimately have to tag 11 people. Psssh. Sorry, not doing that. Rules are meant to be broken and have I mentioned that I don’t normally do memes like this anyway?! So…you are tagged if you are reading this and want to do it!
Eleven Random Things About Me:
[one] My favorite food is popcorn.
[two] I love love love awards shows. Like, LOVE them. I just love seeing celebrities out interacting with each other and not playing characters on screen. My favorite awards show is the Oscars, followed closely by the Golden Globes. I absolutely LOATHE the Grammy awards (something about them just rubs me the wrong way), and I refuse to watch the VMAs, too.
[three] On the same token, I have a deep-seeded obsession with football documentaries that have the players & coaches mic’ed up on the sidelines. I just LOVE seeing all that behind the scenes type stuff. I often wonder when I’m watching games what the players are saying or thinking, and those types of documentaries often show that. ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, while not totally football based, really helped redeem that network for me. Some really, really interesting documentaries there (my favorite so far was the one about SMU).
[four] I read when I walk. Yep. A lot of people either a) whine that they can’t do that or b) whine that people who read when they walk are weirdos who don’t pay attention to where they’re walking, but I’m hear to tell you that a) yes, you can…even you, the klutzy one, and b) I’m not a weirdo and I actually pay better attention than someone who listens to their iPod while walking. How? Well, for a), Position the book or magazine so that you can use your peripheral vision to watch the ground AND what’s going on in front of you, and look up every so often. And for b), I don’t EVER read while I’m crossing the street or waiting at a stoplight (hello, safety first—drivers ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO PEDESTRIANS), and the aforementioned looking up thing helps a whole lot in staying out of people’s ways.
[five] I recently started watching Gossip Girl, and I am kind of obsessed. I know, late to the party. But I’m here now, and it’s so good! Also, I don’t know how popular this opinion is because I’m a new GG fan, but: I frickin’ LOVE Chuck Bass. I just started season two and man, the dude has the BEST one-liners!
[six] I’m trying not to be so judgmental this year, but Facebook sometimes makes that really hard. I cannot believe the super personal crap people see fit to post!
[seven] I hate abbreviations. You will not hear me referring to B as my DH (a DH, in my world, is a Designated Hitter!), nor will I ever talk about pregnancy with abbreviations like BFP, OPK, or BD. Annoying. Are we not adults? Use your words!
[eight] I am a cheese-aholic. My favorite kinds are smoked gouda and parmesan, but I don’t discriminate. Right now in our fridge? SEVEN kinds of cheese. Sharp Cheddar, Mild Cheddar, Mexican Blend, Smoked Gouda, Mild Cheddar slices, Laughing Cow, and Cream Cheese. Yeah…I won’t be going vegan anytime soon.
[nine] I am of Irish descent, but my absolute LEAST favorite holiday is St. Patrick’s Day. Something about everyone claiming it as their own and using it to get totally smashed is REALLY annoying to me. I also dislike when people say they eat “corn beef,” when it’s actually called CORNED Beef. I feel like if you’re going to bogart a holiday, you should probably try to sound like you know what you’re talking about.
[ten] I dislike most typically girly things. Examples: I hate shopping. I strongly dislike most romantic comedies (the thought of having to see something like The Notebook again makes me want to vom, (yes, I saw it once, and NO, it is not the OMGBESTMOVIEEVER!) and although I find Channing Tatum INCREDIBLY good-looking, I will not be seeing The Vow). I really dislike “chick lit.” I’m not a big fan of high heels (which might surprise you, considering how obsessed with my wedding shoes I was!). I don’t like getting dressed up and prefer jeans & sweatshirts…and actually, I prefer sweatpants or leggings over jeans.
Photo by Sarah Immel Photography
[eleven] I always have my toenails painted. And they are almost always a variation of the color red!
PS, why eleven? That is a random number if I ever heard one.
Questions to answer:
[one] If you were doing a destination wedding, where would it be? Somewhere tropical. We went to an AMAZING destination wedding in the Dominican Republic and it was so awesome, it seriously made me rethink our wedding plans (we traveled there for the wedding RIGHT about the time we started planning ours!).
[two] What was the first movie you saw? I honestly can’t remember the first movie I ever saw, but I remember the first movie I ever saw in the movie theater, does that count? It was Home Alone, and I remember how exciting it was for my parents to take us to see it. And what do you know, Home Alone is still a family favorite.
[three] What book do you think everyone should read? Good question but REALLY hard to answer. I could go book snobby and pick some classic or “important” novel but I’m not going to, because to be frank, I hate book snobs (a topic worthy of a blog post all its own, I think). Feel free to judge but I’m going to say Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I still can’t believe people have read Twilight or The Hunger Games but won’t bother to pick up a Harry Potter. It is an amazing series and EVERYONE should give it at least a shot.
[four] What’s the best joke you’ve ever heard? The standard one I still tell—the only joke I can really remember—at every bar event and party I’ve ever been to. It’s totally crass but it gets people EVERY time:
There was a guy who was flying to Pittsburgh to meet his buddy. He goes to the airport to buy his ticket and the girl at the ticket desk is like, super smoking hot, with a huge rack. He walks up to the counter, trying to be all suave, and says, “Hi, I’d like to buy a picket to Tittsburgh.” After some shocked silence, he apologizes. The ticket girl takes pity on him, hands him his ticket, and tells him not to worry, because it happens “all the time.”
He flies to Pittsburgh and goes to dinner with his buddy. At the table, the man recounts the story, telling his friend, “I had the WORST Freudian slip today. The ticket girl at the airport was so hot, and I wanted to say ticket to Pittsburgh, and instead I said picket to Tittsburgh!” His buddy laughs and tells him not to worry. “That kind of stuff happens to me all the time! Just the other day, I was having breakfast with my wife. I wanted to say, ‘Please pass the orange juice,’ but instead I said, ‘You goddamn whore, you ruined my fuckin’ life!’”
And THAT is how it’s done.
[five] What’s your favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni. I even love to eat a few of them off of frozen pizzas before I pop them in the oven!
[six] What was your favorite subject in high school? Anything English related.
[seven] Do you prefer the summer or winter Olympics? Winter!
[eight] What’s your favorite dessert? Crème Brulee.
[nine] Would you rather watch the Super Bowl or World Series? The Super Bowl. Which is ironic, because we didn’t watch it this year. I just could NOT get it up for these two teams—the whole thing just seemed boring to me. And I am not a commercial watcher so I could care less about those. Luckily, B feels the exact same way, so we watched this instead.
[ten] What concert is on your bucket list? Truthfully, I’m not a big concert person. But I would love to see somebody like Eric Clapton or Paul McCartney or Billy Joel. If we’re talking DREAM concerts (aka never gonna happen for obvious reasons), then I’d love to have been able to see The Beatles.
[eleven] If you had to live in another country for a year, where would you live? France! Or Italy. Or Germany, now that I am learning German. I know passing French and Italian though, so those would be my first two choices.
Now you go! Pick one or two of these questions and answer them yourself in the comments!
Front Door Décor
I feel like I have to apologize a bit for the semi-radio silence around here. I know I’ve posted a few things, but I am just feeling kind of BORING lately. I’ve got stuff to post but I am being kinda lazy about actually writing things up. Just one of those slumps you go through; I know you all can relate!
Today I want to show you the remainder of our Valentine’s/Winter décor. Yes, there’s more. When I posted about this previously, I forgot to include our front door décor…so without further ado, here it is!
The fake arborvitae tree is standard and stays out in front of our door all year round. I try to change the wreaths for every season (or for every sports team!), so the silver wreath is our “winter wreath.”
In the middle, I hung a heart-shaped wreath made of similar materials that I picked up at the Target $1 Spot. That section of the store is AWESOME for holiday-related goodies on the cheap!
Lastly, a snowman rug. Since we have no snow here (seriously, Mother Nature?!), this will have to do.
Of course, no post would be complete without a funny story & picture of Reggie. This weekend when I was changing the sheets/cleaning our bedroom, I found him hanging out like this:
Yep, half in, half out underneath the bed. Just chillin’ there. What a funny guy!
What’s going on with you guys? Anything in particular you’d want me to post about? Give me some ideas!
Blogging: How Much Is Too Much?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the art of blogging lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how blogging will change when we decide to have children. It seems like, at least in the circles of blogs I read, there has been a major baby boom lately. Everyone is having babies! This is natural, since a lot of these bloggers got married around the same time we did, so they’re starting to think about families and houses and other important life things at the same time we are. I went to lunch with the lovely Abby awhile back, and we were discussing blogging and sharing parts of our lives on the Internet. And the question that kept arising was how much is too much?
That is, how much of your life and children do you decide to share with the world wide web? And how much is appropriate? I know that when the time comes (and if I am lucky enough to experience it), I’ll want to document my pregnancy, but that’s largely because a) it will obviously be a new experience for me and b) because it’s my choice. But a child doesn’t have a choice if the mom decides to plaster their stats, picture, and poops all over the Internet.
This short article sums it up nicely. Basically, the premise is this: my kid is not my content. And I think that’s a great way to look at things. There are a lot of wonderful bloggers who share their children in a tasteful and appropriate way, and then there’s the other kind of bloggers…the ones who do things like post pictures of their kid’s first poop in the potty chair. What happens when your son or daughter is grown, and the capabilities of the Internet have grown? Their classmates might be able to find those things, and OMG how embarrassing, especially in formative years.
In a similar vein, Nodakademic wrote a post last month that really stuck with me. In it, she made some really thought-provoking remarks. Specifically: “If you’re a blogger, just try to tell me you don’t give extra thought to the way an event in your life goes, as you collect the photos to share with the Internet. Tell me you don’t try to plate your food more prettily. Or make sure all your dishes match. Or do a DIY project (did I mention: I really hate that acronym) instead of buying something, just so you can write about how you made it yourself? I think I’m over it.”
And the truth is? That blogger she’s describing? I feel I can honestly say that’s not me. I am who I am and blogging is a hobby. I only whip my camera out when I remember to. I put off doing things I specifically want to blog about because I’m lazy and don’t want to have to get out the camera and edit the photos (No, seriously. That risotto post? I’ve been talking about writing it since last April). I don’t think about how I’ll frame life events for my blog (another great example: in the past two months, we had an awesome birthday party for B and attended an annual winter games party at my parents’. I haven’t—and don’t plan to—blog about either of them). If I DIY something or create something crafty, it’s because I enjoy it, not because I want to blog it. But at the same time, there ARE things that I think “ooh, can’t wait to share this on the blog!” or “That would be a cool thing/series/event to blog about.”
I guess I’m not really sure where I’m going with this post. I guess it’s just to say that I’m not sure how we’ll handle blogging about our children when the time comes, but I think the time to start drawing a dividing line is probably now. I enjoy blogging, so I can’t see that it’s a hobby I’ll give up anytime soon. And I like the fact that while I am proud of my blog and the things I write and share here, when it comes down to it, it’s NOT my whole personal life splashed across your screens. There’s lots and lots I don’t talk about here, and I LIKE that. I can tell you this though—I’m honestly not sure about things like if I’ll put my child’s name on the Internet. On the same token, I like reading other people’s birth stories because I find the whole thing fascinating, but I’m fairly certain I probably won’t ever want to share mine. And you can forget about those open letters to baby. I think they are heartwarming to read, and if you’re comfortable sharing, great. But for me, things like that will remain private. As much as I love my readers, I don’t want you reading things like that. I’ll save them for my child, to whom they are written…just like I don’t publish love letters to my husband here or talk about our sex life. It’s private. Monthly updates about your baby’s growth? Sure! Cute and fun to read. Intimate letters from mother to child or wife to husband? Sorry, but I’ll be keeping those behind closed doors.
So I guess that’s it: the point is, I am really on the fence. I like sharing things with you via this blog, but at the same time…I don’t like oversharing either.
So I want to know what you guys think. Where do you draw the line? When it comes to blogging about your life or your children, how much is too much?
The Bookworm Wife Recommends…
Moloka’i, by Alan Brennert
So, I’m breaking one of my rules and reviewing this book before I’m even finished with it. Why? Because it’s just THAT good. I have about 30 pages left and I have to say, I love this book so much. It is one of the quickest reads and most wonderfully written novels I have read in a long time.
I’d never heard of Moloka’i or Allen Brennert before my co-worker’s wife lent me this book on Friday. But now that I have, I can’t wait to get my hands on more of his books. This is the story of a 7-year-old Hawaiian girl named Rachel, who somehow contracts leprosy. The novel takes place back in a time when there were no good treatments for leprosy, and the Hawaiian population was particularly susceptible, as commerce and trade made their way to the islands, bringing diseases that the Hawaiian people had never been exposed to before. Having no tolerance, many of them contracted things like small pox and leprosy, and these diseases devastated the population.
Because so little was known about leprosy at the time, anyone who was found to have the disease was “arrested” and sent to live in exile at the lepers’ camp on the island of Moloka’i. Rachel, at 7-years-old, is ripped away from her family and sent to live at the girls’ home on the island. At times heartbreaking but also joyful and full of spirit, the novel tells the story of Rachel and her new ‘ohana, or family, that she develops at the lepers’ village.
The writing is beautiful and the plot is driven, with well-rounded characters that you’ll fall in love with. I found myself smiling, laughing, and crying at different points in the book, as I became enveloped in Rachel’s story. The novel, with its rich descriptions and history, reminded me a lot of another favorite book of mine, Memoirs of a Geisha. Although the books are wildly different in times, plots, and locations, the rich & descriptive writing and well-driven story lines are very similar.
If you’re looking for an interesting story to lose yourself in, pick up Moloka’i. You won’t regret it!
What have you been reading lately?
Letter from Reggie
Hi Guys!
Reggie here.
Mom says she has been feeling reaaaalllly boring lately and can’t think of what to write about. So she asked me to come and say hello! Here’s what I’ve been up to since I came home.
I like to play video games with Dad.
I like to play computer games with him too!
I love to play with my scratchers—I have three different kinds, did you know? This one has a ball that hangs from the inside of it and I LOVE to try to get it.
Sometimes I try to crawl inside looking for it.
I am a good boy and always eat my food. Mom always laughs when I eat though, because I sit on my food tray to enjoy!
I have a lots of fun toys, but my favorite toy is a wadded up piece of tissue paper.
Oh, and this box that I came home in. I love when Mom drops the tissue paper into the box.
Sometimes I get tired though and then I just like to lay in it, half in and half out.
And that’s about it from me! What have you guys been up to? And leave a comment to tell my mom what she should write about!
Take care!
Love,
Winter/Valentine’s Décor
It’s well documented on the blog that I love Christmas. So when it comes to taking my Christmas decorations down? I absolutely dread it and find the whole thing totally depressing. Yes, it’s nice to have a clean and clutter-free house again, but it also makes me really sad that the holidays are over. I do have some winter décor that I leave up, but this year I decided to really take it up a notch, so as to take away the sting of putting Christmas away. Enter, my first year decorating for Valentine’s Day! Here’s what our house looks like now, simultaneously decorated for winter and that big lovey dovey holiday.
First up, our “mantle”:
We don’t really have a mantel, but we cleaned out our office finally and are actually using it, hurrah! It used to be this room off of our entryway that was just a dumping ground for crap. I cleaned out the desk, organized things a little bit, and now I use it when I am crafting or studying German. The “mantle” is really the top of the bookcase and desk. I left our fake evergreen garland up, because I think pine + white lights is not just Christmasy, but also very wintery décor.
I covered a piece of artwork with red & damask wrapping paper and tied on our tinsel wreath. Three cheers for reusing some more Christmas decorations! A paper heart gave it just the right touch for Valentine’s Day.
Next is two candle holders I got on sale at Target, holding my snowflake candles, and some assorted Valentine’s framed décor. The “A Plus B” piece was made by me, and the Valentine’s subway art in the second frame is from the lovely Megan over at Balancing Home.
Lastly, some fake mini-roses. These were from my bridal shower!
Moving into the living room, our bar area is decked out too:
The heart garland says “X O X O X O.”
I made those X O frames, also. I made a set of four, but found they were better used in our space as a set of two. You’ll see the other set in a minute.
Some snowmen, to bring in the winter theme:
And a little winterscape:
The wooden deer and tree were made for me by my co-worker a few years ago, and the little crystal deer is a Christmas ornament. The printable in the frame (perfect for winter!) is again from Balancing Home.
Moving into the living room:
This garland says “Be Mine,” and look—there’s the other set of X O frames I made!
Some more snowmen…I just love them and they’re so easy to repurpose from Christmas.
This guy is actually a Christmas tree topper! I’ve never used him as one though.
Another snowman by our entertainment center. Not pictured is a stuffed snowman + snowflake blanket that graces our couch.
Into the kitchen!
Another Valentine’s vignette: repurposed strawberry ornaments in a vase with a big red flower, another framed piece of Valentine’s art (again, made by me), my snowflake dish with leftover candy canes, birthday roses on their last leg, and a little winter bird house. Not pictured but also in the kitchen are some Valentine’s Day towels and a little snowman sign hanging above the stove.
I even decorated our bathroom:
Snowflake garland…
Lastly, our bedroom:
More framed art, again all made by me. I find it’s the easiest way to have holiday décor. Little expense, and you can change them out with every season!
And another snowflake garland.
So, there you have it, our winter/Valentine’s décor. Definitely took away a little bit of the post-Christmas blues I always feel.
Do you decorate for the different seasons/holidays?
