Thursday, August 27

singin' in the...bar?

While we were at the lake with friends one weekend in July {read here}, Josh introduced us to a new up and coming artist that we fell head over heels for -- Diane Birch. She's a poppy/jazzy piano playing singer with a great band to accompany her. Think Norah Jones-ish.


A couple weeks ago, we found out that she was going to be at a bar downtown Indy for a show. Josh, Meredith, Kurt, and I jumped at the chance to go listen live {even if it was a Tuesday night}!! After dinner, we found a spot in the small and cozy bar to listen to the great music.
{Happy together while listening to great music!}

At the end of the concert, Diane stood at a table signing autographs and selling CD's. We wanted to get a CD along with her autograph. So, she signed the cover of the CD. It's really cool to have, not to mention the whole CD is awesome. We're thinking we can incorporate this into our new house by framing it or something.... We'll be sure to share pictures once this happens!

{Cool picture with the band in the background.}

If you haven't listened to her music, you're missing out. I'd recommend you check her out!

Tuesday, August 25

decisions, decisions

We have a moving dilemma and we're not quite sure what the best situation is to fix the problem. Maybe you can help us clear our heads and make the best decision?!?!

Here's the situation:
When we moved from our apartment, we had to store all of our belongings {other than clothes, the dog, and a few miscellaneous items} in a storage facility. When we signed the paperwork, they informed us that a 30 day move-out notice is required and the month is not prorated. So in other words, you have to move out before the 1st of each month or you have to pay the entire month's rent. Well, our closing date is scheduled for Wednesday, September 30th. We originally planned that we would move into the house that weekend, October 2-4. BUT, if we wait until then, we'll have to pay $156 for the storage for the entire month of October.

Solution #1:
Keep the closing date the same, wait to move until the first weekend in October, and just pay October's rent.

Solution #2:
Ask to move the closing date up 5 or 6 days. So, we would close either Thursday, September 24th in the afternoon or Friday, September 25th. Problems with moving this weekend-- We are going to the Kings of Leon concert on Friday night {so not much moving would get accomplished Friday}. Also, my entire family {minus Christopher, who now lives in NYC} will be in Michigan at a wedding and won't be able to help us with moving.
{We hope our friends can help us out!! Drinks on us!}

So, do we suck it up and pay the extra money and stick with our original plans? Or do we move the date {if she agrees}, not have my family to help, and only have the original moving fees?

We're leaning towards choice number two. Any excuses of living together sooner are welcome!! We're not even sure yet if this plan is feasible, so we'll see.....
On to bigger and better decisions - finding more items to add to my House Wish List!!

failed doormat

In celebration of Meredith's birthday today {happy birthday, Mer!!}, I thought I'd share with you the failed DIY doormat I made for Meredith's birthday present. {She will clearly be receiving a different, non-DIY present for her birthday, since her first present did not turn out!}

Lately, I've been trying to become more crafty. I know that once Kurt and I move into our house, we're hoping to complete many DIY projects. Going along with the 'new homeowners' theme, I decided that it would be a great idea to try and make Meredith and Josh a doormat for their new home. So, let's get started....

Before I began, I made sure I had all of my supplies that I {*thought} were needed.
-Plain Coir Doormat
{nearly impossible to find--after 6 stores, I finally found it at Kohl's}
-Painters Tape
-Exacto Knife
-Cardstock Paper
-Monogram Letters
{I found a font I liked on dafont.com and printed the M, &, and J.}
-2 Colors of Spray Paint
-Newspaper

*I may re-try a project like this. If so, I'd do a few things differently that may change the ending results. {Use a ruler to make sure all lines are perfectly straight and measure letter spacing. Try and find a less textured doormat {could be impossible!}. And, buy more quality painters tape.}

After I had printed the letters, I cut them out. I then taped the paper letters to the cardstock. Using the exacto knife, I carefully cut the letters out on the more firm cardstock.

Then I began the taping process. {I should have taken more time on this step!} First I taped the letters on. {Because the mat was so textured, the edges of the letters did not stick down as much as I hoped.} Then I taped the uneven/'funky' border. After the border was on {and after many attempts of me sticking it down}, I cut out the pieces {with the exacto knife} of the border that overlapped.

Next, I covered up all the extra spaces with newspaper. Then it was time to paint! Kurt and I chose to paint the letters blue and the border gray.

This is what it looked like after everything was done and it was drying. At this point, I had a bad feeling that the paint found its way under the edges of the letters. And sure enough, I was {unfortunately} correct.

Here's the final product. Morri {Christopher's dog} wanted to jump in the picture taken on my parents patio. When viewed closer up, you can see how the blue paint seeped under the cardstock paper at certain parts. It's not horrible, but it doesn't have the wow factor I was hoping for.....

Any ideas/tips on my next try are welcome! If you have any good ideas for more DIY projects, I'd love to hear.

Monday, August 24

love what you do

Like I've said before, I love my job.
I love the kids.
I love the school where I teach.
And now, I love my new little room.

Because I was doing two maternity leaves last year, I didn't have my own space. I used the other teachers' desks, materials, etc. It wasn't a huge deal because I didn't have to worry about being a first year teacher and trying to get a classroom together in a short amount of time. I found out that I was getting rehired at Orchard early on in the summer, but didn't know where I would have an office/room until shortly before school began. The lady that semi-retired, decided to move all of her things out of her room and give me the entire space {which was SO incredibly thoughtful of her!}

The room is so much bigger than it used to be {because I moved out a ton of unnecessary bookcases/shelves, added a white board, and made it more kid-friendly} and will now allow for me to actually teach small groups in my room. Although last Tuesday was our first day of school, I haven't done too much teaching yet. Starting today, I'll have kids in and out of my room while I begin teaching my reading groups, math group, and pulling kids who need extra help in the afternoon. I can't wait to start having kids use the space that I've now called home during the day. This room is great for a beginning teacher, but I can't wait to get into a real classroom in the next couple of years.

If you're wondering where I spend my time teaching my little kiddos, wonder no more....

This is what you see when you walk into the door.
My teacher space.
The bookcase accessible to kids.
A wheeling white board for activities and storage.

When you walk in and turn right, you'll see this.
The table where kids will sit during reading group, etc.
The brand new magnetic white board.

And, that's about it! While it seems small, it's cozy for now. I'm still happy that I didn't have the stress of getting an entire classroom together this year. And, this room is W.A.Y. bigger than it was before I moved it. Kids and adults have been amazed this past week with how much space is in it! I suppose I should get ready and plan for the day/week. :)

Thursday, August 20

so sleepy....

Summer was great. It allowed for me to sleep in and be lazier than anyone should ever be. While summer has come to an abrupt end, I am quickly realizing that my body is not quite ready for that {summer} sleep schedule to change.
I. Am. Exhausted.

Hopefully my body will get used to my new sleep {or lack of sleep} schedule. Tonight I'm planning on getting in bed early {we'll see how well that works....} so that I'm not ready for bed at 9pm tomorrow night. I'd like to not feel like a huge loser on a Friday night :)

Wednesday, August 19

Our First House

I'm having a hard time figuring out where to begin this post. As you've heard here and here, our house hunting process was more frustrating than I had anticipated. I'll spare you most of the ups and downs of the whole process, but would love to share some pictures of our {awesome!} new house.

When we started our search, we had hopes of buying an older house in the Broad Ripple area. We were looking for a house with lots of charm and really wanted things like hardwood floors, a fun neighborhood, and possibly brick. After {way too much!} stress and looking through all of the houses in the area that fit our criteria, I was venting to our friend Meredith. {Her mom is a realtor and she always seemed to have great advice for me!} We didn't know what to do -- wait around for something in the area to get put on the market or for the price to be lowered or should we change our criteria?

Meredith and Josh had recently bought a house in an up and coming neighborhood two miles north of downtown Indy. As we were talking, she suggested that we look around that neighborhood. After talking about it, I couldn't wait to get home and see if there were any houses in the area in our price range. {Long story short} we fell in love with the area and the {new} houses!

As you may have read, we found a house that we really liked and decided to put an offer on it. This whole process was a huge ordeal for a variety of reasons. Finally, after a week of suspense {and driving Kurt nuts because of my insanity}, the deal fell through. While we were going through this process, houses continued coming on the market. So, back to looking it was.

The night {Tuesday} the deal fell through, I found another house in the neighborhood that had just been put on the market that day. That Thursday, we set out for another l.o.n.g. day of house hunting. We started downtown {at the house we later would buy} and made our way north while looking at a variety of houses. We quickly came to the conclusion that we love the neighborhood downtown for a plethora of reasons {as well as the house}. So, we decided to put an offer on the first house we looked at that day. After one counter offer, we accepted and had a new house! It really sounds like it wasn't a huge, long, incredibly stressful process, but trust me I'm sparing you many of the details! {And probably being a little dramatic, too!}

OH, I forgot to mention, that our house just so happens to be 5 houses north of Josh and Meredith's house! {According to Josh and MapQuest -- 200 ft.} I could go on and on about how exciting it is to be buying this amazing house with Kurt AND THEN to have it so close to our best friends.....crazy.

Ok, so the house is perfect. {Minus the fact of only having 2 bedrooms, but it's really ok...for boring reasons that don't matter.} It is practically brand spankin' new. Only five years old. And we will only be the second owners. The builder/owner made some fabulous choices while building the house...it's so perfect for us. Unlike the many older houses we looked at, this house is 100% move-in ready. Of course, we're going to want to change some cosmetic things in the future, but wouldn't have to if we didn't want. {Trust me, I can't wait to do small projects to spruce things up. I've started my mental list already! Hopefully, you'll be hearing about our projects here!}

Without further ado, here are {a few} of our new {'IU'-look at the colors} house:
{Sorry in advance if I'm bragging!}
{Oh! Remember it's not our stuff yet....}

Our House!
View from the front lawn.
Notice fairly big trees (compared to many new neighborhoods).
Take a good look at the awesome porch.

Porch Up Close.
I can't wait to find some cute furniture to spruce it up!

Living Room/Dining Room/Office
Walk inside the front door and you will find a very cozy open layout.
Check out those amazing hardwoods!

This is the office area {not shown above}.
Notice the half bath to the right.

Kitchen
It has tons of working space and cabinets.
I hope to make some improvements on some things in the future, but it's better than most we've seen in our price range!

Guest Bedroom
At the top of the stairs, you'll find a cute {nice sized} guest bedroom.
I love the windows and the closet is a decent size, too.

Guest Bathroom {Full}
Across the hall from the guest bedroom for better access.
Look carefully at the sink hardware {they are beautiful in each bathroom!}.
Storage under the sink is key.

Master
Down the hall a few steps, you'll find our {soon to be} retreat.
It's big enough for all our furniture AND Cooper's dog bed.
{There's even room for another dog bed that we'll hopefully need soon!?!}
The two very tall windows provide tons of warm sunlight!

The master bathroom is large enough for a third bedroom, but we love that we will have tons more space than any other place we toured.
{It's hard to imagine with pictures...}

HALF of the Walk-in Closet!
Yes, it's huge.
Hopefully, it'll fit all of our stuff. If not, Kurt may have to use some of the guest closet! :)

The bathroom has a huge wall of windows that provide tons of sunlight.
The sink is a little tall for me, but the storage is wonderful!!!

{There is also another room -to the left of the sink- where the shower/bathtub and toilet are housed}

Backyard
A great backyard was a deal breaker for us while looking for a house.
Coop will have SO much room to run around and play {with a sister...who knows?!?}
We also plan on adding a patio on the left side you can't see.

Two Car Garage
It's huge and CLEAN!
We will be able to store many things in there along with our cars.

I could go on and on while showing other pictures, but I don't want to bore you! I hope you are as smitten for our house as we are! We can't wait to move-in and start making it our own.

5 more weeks and we'll be back together as one very happy little family :)
{This makes me giddy thinking about it!}

Tuesday, August 18

sorry

Okay, I know I've been very bad about blogging lately. I'm sure you've been very bored with my lack of posts....

I had many intentions of telling you all about our NEW HOUSE tonight, but it's been crazy. So, the 'secret' is out. I plan on posting many pictures of the house tomorrow. Today was our first day of school, so I'm exhausted. {We also had a 2 hour meeting with the mortgage lady today after school.}

I'm sorry. I promise to start getting better about posting and I'll make sure I put pictures up for you to see! I can't wait to show you!! :)

Sunday, August 16

congrats!

We had been looking forward to last night for a couple weeks now because Josh and Meredith got engaged!! Josh told Kurt and I he was going to pop the big question while we were hanging out before the Dave concert {I feel lucky because I got to see the ring in advance!!!}. We couldn't wait to go celebrate with them. Meredith had no idea and was shocked to see all of their friends waiting for them at the Rathskeller. If anyone deserves an awesome engagement party, it's them. I'm glad they had a great evening to celebrate!!

CONGRATS, Josh and Mer!
We're so excited for you!

{Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures. To see a couple, read Josh's blog here.}

Many people asked when our turn will be {ha!}. Maybe we'll be next!?!?!? That's up to Kurt. Hopefully, I'll be as surprised as Mer was last night!

Oh! By the way, I have lots of exciting things to catch you up on. One hint: Josh and Meredith will soon become our neighbors....

Tuesday, August 11

stress genes

Why was I blessed with the stress genes?!? Well, they've been going like crazy lately and I'd like a break! But, guess what?!? We get to begin looking for houses, again. :(

There are SO many crazy and annoying things that happened with this house that we wanted. I had hoped that today I'd get to tell about the l.o.n.g. road to our first house, but unfortunately we haven't found that house yet. The seller {for whatever reason} didn't want to try and negotiate with us even though we moved a lot in our offers. I'm trying to push all that frustration {and waste of time!!!} out of my mind so we can push forward and try to find something else.

Maybe we'll be able to find a great house that works better for our budget. Let's just hope. And pray. And beg. And.... {I really just want to start blogging about a house and more interesting things....}

On top of all this, school starts a week from today. My {new} room was almost complete until they decided to paint the entire room today, so they moved everything into the hall. Oh joy! I'm just ready for the kids to be there. Hopefully I'll be able to share a picture of my new room soon!

Monday, August 10

no news is...bad news

Well, I guess not horrible. But, we're still in the process of trying to buy the house we fell in love with. Counter offers have been going back and forth since Friday. The owner seems to be dragging his feet and not willing to budge at all. We'll see what happens. Hopefully, I'll have more news {and maybe good news} soon!

One things for sure....buying a house is NOT an easy thing to do!

Thursday, August 6

wish us luck!

Quick Update

The last couple of days have been crazy, overwhelming, stressful....you name it. We found a house we l.o.v.e - we have fallen head over heels for it! I'll make sure to give you all the details and crazy run down from the past couple of days IF all goes well tomorrow. And IF all goes well tomorrow, Kurt and I will be homeowners! So we're keeping our fingers crossed and trying to not get our hopes up too high at the same time.

~Here's a sneak peak to what we will hopefully be calling home~

{Just in case you were wondering....this is the porch off the master bedroom!}

Wednesday, August 5

wide-awake

In case you don't normally check the time on posts, it's 3:45 am!!

I can't sleep.
I've listened to my new Diane Birch C.D. two times.
{By the way, she's amazing. If you've never listened, you should.}
I've played Brick Breaker {a stupid game} on my phone {and beat my record and almost the game}...

I'm not quite sure why I can't sleep and what I should do to fall back asleep.

I'm kinda weird sometimes and can't sleep when I'm excited about things even when I want to sleep really badly. Like before I go on vacations...I never sleep. I'm always way too excited thinking about all the fun I'm about to have. And, especially Christmas Eve. Ever since I've been little, I have a very hard time sleeping well on Christmas Eve with all the anticipation of Santa coming! {Yes, Santa still comes to our house!}

So, you're probably thinking what is exciting me so much that I can't sleep.
{I'm not sure this is the reason, but it's my only guess.}

Kurt and I are going to look at somewhere around ten more houses tomorrow! We've taken the *wonderful* advice of our great friends Josh and Meredith and decided to look into moving to this really awesome up and coming neighborhood just north of downtown. Mom and I drove around the neighborhood last night together and fell in love. I am so excited, I drove Kurt around this afternoon to see what he'd think. AND, on the way to go listen to some great {Diane Birch} music, Josh, Meredith, Kurt, and I drove by 'our house.' Clearly, there is one house in particular that I am anxious to go through. I'm trying as hard as possible to keep myself from becoming too giddy about the house {especially because we haven't even stepped foot inside}! But, the conversation tonight kept coming back to how awesome it would be for us to be neighbors, Kurt's 'man room', and more about this particular house.

I'm glad we're keeping our options open and looking at other houses in different areas, too. I'm just really hoping that tomorrow we'll find what will soon become our first home.....again I need to stop getting my hopes up too high.

Cooper is begging us to hurry up and find a house so we can be together again as a family. And, moving into a house means he's one step closer to acquiring a {doggie} sister and a fenced in backyard to play all day! As for tonight, I'll keep envisioning that wonderful backyard {wherever it may be} and keep praying for good house hunting tomorrow!

{I thought this would make me tired. It didn't. Ugh!}