Happy Easter

Ross and I had a wonderful weekend.  It was in the 80's here and nothing can keep my mood down when it's that nice outside! Our Easter was spent just the two of us but with plans for an Easter Brunch buffet at Ross Bridge Resort. It's a luxury hotel/golf course about 20 minutes from our house.  I've heard spectacular things about the food as well as the setting so we were really looking forward to our Easter Sunday :)

After an inspiring message at church, we headed over to our brunch. Apparently the community of Ross Bridge is more than just a golf course and hotel. They even have a planned community, with pools, playgrounds and a small village of stores/shops. If this isn't the definition of "Pleasant-ville" with every bush and tree perfectly manicured, I don't know what is! Just take a look at the perfection as you drive through the neighborhood:

In the background, you can see a glimpse of the castle hotel. Here's a close-up of the hotel:

Luckily, we did not get lost inside the hotel and found our way to brunch :) The place is massive!

The brunch was nothing short of perfection. The food was delicious, we had everything from lamb to prime rib, many side dishes, pasta, assorted breads, muffins, and an array of desserts! The only stations we skipped were the salad bar and omelet station (we can make those at home ;) We wanted to make sure we had enough room to try everything, and we certainly did! Ross tried all 12 desserts, haha. We got dessert after every trip up to the buffet. We know how to dine :)

Here's a few shots we tried to take ourselves:

We also spent a lot of time outdoors this weekend, cleaning up the yard and planting some container gardens. We bought perennials, hoping these containers will be enjoyed year after year our dollars will stretch year after year! Ross will help me water and maintain them since he has a much greener thumb than I do. How sweet of him :)

We bought two hanging flower baskets for the window box which were annuals. I wanted the look of them spilling over the sides and I love how they turned out:

We're now ready for summer and to get out and enjoy the weather!

*Kristin*

Spring Happenings

Life here is going really well. Ross & I have been here for almost 2 years now and we're finally starting to meet people. Maybe we hold the record for longest time it takes for us to make friends, but I won't fret about it. We were really out of comfort zone when we moved here and it took a deliberate act of joining groups at our church to finally meet people, something we never did in the past in pgh, b/c hey... we had all the friends and hobbies we needed back home! So for us, it was a huge learning curve, especially with both of us being the introverts we are! And finding a church we loved here was just as difficult so I'm happy to be over that road bump.

I joined 2 small groups at church that meet during the weeknights and I *love* them. It's so nice to get out of the house and mingle with like-minded people. Ross joins me for the one group since it's a marriage small group. It's been great to meet other couples and I've gotten a lot out of the group. It actually ends soon but I'm excited to see what comes next and how I can get more involved with our church and such.

Besides finally getting involved, the weather here has been warming up and it's glorious! I actually look forward to yard work just so Dakota and I can get some much needed Vitamin D :) I'll admit, it will be extremely hard to go back to a snow climate one day if we ever move back home. I sure don't miss it! And I sure do love the whole city being closed here when we see a few flurries, haha.

Ross and I are slowly making our house our home. The mudroom is almost complete and I can't wait to share pics!! The progress is slow going on all of our projects but that's only because Ross works so hard during the week, it's hard for him to not want to just relax come Saturday.

Our jobs are still going really well so we're extremely blessed in that sense.  Ross is overly busy at work so I only pray that his workload eases up a bit but other than that, he enjoys what he's doing. Mine is also going well, I'm learning a lot and still love my coworkers.

Well, I had a feeling 2014 was going to be a great year so I can only hope it continues to go that way. So far, so good :) Now, if only I could recruit my friends and family to move here as well, I sure do miss them......

*Kristin*

January Recap

Well last time I left off was right after Christmas and time has been flying since.

Mom & Dad visited us the day after xmas and we took them to New Orleans for their first time. It was a quick trip that was absolutely soaked by rain, but we tried to make the most of it. Our hotel was just 3 blocks outside the French Quarter, but lesson learned, it was too far, especially in the rain! This time, we got to venture out to the Garden District so that was my highlight of our trip!

About a week or so after the holidays, Ross' mom and brother came to visit us for a week. They lucked out on the week they were here because it was our normal Alabama winter, not too cool and not too warm. The week before I think we all experienced the Deep Freeze weather that hit all of the eastern US, including us! And the week after they left it got unseasonably cold again.

Then shortly afterwards, which brings us up to last week, we got hit by Snowmaggedon 2014!! ha. I guess that is what people are calling it now :) Ross & I are extremely fortunate that 1) we had a warm office to sleep in that night with coworkers we trust whereas most people were stranded on the highways in their cars 2) we made it home safely the next day while driving past thousands of stranded cars all over the hwys 3) dakota was ok after being in her crate for a straight 28 hours 4) etc. etc. etc. We can count our blessings a thousand times over!

NOW.... Ross & I are finally settling down and getting back to our normal routine. We took a break from working on the house for awhile but we're slowly making progress again on the mudroom, which Ross promised me back in November would be finished in a few short weeks. haha *famous last words*

Besides that, the rest of the house just feels overwhelming with everything that's been happening in January. Numerous things around the house have broken, clogged drains (two calls to the plumber & $600 later, it's all fixed), broken garage door, leaking kitchen sink, etc. It's overwhelming and I feel like we can't keep up. We're finally looking into our home warranty because we can't afford anymore fixes. Hopefully they cover a good bit!! I'm so tired of this house already. Next time, I definitely don't plan on renovating. The inspiration is just sucked right out of me!! :( O well.  As soon as we finish the mudroom I may (hopefully!) have higher spirits. Deep breath, One project at a time....

*Kristin*

Christmas

Well I might be a tad late for any Christmas posts, but I find myself restless with no projects going on at the house. So I finally decided to go through my Xmas photos :)

Ross & I celebrated in Alabama, just the two of us and the dog. It was quiet and relaxing and all around pleasant to not have to stress about traveling. But, point of the story... there are only pictures of us. B-o-r-i-n-g. I know. Sorry we don't have any cute kids to fill your time with! And I have 3 collages, so yay!! Lots of pictures of us!! lol

Clockwise: Ross getting Stella Artois glasses from his 'secret santa' Mike; Me trying to capture on video dakota unwrapping her toy; Mom Seibert gave me a historical book on our current neighborhood!; Ross' beer book from Mike; Demon dog hates her xmas pig; My cute clutch from mom; Dakota and I on christmas (awwww)

Clockwise: Do I look good in this hat?!; Dakota digging for her toys in the bag full of gifts; Ross always receives presents related to 'steel' now, although he quite enjoys them, haha; Me & my new steam mop from Mom S.; my new ornament from Ang; Me enjoying my homemade chex mix snack from Ang...yum yum yum...

Clockwise: Ross received very cool Pens artwork from mom & dad; my 'secret santa' Stephen bought me some baskets to hang in my mudroom (my pin from pinterest :) and a shirt; Some more ornaments, including one for our new house!; Dakota decided she was done and curled up on Ross' lap

All in all, Ross & I were very blessed this year and received many gifts from friends and family afar. I hope the rest of you enjoyed a wonderful christmas as well!

*Kristin*

House Tour!

I kept promising to share pictures of the house, but then it dawned on me to just take a video :) This was the first time using the video function on my dslr so bear with me!


Of course, after watching the video there are 1,001 things I forgot to mention, but here are a few:

- Ross is re-wiring some electrical work in the kitchen for the new mudroom, so pardon the random holes in the kitchen walls and missing faceplate on some of the switches.

- The old W/D closet will eventually become my new food pantry!

- The mudroom is not finished being painted in case you hadn't noticed the half pink/half gray walls. I painted the one wall gray and that's the furthest I got :) The board & batten behind the w/d and bench area will remain white and crisp. I can't wait to have this room done! And my W/D should be arriving on the 14th, yay!

- The backyard was raked into rows of pine straw. That's not a look we're going for, just ran out of steam to finish raking it all!

- There's a handicap pull bar in the main hallway (you see it hanging down). The screws are stripped and we have yet to bother getting rid of it. And the hallway is not as yellow in person as it came out on video... it's actually a pale yellow, but regardless, it will be repainted one day!

- Our cars are still parked outside b/c the garage is full of stuff! We just look like avid Kia promoters :)

So, all in all, you can see where we updated the master bedroom, guest bedroom and living room. And you can see how the rest of the house is coming along. It's all a work-in-progress but we'll get there eventually!! :)

*Kristin*

And the saga continues...

Have you heard or read about my washer/dryer rants on Facebook? Maybe so. But just for fun, let's recap what this past week has thrown at me. Don't worry, it has a positive spin (no pun intended!) at the end of my ranting :)

Let's recap: Ross & I rented a W/D in the apartment b/c we didn't want to end up buying a unit we couldn't use in a future house (aka electric vs. gas dryer). When we moved into the house, we moved the W/D with us but ultimately couldn't hook up the dryer b/c 1) we are redoing the laundry room including moving the water lines and dryer vent and 2) the dryer plug wasn't compatible with the new plug we installed. So I stalled. I held off on doing laundry for as long as possible. At about week 3 or 4, I did one load in the washer, and had to line dry undies, socks and some pj's. They took 6 days to dry. And they dried 'crunchy.' O well... at least we had clean underwear!

So I kept telling myself that I could hold off until the brand new units were delivered, which was scheduled for Saturday, 12/14, which was only a week or two away by that point.

In the meantime, we had to return the rented W/D which were sitting in the middle of my kitchen for 3 weeks. It took Appliance Warehouse FOUR attempts to come pick them up. Frustrating. The first time, Ross was home all day but they didn't show. Second attempt, they went to the apartment address. Third attempt they didn't call first, and being that they only work during my work hours, I was at work (duh?). Attempt #4 on Friday, I took a few hours off of work so I could wait at home for them. I would no longer rely on them calling first. And they finally came and hauled the w/d away. Hallelujah! (and they also didn't call first again, good thing I stopped relying on them :)

My W/D was set to be delivered the very next day. I was dreaming of dancing socks. Had my entire weekend planned out to see how many loads I coud get done. I was so excited for my pretty new front loaders to arrive! And then? The delivery company called. They damaged both my washer and dryer while loading them onto the truck. Wahhh wahhhh.

So then I had to talk to Samsung, the manufacturer of my new w/d. Unfortunately, my washer was on backorder until February. Noooo!!! They advised that I go to Home Depot (where I bought them from) and see if they had any other models in stock that could be delivered sooner. Home Depot price matched me on a slightly better set. Yay! But? It was also on backorder until January :( So here I lie. Unable to make the world turn, ha! I was defeated. I must wait another 5 weeks, so now I need a Plan B.

That's when I had my 'aha' moment. Why not go back to our apartment complex to use their W/D's in their laundry center? Yes, we no longer live there, but I was desperate. And I had to pay for them anyway, so what did it hurt? THEN... I went to the apartment complex next to ours, which is much larger, and used their laundry center!! So the good news? I was able to finish 8 loads of laundry in 3 hours. Woohoo! But I did spend $30 in quarters :/ A sacrifice I was willing to make!

And if you ask why I didn't just go to a Laundromat, it's because the only one I knew about is in a sketchy part of town overtaken by foreigners. Aren't they always? No thx.

I am now one happy camper (with clean undies). Just picture me driving all over town using any washing machine in sight, lol. And I'm happy to report that this Plan B shall carry me over until my new set is delivered in a few weeks.

Desperate times call for desperate measures....

*Kristin*

Patience

God grant me the will to be patient.

I have not been a very nice person for the past few weeks. I'm stressed beyond my limit. I've snapped at Ross countless times. I'm stressed about the house, the projects we're trying to accomplish, about family visiting, about dakota and everything in between.

Yesterday was another breaking point. I went grocery shopping after work, came home to immediately start on some projects that had me covered head to toe in drywall dust. Got another headache (which seem to be on and off for the past few weeks now), showered, only to discover the water wouldn't get past luke warm, then finally sat down at 8:30 only to discover that dinner was nowhere in sight. Just once it would be nice if Ross would offer to cook dinner.

On top of it all, Dakota has been acting up every morning. I spend more time cleaning up after her than I care to admit. She's 5 & 1/2 years old and I still feel like she's not housebroken. Frustrating beyond words.

We have no hot water this morning, so I asked Ross to call the plumber. He thinks the burner under the water heater just blew out since we've had some pretty rainy/windy weather the past few days. And being that the water heater is in the crawl space, it doesn't have a lot of protection. I hope that's all it is b/c I can't take one more problem in this house.

It's been almost 5 weeks since I've had a washer/dryer. The new washer/dryer are being delivered saturday, and I can't wait another minute. Not only is 5 weeks a long time to wait for ordinary laundry, but when you're renovating a house, we have stacks upon stacks of dirty work clothes, rags, towels, etc. building up on top of the normal laundry.

And last but not least, we may need to look into purchasing a new furnace. I thought we could wait, but Ross wants to pounce on a deal he found. Our savings is below the thresold that I'm comfortable with. I knew that buying a house brings initial costs but I just want to STOP spending money.

I'm just praying that all of this will pass and over the next few months things will start to turn around. Projects will finish, family will visit, holidays will pass, and we can start saving again.

God grant me the will to be patient.

*Kristin*