Christmas Recap

Hello Friends!

Hope you had a very merry Christmas. We took a trip to Elyria, OH to visit Matt's family this past weekend. It was a good, relaxing time spent eating...talking...eating and talking....and watching a few classic Christmas movies.

You know I turned 24 on Christmas? I know, I can't believe it either. How did my birthday happen to fall on Christmas day??? Just like every other year, I got "double" the presents and enjoyed birthday cupcakes in my honor.

I got a few candles, new pair of gloves, lots of chocolates, a decorative display shelf, hot cocoa, and a few gift cards to buy whatever I want! Did Santa bring you something nice or did you get a lump of coal? Excited to see my family for New Years!! I will try to upload a few pictures or our tree and lights on the house when I have a better internet connection.

Thanksgiving Recap

Back home from an extended Thanksgiving weekend with family. And it was so so good.

We had plenty of turkey, shopping, and card games. It was so nice to have a four day weekend and get to spend most of it with Mom and Dad. They are pretty special.

One key event that took place over the weekend was my cell phone update. I finally upgraded to an Android phone, the LG Vortex. I must say it is a bit more complicated than my Samsung Glyde, but I really love the screen and all the cool applications. I got the cheapest data plan available with Verizon, so I am hoping I do not go over my 150 MB I'm allotted per month. I have noticed that the battery has to be charged daily, which is a bummer. But you kinda have to expect that with a small computer. Day 2 of having the phone and I am still trying to figure everything out, but all in all, I am pleased with my upgrade.

Shutterfly Holiday Cards

In an effort to send out Christmas cards this year, I have discovered that Shutterfly is trying to make my dreams come true. They are giving away 50 free holiday cards to bloggers! So I thought I would share the wealth with you if you have not already heard about this amazing offer.

It is super easy to do, if you have a blog that is. Just write about the offer, as I am doing here, and they will send you a promo code for your free holiday cards. I'm getting pretty excited about this, can't ya tell?? I love Shutterfly. They have tons of options for about any type of photo project you're working on. I've been trying to get a wedding album put together for a while now but that's still a work in progress. Photo books are my favorite. I love looking at them over and over again.

Here is a link to their website where you can see all the cards they have out this year. Matt and I did not send out cards last year, but I know you would love to have a picture of us on your refrigerator wouldn't you?

Here is also a list of other links if you are interested in looking.

· holiday photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery

· upload pictures to http://www.shutterfly.com/upload-pictures

· calendar to http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching....and I'm excited for it! Are ya with me??

This year, we will be traveling to Shawneetown, Illinois to eat turkey with my Mom's side of the family. Very excited to see all of them because I haven't seen some of them since our wedding in June 2009. Nanny pretty much thinks I have forgotten her so I am happy that we will get to spend time there for Thanksgiving and New Years.

Food I am looking forward to: Nanny's chicken n dumplins, Mom's homemade rolls, turkey, mashed taters, sweet potato with marshmallows, stuffing, and lots of pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and cherry cheese pie by my wonderful Aunt Judy.

No wonder everyone gains weight around this time of year. Who can resist 2 to 3 plates of delicious Thanksgiving dinners?! Yum Yum! What will you be having for Thanksgiving dinner?

Happy Birthday, Dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

My Dad's Birthday was November 10th so I just thought I'd send a little shout out to him as he is now a young 54 years old. I love my Dad so much. He has always been there for me and is always such an encouragement. He knows how to make you laugh and is constantly being a goof ball. We only found it
fitting to throw in a little surprise dance at my wedding last summer. Check out the video!

LOVE YOU DADDY-O!!! So glad to have you in my life.

Veterans and ABC Dental

Happy Veterans Day! Yesterday, ABC Dental hosted a day of free dentistry to over 140 veterans in the Dayton area. We saw 14 patients per hour from 8:00 to 5:00. Did we run on schedule? No, but what we DID do was complete an exam, xrays, and as much dental work as possible in one appointment for every single veteran we saw. It was such an awesome day.

It was so rewarding because a lot of Veterans are under-insured or have very high co-pays so to be able to get their teeth fixed for FREE was a huge blessing for a lot of these people. Yes, there was the occasional rude patient who got tired of waiting for their turn, but all the appreciative ones made up for it. The last patient did not check out til 10:30 last night. It was a long day for most, but very rewarding.

I love working for a boss who is willing to work with people who don't have insurance or who just don't have much income to get their work done. He and the other doctors really try to accommodate (sometimes too much, we still have to pay the bills) but it's nice to help people out. It's easy to get hard-hearted sometimes when I work so hard at my job and see other people mooching off the government for their Medicaid, but sometimes people really do need help. And after a day like yesterday, I am very reminded of that.

Thank you to all the veterans and those currently serving. We appreciate everything you have done to help us keep the freedom we have.

Here is a picture of ABC Dental's 2nd year birthday cake. Isn't it cute??

Parental Visit

Ever since we got into our new house, I haven't been very bloggy. I apologize!

My Mom and Dad came over to visit for the weekend. It was the first time they had seen our house since going to an open house back in July. They loved everything and my Mom kept taking pictures (especially of the backyard where she plans on landscaping it in her own personal style!) We had a good time together, mostly just eating out and shopping. Krista came over Friday night and we watched the newer version of Karate Kid. Saturday she met us at the Fairfield Commons Mall and we searched high and low for her new winter coat. By the way, have you noticed that the Christmas decorations are out already?! Christmas Countdown: 46 days.

We had some good food over the weekend too. Including Cici's, food court (Chick-fil-a, Subway, and Japanese) Matt's homemade lasagna, and Chipotle on Sunday. I weigh a bit more today than I did before the weekend, I'm pretty sure about that.

Here's our fall family foto. Enjoy!

All Moved In!

We are all moved into our new house! It is beautiful and we absolutely love it. We got the keys on Sunday afternoon around 1:00 and immediately started loading up the two pick up trucks with all our junk. It went pretty quick as we had a couple guys help us out. (Thanks Jon and Thad!) After we got all the big stuff over, Matt and Jon went to Lowe's to get all the panels and chain link fences to finish off our back yard for Cookie. They worked on that til it got dark and I worked inside, unpacking boxes. We were pooped by the end of the night and very sore the next day. But it was so worth it!

The to-do list is getting smaller, but we still have a few things to do including putting together our new dresser for the master bedroom, putting up decorations, exchanging a bar stool, unpacking the remaining boxes in the garage and office, and lastly, cleaning the rest of the old apartment for our inspection on Friday. Not much left to do until we're "done" with the move. I love having a house so far! It's such a feeling of freedom that we can repaint or put in something new if we want. We are just so lucky that there is almost nothing to remodel because the previous owners really kept up with remodeling in the 7 years they lived here. The only "big" project we have ahead of us (and definitely not right away) is the mater bathroom. It is just a bit outdated with linoleum flooring and a bronze-colored shower door.

Here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure. I cannot show you the living room and our bedroom yet because my mom hasn't seen our new furniture yet and it's a surprise.

I love the tree in our front yard right now.


One major factor in buying this house: the SUN ROOM!


Guest bathroom, recently remodeled


Guest bedroom (no bed yet, but feel free to use the air mattress!)


Aaaand...my AMAZING kitchen! It's like I designed it myself. I love the color and the counters.

More pictures to come :-)

How's it going?

Has it really been two weeks since my last post? Are you even still reading this blog?? What a slacker I've been. I guess it's just because there hasn't been a lot going on nor have I been inspired to write about anything special.

We got a lot of packing done today. I still have the whole kitchen to take care of though, which I'm kind of avoiding. I don't know how we accumulated so much stuff in just a year of being in this house.

The good news is....we get to move in a week early. We will get our keys a week from tomorrow. Seems like forever ago when we first saw our new house and now, we're about ready to move into it. We have quite a list of things to do the next two weeks before our rent is up. We have to schedule an inspection for our rental townhouse when it's completely empty. We also have to rent a carpet shampooer and do the floors. So in a span of only 24 hours, we will probably be cleaning the floors in both houses.

Today we went on a trip to Lowe's to look at washers, dryers, mirrors, paint, spackle, and storage bins. I want a smokey purple master bedroom but Matt thinks the hue I like looks like make-up. Not sure why, but ok. Might have to go with a nice blue-ish/green. The only other part of the house I want to repaint for sure is the entryway. Other than that, all the other rooms are colors we like.

So tomorrow, I'm sure we will be packing up more boxes, going through all the piles of junk to either donate or sell, fill in all the nail holes, and look at more paint colors. Getting there....a little at a time.

Homeowner

I can officially say it now. I am a homeowner!!

We are so excited to finally have sealed the deal on our new house. It really came close to not happening on September 30 like our original contract said, but after a lot of paper-pushing, our loan officer made it happen.

Now we only have to wait 29 more days to move into the place. That means 4 weekends of packing and de-junking the current place. Some people have a harder time getting rid of 20 years of childhood memories (and by some people, I mean Matt). We went through several boxes of old cards, gadgets, odds, and ends a week or two ago and I managed to throw away several bags of useful items. Among the most imporant items included a bag of 10 year old jawbreakers mixed in with some dead batteries. I even found an old sock with a bar of soap tucked inside. Nice.

Now that we have a move in date, we made our rental company very aware that we would be leaving in 30 days. They are sad to see us go as the lady assisting us at the rental office kept commenting on how awesome my platinum hair was. Just call me Lady Gaga. Everyone else does.

Hope you are all off to the start of a fabulous weekend.

Doctor's Visit

Today, I truly felt like a European.

September 1st marked the beginning of our medical benefits through Matt's job at ENLC. Today, I went to the doctor to exercise my right to use my Anthem card at my yearly physical. Now when I say yearly, I really mean this is my first exam in 4-5 years. Which also means I truly became a woman today if you know what I'm sayin.

Anyway...the European part is the fact that I walked in and out of a medical office without paying a dime! I love $0 copays. Now I'm not even going to start on a rant about universal health care, but I'll just say that I am all for going to the doctor when it's free. With our plan, I wouldn't even hesitate to make an appointment if I had a medical concern. I think a lot of people just skip going to the doctor all together because they just don't wanna pay for it, which can lead to more serious medical problems if you let it go undiagnosed. So America....I am just putting it out there. Wouldn't you like to go to the doctor for free? Even if it means more paying a little bit more taxes?

All in all, I liked my new doctor. Her name is Dr. Patricia Grice and she works at Family Medicine of Huber Heights. She was a very pleasant lady. The office was very clean and new looking. The front desk was a small staff, but they were friendly enough. Wait time was only 5 minutes which was excellent. The only part I didn't like was what the scale read when I stepped up. But that won't stop me from going back next year for my yearly checkup. :-) I'll give this experience an A.

Hello, Chicago!

CHICAGO TRIP WITH THE GIRLS!!!

This past weekend, I went to Chicago with five of my college girlfriends. (Amanda, Ashely, Jenni, Laake, and Lauren) We had such a good time together!! Jenni rented a car and I met up with her in Columbus where she flew in from LA. We then traveled up to Cleveland, picked up Ashely and Lauren and spent the night at Lauren's house. The next morning, we traveled west to pick up Amanda who drove down down to Indiana from Michigan. Then we made the rest of the trip to Laake's apartment in Sycamore, about an hour west of Chicago. We had fun playing lots of cards and enjoying delicious desserts on Friday night. On Saturday morning, we made our trip into the city and explored all day. We went to Navy Pier, Millennium Park, and Michigan Ave. I think we took so many pictures that we didn't have time to do much else. :-) We had lunch at a cafe on the pier and dinner at Giordanos (best. pizza. ever!) Saturday night, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency downtown next to Navy Pier. (Priceline all the way. Getting a $250 room for $85? That's right!) Sunday we had to get up early to drop everyone back off along the way. All in all, it was an amazing weekend with some fabulous friends. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day! And Happy Birthday Holly!!



To celebrate the holiday, we made a trip to German Village in Columbus. It's a quaint little "German" town situated right downtown amidst the skyscrapers. It has lots of little shops, boutiques, eateries and pastry shops along with a park complete with ponds and an outdoor amphitheater. Its a fun day trip, especially on a beautiful day like today. After getting a caramel McFrappe, we made the hour drive back home to good ole Dayton, Ohio so we could spend the rest of the day relaxing, as one should on Labor Day.

(Below is a pic of the Book Loft, a 32 room book store with every book you could think of)



To rewind a bit, we got to have dinner with Matt's college roommate, John and his wife Julie on Sunday night. We don't get to see them often because they live in North Carolina so it was good to catch up again.

Speaking of catching up...a big Chitown girls get-together is in the works for this coming weekend. Ahh, it will be SO good to see all my girls from Cedarville again as we tour the streets of Chicago. It's bound to be a fun time with an amazing group of ladies.

And that's it for today, folks. Have a wonderful week!

New Furniture for a New House

Have you ever heard the story of the time my parents cleaned and moved everything into our apartment while Matt and I were on our honeymoon? Well they did. Anna was there too (my exchange sister from Spain who was also a bridesmaid in our wedding) I almost had a heart attack when we walked into the apartment after returning from our cruise. Who in the world had brought all this furniture in and cleaned up the place??

My parents are pretty amazing. That is probably the biggest, nicest surprise anyone has ever given me. And out of the generosity of their hearts, they gave us their 25 year old couch and rocking chair. Our other home furnishings include an old kitchen table and chairs from a couple at church, a coffee table set from a garage sale, a nice tv stand from Target (wedding gift from Anna) a dresser and vanity from my old room at home, and a (new) box springs and mattress. Throw in a small end table and lamp bought with our wedding gift cards from Target and that pretty much summarizes our current furniture selection. Hardly glamorous, but highly functional for a couple of newlyweds with little savings in the bank.




That picture is just a little taste of all our beautiful furniture. How do you like that floral print couch from the 80's?? Or how bout that round brown chair from my college dorm room?

Getting a new house means getting a new set of furniture to go in it. How do you like this kitchen table we picked out from Value City Furniture?



And our bedroom furniture is coming from IKEA from the beautiful Hemnes line.


And I would love to get a scroll style wrought iron bed frame.





And of course we are going to need a few pieces for the sunroom, as it is one of the main reasons we loved our new house to begin with! Thinking about this Karlstad love seat from IKEA....

Along with a nice modern glass table with black wrought iron chairs.




Just giving you a little taste of what I like. Still have 2 months to pick everything out. (And hopefully find some amazing sales!) So....what is your furniture style?

Fix It!!

Hello Friends!
Today marks the last day of August. Whew am I glad we got the AC fixed. It was nice and cool for about a week so we opened up the house. Partly because of the nice weather and partly because right before going to Cedar Point, the AC stopped blowing cold air. So after the past weekend of temps in the mid 80's, it was time to call our rental company to get someone out to fix it. They originally said it would take a week to fix but now I think they were just pulling my leg because I came home to a cool house.

In other exciting news, the kitchen sink faucet now sprays a blast of water straight at your face when you turn it on. Matt discovered that right before leaving for church on Sunday. Our rental company has yet to resolve that issue.

Cheers to getting a new house soon! No, fix-it issues will no longer be free. But on the bright side, you get results whenever you decide its time to take action. I have a feeling my husband will be learning a thing or two in the near future.

Cedar Point Recap

Cedar Point 2010 was a big fail.

Roller coasters are awesome. Top speeds and highest heights. But not with rain pelting you in the face, that's for sure. Ouchie! Despite the never ending trickle of rain all day, we still managed to get on all our favorite rides minus the dragster. You know a ride is really awesome when you get off DESPITE getting pelted in the face and you say WOW THAT WAS AWESOME!!! (Millennium Force, anyone?) By the end of the day, we were ready to get home. After I puked up all my lunch, I had a good night's sleep.

Happy Weekend!

Happy weekend friends!

I have today off work. The best part about having Friday off is that I can do all my weekend chores today and spend the other two days doing more exciting things than laundry. Sissy is coming over tonight and our plans include going out to dinner, Mexican maybe? and probably doing a little shopping cuz that's what sisters do. Tomorrow is our annual trip to Cedar Point. Summer would not be complete without a trip to Sandusky. Just praying for nice weather!

Had a nice night out at Buffalo Wild Wings with some of my coworkers. I'm so thankful to work with such a fun group of ladies. It really makes going to work fun when you work with people you like, doesn't it?

Peace out amigos!

Recycling

I didn't mean to be a hoarder, but somehow, it happened.

I will not allow aluminum cans to go un-recycled, so we had quite the collection from the past year. Besides saving the earth, we were so excited to get free money out of recyling. Well apparently....9 bags of cans equals approximately $13.75. It sure pays to recycle huh. Money or no money, I would probably still recycle. Where we live, they give you a big brown trash can just for waste and a small red box just for recyclable materials. I think everyone should recycle as much as they can. Be nice to the earth. It's the only one we have. (*cheesey grin*)

OFFER ACCEPTED!

YES!!!!!!!!!
Our final offer was accepted. We will be closing on or before September 30 and moving in around November 10. Our very first house. WOW! And the COOLEST ONE EVER!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for all your support and encouragement friends and family!

No Final News Yet

I know you're anxiously awaiting the results of our first house offer. Heck, I am too!! We put in our first bid on Wednesday evening for Prairie Creek. After the longest 25 hours of my life, we finally got a response: a counter offer. We quickly responded but it was not processed until this afternoon. So HOPEFULLY tomorrow afternoon, we will know whether or not they accept our final offer. If they disapprove, well, we move on to the next house and make an offer on our #2 choice. When you only get to move forward one step a day, it makes that day feel like a year. But we will be patient. After all this is said and done, I'll be ready for a vacation away from my new house.

To Make an Offer

Today is Wednesday, August 11. On July 11, we went to an open house with no intentions of ever buying a house this soon. But now, a month later, we will be making our first bid on that very house we went to. SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight, we are going to take one last look at both Prairie Creek and Jennagate. Ever since we saw Jennagate, we have suffered days of comparing the pros and cons of each house. And in the end, they both have great qualities and very few cons. I think we have made our decision. We are going to make an offer on Prairie Creek. If we cannot get it for the price we want, at that point we will make an offer on the other house.

May the bidding wars begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pool

Last night we looked at six houses and it was pretty successful. We eliminated all but 2 of them, one being Prairie Creek. The other one we liked was a similar model, but it did not have a sun room. But it DID have a wood burning fireplace and....a pool! Which is great....when it's somebody else's. But really...we are considering it. How nice would it be to have a pool to swim in all summer?? Its a nice big round, above ground pool with a two tier deck built around it. Just trying to decide whether or not it's worth the time and money it takes to maintain a pool. So we'll see. I'd love to hear anyone's opinions about their own pool-owning experiences. Thanks!!

Thursday

Going to look at a few houses tomorrow evening with our wonderful realtors. Honestly I don't think we are going to like any of them, but we will keep an open mind.

On a different note, who likes Joshua Radin? The singer?? Yes. I think he is going to be my new musical obsession. You might recognize his song, These Photographs. What a lovely voice he has. I'm glad I found this guy because I am getting sick of pop radio. Maybe I'll turn the radio back on when they pick a new 10 songs to play over and over again. But for now, I'll stick with Mr. Radin. Until Michael Buble comes out with a new album, of course.

Wednesday

Hello friends,
If I am going to keep up on this blogging business, I better post more than once a week huh??

:::HOUSE UPDATE:::
The familia made a trip to Ohio to come visit us this past weekend. It just so happened that there was an open house at Prairie Creek. Needless to say, the rents approved! Mom pretty much guaranteed that she would fill up the sun room with her plants, Dad really enjoyed the tool shed and the yard, and the sister already picked out "her room". Hmmm!! Didn't know they were all going to move in with us. It was a fun weekend hanging out with them. Today, our next step was to meet with the lender and sign our lives away on the loan paperwork. Things are lookin' good. Once our realtors get all our financing options put together, its time to hit the streets of Huber and check out the list of about 8 houses we like. We are getting closer and closer to becoming homeowners. What a wonderful/weird/exciting/stressful/FUN time!!!

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake

Tonight, our friends Jon and Holly came over and enjoyed some chicken wraps with us for dinner. But the best part was definitely the dessert.



Most. Delicious. Ever!
If you have ever gone on a Carnival cruise, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You dig your spoon into luscious chocolaty goodness and get a little vanilla ice cream on there, and you have what pretty much tastes like heaven. I found the recipe here. (I cut the recipe in half to fill four ramekins) And the best part is...it's practically calorie free. If you take out the butter, sugar, chocolate....etc....

Picture stolen from the internet.

House Update

So upon calling the bank lady today, I found out that it will take yet another week to hear back about our loan pre-certification. I'm getting concerned that it takes so long just to get pre-certified. I mean this isn't even applying! It is just proving the fact that we can apply for a certain amount of dollars.

More than anything, I'm just getting impatient. I really want to look at the house again. In fact, I want to start moving my things in a little at a time in hopes that the owners will cave in and give it to us for a super good deal. I mean what if someone buys the house before we get a chance to make an offer?? I know, that is just how it goes sometimes. And there ARE other houses.......so I've been told. :-) Keep your fingers crossed.

Sunday afternoon blogging

Matt and I are pleasantly surprised with how much we like Huber Heights, Ohio. We have lived here for more than a year now and are not looking to move elsewhere unless Matt gets some crazy cool job offer somewhere else.

So what does this mean, ladies and gentleman???

You guessed it. We are looking for a house. Sort of.

Last Sunday, we randomly went to a few open houses around our neighborhood. We fell in love with one of them, so I e-mailed the realtor when we got home to see if the owners would be interested in renting it out. I promptly received a phone call from the realtor, pressuring me to think about buying a house because it is soo much more valuable than renting. She gave me a contact for a mortgage loan banker and I called her the next day. Then, we met with her to discuss what it would look like for us to get a loan. We are now going through the pre-certification process and will know by Wednesday what kind of loan we could be considered for if we apply. At that point, we will find a realtor and try to look at a couple other houses (although we already have our hearts set on this one)

Whew! Had no clue we would even be considering this, but I think we are ready. If we can't get a house, I decided for us that we will just have to use the down payment $ on a cruise instead! We'll see....so stay tuned for another update this week. If you would like to look at the pictures of our dream house, here is the link.

Anniversary Recap

On June 13th, Matt and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. But because we spent the entire day in the car on the way home from vacation with the fam, we celebrated a couple days late. This is what I came home to after work one day that week.



A table set with blueberry muffins, candles lit, a card, and a dozen red roses.

My hubby prepared a special dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. Mmm it was delicious!



And when I went upstairs to change out of my scrubs, I was happy to find that my husband does have a romantic side.


Rose petals everywhere! After dinner, we went to the Danbarry Dollar Saver $1.75 movie theater to see Date Night. (Gotta love a good deal like that!) It was a memorable first anniversary and I feel very blessed to have such a wonderful husband. He is my best friend and I love him even more now than I did on our wedding day.



I LOVE YOU MATT!!!

Vacation and a New Job

This week is my vacation week!!! And it's already Wednesday. Because of the way my office works, it was necessary for every employee to take a mandatory "vacation" in July without pay in order to satisfy this month's atypical 3 pay periods. Because I was not given much notice, we failed to plan a fun vacation away from home. But it all worked out because my wonderful husband was hired on the spot in his interview last Thursday!

Matt B. Focht, Communication Coordinator at Elizabeth's New Life Center.

Check out the website at http://www.elizabethnewlife.org/

He will be in charge of designing and maintaining their websites, flyers, etc. I'm not sure what etc. includes yet, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Yesterday he was in training all day. Today, he has to go get fingerprinted, then to work to meet with the IT guy (also named Matt) so that he can get familiar with all the fun computer files and programs they use.

So Matt's at work while I'm at home. This is definitely a change! Today my plans include cleaning out some closets. That's all I have planned so far. A camping trip might be in the near future.

Jewelry Tree

One of the reasons why I love the area we live is because we are within walking distance of so many stores and restaurants. Last Wednesday, Matt and I took a walk to Bed Bath and Beyond just to check out all the cool little gadgets they have there. We looked at all the kitchen things and kept saying "wow this is for the person who has everything" I mean who doesn't have a berry colander? Or a watermelon slicer? So I decided I just need a bigger kitchen.

I ended up finding something that I realized I so desperately needed and ended up going back today to get it.

.

Once you see this pile I have to go through to find what I am looking for, you will understand how necessary a jewelry tree really is.



See what I mean??? It's about time I get some jewelry organization going on in my life. Now I can find a set of earrings without dumping out a whole box of them. I can see all my choices as they hang beautifully from their individual hooks. It looks pretty nice on the vanity, too.



Needless to say, I am very pleased with this purchase and would recommend it to any girl needing a jewelry tree. Anything to make life more simple and beautiful, right?

Cars

Happy Thursday Everyone! For me, today is my Friday and I'm so happy this weekend is off to an early start. Even though I'm working, somehow my body still knows it's summer, which thus forces me to stay up late almost every single night. Matt has literally had to kick or push me out of bed this week. Ahhh so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow :-)


So today's topic is CARS. Here is a pic of me with my favorite car at a car show I went to on vacation this summer.




Ahhh what a beauty! She's a Mustang but that's not why I liked it. The COLOR, of course!! I love neon colors, especially lime green. But anyway....take a look at my real dream car.




It's the MITSUBISHI ECLIPSE SPYDER. Every time I see this car, I gasp at its beauty. I think I like it because of how sleek and modern it looks. Sporty, yet not TOO sporty. And I would take it in no other color than burnt orange. Maybe some day....

But unfortunately our budget could only afford this:



This is a 2001 Hyundai Accent that we just recently bought. Isn't she a beauty? I know you're probably jealous. But we figured it was time to buy a new(er) car before the Grand Prix was too far gone that it would have to be hauled away.

To wrap things up, I'd like to share the Craigslist ad I would have written for the old red. Enjoy.

FOR SALE!!!
2001 Grand Prix Special Edition
Up for sale is a brilliant red sportscar that would be perfect for anyone, young or old. It is like mint condition minus the following :
Paint job is flaking off (but the red parts are still shiny)
Power steering rack leaks (no power steering, grows great muscles)
Dent in passenger door (door creaks open)
No A/C (hey, just open the windows)
No heat (wear a parka in the winter)
Defroster is extremely slow (just plug in a hair dryer to warm up the windshield when it's iced over)
Passenger seat belt a bit beat up (dog ripped it up)
RUNS GREAT!!! Come look before this one gets away.

In the end, it sold for $800. Of course my husband made the ad sound much better and some desperate young man drove away with it the same day the ad was posted. We pray for his safety.

Getting in Shape

How do you stay in shape?

Lately (ok...longer than lately) I have been drinking a Coke a day and eating whatever I want. Oh, and that elliptical I HAD to have about three months ago?.........................well..........................

It's time to get in shape. I'm the type of person that has to set goals in order to stay motivated. So here I am, writing down my goals in hopes that you will keep me accountable.

When I was on the I'm-getting-married-so-i-have-to-look-so-hot-for-my-husband diet, I worked hard. Not even gonna lie about that. But I was also unemployed and living at home with my parents for about six months, so I did not have an excuse to not be getting in the best shape of my life. Thank God for the treadmill and Jillian Michaels. I worked out almost every day. I counted calories. I drank tons of water and only allowed myself 1-2 cans of soda per week. And...yes, I met my goals and it felt SO good.

It's time to get off the couch and get back to work. I will be the first to admit that it's easier said than done, but when it comes to health, I truly believe we need to take care of our bodies. It's hard to break habits, but its worth it in the end. I never felt better than I did a year ago. I could run for miles and not be out of breath. I had energy that lasted all day. And I certainly did not depend on caffeine to keep me going. It's time to start feeling good again. Going to bed feeling very motivated. Good night, all!

A New Beginning

Hello! My name is Amy. I'm 23 years old and live in Dayton, Ohio. I work at a dental office just down the street from my house. I live with my husband, Matt, and our toy poodle, Cookie. This has been my life for more than a year now and I can't complain. I have a roof over my head, a job that pays the bills, and food on the table.

Sometimes I get the urge to write down my thoughts and share them with the world. I guess that's why they invented blogs, right? So here goes my first (second if you count Xanga) attempt at becoming a blogger.

Watch out, world wide web.