Our previous home was a joy in the cooler months. Added to that was Joe's reticense on paying for enough fuel (oil or wood) to heat the home properly. We tended to live like polar bears .. or at least it felt like that. I won my battles with the wood stove regularly to make sure we were warm enough. It also was so drafty that as soon as it got cooler, we started bundling up. The 'master bedroom' generally leveled out around 55 degrees without the space heater. Brrrrrrr. We had gotten used to it, but our parents worried about us. JP was always kept warm. if we had a time with really cold house temps we put on the space heaters as well.
One of the things we looked for in a new place was heat included, which we found. Our new landlords keep the temp at 70 degrees in a locked thermostat, which is fine by me. Last night the temps dipped to a chilly 44 degrees outside. In our bedroom we had one window partially open ( an inch or so) and a window fan in the other window. I woke up this morning and it was 65 degrees in the bedroom - yay! finally a house that will keep us warm!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Peanu't Weekly Wednesday - Ahhhh room to hide...errrr I mean move
So the new place is pretty awesome. My first night there Mom will tell you I actually pranced down the hallway.. yes I can prance. I love that I have so much room and if I need some time to myself, well there are plenty of places to go. My favorite is under the end table in the living room. Quiet, and out of the way of that cat and JP.
Now I do have one complaint. The neighbors.. the 4 legged ones. I think every home in our little 'commune' has at least one dog. First off this means I can't be free roaming...sigh, not happy about that. Second are the 'chatty' ones. Especially our non-commune neighbor to the left of our house. EVERY morning between 6-6:15AM they let him out. EVERY morning, he starts barking at NOTHING right away.
I of course bark back to tell him to be quiet... I'm slowly learning that this is not considered polite by Mom who doesn't appreciate my alarm clock tendencies. I think I need to sleep with puppy earphones.. do they make them in Corgi size?
Now I do have one complaint. The neighbors.. the 4 legged ones. I think every home in our little 'commune' has at least one dog. First off this means I can't be free roaming...sigh, not happy about that. Second are the 'chatty' ones. Especially our non-commune neighbor to the left of our house. EVERY morning between 6-6:15AM they let him out. EVERY morning, he starts barking at NOTHING right away.
I of course bark back to tell him to be quiet... I'm slowly learning that this is not considered polite by Mom who doesn't appreciate my alarm clock tendencies. I think I need to sleep with puppy earphones.. do they make them in Corgi size?
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Settling in
Have to admit I'm quite tired of unpacking. Seems as if it will never end lately, lol. However things are going so well here.
Our last home was in the middle of 2 hay fields with close neighbors, but not on top of us. For the last year or so 2 of those houses were essentially empty as they were being sold, so we more or less lived alone out there. Odd to think we had as many problems as we did there.
Thursday Joe went to remove the last of the trash and pick up a few remaining large items, one of which was our new grill. Would you believe the day ended with Joe calling the cops because someone stole our grill sometime btwn Sunday and Thursday?! Thankfully one of the neighbors in one of the houses being sold was there.. the cops questioned him and he all of a sudden remembered that there was a new grill in the garage that morning next to the lawnmower.. uh huh. We can't press charges as we got the grill back. Still not quite sure of the logic of that as the cop had to go and question this guy so that he 'remembered' the new grill out of nowhere. Ehh whatever.. it's safe with us now.
So far the new place is a completely different scenario. First off we're in close proximity to 3 other houses and I think there is a total of 5 or 6 families all together. Great thing though is the kids. JP had an absolute blast last night playing outside with them all. Joe was supervising, but thats ok.. gave me time to clean the kitchen without everyone underfoot. Today we had a problem with a truck Joe borrowed to do the last of the work on Thursday. It wouldn't start. Well one of the neighbors rebuilds cars and sells them so he was helping Joe get it started. First they thought it was battery cables being loose - nope, then the starter was the problem. Well our one neighbor gets under the truck and starts hammering at the starter I guess while telling Joe to turn the engine over. Brave, trusting man, lol. However while doing this he sees sparks and they realized the starter isn't shot.. its got loose wires... off this guy who barely knows us goes and gets what he needs to fix it.
heck in the old place I couldn't even get them to replace a washer on a faucet that was too tight for me to loosen.
Tomorrow I'm quite excited to go shopping with my mom for my dining room and living room drapes.. hoping they absorb some of the echo sounds we have from the hardwood floors, lol. I'll eventually post pics.. once the boxes are gone I think.
Our last home was in the middle of 2 hay fields with close neighbors, but not on top of us. For the last year or so 2 of those houses were essentially empty as they were being sold, so we more or less lived alone out there. Odd to think we had as many problems as we did there.
Thursday Joe went to remove the last of the trash and pick up a few remaining large items, one of which was our new grill. Would you believe the day ended with Joe calling the cops because someone stole our grill sometime btwn Sunday and Thursday?! Thankfully one of the neighbors in one of the houses being sold was there.. the cops questioned him and he all of a sudden remembered that there was a new grill in the garage that morning next to the lawnmower.. uh huh. We can't press charges as we got the grill back. Still not quite sure of the logic of that as the cop had to go and question this guy so that he 'remembered' the new grill out of nowhere. Ehh whatever.. it's safe with us now.
So far the new place is a completely different scenario. First off we're in close proximity to 3 other houses and I think there is a total of 5 or 6 families all together. Great thing though is the kids. JP had an absolute blast last night playing outside with them all. Joe was supervising, but thats ok.. gave me time to clean the kitchen without everyone underfoot. Today we had a problem with a truck Joe borrowed to do the last of the work on Thursday. It wouldn't start. Well one of the neighbors rebuilds cars and sells them so he was helping Joe get it started. First they thought it was battery cables being loose - nope, then the starter was the problem. Well our one neighbor gets under the truck and starts hammering at the starter I guess while telling Joe to turn the engine over. Brave, trusting man, lol. However while doing this he sees sparks and they realized the starter isn't shot.. its got loose wires... off this guy who barely knows us goes and gets what he needs to fix it.
heck in the old place I couldn't even get them to replace a washer on a faucet that was too tight for me to loosen.
Tomorrow I'm quite excited to go shopping with my mom for my dining room and living room drapes.. hoping they absorb some of the echo sounds we have from the hardwood floors, lol. I'll eventually post pics.. once the boxes are gone I think.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
New home, new start, old routines
August has been...interesting. In mid July we were told our home ( we rented) was finally being sold and that the closing was on 9/30/10. Ok no biggie and the new home process was started. Then, on July 31 we rcvd a letter stating the new owners wanted us out in 30 days. Nice. I thought that couldn't happen until the closing? Funny part is the closer we got to leaving the worse the house was getting fast. Almost like our things were holding it up? lol. I know the new owners are going to do a lot of modifications.. i hope they are really prepared for that house.. as far as I know there was never an inspection... and I think an inspection would all but condemn it.
It really was not a hardship to leave that house of horrors. The only reason we stayed so long was to improve our credit score before searching, so that we would have good options. So much for waiting for a better time, lol. After 2 very long and argumentative weeks we did find a place we both liked. For the last week I've been doing the bulk of moving while working as well. I'm not surprised that I'm so tired, lol.
The new place is bigger and to my joy.. has a dining room! Yay!!!! no more 3foot sq kitchen 'table' where you only had room for plates and cups. I also have a kitchen and bathroom circa 1950's complete with avocado green oven and pink tub and sink, lol. No more carpets, all hardwood floors and just nicely laid out and roomy. JP can run in circles from living room - to kitchen- to dining room - to living room and he's loving it, lol. His room is huge and I'm loving it as ALLLLL his toys except the train table will be in there.
It's also only a few miles from my mom... instead of being 30 minutes or so.. I'm now only about 6 minutes. She's alone now as her companion is having a lot of serious health issues and he's now in a nursing home. I like that I'm closer ..just in case. After last years huge snowstorms, I hated being so far away and not able to help... being this close ( i drive by on my way to and from work) makes me feel better.
In a previous life, many years ago, I had a small apartment with a dining room... and at the time was well known for calling people up and saying 'hey! I made some new recipes, c'mon over". Never huge parties, but frequent entertaining. I've missed that with the old house. It was just not easy to entertain with more then 1-2 extra people making it feel over crowded.
The new place is currently decorated in Early American Box.. but I knew I'd be doing an official 'Sunday Dinner' tonight, even if just for us. I had found a gorgeous dining table on craigslist and was set to go. We had my IL's up and they wanted to give us more time to settle in, but I told them I'd be making dinner anyway and there was more then enough. It was so nice to entertain again, lol...although I did forget to turn the oven off for a bit and couldn't figure out why the kitchen was still so hot, lol.
Thats another nice thing about this apartment. Heat and hot water are included- yippee! in the old house I all but stopped cooking because the hot water leak in the bathtub drained the propane ( water heater was a propane heated version). Our monthly bill was about $150 a month for propane. Now I can cook all I want with the propane.
oh and for any that know my stories about the kitchen in the old place? there is NO CARPETING in this kitchen! I have a normal kitchen floor again and its great :)
tonight I made:
an appetizer tray of:celery and blue cheese dressing/assorted olives/tomato and feta bruschetta
main course was:
lasagna
tossed salad
peas and onions with prosciutto
dessert was brownies and cookies provided by my MIL
it was a very nice dinner and Joe enjoyed it so much he suggested his parents come up every Sunday - yeaaaah.. both his mom and I looked at him and told him he was nuts, lol. I do however plan to have a nice Sunday dinner each week unless we are invited out otherwise, lol.
my meal plan for next Sunday is in progress.... right now it's:
Crusted Salmon with mustard
and that's about it at the moment, lol. I want to avoid stopping for any additional ingredients so thats part of my challenge. I think my side dish will be a basic tossed salad with another pasta salad of some sort. I tossed the rice I had at the old place... but rice is inexpensive. Oh wait! I have a seasoned tube of wild rice! that's a perfect compliment to salmon. I've invite my mom over for next week and think I'll also ask my SIL and niece. The piece of salmon i have is huge, so thats not a problem. there is a farmers market down the road on thurs evenings...maybe i'll find an inexpensive veggie side dish idea.
It really was not a hardship to leave that house of horrors. The only reason we stayed so long was to improve our credit score before searching, so that we would have good options. So much for waiting for a better time, lol. After 2 very long and argumentative weeks we did find a place we both liked. For the last week I've been doing the bulk of moving while working as well. I'm not surprised that I'm so tired, lol.
The new place is bigger and to my joy.. has a dining room! Yay!!!! no more 3foot sq kitchen 'table' where you only had room for plates and cups. I also have a kitchen and bathroom circa 1950's complete with avocado green oven and pink tub and sink, lol. No more carpets, all hardwood floors and just nicely laid out and roomy. JP can run in circles from living room - to kitchen- to dining room - to living room and he's loving it, lol. His room is huge and I'm loving it as ALLLLL his toys except the train table will be in there.
It's also only a few miles from my mom... instead of being 30 minutes or so.. I'm now only about 6 minutes. She's alone now as her companion is having a lot of serious health issues and he's now in a nursing home. I like that I'm closer ..just in case. After last years huge snowstorms, I hated being so far away and not able to help... being this close ( i drive by on my way to and from work) makes me feel better.
In a previous life, many years ago, I had a small apartment with a dining room... and at the time was well known for calling people up and saying 'hey! I made some new recipes, c'mon over". Never huge parties, but frequent entertaining. I've missed that with the old house. It was just not easy to entertain with more then 1-2 extra people making it feel over crowded.
The new place is currently decorated in Early American Box.. but I knew I'd be doing an official 'Sunday Dinner' tonight, even if just for us. I had found a gorgeous dining table on craigslist and was set to go. We had my IL's up and they wanted to give us more time to settle in, but I told them I'd be making dinner anyway and there was more then enough. It was so nice to entertain again, lol...although I did forget to turn the oven off for a bit and couldn't figure out why the kitchen was still so hot, lol.
Thats another nice thing about this apartment. Heat and hot water are included- yippee! in the old house I all but stopped cooking because the hot water leak in the bathtub drained the propane ( water heater was a propane heated version). Our monthly bill was about $150 a month for propane. Now I can cook all I want with the propane.
oh and for any that know my stories about the kitchen in the old place? there is NO CARPETING in this kitchen! I have a normal kitchen floor again and its great :)
tonight I made:
an appetizer tray of:celery and blue cheese dressing/assorted olives/tomato and feta bruschetta
main course was:
lasagna
tossed salad
peas and onions with prosciutto
dessert was brownies and cookies provided by my MIL
it was a very nice dinner and Joe enjoyed it so much he suggested his parents come up every Sunday - yeaaaah.. both his mom and I looked at him and told him he was nuts, lol. I do however plan to have a nice Sunday dinner each week unless we are invited out otherwise, lol.
my meal plan for next Sunday is in progress.... right now it's:
Crusted Salmon with mustard
and that's about it at the moment, lol. I want to avoid stopping for any additional ingredients so thats part of my challenge. I think my side dish will be a basic tossed salad with another pasta salad of some sort. I tossed the rice I had at the old place... but rice is inexpensive. Oh wait! I have a seasoned tube of wild rice! that's a perfect compliment to salmon. I've invite my mom over for next week and think I'll also ask my SIL and niece. The piece of salmon i have is huge, so thats not a problem. there is a farmers market down the road on thurs evenings...maybe i'll find an inexpensive veggie side dish idea.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Peanuts's Overdue Weekly Wednesday - Vet visit
I went to the Dr today for a 'checkup'. Blah. Made my point clear to all that I was not a happy puppy about being at the dr.
the good: overall I'm in good shape... well my shape is round, but other then that I;m in overall apparent good health.
the bad: I have Lyme's disease. Which explains my grouchiness and more achy feeling of late. I'm on a month long antibiotic and probiotic regimen. The test showed a very VERY faint positive (sort of like a pregnancy test) so the dr said I've probably only had it for a few weeks and that I'll make an easy and full recovery. At least mom bought me some yummy treat like things to 'hide' the antibiotic in.
now i'm off for a nap .....
the good: overall I'm in good shape... well my shape is round, but other then that I;m in overall apparent good health.
the bad: I have Lyme's disease. Which explains my grouchiness and more achy feeling of late. I'm on a month long antibiotic and probiotic regimen. The test showed a very VERY faint positive (sort of like a pregnancy test) so the dr said I've probably only had it for a few weeks and that I'll make an easy and full recovery. At least mom bought me some yummy treat like things to 'hide' the antibiotic in.
now i'm off for a nap .....
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Day 2-21 of detox
Moving my detox posts to a new blog that I'm hoping to expand into a well functioning raw food resource:
Live Well with Raw Foods
Live Well with Raw Foods
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Day 1 of the 21 Day Detox
Mid Morning-
It has been pretty much 4 years since I had a positive pregnancy test... and probably 4.25 years since my last detox, and I feel it. Our office does a fall and a spring detox program, but I wasn't fully thrilled with the last version we had switched to. The product was good, but was marketed as a MML and I just don't like that. My boss recently completed a new program and I am now going thru it. I love this program, the nutritional support behind it (shakes and supplements) are from a phenomenal company, and the foods that are recommended are living (or raw) foods. Being a Raw Foods Lifestyle Coach (who's been sorely slacking in that department) this is ideal for me.
I actually started the program last night to let the first round of nutrition work its way thru my system as I slept. Woke up with a headache which I expected as its generally a constant detox sign for me. Its mild today and easily ignored. I have an odd day as we have expanded hours at work and my partner in crime is also off today.. I need to better plan my mornings to get everything in right away. I'm not far off but am still working on my first shake and haven't taken my cleanse tablets that I need to take 3 times per day. I did however make a delicious green tea/ginger/lime drink that surprised me. I do not care for ginger and i could drink this tea all day. I need to run out at lunch actually and get more limes, lol. So far I am not irritable, but that could change easily, lol. I am pleased though that either thru mind over matter, or sheer luck, that I am happily functioning without coffee this morning. I'm not a huge coffee drinker but do have the office habit of a cup in the morning either on the way or once at the office. The shake is ok, definitely not something I would crave. rather bland actually, doesn't really taste like anything. hardest part for me of course is the grittiness that is a apart of pretty much every detox shake I've used. The cleanse supplement is interesting, but primarily because it has some cayenne pepper in it and I tend to repeat certain things, lol. I'm hoping the detox corrects that as well, lol. I am allowed unlimited fruits and veggies (should be a 1:2 ratio) but as of yet haven't eaten anything due to trying to get the shake taken while at work. I'm not often hungry first thing in the morning though so its not surprising.
My most difficult times will be the evenings, I must remember that I'm primarily doing this to feel better and have more energy.. and to fit into a cute pair of denim capri's and be able to breathe while sitting, lol.
Side note: I may switch these posts to a different blog dedicated to the detox and raw foods, haven't quite decided yet.
It has been pretty much 4 years since I had a positive pregnancy test... and probably 4.25 years since my last detox, and I feel it. Our office does a fall and a spring detox program, but I wasn't fully thrilled with the last version we had switched to. The product was good, but was marketed as a MML and I just don't like that. My boss recently completed a new program and I am now going thru it. I love this program, the nutritional support behind it (shakes and supplements) are from a phenomenal company, and the foods that are recommended are living (or raw) foods. Being a Raw Foods Lifestyle Coach (who's been sorely slacking in that department) this is ideal for me.
I actually started the program last night to let the first round of nutrition work its way thru my system as I slept. Woke up with a headache which I expected as its generally a constant detox sign for me. Its mild today and easily ignored. I have an odd day as we have expanded hours at work and my partner in crime is also off today.. I need to better plan my mornings to get everything in right away. I'm not far off but am still working on my first shake and haven't taken my cleanse tablets that I need to take 3 times per day. I did however make a delicious green tea/ginger/lime drink that surprised me. I do not care for ginger and i could drink this tea all day. I need to run out at lunch actually and get more limes, lol. So far I am not irritable, but that could change easily, lol. I am pleased though that either thru mind over matter, or sheer luck, that I am happily functioning without coffee this morning. I'm not a huge coffee drinker but do have the office habit of a cup in the morning either on the way or once at the office. The shake is ok, definitely not something I would crave. rather bland actually, doesn't really taste like anything. hardest part for me of course is the grittiness that is a apart of pretty much every detox shake I've used. The cleanse supplement is interesting, but primarily because it has some cayenne pepper in it and I tend to repeat certain things, lol. I'm hoping the detox corrects that as well, lol. I am allowed unlimited fruits and veggies (should be a 1:2 ratio) but as of yet haven't eaten anything due to trying to get the shake taken while at work. I'm not often hungry first thing in the morning though so its not surprising.
My most difficult times will be the evenings, I must remember that I'm primarily doing this to feel better and have more energy.. and to fit into a cute pair of denim capri's and be able to breathe while sitting, lol.
Side note: I may switch these posts to a different blog dedicated to the detox and raw foods, haven't quite decided yet.
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