Resolutions in 2011

It's been forever since I've blogged on here! I have several resolutions this year that I am really trying to stick to...updating this blog is one of them! I almost never make resolutions since I know I am not good at sticking to them, so this is why I am putting them in writing. One of the main resolutions I am trying very hard to keep is to eat healthier and exercise regularly. So far I have been doing good at watching my portion sizes and I am trying hard to introduce more protein in my diet. Since I don't typically eat meat this is something that I am trying hard to do. Along with this goal is another goal to lose 25 pounds by my birthday. I have almost 7 months to do this so that breaks down to about 4 pounds a month...very attainable! One major road block to this goal is that its hard to find to get to the gym since I work about 10-12 almost every day...but I am no longer going to let that get in my way. I will make time to go even if I don't get to the gym until 8 or 9 at night. I prefer to work out in the mornings but that would require me to get up at 4:30am and I know that is unrealistic for me!

Projects

Matt and I have been extremely busy with house projects! Before we officially moved in we refinished the hardwood floors in all three bedrooms and the dining room (we had to rip up the carpet in the dining room first though)! Then we took down the mirror above the fireplace, ran electricity to that wall, had to putty, sand and paint that surface, and mounted our TV there. It looks great! We also painted our bedroom and the bathroom. During the move we couldn't get our couch to fit through the door so we had to go furniture shopping. We LOVE the new couch! We have slowly been unpacking, but still have stuff in both of our parents houses and in my grandparents basement. We absolutely love owning our own house, but it has been keeping us busy almost every day. The kitchen cabinets are ordered and should be shipped out by April 9th. The counter tops have also been ordered, but cannot be customized until the cabinets are in place. I am thrilled to be able to complete this project, because it is the last major project we will take on for a while! Our home will be completely transformed once this project is complete. We would love to have all of our friends and family come over for a house warming party some time in May...we were hoping to make it a Cinco De Mayo party, so we will shoot for the 5th as long as our kitchen is complete by then!

It's official

We are officially homeowners as of Friday at 12:00. After closing, we drove over to our new house and got right to work! We are officially moving in to our house this Saturday, the 6th and have a lot to do before we get the furniture in. We made a TON of progress over the weekend. We ripped up the dining room carpet (we want to refinish the hardwoods that were underneath). We painted the bedroom and bathroom, hung all of the blinds, prepped all of the hardwood floors in the bedrooms for sanding and refinishing, took down the mirror above the fireplace, scraped the wall board off that it was mounted to, and are in the process of running electric through that wall, so there will be an outlet behind our T.V. which we are going to mount there. We have also slowly started moving the dozens of boxes that we've packed over the past few weeks. We still have a lot to pack, because we still need to use most of it at our apartment for now. Our next big project is to get the cupboards ordered. My dad, Ernie, and Matt figured out that the "bump" in our wall by the sink is a 1 inch think pinewood box which covers up a vent pipe. The solution the men came up with to fix this problem is to place two by fours where our current cabinets are (after we remove them of course) and drywall over it. This means everything will be flush, and we can place all of the cabinets and appliances where we originally planned for them to go. We are so excited to get this project done. It will make our house look that much better! We also are having all of the hardwood floors refinished (as previously mentioned) this week before we move our things in. With all of these updates, our house will be completely transformed!

Keeping Busy

I had off from teaching this past week for February break. My week "off" wasn't much of a vacation. There was packing, lots of homework, and errands to run. I am currently taking a weekend course that meets every other weekend for four weeks. One of our major assignments in this class is a 20 page literature review. I think this counts for at least 60% of our grade...there are only 2 big assignments. The other was a group presentation that my group aced. The paper was my major source of stress this week, but I am almost done. It's due this Friday.
Speaking of Friday... we close on our house this Friday at 11:00am!! Our apartment in practically filled to the ceiling with boxes of stuff that we had stored in our laundry room and walk in closet. We have a lot to pack still, but are making progress. Our official moving day will be March 6th. We are also hoping to get our cabinets ordered this weekend. We've a hit bump in this project...literally which has been holding us up. There is a small bump that sticks out of the wall about a half of an inch by the sink in the kitchen. We are not sure whats behind it. Our guess is pluming, since the bathroom is directly above the kitchen. Once we get the keys to the house we have to figure out what is for sure, and how complicated it will be to move it. If we can't move it we will have to reconfigure the layout of cabinets that Lowes came up with because right now we wanted to place a dishwasher right where there that box sticks out. Wish us luck! We will keep everyone updated on how our moving process goes!

Hahaha

So, in the last post Kate told you we had cupboards... well, we found ones from lowe's we like better. we're getting our counter top from there, anyways... we started packing up all our stuff... less than 2 weeks to go.../

That was easy...

So, after complaining how overwhelming looking at cabinets was, we are pretty sure that we found the ones we want. We went to a place called Mr. Seconds...here is a link to the kitchen cabinets we like. http://www.bargain-outlets.com/kitchens.php?cabinet_id=20. There is still a lot do, but most of will wait until we move in.

Decisions, decisons

We may be waiting a while to buy our cabinets. First- we had to make appointments to meet with the kitchen specialists at Lowes and Home Depot...should have realized that one! However, we did get a chance to talk to one of the specialists for a little while last night though, and he came up with a very unique floor plan which requires a little more work than we anticipated. His idea involved replacing one of the kitchens windows with a smaller one so that we could place the sink, dishwasher and extra counter space along that wall. It was a great suggestion to maximize what little kitchen area we have, but involves way more than I think we're willing to do right now. So for now, we are thinking about that option and still shopping around for styles of cabinets we like. Tonight we're going back out shopping; my class was canceled so I am taking advantage of having a night free! It has been very overwhelming so we're going to take things slowly. We were hoping to have everything ordered before we move in so that we could start working on the kitchen ASAP, but after looking around and talking to people, we might wait until we move in. We don't want to rush any decisions and seeing how we have a functional kitchen there is no hurry.