Last Sunday I got on Facebook (which isn't something I do very often anymore) and the memory at the top of my feed was this photo of my little Lemon Bean on the first night I brought her home! I had been planning on doing a post about her at some point, and since it's been two years since I got her, it seemed like good timing :)

She is such a funny little thing, and she brings so much joy to our lives it's kind of ridiculous. I'm not one of those people who thinks of animals as being equal to a person (I know she's just a dog), but I do make plenty of fur baby jokes and she's very important to us.




I work part time, but there's been times over the past couple of years when I didn't even do that, and having her here is so great. I don't think it's good to always be by yourself, and a pet is such a good companion to have around. Lemon is playful, snuggly, funny, and she gives me something to do and focus on. She follows me everywhere, and she has such a good personality. Having had several pets over the years, it always surprises me just how different animals' personalities can be. And they're so much smarter than we give them credit for sometimes.

We used to have an aussie/heeler mix several years ago, and unfortunately he was not the breed of dog for us. I did a lot of things wrong with him, and he was just too much to handle. Dane could not stand him, and I ended up having to find him a new home. It took so much convincing for Dane to agree to get another one!


I had been begging and begging for months, and Dane finally agreed to some of my terms (small, inside dog, non-shedding) and I thought I had a breed picked out and I was going to start saving my money. I originally wanted a Havanese puppy (look them up, they are the dang cutest!!) but they are super pricey, so I was perusing Craigslist on a regular basis in case something came up that was a good deal.

Well, one afternoon, I got home from work and started browsing online. I saw an ad for some schnoodle puppies (mini schnauzer/poodle mix) that were as cute as all get out! One of my favorite bloggers/card makers Amanda from Wit & Whistle has two adorable schnoodles, so I knew they were little teddy bear dogs. I did some research on the breed, and they make for such a good pet. Plus, when we were first married, we had a mini schnauzer that was stolen from us, so we knew we liked that breed.

I called Dane and commenced to begging again, haha! It took some bargaining, but he agreed to let me go pick one out, and I was over the moon!


I knew I wanted a girl, and they had a few sable colored girls, and one black. I thought I wanted a lighter colored dog, so I was looking at the lightest of the sables and I was planning on picking her out. Well, I got there and my plans changed very quickly! The family handed the one I picked to me but then the littlest of the litter, this tiny black thing, came waddling over. I picked her up and just melted!

That was it for me. I said it within seconds, this was the one I wanted, and it was just too funny that Dane and I had already decided on the name Lemon after Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, haha! Not very fitting for a black dog, but that's what it was and I think it suits her just fine ;) Plus, I started calling her Lemon Bean almost immediately. So now she goes by Lemon, Lemon Bean, Bean, Bean-Bean, and occasionally Yemen or Melon, because apparently it's a hard word for toddlers.

She has been my little shadow for the last two years, and even Dane couldn't help but admit that she was very cute when I got her home. Now he's gotten almost as attached to her as I am, and she loves him too. She practically throws him a ticker tape parade every day when he gets home from work, and she will lay on his lap and stare at him so adoringly, it makes us laugh so hard!



She's such a friendly dog, and she loves people, other dogs, cats, you name it. And I ask Dane all the time, "Aren't you so glad you let me go and get her?" And he is :)

I also thought today that I'd share some of our favorite dog products, as well as some things I have on my wish list.

1. These treats are hands-down Lemon's favorites. She goes absolutely nuts for them, and I love them because they clean her teeth. One downside of the poodle gene is that they have notoriously bad teeth as they get older, so one way I'm trying to prevent that is by giving her these. And I feel like too much wheat is bad for anyone, so I love that they come in a grain-free option!
2. These little bouncy balls are durable, and they have a squeaker that isn't terribly easy to get to make sound, which means it's less annoying. Plus, it has a hole for putting treats and it makes a great puzzle toy she can work on for long periods of time. It usually hangs out in the car for her to have something to do while we're in town.
3. This de-tangler might be the number one must have on the list, especially for poodle mixes, or any dog that has high maintenance hair. Since Lemon is a non-shedding breed, her hair has a tendency to get knots and mats pretty easily. Rubbing a little of this over her fur before I brush her makes it so much easier, and it even gets tough matting out! I just use a little extra on those spots and voila! 
4. Now we're onto my wish list items. While a treat jar is probably a must, this one is so cute that I may have to get it once we move into the new house. How adorable would it look on a shelf?
5. Lemon has had a few different beds since we've gotten her, and I've been able to figure out what works with some trial and error. This bed has a removable cover that will make washing easier than her current bed. Plus, it's super affordable and available on Prime!
6. Lastly is this squeaky pig. Lemon had a little squeaky pig toy when we first brought her home, and she loved it so much! So when I come across squeaky pigs, I gotta have them! This one has the highest durability rating for this brand, and I actually got her a smaller one that was rated a few steps down. Normally she will destroy a stuffed toy in 10 minutes, but that one lasted a couple of weeks. Since this one seems so much tougher, I think she's going to be getting it for Christmas :) (yes, my dog gets Christmas presents, haha!)

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This last weekend was a busy one for working on the house. Well, it's always busy I guess, but it's been a while since I actually worked long and hard on something myself, Dane's been doing most of the work lately. But he needed help putting up fascia board (the edge board you see that covers the end of the joists) and I started paint prep!

We get so much rain here in southern Oregon, I wanted to get the exterior painted before it really gets going. Usually it hits in October sometime, so we're kind of racing to get the roofing done and most of the exterior before that happens. It's still showing clear for the 10 day forecast though, so fingers crossed it will stay nice weather for a while!

There isn't really much I need to do to the new part of the house as far as prep before painting (although there will be a ton of caulking at some point soon), but the original part of the house really needed some attention before I could do any painting. It's obvious it hadn't been painted in a really long time, maybe over 20 years! And most of it was peeling and flaking off.

To get a good adhesion with the new paint, I had to get all of the loose stuff off, which required going over it with a pressure washer, going over it all by hand and scraping it, and then pressure washing one more time! It was as much work as it sounds. It took me three days!

Now that it's done though, it looks so much cleaner without all the flaky paint and cobwebs, in spite of all the missing paint, haha! And now I have a smooth slate for priming and painting. I wrapped that up today, and here's what it looks like now.




The plan is to start painting this week, and since I will definitely be sharing an update when that's done, I thought I'd show you some of my inspiration for it!

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We're also doing a gabled front entry, that will be enclosed on the sides and only open on the front. Our house is far from a Tudor style house, but I kept coming back to them for their front entries and so I took inspiration from them for ours. It's not built yet, but it will be done soon!

And lastly, I know we're doing a wood front door, and I got some brick on craigslist for our front steps and walkway.

It's going to be so exciting seeing the outside come together, and it's a pretty big check off the list. Soon, we'll be moving onto the interior, and man am I ready for that!

So what do you think? I know white houses are very trendy right now, but I just love them so much! Are you on the white house bandwagon too? What are some of your favorite exterior details?

Have a great rest of your day, and thanks for stopping by!
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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

Yesterday we celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary!

In July we hit our decade mark of being together, and it seems like so long ago, and also like it was just yesterday. That's a long time to get to know somebody!

I'd like to think we've learned a thing or two over nine years, but I don't think I'm one to give marriage advice. We've had our ups and downs, good times and bad, like any marriage. And nine years is enough time to get comfortable and know each other pretty well, but even after all this time, I think we're still learning some things. As your life changes, so do you, and still, on occasion, we learn things about the other one that we didn't know.

Overall though, we know each other's likes and dislikes and I always joke that we are two peas in a pod! We have a tendency to say the same things and read the other's thoughts all the time, and we always get a good laugh out of it when we do.

And that's probably what I'd say my favorite thing is about us, the laughing. We are both kind of dorky, and we love to make each other laugh. We have the same sense of humor, and we enjoy being silly. I would say laughing is the best way we get over arguments. It's hard to stay mad when you're laughing together, haha!

Alright, that's probably enough mushy-gushy about us, and I wanted to share how we celebrated this year! I had a hard time coming up with something fun to do that was a little out of the ordinary. We wanted to go out, but we've tried most of the restaurants in our town, and even though we love to go to our favorite places, I wanted something a little different.

I was up the night before, wracking my brain, and since southern Oregon has some cool hidden spots, I decided to get on google maps and see if anything came up. We both enjoy being outdoors, and the weather this week has been perfectly fall, so it seemed like something would work out! I was scanning around our area and the name Mckee popped out at me.



I looked it up, and it turned out to be the Mckee covered bridge over Applegate River. It's no longer in use for driving, but it's a pedestrian bridge with a day use park next to it. Apparently in the summer, it's a great swimming spot, but I figured (correctly) that 57 degrees and a chance of showers would give us the whole place to ourselves. So, after work, I had Dane pick up pizza and meet me and I drove us out there. He didn't know where we were going until we arrived, and I lucked out and he'd never been there before either ;)


So we had ourselves a romantic little pizza picnic, and checked out the old bridge. There was also a covered gazebo that had a neat vintage piano (that worked!) but I didn't get a picture before it got dark. It was so nice, and we both agreed that we enjoyed it more than if we'd just gone to a nice restaurant. And the setting was so neat, I think we'll definitely be back.

Now, in the interest of transparency, here's some blog/instagram vs. reality for ya! ;)

Here's what I had pictured in my head:


And here's what it actually looked like, haha!!


Still nice, but definitely less pretty!

If you live in the southern Oregon area, I definitely recommend checking this place out, and if not, maybe check and see if there are any cool historical places in your own area!

Happy Thursday, and happy fall eve! Thanks for stopping by :)
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