I’m Finally Back

Oh my gravy, I have been so busy these past couple of weeks.  I think this is only the second or third time that I’ve even been online.  I’ll be honest, I really missed it, but I didn’t miss it enough to lose out on precious hours of sleep.  Finally a day has come with a little down time, and I’m so excited to see what everyone has been up to.

Here’s the breakdown on where I’ve been:

Packing my stuff

Painting at new address (see pictures here and here)

Moving my stuff

Missing a wedding that I really wanted to go to because I was way to busy.

Moving my sister’s stuff

Cleaning at the old address… and when I say cleaning, I mean CLEANING. I even wiped down the tops of the doors, people.

Unpacking

Cleaning out our attic

organizing and cleaning some more

Here’s how we’ve been living for the last couple weeks, but it’s getting better:

   

Whew… and the summer isn’t over yet.  I still need to:

Finish putting things away

Redo our nasty, nasty kitchen floor

Put down linoleum in the laundry room

Have a rummage sale at Granny’s old house

Start an Etsy shop full of vintage jewelry and antiques

Finish planning fall curriculum for the preschool

Yes, it will still be a busy summer, but it will be a summer with a sense of accomplishment.  The next thing I’m going to do RIGHT NOW is get caught up with all of my blog friends.  I have truly missed you, and I can’t wait to see what adventures you have been up to.

Unplugged... with a side of Hitler and Friday

Hi all.  I'm currently in the middle of moving.  It is so draining but it will be worth it when it's done.  Unfortunately, I won't have any internet service for a few days.  I'm going to use this time to get unpacked and organized.  I'll be catching up with all of you soon. 

Until then, I'll just share this little gem with you.  I love these Hitler videos. ;)

*warning* It does have some bad language but what would a Hitler video be without it?

Love,
Karen

Moving

As some of you may know, Chris and I are moving.

 

No, we are not moving out of town.  We are moving back to the house we lived in before.  It’s kind of a long, messed up story, but I’ll try to condense it as much as possible.

It all started in 2002.  Chris and I were working for my dad.  He owns a company that manufactures portable concrete mixers.  He promised us money, good work, and the opportunity to learn the business in order to take it over and run it someday.  As you’ve probably figured out, it ended very, very badly. I had a gut feeling that it wouldn’t be a good as he promised and I should’ve listened to my intuition.  He is not a kind person, and Chris and I had a hard time dealing with the way he treated us and everyone else that worked for him.  We decided to cut our ties and move to Idaho.  I have not talked to him in over nine years.

Fortunately, Chris had an amazing Grandmother named Granny Ruth.

She owned a house in Idaho that she was not living in.  She allowed us to move in, and consequently, Chris and I were both able to go to college and get degrees.

Last year, Granny’s health deteriorated enough that she was no longer able to live by herself. Her tiny house that we lived in was just not big enough for all three of us, so we decided to rent a bigger place.  We signed a year lease and moved in with Granny.

Unfortunately she didn’t last past the year.  We miss her so, so much.  The lease on the house is over, so we are moving back to Granny’s old house… a place where we feel closer to her and more at home.  It’s been a lot of work painting and cleaning, but I must say that I’m excited to go back home.

We have been working like dogs all week.  Tonight, we are going to The Coeur d'Alene Casino to eat at the seafood buffet.  Yummmmm… crab.  Then, hopefully we will sleep like this dog:

We should be nice and rested for moving day tomorrow.

House Projects Continued

Last weekend I painted the kitchen.  It looked really good, so I knew that I couldn’t stop there.  I also decided to paint the closet in the bedroom.  I have never painted it.  Mostly because I was just way to lazy to take everything out… and who sees closets anyway?  Well, the answer to that question is: I do.  I have to look at it, and I have to know that it’s never been painted.  I decided that I’m just not ok with that anymore.

Before – Ick:

After – Ahhhh:

It’s white. It’s clean. It’s so much better.  Oh yeah, and if that wasn’t ambitious enough for you, I also took my area rugs outside and cleaned them with a hose and a miracle cleaner called Red Devil

TSP 90. 

Seriously, the stuff works wonders.  I also used it to clean the walls before I painted them.  No scrubbing and it eats through the grease.  Unendorsed product plugging over.

I Painted My Kitchen… Yay!

Over the last few days, I have been busy, busy, busy with painting our kitchen.  The last time it was painted was years ago and Chris and I did a pretty shoddy job on it.  This time, I wanted to do it right.  Allow me to show you my work..

Before:

The paint was peeling in places (notice the big spot in the hallway), we were tired of yellow, and the room just didn’t feel clean anymore.  It’s hard to see from the pictures, but there was dried paint on all of the hinges and hardware, and the inside of the cupboards and drawers looked dingy.

So here’s how I remedied these problems:

 

I took all the cupboard doors off and removed the hardware.  Then I soaked the door pulls, hinges, and screws in paint thinner (Now can you see the dried paint?).  I also gave the drawers and cupboard doors a fresh coat of paint.

Then it was time to paint the walls….. Green!

   

We like it much better.  No more peeling paint, sloppy looking door pulls, or stains that won’t come clean. I also put contact paper inside all of the cupboards and drawers.  Nice and tidy… yeah. 

Now if we could just do something about that sicknast floor.  Saturday maybe?

   

Afternoon Fishing

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend.  I spent most of my three days away from work painting my kitchen.  I did, however, find some time for an afternoon bbq on the 4th.  I also had time for a peaceful Friday afternoon fishing trip. 

We started out going to our favorite fishing spot on the Spokane River.

We didn’t have any luck on the river, so we decided to go to Hauser Lake with our best friends Johna and Steve and their daughter Elizabeth. 

 

We stayed until about 11:00 pm hoping to get a catfish to bite, but we didn’t catch a single one.  Fortunately, Elizabeth got lucky with a few Bluegill.  It wasn’t the most productive day of fishing, but with views like that, who cares?

4th of July Guilt Free Cheesecake

I know a lot of you out there are trying really hard to eat healthy.  It’s not always easy on holidays… especially holidays centered around bbqs and eating.  Well I have found a solution.  It’s a “cheesecake” made with cashews, honey, coconut oil and other all natural ingredients.  I made it yesterday, and it was amazing.  You can find the recipe at another blog called Whole Family Fare.

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t as creamy as cheesecake made with cream cheese.  The cashews left a little bit of a grainy texture, but it’s a small price to pay for how well the flavors melded together.

    

Everyone at the the bbq tried it yesterday, and they all agreed that it was fantastic. 

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due.  I did not find this dessert all by my lonesome.  I follow another blog called Busy Bee Lauren, and she made this dessert using bananas.  You can see more pictures of a similar cheesecake here.

I was going to put a whipped topping on my cheesecake, but it turned out to be a flop.  I’m sure I did something wrong because I just couldn’t get the topping to set up.  It just stayed all runny.  But I wasn’t all that upset because it made an excellent coffee creamer.  I love those happy accidents!

I’ve Missed You!

Oh bloggy friends, how I’ve missed you!  As some of you may have noticed, I took an unintentional vacation from blogging.  It all started on Wednesday with the worst migraine ever!  I had to go home from work a little early and I spent most of my day here:

Migraines are not my friend.  I threw up four times that day.  Yuck!  But hey, I think I figured out the reason for it this time.  Once again, I have stopped eating preservatives and processed food.  Last summer I started eating the same way and I got a horrible migraine then too.  Isn’t it sick that your body can go through withdrawals like that just from changing the food you eat? It’s crazy to think of how addicting some of those preservatives are.  I’m so glad to be eating all natural again.

So after a pretty much wasted day on Wednesday, I needed to spend a little time with these things on Thursday:

         

On Friday, Chris had the day off, so we decided to go fishing.  I got to spend the evening here:

So that brings us to today.  It was full of painting and packing but more on that later.  I also went to a bbq to celebrate my friend  Steve’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Steve!  I had a chicken, pineapple, and apple shish kabob and it was oh so good.  I also made a red, white, and blue organic vegan cheesecake. Intrigued? I’ll be sure to share the recipe with you later.  I hope everyone out there is doing great and that you are all having a happy and safe holiday weekend.