Update

New background, folks!  With so many cute options out there I can't seem to stick with one for too long. :)

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!

I'm finally home!  Home as in our new apartment in Fort Wayne!  The past few weeks have been a blur of packing, moving, unpacking, flying to Nevada, Brigita's wedding (!!!), getting bumped off my return flight, spending the night in a sweet hotel compliments of United Airlines and ordering room service for the first time in my life (also compliments of United Airlines), finally getting back to Michigan, picking up the last bits of our stuff in Hillsdale, driving HOME to Fort Wayne, and a little more unpacking.  Whew.  Oh yeah, and I started my new job!

A few things (big and small) for which I am thankful:
1) This stop light at the entrance of our new apartment complex.  I have to turn left every day to go to work and I really appreciate having a green arrow every couple minutes instead of having to wait for a rare break in morning commute traffic.

2) All the people that helped us pack up and move.  My mom drove all the way from Nebraska and stayed 5 days to help me unpack, clean, paint, and set up our new home.  Isaac's dad helped us move and arranged for us to borrow two trailers so that we wouldn't have to spend the money to rent a u-haul.  Our dear friends Matt, Julia, and Josh spent countless hours helping us finish up odds and ends and load the two trailers.  Josh actually traveled down to Fort Wayne with us to help us unload as well.  I honestly don't know what we would have done without our friends and family during this move!

3) As much as I love looking for deals and sales, it can be discouraging trying to piece together a nice home on a very small budget.  For example, we really needed a couch and all I wanted was one that wasn't completely hideous.  However, given how small our budget was, hideous was about all we could find.  Until God provided a lovely family that was moving and selling their near perfect condition couch, love seat and chair SET for about half of what people were asking for the hideous couches.  On top of all that, when they found out Isaac was going to be attending the seminary, they offered to store the set for free until we were able to move into our apartment here in Fort Wayne.  Now every time I look at our couch I am reminded of God's faithfulness even in the small, seemingly insignificant, things.

4) More closets then we know what to do with!  Our new apartment has six, that's right, six closets.  A coat closet by the front door, a closet in both bedrooms, a hall closet, a small closet in the bathroom and a linen closet at the end of the hall.  I've never seen so many closets in one place before, it's like they added a closet wherever there happened to be an open space in the wall. :)

Pictures of our new home are coming soon!

I'll be back soon!

Just a quick post to say that I am coming back.....soon.  Between working, weddings, a little traveling, and packing up to move, I am taking a little summer hiatus from blogging.  However, stay tuned to see the completed bed that Isaac and I have been building.  Here's a quick preview:

Headboard -- half way through being stained

Footboard -- ready to be stained

Cleaning for Dummies (aka me)

The older I get, the more I find cleaning to be rather therapeutic at times (key: at times).  Folding some laundry and watching a show on netflix is a great way to unwind after work.  I get to be productive (laundry) and lazy (watching TV) all at the same time.  However, I do not find it therapeutic to clean when we are having people over in 20 minutes, I got home from work 5 minutes ago, I need to start dinner, the bathroom is a mess, the kitchen floor needs to be swept, and the tablecloth is beyond wrinkled because I let it sit in the laundry basket for almost a week.  The Fly Lady calls that living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  Funny but also true!

My goal via

My reality via

It's a little different for everybody, but for me the two biggest contributors to a messy place are:

1) We have way too much stuff (we're working on this, I'll continue to post our progress on this blog).

2) We don't have a good maintenance schedule for what needs to be done and when.

Now there are some obvious ones: dishes need to be done everyday, laundry needs to be done before you run out of socks and underwear, etc.  But what about all the other little things that add up to a clean home?  For example, how often should I launder our bath mat?  Or what about our kitchen floor -- how often to I really need to bucket-and-mop clean it?

I came across these handy-dandy checklists from Martha Stewart: daily, weekly and monthly tasks to keep your home clean and in good working order.  Perfect.

Again, do what works best for you -- for me, I slipped each checklist in a page protector and put them in the front of my "home book" (my collection of recipes, crafts, paint chips, fabric swatches, etc.) with a dry erase marker.  Reusable lists and a daily reminder of what needs to be done -- perfect for a visual learner who needs a check mark in order to feel productive. :)

P.S. My all time favorite, use-it-on-everything, cleaning product is Mrs. Meyers Lemon Verbana Countertop Spray.  This thing is a miracle worker and you really can use it just about anywhere.  A little goes a long way, I got a bottle of it from my sister-in-law for our wedding over a year ago and I just recently had to replace it!

Decluttering Update

Maybe I should change the name of the blog to Coupons. Crafts. Cleaning.  Just kidding!  But it does feel like I'm doing more cleaning (well, organizing and decluttering but neither of those start with "C") than just about anything else lately.  Before we pack a single box I want to ensure that the only items in our apartment are those which we actually want to take with us to Fort Wayne.

Via

We're doing pretty well on the decluttering front so far:

• 1 small shopping bag a clothes to Plato's Closet (made $17)
• 1 large shopping bag of clothes to Threads (made $30)
• 5 items sold on Ebay (made $90...crazy!)
• 1 1/2 trash bags of clothes and misc items to Salvation Army
• lots of stuff has gone into the trash (haven't really kept track), but I'm trying to sell or give away as much as possible

All the money that we've made from selling our "clutter" we're saving to put towards a new couch.  The current couch in our apartment isn't technically ours.  Plus, it's a hide-a-bed couch (meaning it weights about 5 million pounds), so we weren't exactly wanting to move it anyway. :)

Shoe Redo

I have had this very yellow pair of peep toe shoes since high school.  However, I have only worn them twice.  Mostly because the peep toe area rubs against my toe and makes it super painful to walk in about 5 minutes.  Also because they are very yellow.  As in so yellow they can be hard to wear with just about everything.  Yet I kept them (seeing a theme yet?).

So I bet you're thinking I gave away, sold, or tossed 'em, right?  Guess again!  I almost did give them away -- as I was adding them to the Salvation Army bag, I noticed a little scrap of fabric that was on my dresser that I thought would be perfect with the yellow.  I also hoped that if I tied the scrap around the peep toe area that the fabric would stop or soften the painful rubbing.

Not only are they now entirely pain free, but also (in my opinion) much more wearable.  The original yellow shoes were hard to wear with a lot of colors, but with the addition of the colorful fabric they now seem to go with just about everything (crazy as it sounds).

So do they pass the useful and/or beautiful test?  I certainly think so -- these shoes will definitely be traveling to Fort Wayne with us.

To try something like this on a pair of your shoes, just find a cute scrap of fabric and fashion it into a bow or knot (I tried both but the knot was better for this pair).  Attach wherever needed with craft glue.  I knotted the fabric around the peep toe then glued the fabric to the sides of the shoe so they just meet the sole.  Helps the whole thing to stay in place and makes it look more like it came that way and less like a craft project.

Summer Food

Here are a couple recipes that we have tried lately and loved:

1) Chicken Satay.  Perfect on the grill and a nice change from BBQ.  We made this when we had some friends over last week for a cookout -- it was a hit!  I did simplify it a little -- just oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic for the marinade since I had all of it on hand already.  Made it again tonight for a quick weeknight dinner.

Via

2) Lemon Garlic Pasta.  Really tasty!  Very fresh and and light, perfect for summer.  Great with a glass of white wine.  Bonus: dinner in under 20 minutes.

Via

3) Grilled Corn.  I absolutely love sweet corn in the summer -- try it on the grill for a lovely smokey flavor.  You can shuck the corn completely and wrap in foil, but my new favorite way is to only pull the husk away enough to remove the silk and then recovering and grilling the corn in the husk.  See the link for full directions.

Via

Enjoy!