ugh.

Been awhile since I've posted over here!  Oops!

This March we've been busy doing these things:

1.  Scouting out potential neighborhoods for foreclosures.  Though we signed another 10 month lease we are hoping to buy a house by the time our next lease runs out or right before.  So far we've narrowed it down to somewhere near a body of water I can walk around, ideally right around where we are now...unfortunately all the houses are out of our price range.  It feels horrible to wish for a foreclosure to pop up.

2.  Going to Movies.  These in particular:  Lincoln Lawyer, King's Speech, Unknown, The Fighter, & True Grit.  There are still so many I want to see.

3.  Dreaming of babies.  We're headed back to the Dr. in April after seeing some progress with the help of Metformin.  This is a pretty big leap for us.

4.  Running.  Well I have.  Alex *hates* running, loathes is probably a better description.  It's been good.  I'm up to 4 miles which is pretty good for this point and I'm signed up for a half marathon in July.

5.  Meeting with my Grad School advisor at the UofMN.  I'll be enrolling in a class for May session to slowly but surely attempt to complete my degree.  Not sure what will happen but excited to take some steps of faith here.

6.  Jumping up and Down.  After seeing South Face on the cover of this month's remodel section of Mpls/St. Paul Magazine.  We are pretty excited and just launched a small scale marketing campaign sending out the mag to get friends, family, and past clients hopefully excited to pass on our name!

7.  Dreaming of Golf.  This is what Alex has been doing.  He's hoping in less than 2 weeks that he will be able to play somewhere in MN.  I'm thinking he will be able to but until then the Golf channel has been on in full force getting his mind focused.

8.  Spending time with family.  My parents came up last weekend and my nephews and niece are coming this weekend with my mom and sister-in-law.  So excited for them to come!

9.  Massages and Haircuts.  2 weeks ago we spent the day getting pampered and most of you saw the results of that day.  Almost 6 inches getting cut off my hair.  Quite a new experience.

10.  Craigslist selling/Home sprucing.  Alex has been on a rampage to try and rid our home of things we don't need.  In all of our selling we were able to downsize our storage unit not only saving us money but decreasing the amount of work it will take to move everything next year.  Sounds good to me!

That's it.  Not much, but busy it seems. 

What have you been up to?

friday funny

Can I just share with you a cute story regarding Alex.

As we speak he is off skiing Steamboat.  Yup, he’s off in Colorado living it up with his buddies on the annual all-boy trip.  I don’t mind at all.  In fact, I actually encourage it.  I love spending time with my girlfriends and we chat, go deeper, talk about life, etc.  Guys on the other hand, it’s more shoulder to shoulder.  So if I can encourage my husband to go off somewhere where maybe the conversation in the hot tub might get past the latest sports phenomenon and youTube video, then I’m all for it.

Also, I should probably mention that I am also a wife that doesn’t mind not hearing from her husband while he is away.  I love him more than ever, but I don’t fret if we don’t chat every day or multiple times a day.  The second year we were married I realized just what that was like when I headed to Duluth with another one of the wives.  Her husband texted her multiple times a day, in fact I learned more about the trip through her than through Alex.  But that’s ok.  I figure if I don’t hear from him, he’s having fun.  Even if he gets hurt.  Yup, that was a different year.  I found out he injured his heels quite badly and had to be pushed through the airport in a wheelchair when I picked him up at the airport and he mentioned…”we may have to head to the ER right now.”  Yum, yeah.

So you might wonder where the story is.  Well this morning I received a text:.

.”Did you pack my ski pants?”

Yes, that’s right I pack his bag.  Again, I’d rather ensure he have everything than forget something.  I had to laugh because I had mentioned multiple times before he left that his pants were in with his skis.

I texted back “they’re in your ski bag.”

No response.  So I called.  He picked up before the first ring.

"Were they in your ski bag?”

“No, are you sure you packed them?”

“Yes, I put them in with your skis.”

“Oh, there they are.  I thought you were talking about my boot bag.”

Yum, yeah.  Seriously.  Hilarious to me the wife, maybe not to you.  So there you go, a cute, quirky, kinda funny moment straight from our house.

So, signing off for the day.

I’m off to live up my “singleness” :)

happy birthday

Today is my amazing hubby's birthday.  He's 32.

I did what any good wife would...allowed him to plan his day and went along with it.  So we headed to the club to hit golf balls in the golf simulator, went to lunch, picked up all sorts of sugary candy at the store and headed home for some movie time.

I feel so lucky to be married so such a great man. Not only does he encourage me daily and boost my self esteem, but he often tells me I'm gorgeous, he still loves to hold my hand and be goofy with me, and most of all he makes me a better person, daily.  Minute by minute, I'm being sanctified through my marriage and he makes sanctification not so difficult, most of the time!

So here's to my amazing, gorgeous, fun loving, tender hearted, strong and solid, jesus loving, faithful, selfless, leader of a husband.

Happy Birthday Baby!

you're the best blessing I have.

For Sale

Here's the long awaited list of things for sale:

Nathan Waist pack

Kelty Bag

wool jute rug, pottery barn

pottery barn matine toile in sprout green headboard slipcover and bedskirt twin

view of twin bed with slipcover

wicker chest

queen pottery barn plaid comforter cover and 2 shams

chocolate brown Target Home queen quilt and 2 shams

Hurricanes from Target

TV mount

Huge cooler

wicker chest

pic of the jute rug and selling the entertainment center

bedding on king bed (dust ruffle, blanket, gray quilted blanket/shams)

sailing pics

green subway tile

pictures above the couch

drill set

waiders

vhs player

wet suit

also a target dresser in the same coloring as the entertainment center above (in really good condition)

if anything catches your eye just let me know:)

Happy Birthday to this guy...

He turned 9 yesterday...wish I were there.

happy birthday to a sweet, funny and stellar young kid.

Liam, you're my favorite 9 year old.

#14

You may remember that I christened my 30th year with a list of 30 things I wanted to accomplish.  I've been making a bit of progress on the list (head here to see) and I'm very excited to announce that #14 has been crossed off the list.

What's #14?  Well, it was to start a new blog.  Many reasons behind this.  Although I advertise my blog via facebook (amongst "friends") I've never really felt comfortable commenting on many of the blogs out there, though I *REALLY* want too. Something about keeping some of our private life well a little more private. 

So I've been dreaming of a new blog.  A place to not only share parts of our life, but things on biblical womanhood, DIY projects, food, and my favorite things.  I've tried food blogging and I've tried the personal route.  The food blog (Blissful Bounty) I will not be posting on anymore.  I'm not sure I will delete it until I can archive it somehow, but as far as this blog.  This one I will continue to update, although maybe just 1x/week or even less than that.  My goal is 2x/month and it will mainly be life things, pictures of family, etc.  So please continue to follow along, I love having you here:)

But because I would love to expand my blog to be comfortable with many more people reading it, I chose to start a new one!

Here she is.  Please visit:)

Caps for Sale

Eerrgh.  I *WISH* we had caps for sale.  That seems easier!  Instead we have half of a storage unit up for grabs.

Others may think we are a little hasty or spontaneous about purging our goods, but we happen to think we are just less attached and by the way, purging feels really good.  No not that kind of purging, the *getting rid of excess stuff kind of purging!

We’ve been thinking over our future lately, how long we will rent, when we will purchase our next home, and the absurd amount of money we pay to keep our things locked up across the highway.  It’s actually not that absurd, but still if we can save a little by downsizing our unit, then it’s cash in hand.

So this past weekend we put our thoughts into action.  Only problem we didn’t have a plan in place.  We just sauntered over to our unit, gasped in horror as to how much was actually in there, took almost everything out and then stared at each other.  Um…we need a plan.

We had furniture and goods for Goodwill, we had boxes to sort through, and plenty of tools to open a small hardware store.  So we rented a truck right there on the spot and got to moving.  Oh, and it felt so good to rid ourselves of so much stuff.

Our plan by the way was focused around the future.  We don’t know where we will end up but we are certain, in our frugal minds, that we will end up in a smaller starter home sometime in the next 5 years.  At the end of the day, we’d rather save and save until we can BUILD the house we really want.  That or renovate the perfect house.  Whichever one comes first.  To be honest, we're just really waiting until we can attain a mortgage for the same amount we are spending on rent and we spend peanuts on rent.  We'd also like to have money to run the company and invest in rental property.  We could be in a house now, but wouldn't as easily be able to BOTH of the other things.   Right now, we want the other things more, that and Alex has a view on when the housing market will hit bottom and his estimation is not for awhile.

So back to the caps or in our case stuff.  I’ll post a list later today with all the items and their cost before everything goes on craigslist in case anyone is interested.

One valuable lesson we learned, it doesn’t take a lot to make us happy and content and for that we are eternally grateful.