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04
Sep

Deck & Swing Set

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At night time do you ever think, I goofed.. I really should of done _____  (you fill in the blank) instead of doing what you did today?  That’s how I’m feeling right now.  Every year Paul and I say we really need to clean & stain not only our deck but the kids wooden swing set, and every year we never end up getting around to it.   As you read in my previous post it was chilly and windy today and that probably would of been a good day to of scrubbed the deck down as the wind would of dried it fast.  Oh well, it’s a little to late now.  So I’ll just have to have staining the deck be my goal this month since both kids will be in school.  Maybe some Monday I can wash the deck and swing set down so on Tuesday when both kids are at school, I can try and get it all stained!  Sounds like a good plan to me, what do you think?

14
May

I think it’s about time…

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I’m thinking before to long we will be bringing another family member into our household.   No, we aren’t adopting or having another baby.. instead I’m thinking it’s time we get a furry family member! 

In Kevin’s class this week they were talking about responsibility and out of 23 kids, 14 of them are responsible for feeding their pets.   I couldn’t help but think of how I had pets when I was the kids age and since we won’t be going South next year, maybe now would be a good time to get one because I’m sure before to long both kids will be busy with life and the new member I’m thinking about getting only lives about 2-3 years anyways. 

So what am I thinking about getting them?!?   Are you sitting down.. a pet RAT!  Before you say GROSS, I honestly think they are the best pet around!  Maybe I’m partial since I did have a couple when I was a kid.  At first I we had cats, but then after they died we switched over to the rats and between the two, I would pick a rat hands down.  Cats seem to just go do their own thing, while Rats will interact with you a lot more, plus one of them I had would love to sit on my lap while I watched tv and let me pet her.

The bonus thing about them is even though it’s best that you have 2 at a time (they need companionship) their toys to play with and pet beds don’t take up a lot of room!  I did read that you shouldn’t put them in an aquarium and that’s what I used to have mine in, so I’m going to end up doing more research to see what kind of “house” we should get for them. 

All I know is I’m excited to get one!  I think they will make a great addition to our house, even though I don’t think Paul thinks so.

14
Apr

I Still have the bug…

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Yup, I still have the bug to move.   Every day I seem to be stalking Craigslist & GRAR.com in hopes of some how finding our dream home in our price range, but still haven’t found it.  

It’s not as if I’m that picky, I don’t have to have Kohler kitchen faucets or top of the line lighting, that stuff I can always change later.  What we would like would be to find a house in either the Grandville, Jenison, Allendale or Hudsonville area with at least 2 acres as I would love to have some elbow room.   While I have found some, some were either asking to much for what we would want to spend on them, or there was something we just didn’t like about them.   What our dream would be would be to find some acres where we could build our dream house.  Once again, we aren’t wanting a huge house, just one where the bedrooms are away from the living room as our house doesn’t really work for us as we have 2 young kids and a Dad who has sleep issues and works 2nd shift so he sleeps more during the day when they are awake and loud. 

So if you know of anyone that either has a house for sale in this area with 2+ acres or has some acres for sale at a resonable price, please let us know!  Of course then the fun part… trying to sell our house.

25
Mar

Houses Selling

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I’m amazed at the number of houses that seem to be popping up for sale around in our area.   The thing though that surprises me the most is that in the last month or two we had two houses sell that were in the $200k-$350k price range!   Here I was thinking that they were going to be on the market for awhile since not only does Michigan have a high unemployment rate still (we are at 14 something) but I had heard the expensive houses weren’t really selling, it was the houses in the $100k range that were selling. 

But then Paul and I started talking, here we were thinking about upgrading our house since the more expensive houses are coming down in value (even though our house is coming down in value as well).   The thing is most of the houses we would upgrade to that are for sale just haven’t been for us yet.  For us we would rather have at least 2 acres (more preferably) in the Tallmadge Township, Hudsonville, Allendale area, but for right now most of the houses are on a postal lot and the insides are all a little fancy for us with chandeliers and glass tile all over.   Me, I would rather have the country at home look versus the fancy to impress look.

So for us the look will continue.  I just hope when we do find the perfect house that’s in our price range we will be able to sell our house sooner than later.

18
Mar

Lookie what I see!!!

Archived in the category: house, weather
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Can I say I just love having these 60 degree days!!  Why can’t it stay like this forever!  (ok.. maybe we need a few hot & cold days here and there so we can apprecaite the nice days)   Tuesday afternoon I was outside with Katie playing and look and behold what I saw popping out of the ground!  It makes me feel like Easter should be here soon!

14
Mar

Reminder: 2 things to do today

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Don’t forget… today is the day we need to change 2 things.

Your

 

and your…

Granted both are important, but please don’t forget to take the extra minutes to change those batteries in your smoke detector.  After all, taking those few extra minutes could save your families lives!

06
Mar

Adding the back splash!

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We finally decided that this is the spring that we will be adding the back splash in our kitchen, but before we do we need to repaint it.  I think picking out the paint will be the hardest part as we already are disagreeing as to what to do.  I think we should change the color, even if it’s just a little.  It’s currently a creamy white on most of the walls with a dark great above the cabinets.  Parts of me is wondering what it would be like to paint it a very light beigh.. just something a tad different as to at least I would know where I painted and didn’t paint.  ~wink~

The picking out the back splash was easy.  Paul and I already had decided to just go with our countertop, but when Paul went to get a sample just to make sure the place was trying to talk us into going with a smale tile look instead as I guess that’s the latest thing.  Of course I think if they had seen our house they would of known that’s not us as I can’t think of one piece of modern furniture that we have here.  (we like more the country look)

I really do hope that Paul’s days off next week we can pick out some paint and I can get started on that project!   Now that I’m in the mood to get our house looking nice I’m wanting it down NOW.

Wish us luck!  Don’t worry.. I won’t forget to take the before and after pictures!

05
Mar

I’m feeling so much better already!

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Last week, Paul and I ended up finding another house that we liked and were thinking of taking a look at it and if we liked it, putting ours up and making a bid on theirs.   Since it was all coming a reality to me I started taking a look around our house and that’s when I saw our house in a different light and realized we do have a lot of stuff.    Now I knew we had a quite a few toys as it seems like I’m the one who is constantly picking them up, but I never realized how much other stuff we had.

Needless to say I started my spring cleaning and ended up decluttering quite a bit.  The sad thing is as I look around I still see where I need to get rid of more things.    I really wish I would of taken before and after pictures in some areas like my closet.  Here I cry about how I don’t have any clothes to wear, but my closet was always full.  So I ended up going through it piece by piece.  If I haven’t worn it in so long and I don’t see wearing it again it would go in one of two piles.  Garage sale or trash (as some of them had holes or stains on them.. you know those “good” working around the house clothes).   I also did set aside a few clothes that are to small for me that I pray I can get back into some day.  I really didn’t want to get rid of them as I remember loosing the weight before and then finding I had NOTHING to wear at least I would have something to wear to the store to buy more clothes if needed.  ~wink~

I just love looking at my house now as it always seems to be picked up now.  Now I know why some houses look cleaner than others.  The less stuff you have… the cleaner it will look!  

It will be interesting when either my parents or Paul’s parents come over for the first time.. will they notice all the cleaning/decluttering we’ve been doing?  I suppose it all depends if the kids are busy playing Lincoln Logs or not.  If they are… I can promise they won’t notice as the logs will be scattered all over the floor.  Oh well.. what can you do?!?  We have to have fun at time too!

08
Dec

Feel like moving bug

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Do you ever have the “I feel like moving” bug?  Ever since my neighbors house went up for sale last week I’ve once again started dreaming of us moving to a different house.  

Don’t get me wrong, our house is ok, but there are just some things we wish could be different.  For instance one thing that’s not good is that our bedroom & living room share the same wall.  For most people that wouldn’t be an issue, but for us it is due to Paul working 2nd shift.  When he gets home at 1:30am he never can just go right to sleep, so by the time he does it’s now getting closer to when the kids & I get up for the day.  Let me tell you, it’s hard trying to keep a 3 & 6 year old quiet all morning, let alone when our neighbor comes over on Monday mornings so his Mom can go to her doctor appointments. 

They are all good kids and most of the time they play downstairs, but Paul is to light of a sleeper where he can even hear the garbage trucks going by on the road and that alone wakes him up.

But what would be nice would be to have a little more room, a bigger kitchen, and honestly a bigger bedroom for Katie as hers is the smallest out of the three bedrooms.

Yes, there are some cosmetic things that I would like, but really that stuff (walls being a different color, new Hubberton Forge lights, new carpet..etc) I could actually already do here. 

If it wasn’t for our bedroom being on the other side of the living room, then I could see us staying here a lot longer.

27
Aug

Tile

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Did you know that you can get tile made out of glass?   I never did until my parents were looking at making a back splash in their kitchen and decided on tile.   When I had asked how picking out the tile was going my Mom said she was debating on which kind to get, stone or glass.   I just assumed that glass tile would be clear like glass so I automatically thought stone would be better, but then when she told me the glass is actually color I then understood the dilemma.

Now we would like to put up a black splash in our kitchen too.   I’m not sure which way we would go, to put up a black splash that looks exactly like our counter-top?  (the house we rented in Florida had our exact same counter-top with it also as their back splash and it looked good)  Or do we want to go with tile too?   Decisions, decisions…