Well I had tried Blogger recently because I follow several blogs over there & thought I might like it. No, definitely not. I prefer WordPress by far. I’ll be copying my posts from there & posting them here & backdating them (if I can lol) then hopefully getting an update on here tonight. :)
Category Archives: quick update
I’m a keeper – quesadillas
Let me preface this by saying this was my first time making a quesadilla & first time using the quesadilla maker. My sister bought it for my ex years ago & he used it regularly but I never watched him make them. It’s apparent I obviously should have haha It also appears their definition of stuffed & mine vary greatly. Here is the finished product :
While it’s not super pretty & certainly wouldn’t pass on any cooking show for presentation, it was super delicious! & hey that means success in my book. Hopefully over time as I use it more, I’ll get better at it but even if they always come out a gooey mess, as long as they’re delicious – I’m happy.
Bathroom Organizing
When I’m reading DIY or organizing blogs I notice how sometimes they have the “after” pictures but not the “before” & they say how they wish they would’ve thought to stop & take a “before” so they could show the changes. I used to laugh at that & think I’ll never get that caught up in organizing that it would’ve been worth taking a “before” picture but now I find myself there & I love it! I hate that I forget the “before” picture because it does make the impact of the “after” that much better, but I do love getting that into organizing.
I moved into my house November 2011 & it had previously been my pawpaw’s house. Old men don’t do updates much less keep things clean so I don’t even want to tell you what kind of slate I had to start with. I’m pretty sure that almost everything in the house (except a few things my dad had bought him over the years) was still the same things my mawmaw had picked out YEARS ago. Let me be more specific – when I say years I mean she passed away when I was 5 & I’m 27 now so most things are AT LEAST 22 years old. & yes I mean carpet, curtains – all of it! I loved my mawmaw dearly & miss her more than I could ever express & I will always think the world of her, but I have to admit our decorating styles are very different. Not to mention you’d have to factor in trends changing & such but that’s besides the point lol
The reason I gave that little background was because my most recent organizing spurt happened in the bathroom. When I moved in my bathroom consisted of a shower, toilet, medicine cabinet & a sink on a VERY small vanity. I’m talking the entire thing is maybe a foot wide which left me hmm about no room underneath for storage. I ended up putting a couple cabinets from Target in there that I already had from where I’d lived before & using them for storage. While I love Target dearly, I’d had the cabinets for several years already & lo & behold one of the doors recently broke off. I didn’t want that junky looking cabinet with only 1 door in my bathroom & I’d already been toying with the idea to move it into the laundry room so it seemed like a sign. After doing a switcheroo of moving the laundry baskets to the bathroom & that broken door cabinet to the laundry room I realized something. When you put short laundry baskets where tall cabinets used to be you discover bad paint ideas that you had thought would be a good idea when you first moved in. All I could do was laugh though because I’d forgotten about the time when I thought I wanted to paint the bottom half of my bathroom walls green. Oops. I’ll figure something out for it later because I have many ideas in my head for what I want to do to the bathroom as far as remodel but that’s for another day. Here’s the current view that’s front & center when you’re popping a squat.
So anyway I go from 2 cabinets down to 1 & I figure it’s a good idea to empty all the cabinets to sort & purge stuff I’d long forgotten about. I can’t tell you how good it felt to purge a lot of junk & get the cabinet more organized that it had ever been – even when I had 2 cabinets in there, they weren’t nearly this organized. Of course, I got so wrapped up in it I didn’t get the “before” picture but I do have a lovely “after” that makes me happy. Sorry for the crappy iPhone picture quality – it’s one thing that’s always handy & not ever far from me.
Back at it
So last week on 9/10 I finally decided I was going to go walking regardless of the pain. It seemed to just come & go & some days it felt as if the pain would be gone but then the next day I would be in more pain than when I initially started hurting. It was a disaster but I was so miserable from just sitting that I decided I was walking anyway. I walked 2 miles which felt like nothing & I still wanted to do more but I didn’t want to push it. My ankle was still okay the next day & then the pain still came & went throughout the week. For about a week now it’s FINALLY been pain free!!! I majorly took for granted how awesome my body feels on a regular basis just to be pain free! I haven’t been walking like I should though but that’s going to change – there’s just been a lot of activities going on but there should be NO EXCUSES! Because this is what I want most! Also next Saturday – literally a week from today is our next 5k. It’s on where you can walk or run so that’ll be good. Jamie & I are going to try to get as much walking in this week as we can to prep for it – especially me since I’ve been laid up for so long. I’m pretty excited for it though!!!
Tonight is my cousin’s 30th birthday party so I’m pretty excited for that too. I love when the family gets together & has a good time – it’s always entertaining to say the least. & we are almost at the end of September which means October is just right around the corner!!! & you know what that means?! Bridge Day!! I look forward to it all year & can’t wait – it’s Oct 19th this year. I love Fall in general but especially October because the cooler weather, Bridge Day & of course Halloween.
I made my first omelet this morning – woohoo. I don’t have much experience cooking in the kitchen really so this was a decent step lol I didn’t have a small pan like I really should’ve used but hey it turned out & wasn’t too hideous looking & it tasted good so that’s all that matters.
I think I’m actually going to get some walking in tomorrow regardless of the weather. I absolutely hate the track but it’s so close & convenient that I’m going to try to suck it up & at least get 2 miles in, but we’ll see.
I still need to go through the house purging at full speed but I have yet to do that. I started some in my closet though while looking for huntin clothes & I made at least a little progress there so that’s something right? I picked out a large box to use as my purge box & my plan is to fill it up before it leaves this house – I’m thinking I’m going to do some damage on the front room here pretty soon!
Down & Out
A little over 2 weeks ago – I think it was Tuesday 8/20 I had some serious pain in my right ankle so bad where it hurt to walk at all. I obviously toughed it out to still do normal walking but I put my walking/jogging exercise on hold which I hated! Finally that Friday I went to Medexpress because it wasn’t any better & found out I had tendinitis which unfortunately there’s no quick fix for. :( You basically have to rest, ice it & where a brace/wrap & hope for the best. Here we are 2 weeks later & I’m no better. I have good days where it doesn’t hurt much & I think I’m in the clear but then the next day I’m in excruciating pain. I can’t express how much I hate not walking! I’m so much more irritable & in a foul mood. Not to mention when the weather is cooler on some days (which means Fall is just around the corner – YAY!) it’s even worse because I love being outside especially then. This is probably one of the worst things I’ve ever gone through because there’s no quick fix it’s just a wait it out kind of thing & patience is not one of my virtues.
On a better note we finally got the “new” bed frame put up. I quote new because I bought it used but it still looked to be in decent condition. Keyword looked. I think part of the problem is it’s metal & those are never great bed frames anyway in my opinion. This one will work for now but it’s already tilted in & looks quite pitiful. Oh well, it beats having the mattress & box springs on the floor – I think. haha
So I’m trying to use my down time to reorganize the house & purge. I haven’t made much progress because I had been hoping I’d be all healed up by now but since it doesn’t seem to be a quick process I might as well make myself useful at home. Fingers crossed this goes well! I’ve never been an organized person & lord knows it doesn’t come natural to me, but there’s always hope right?
At least Fall is around the corner … cooler weather, beautiful colors, bonfires & hoodies – sign me up! :)
Go on girl get down
So the other night when I posted I ended up walking 2 miles up the rural road burning some nice calories & phew it felt good. However I did come home & probably voided off my entire walk by eating a piece of ice cream birthday cake, but hey I only get one birthday a year. I haven’t walked anymore since mainly because the weather, but I think I’m going to get a gazelle from a friend of mine because my legs are my biggest problem & it would give me something to do on bad weather days. Plus I have a spare room that is basically just storing junk right now so why not make it a function as an exercise room? That’d most definitely be a win! & let’s just be honest for the most part why do women (or at least the ones I know) exercise? A few reasons: to get fit, be healthy but mostly – to look good naked. So fellas if you’re noticing some improvements especially in the bedroom – be sure to let her know!
I went zip lining on Sunday & it was amazing! It wasn’t scary at all like I thought it would be. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t the adrenaline/scary/stomach dropping feeling like I expected but it was a total blast & I can’t wait to go again. Not to mention our friend knew a friend of the guide so we got to go for around 1/3 of the regular price – love me some deals!
Also I’ve already planned to go walking with my friend Jamie after work tomorrow & I’ve got to admit I’m pretty excited. I always wanted to be one of those people that got excited & addicted to walking/running. I’m not quite addicted yet (hopefully that’ll come soon — that’s what she said haha) but I do very much enjoy it & look forward to it so tomorrow I’ll be looking forward to getting off of work for a very different reason than normal. I’ve also been tossing around the idea of this clean eating thing but from what I’ve read I’m not quite sure it’s for me however I do know I definitely need to start eating better than I have been. I wasn’t at my ideal weight last Halloween but I was damn sure closer than I am now – so I’m about to kick this get fit thing in high gear!
Still organizing – slow but steady
This has been an incredibly busy past few weeks for us & it doesn’t slow down really until June. I’m not complaining – I love that we have so much going on & so far everything has been a blast to do. I have still been organizing more & further purging more stuff in the front room I did for my 30 day challenge.
I have another box of goodies to give away to a friend:
I have more empty boxes that I love!!:
& this shows off one of my new favorite finds – reusable zipper ties – looove them
Sorry this is such a short post but after this weekend my butt is dragging. I’ll do a better post with more goodies later.
-jess
31 Day Organizational Challenge -Progress – Part 2 (pics will be in next post or added later)
I’ll try to take updated pictures tonight because progress is really starting to show now – finally! I reorganized the black stand to hold more totes which got a lot of stuff off the floor & really opened the space up.
As far as the bunk beds – hopefully they’ll be out before April now! I realized for the most part they were still in pretty good condition except the one bed needs a few new slats on the bottom which really wouldn’t be hard to do & the other one just needs some work where Leonidas gave it some love marks (chew & bite marks). So I posted it on fb for free since it’s obviously not in prime position & got 3 interested people in a matter of minutes so I feel better about someone still being able to use them even though they aren’t pretty but it’s better than sending them out with garbage when they’ve got at least several years left on them.
I really got in the mood to attack the room the other night & did some work. I put all the stuff I’m keeping in the room into one corner & everything else is either on the other side of the room, outside for trash or in the car to deliver for donation. I was very happy to see more than a few feet of carpet – it’s been awhile. There’s still a lot of work to be done & the closet – don’t even get me started but that might have to wait until I have an out building because it’s really just storage because it’s already been sorted except for the VHS tapes I might purge.
It feels to finally be tackling that room — now if I only had some extra $ to do some work on other rooms in the house … story of my life. It will happen one day though, proabably right before we sell it, but hey it’ll happen.
-jess
Too young for this…
I don’t know if I’d said it before but to be as young as I am I have a terrible memory! Don’t get me wrong I don’t think I’m still 18 & fresh out of high school but at 26 I do feel like I should have a much better memory than I currently do. Maybe I should start playing my Brain Age game on the Wii more or something of that nature to get my mind really working every day. Who knows? I just know that it scares me to think of how terrible my memory will be at 40 if it’s already this bad.
Point being, I forgot to mention another resolution in my last post – the money/debt reduction resolution. Every one loves to talk about money, right? Yeah me neither unless it’s a certified way to make more :) Anyway – I had looked into a credit consolidation program because quite honestly I was just in way over my head. I had too many cards, too much money on them & way too high interest rates to ever get anywhere on my own. While I know it will negatively affect my credit score for a while, once they’re paid off I can start working my way back up & with much fewer credit cards which means less debt to still be paid off. Another great thing is all the cards I filed on will be paid off in 4 years. There’s no way I could have done that on my own, not to mention this program lowers my interest rates INSANELY. Which is another bonus. I hate that it came to that point but if I ever wanted to get out of debt fairly decently & be done with it – this program was the answer. & after figuring out how much money it would save me in the long run, it was well worth the temporary negative impact to my credit score. I understand this isn’t for everyone & some people would scold me for even doing it, but to each their own & I saw more power to you for whatever works for you.
On an even better note – the weather this weekend was absolutely beautiful! I was able to let the pups out & run out some of that pent-up energy! It was funny to watch them too – they make me laugh when they run & get all wild. The boyfriend & I also straightened up the back porch some & swept it off which made it look a lot roomier & much better. It’s crazy how much just dust/dirt/dog hair can make a porch look so dirty. The boyfriend also raked up some leaves in the yard so it looks a lot nicer out back & we discussed some plans for the yard once the weather gets warmer. I can’t wait to get an out building & then really overhaul my totes & inside the house for better storage! I’m ready to dive into the work on the house I should’ve started long ago when I first moved in. This is definitely going to be a great year!
-jess
Delayed but not cancelled…
Well so much for the fitness start – it pretty much didn’t happen … yet lol I haven’t given up though; my start has just been delayed. I will say I’ve been getting organized more little by little & I like it. I definitely have so much clutter around here though & I need to be tossing a good bit of it so fingers crossed that I can get jumpstarted on that soon. On a random note – I can’t wait for Spring/Summer to be here because I’m over the rainy weather & more than ready for some cookouts!
My babies are getting so big too. Leonidas will be a year old on February 1st & I hate it. I love having my boys at the puppy stage. Though I’m very much ready to be over the chewing up everything, randomly going to bathroom on the house, having to be in the cage when Mommy is gone stage.
I threw together a “recipe” if you will that I saw on Pinterest. I quote it because it’s more of a bit of a snack but basically it was bananas in between 2 vanilla wafers & I added peanut butter to it. Perhaps I had my expectations too high, but it wasn’t as great as I had imagined though. It’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve ever had but I think I’ll stick to regular old peanut butter & bananas in the future.
I just wanted to throw a short & sweet one out there but hopefully I’ll have some good fitness updates soon … hopefully.
-jess
COUNTRYGIRLWV 