3 years.. and then some...

Isn't it weird when things and places from your past meet your present?? I went to this church when I was a child, it's in a very small town. I was baptized there. When I started elementary school, we started going to a church in the neighboring town. Now I wish I could go back, and see if me and my future husband ever met each other. I would love to see if we ever had interaction when we were children. My husband Carl, also attended this church. Guess what.. we got married here a little over 3 years ago. It is such a beautiful church!

We took a ton of outdoor pictures after our wedding ceremony at Carl's parents house. I just HAD to take a picture with my childhood slide. Thats right.. Carl's parents bought the slide from the elementary school I attended. They bought this slide for their children at the auction after my little country school closed. I remember dangling half way off of this enormous thing as a kindergardener. I thought I was going to fall to my death.. fortunately, I was able to take my wedding photos on 'my slide' about 16 years later.

We took a lot of creative photos on our wedding day. Here we are jumping on a trampoline before the reception. My dress was just a little dirty and my hair a bit messed up after this jumping session. But it sure made me relax and enjoy the day. I really needed this time alone with my hubby.. to take a break from everything.

This is the picture we had printed on a canvas. It is hanging in our dining room. It was such a beautiful day. I love looking back and remembering this moment, smelling the warm summer air. My husband is such a sweet heart.. and definitely not afraid to give me a kiss in front of a camera.

a new way to cook beef

A few months ago, someone asked us if we would like to "go in on a cow" together. I know, I know, sounds little country, but we decided that it would be a great opportunity to buy in bulk to save a little money, avoid buying the gross spaghetti-like ground hamburger from the grocery store, and get a wide variety of different cuts of meat. And after my husband watched 'Food Inc.'... he was very excited to get some organic, non-antibiotic good old fashioned cow.

We ended up buying 1/4 of the cow, and selling half of our share. So with 1/8 of a cow, our deep freeze is still very full. I am finding new recipes to use the meat in different meals so we don't end up with a bunch of meat we don't know what to do with next year.

Last night I decided to make an Asian Beef with Snow Pea stir-fry. Yum! I made it using a serloin tip (whatever that is) although the recipe called for a round steak, I had already set this out to thaw, and it was wonderful! I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com, my favorite recipe website! Find the recipe here.

And what is stir-fry with out a little rice. Instant is all I've ever used.. and that is what I used last night. However, I do have some 'non-instant' rice in my cupboard right now.. that could be interesting!

Here is the rice cooking on my very retro stove. Notice the controls up on the wall. That's is just one example of the little bit of character our home has. The only thing I don't like about my stove is the discoloration around all of the burners. This beauty used to be a aqua green color, but the previous owners had it painted the cream color. We found that out after the paint chipped up a little. The new paint must not be heat resistant.. because it has obviously darkened. I do love the retro controls and hood though!

The finished product was quite delicious! I love using my new wok I got for Christmas this year, and have found some really awesome recipes. This one was pretty darn good though. I have left-overs waiting for me in the fridge; I can't wait for lunch! mmmmm.

taking time to smell the flowers

Yesterday was so hot and muggy, I decided to relax a little bit and find something visually pleasing. I didn't stay outside long, but I did find these very pretty, what I think, are lilies in our front yard.

They are quite pretty! But unfortunately, they really didn't smell that much.. I got my nose down close, but I think they only thing I got was a bug up the nose!

our new home office

The largest project we have tackled in our house so far, would be our home office last October. We bought the house with the room not really being defined as anything but extra space, but I think you could consider this as a major update.

Tthis is where our room started out, well... kind of. We started tearing the room down in this picture, but it our only 'before'. Notice the very ugly carpet squares and the cinder block wall. I think the builders of this home probably used this room as a mud room. The hallway in the back of the hallway leads to the 'man' bathroom. Which contained the same ugly carpet. This was definitely the ugliest room in the house, and we didn't really use it until after this remodel.

Here you can see where we already replaced the back door leading to the back yard (which used to be an interior door with an enormous doggy door). This door helps keep the warm air in during the winter. The door leading to the garage was also replaced (another door that was also an interior door), our house is much more efficient now! Here we put furring strips into the cinderblock, filled with a light foam insulation, and hung drywall. This made the room look like, well, a real room.

This was the biggest obstacle of our remodel, the slight slope leading up to the foyer near our front door. There are not many flooring options that don't need a flat floor, so we decided to make ours flat. We rented a jack hammer, jack hammered out the slope, and poured new cement.

Here is the room about half-way done, we used a ply wood as a subfloor since this was on a ground level with cement floor. We laid a layer of plastic as a water barrier beneath the sub-floor. Notice the new door leading out to the garage. The vents on the ceiling were quite aged and brown looking, so we removed them and spray painted them a fresh white.

We decided to lay a dark bamboo floor, so we had a little variety in our home, we decided something unique to the house would be nice in this room since it is on it's own level. We have oak floors in the rest of the house. My husband Carl laid the floor, and it actually went up very quickly! He did a great job and it really makes the room!

And we're done! We decided to go bold, with Avocado paint and white trim. We painted all of the doors, windows, and trim white to give it a crisp look. Painting woodwork is NOT easy. We made the mistake of using a gloss paint, I think it took somewhere between 5 and 7 coats of paint! Very time consuming.. but I totally think it was worth it! We're considering painting the rest of the trim in our house white as well... if only we had more time!

The final result turned out awesome, we are soo happy with it! We bought the L-shaped desk at Nebraska Furniture Mart, the small shelf on the right is actually an extra night stand from our bedroom, and I refinished the desk chair to match the desk and used some fun striped fabric.

This post definitely made this project much easier than it was.. we worked really hard and finished the office in about 3.5 weeks! Notice in the 'after' photo, the sun has gone down, it was probably about midnight!

Simple is beautiful...

So I decided to start this blog to help me remember to appreciate life, and everything in it. I grew up with a pretty simple life... a simple family, home, nothing too eventful. Ordinary. But nothing is wrong with ordinary. Ordinary is pretty wonderful if you learn to appreciate it. So I've decided I want to start looking at the small things in life, maybe nothing is ordinary if you decide to look at it.

Everything in my life has happened exactly they way I expected it to, and I have always done everything the way I was supposed to. I grew up with a very traditional family, who expected the most out of me and my sisters. I graduated high school, earned my bachelors, married the man of my dreams.. and am now in the process of living happily ever after.

So, to start this blog... I decided to walk around my 'life' and see the beauty.

Here is our home. We've had it for 4 years now, and it seems like we are just now learning how to take care of it, we really do learn something new every day. Our 3 bedroom/ 2 bath house is perfect for us. We had a lot of fun decorating, and did a few renovations. We are currently remodeling the guest bathroom.



This is the mosaic of small little tile above our front door of our 1960's home. I've always loved this tile, but hate that I don't ever really see it to appreciate it because I enter our home through our attached garage. Maybe I'll start walking through the front door.

This is part of our home that I once saw as a negative when we bought our home, but eventually fell in love with. This "weeping mortar" adds so much character to our house, PLUS it works wonders when cleaning... shaking out rugs is really easy when I have this textured brick and oozed mortar to hit them against. I'm now almost offended when people ask us if we are ever going to get rid of this short-lived fad.