Neat Stuff

Today I just wanted to jump on here and write a little bit about some of our house progress, and how I've been feeling lately.

It's been eight and a half months since we bought our house and moved into the 5th wheel, and man does it seem like it's been forever! I have gone through different stages throughout the process, where sometimes it feels like things couldn't crawl any slower, and I'm going crazy wanting to be done, and other times where I'm good and excited about the process.

I haven't been able to pin point exactly what does it to make me move from one side to the other, but I've been back and forth a few times now haha. Right now I'm back in my, "I'm going stir crazy and I can't be in this trailer another day," moods.

This time I feel like it's the looming holidays that brought it about. Decorating for fall and Christmas are some of my favorite things to do, and originally I was really hoping we would be in the house by Christmas. Well, remodels rarely go according to plan (and I knew that) so we're looking at being in maybe in February? I'm hoping!

So I sit here in my camper and get discontent because all I want is to be in my house already. I miss having a full kitchen with more than a foot of counter space. I miss having a dishwasher. Heck, I miss having my dishes! I packed most of them away, and only kept the bare essentials, because when we moved we weren't expecting it to take this long. I actually miss being able to really cook and I'm so looking forward to having a full kitchen again.

I miss having a real bathroom, and space to spread out. And a front yard that isn't half trash pile/half construction mess. It seems like we're in that stage where everything is close enough that we can see it coming together and still so far away from being done.

But, I have to remind myself that I wanted this (so badly!) and it will all be worth it. One year of not getting to decorate much for the holidays, the pink camper carpet that I can't keep clean to save my life, and all of the hard work will pay off and it will barely be a blip in the radar years from now.

And I know we're super fortunate to get to do this. I'm sure there are tons of people out there who would love to have this opportunity! Plus, being discontent isn't going to make things go any faster, so I'm going to try to suck it up and be happy in this stage, even though it's hard.

And writing this has helped. Sometimes just getting it out is a relief, and if you have any tips or tricks for being content, send them my way! Maybe I just need to get focused and work harder on the house so we'll be in it that much sooner. Plus, that's less time I'm sitting in my trailer, right? ;)

As far as house progress goes, we have actually been getting quite a bit done lately! We are currently waiting on our roof to be installed, and we're starting to get back to inside projects. Dane worked on and mostly finished our front entry (at least for now) and his dad helped us out a ton by raising the ceilings in the old part of the house!



My priming and painting kind of hit a stand still because I got the flu, and now that I'm better the rains are starting! But this weekend looks like we will get a break, so I'm hoping to keep working on it then. And this week Dane has started working on electrical and we should be installing windows soon too!

So even though it's going to be a winter in a 5th wheel, things are trucking along and I'm really so excited about the way it's coming together :)

Thanks for stopping by and listening to my boo-boos! Now I'm off to work on something productive. Happy Wednesday!

Happy first day of fall!

It's been perfectly fall-ish here this week, with some rain and cool weather, and today it's sunny and cool and a Friday, so win-win-win if you ask me :)

I'm hoping some good progress can be made this weekend on the house. Dane will be working on our front entry and my job for the weekend will be stripping the interior doors for the house. They are vintage five-panel doors from the early 1900s and luckily they only seem to have one layer of paint on them! But in the interest of having a better finished product, I'm going to strip them down and re-paint them.

I'm looking forward to enjoying some more outside time this weekend and soaking in the perfect weather. And maybe finalizing my exterior paint color as well! Now, onto that neat stuff I came across this week.

NEAT STUFF

NEAT STUFF

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Well, it's been a few Fridays, but I'm back again with some neat stuff!

I also kept intending to share a house update with you all the last couple of weeks, but life's been busy! If you follow me on instagram you've probably been seeing my updates there, but the house looks so different from the last time I shared anything here on the blog.

Next week for sure I will have an update post for you all, and maybe a video too ;)

Neat Stuff

1. I'm so ready for fall, it's not even funny. I've been wearing this perfect nail polish from the photo above, and it might be my favorite ever!
2. Here's a super pretty screen saver/September calendar from Place of My Taste that is perfect for fall. It's available for your desktop or phone!
3. This crazy huge fire is only about 30 miles away from us in the neighboring county. It's taken out some homes already, and it's creating a massive amount of smoke for southern Oregon and northern California. Just another reason for fall to come soon, for the rain!
4. Simply Grove shared this beautiful bedroom refresh on her blog and I just love how it turned out. So pretty!
5. Lastly, what a great way to mix summer and fall than with a no-churn apple pie ice cream recipe? Check it out over on Boxwood Ave :)

And that's all the neat stuff for this week. Have a safe and happy labor day weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Neat Stuff

1. To start, that photo above was inspired by this article. I really struggle with being in the here and now and not focusing on the future all the time, so it was a nice reminder to focus on the grass I have now. I've been practicing my brush lettering a lot and literally writing anything that catches my attention, and I was particularly happy with how that turned out.
2. Chris Loves Julia had a great post the other day about tips on maintaining and cleaning your cookware. A lot of it I knew, but some things I didn't, so maybe some of you will find it helpful also!
3. I just bought this new Whitelines sketchbook (I bought the gridded notebook) and so far I'm loving it. The idea is that you get the grids and lines you need to keep everything straight, but when you digitize, the white lines fade away into the background vs black lines that would take time to get rid of. I've used it for a couple of things and it works great! I can't wait to fill it up :)
4. I also just bought a bunch of multi-colored foam beads for putting into homemade slime. You know, the stuff that all those kids are obsessed with, and you probably made for a science project when you were in middle school. I intended to make it with my nieces, but I had to make some practice batches first to make sure I knew what I was doing....Here's a slime recipe I used. 
5. I can't stop pinning beautiful pictures of mountains and forests lately! And Pinterest won't stop recommending them to me, haha! They're so beautiful, I couldn't pick just one, so check out my board here. 

So that's it for the neat stuff this week! It's been a busy one, but this weekend we're headed out of town to the beach with my family for my dad's birthday. I'm kind of glad the Oregon coast tends to be a little cooler, because I get to bust out some sweaters and escape the triple digit weather that's hitting our area next week!

I hope you guys have a great weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

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Happy Fri-yay!

I realized this week that I haven't kept you all updated on our house buying process as of late! I promise I didn't mean to be so rude, haha.

It hasn't been that long since we've decided we were ready to go all in and buy a house again, and we thought that it was going to be a simple process since we had already found a house to buy.

Well, as these things tend to go, we aren't buying that house after all. There were some unforeseen complications that would have required us to wait a while longer than we originally thought, and in that time we ended up changing our mind.

We've been living in a very small space since we moved to Oregon, (675 sq ft!) and it was going well enough that we thought we could look at places to buy that were on the small side. The fact that housing is so expensive over here was also a factor in that choice too, haha!

But, as the weather got colder and we were stuck inside more and more, it started to feel a little more claustrophobic. Then, my family all got to come over from Idaho for Christmas, and I have a big family! Including my parents, there are 10 of us altogether, and trying to have them all over while they were in town was no easy feat.

After that we decided that while living in less than 1,000 sq ft could work for us most of the time, my family comes over several times a year and it's really important to me for them to get to come to my house and stay. I only see them 5-6 times a year and I want to be able to accommodate them when they're here.

I also miss being able to host company at our house. We have friends with nice big spaces and we go to their houses pretty often, but I love having people over and it only took one time to realize that it wasn't an easy fit in our small house!

We don't have kids and I thought I could get away without kid friendly space in our home, but it turns out that when all of your friends have kids and toddlers, you kinda need some where for them to play when they come over...

For all of these reasons combined, we decided to back out of our house purchase and start looking for something bigger. So far it's been a lot of big fat disappointment (stinking expensive housing market), but we're officially on the hunt!

We know it's going to require giving up on some of our wish list items, but that's life. You rarely get everything you want! So we're going to be busy looking for that just right place, and it will most likely still be a fixer.

I'll be sure to share when we've finally found the one, and hopefully I can learn a bit of patience during this process, because I can already tell I'm going to need it!

That's all for my update for now. I hope you all have a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by :)

The last couple weeks have been a blur of slump-y-ness for me. (Yes, I know that's not a real word, haha!)

Every afternoon it seems I am sluggish and tired. I've been getting head aches, and just feeling blah.
I decided that it's because I'm in almost the worst shape of my life! It's been years since I have been this inactive, and it's taking it's toll.

With so much going on with the house and work, I've been too busy to make too much of an effort in the working out department. So, I'm making it a goal to start walking more, and utilizing my gym membership (oops!).

But, my gym doesn't offer one thing that I really used to love doing, and that's yoga!

I got started with a very cool yoga program on Youtube from Yoga with Adriene a few months ago (recommended by my awesome s-i-l Emily! Hi Emily!), and then life got busy. So I have just started back in and it is just the boost I needed!

So now when I get into my afternoon slump, I just get in my yoga session and I feel much better!

She has a Thirty Days of Yoga program that is a great place to start for anyone wanting to get into it as well :)

I also decided to give a leeetle bit more structure to these afternoon session posts of mine, like I used to back in the day, so here goes!


Reading- Lots of blog posts! (That's all I read these days ;) ) Gorgeous floral sketches from Shannon Kirsten, Emma Chapman's house buying story over at A Beautiful Mess (which I totally understand, since we just went through the whole process ourselves!) and all things branding related from Elle & Co. Also, I can't forget to shout out to my friend Toni and her new blog, Home Sweetly Home! She posts a lot of great recipes and tips (plus beautiful pictures of her house!) so you should definitely check it out!

Drinking- Iced lattes. Yum! And La Croix, to try to break my diet soda habit!

Listening- To Lullatone. I heard of them from Amanda at Wit & Whistle (she uses their songs in her videos!), and they are so relaxing!

Loving- That the weather is cooling down. Fall is on it's way, I can feel it! I've already been busting out my sweaters! Also, those little succulents pictured above that I bought for my kitchen! I may move some of them to my office, but until it's a little more organized, they'll stay put. And can I let you in on a dirty little secret?.....They're fake! I bought them at hobby lobby because, you know, brown thumb and all.

What have your afternoons consisted of lately? Do you ever get into slumps, and what do you do to perk yourself up? Let me know! I'd love to hear :)

Thanks for stopping by!

It's been a while since I've been able to totally decorate a room from scratch, so I'm pretty excited!

That's all I'm up to this afternoon, how about you? Anything fun, new, or exciting taking up your afternoons currently? Let me know!

Thanks for stopping by!

....since the last time I posted anything to facebook!

I joined the challenge 99 Days of Freedom, which is basically just logging off of facebook for 99 days. Now, I will admit that I have logged on twice since then, once as a favor to a friend, and once to message someone for job info. I didn't check my notifications, or scroll through my feed, so I still feel like I'm holding up to the rules pretty well!

And technically, posting this to my blog's page is also cheating, but for me it was less about the posting, and more about what I was seeing on my newsfeed. Don't get me wrong though! Most of the stuff I saw from my friends was great. I didn't have a problem with "drama" or anything like that, but it was other things.

Before I saw this campaign, I was already feeling like I needed a break. I was way too addicted, and I could tell it was making me unhappy. The first thing I did every day was get online, and I was constantly on it throughout the day. The real clincher though, was all of the trending topics and news articles people shared. I have been avoiding watching the news and going to news sites for a long time now, so when this stuff started showing up more and more on facebook, it was really bringing me down.

I know the obvious thing would be just not to read the kind of stuff that bothers me, but unfortunately I don't seem to have that control. I would get sucked into these articles of politics and controversy, and things that I don't agree with, and I would just keep reading. One article would lead to another and then another, and I would end up mad or irritated or down, just because I couldn't resist. And it got to the point where facebook was just another media hub that I wanted to avoid.

But I have missed sharing things with people! That has been the thing I have wanted to do the most. So, this is how I'm going to continue to do that, without having to see all of the stuff I don't want to. Eventually I will start logging back on again to see what all of my friends and family are up to though, and hopefully I will have the self control not to let my facebook take over my life again!

Because I have to say, I feel like I am happier without it :)

In regards to social media as a whole though, I didn't give up on everything! I'm still on pinterest, and I have an instagram account as well! I couldn't just go cold turkey on it all at once now could I? ;)

Now, what have I just been dying to share lately? Well, just summer as usual!

I have been going to concerts and camping trips, and enjoying the sun and my family! Like I mentioned in my last post, things have changed a lot around these parts. We moved from Southern Oregon to the Boise area of Idaho last spring, which is where I grew up and most of my family lives. I've been having such a great time seeing my parents and sisters whenever I want, plus my best friend and her adorable little boy.

It's most likely just a temporary move, only for a few years, while my husband works over here, but I plan on making the most of it while we're here!

I also bought a small vintage camping trailer to renovate, and while I haven't gotten as far as I had hoped I would by this time, I'm still super excited about it. I want to try to post regular updates as I make some more progress on her, and I will be sure to share lots of pictures as she comes along! (Btw, she is named Gloria)

I'm also in the process of working on a major change to this little old blog of mine......

.....but I'm going to be keeping that secret for a little while longer still ;)

So stick around (and I'll try too as well), and I will be sharing more about that in the future!

Happy Hump Day everyone, and I'll see you next time!


 

I'm baaaack....

But for reals, I'm sorry everybody! Things have just been crazy around here, and it has been weeks (!) since I've been around!

A few weeks ago, I started working a lot of hours, and it just zapped me completely. I was so wore out in the evening, that all I felt like doing was sitting in front of my netflix! Then I got sick. So that bogged me down even more. Then I had to get ready for a camping trip, and my family came to town! So, obviously, the last month or so has been absolutely crazy!

And not only have I been a terrible blogger in terms of writing...but I also didn't take hardly any pictures of all of the fun things I've been doing!

I went on a camping trip.

It was Dane's twenty-eighth birthday!

I went to the coast with my family.

I've had a few of my sisters staying with me for a couple of weeks!

And I have no pictures......

Well, mostly no pictures. The other day, we did go swimming in the most beautiful river, and I was smart enough to bring my camera for that!

Still, though. Bad blogger! Bad!

Anyways, I've missed this little space of mine, and I'm happy to be back! I hope I won't be missing quite as much around here lately, since I'm pretty much on summer break. And here are a few of those pictures that I took from our river jaunt last Friday.