House tour - the inside

Are you ready? For a tour? Bear with me, this is a long one. 

First, a floor plan, to give you an idea of how the rooms fit together of course. We had to draw these up for the social worker (foster care) to get our license renewed with our new address. I say "we" lightly because I did this all and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to complete it. I am no geometry expert (unlike the hubby, he really loves it) and I have never read blueprints so there was a lot of squinting eyes, turning the paper, and undoing huge sections at a time. The blueprints were only for the main level so I just winged the basement. It's close enough. (If they are too small to read, you should be able to click on them to see the original size.)

I am hoping that wasn't too confusing for you. The second staircase in the basement (Exit 2 on my floor plan above) goes directly outside. Apparently the original owners had a beauty salon in basement and they wanted a separate entrance to avoid so much foot traffic through their house. I have a love/hate relationship with this door because on one hand the option of coming to the office directly from outside is convenient for the hubby and makes moving bigger furniture in much easier, but on the other hand there is the risk that it isn't locked and is a safety hazard for the kids or someone entering unbeknownst to us. I have a ridiculous fear that one of the kids (down the road) will slip out that door and I won't have a clue. With a river in the back yard and a busy(ish) street out front, that cannot happen. We'll have to take some measures to make sure it is clear that the door is opened or locked. Any ideas?

Go back and look at the main floor. The "tour" starts in the garage and goes through the house starting at the garage doors. 

The garage is pretty average. We love the windows (they make a huge difference) and there is a closet on the other side that will work great for outdoor clothing that we don't use often, ice skates, roller blades and other miscellaneous clothing-like items. There is also another door that goes to the back side of the house, making a grand total of three separate doors besides the huge car entrance doors. So foreign to us compared to our last house.

When walking in the house, there is a mudroom to the left and a  closet to the right. We aren't sure what to do with that closet because it is partially the staircase and there is no door to block the ugliness of their coverage and open shelving on top.

Back on the left side, the mudroom was used originally as a pantry and was converted to a sewing room by the previous owners. I knew immediately that my dream of having lockers and a bench with cabinets underneath would work out perfectly here. Bonus: our deep freeze also fits in here perfectly. We have talked about possibly taking down the wall between the hall and this room so it's more open, and then putting up a barn door or something like it to have the option of hiding the mess from the dining room. You know, down the road. All of these things we talk about are not happening any time soon.

Next to the closet on the right is the laundry room. Some of  cabinets are original to the house but have been painted white (poorly) and have very low heights that are not adjustable. This room is so strange. You can't tell from the pictures, but behind the door (where the pesky staircase is) is a storage area made out of cheap, rough plywood. I have no idea what they used it for, but it looked like it was used to sort something since there are four compartments. It's empty as of now... I can't think of what to put in it.

There is also a huge drawer (you can see it in the first picture below) that pulls out (with some grunting involved, it's not great quality at all) and reveals sides with holes everywhere. I'm assuming it was for laundry (air it out!) but I can't imagine pulling that out when it is full of heavy clothes. I put bags (plastic, reusable) in it and it is still hard to pull out. Those are light. It should be easy. We plan on gutting this room and creating better quality storage. They had the right idea, but like so many areas in this house, just didn't put the $dollas$ in to make it last any amount of time.

Through the laundry room is a little space that used to have a toilet. The previous owners took it out to have more storage (I cannot even imagine why they needed more. This place is ridiculously full of storage spaces.) Thankfully, everything is still set up so all we need to do is buy and install the toilet. The rest of this little space has already been changed. We took out the (super ugly and cheap) counter top and put in some shelves for our cleaning supplies since the cabinets in the laundry room were too short for most of them. I love it. Everything is all together. It won't be weird to have that shelf in there while using the (future) toilet, and there is a sink right around the corner for hand washing. It'll do for now.

Coming back out of the laundry room, you walk right into the dining room. This space is long and thin (relatively). We swapped out our round table for a rectangle table that has three leaf inserts. It can seat eight people but we only have it set up to seat six. Even that is excessive, but it's nice to have more space to put the hot plates and pans out of reach of the kiddos. Plus, it fits the space well. We also have the piano in here, and it doesn't feel crowded at all. We spend a lot of time in here. The huge window makes it so sunny and welcoming and we can kind of see the street enough to have something to look at without feeling like everyone is looking back at us (hello, old house, you little fish bowl you). 

From the other side:

To the right of dining room is the kitchen. We now have appliances, but this was what it looked like on move in day. I love the brick on the one side (thank you, fireplace) and there is more floor/walking space than our old kitchen. Other than that, I don't love much else. The "peninsula" that you see is extremely narrow. The cabinets had horrible contact paper in it and when we took it off it destroyed the finish on the inside of the cabinets. We'll redo them eventually so I wasn't too heartbroken, but this room needs some serious love. I'm feeling my way around and getting things the way I like them so we can get a good idea of what we'll change.

Also, see that wall oven next to the microwave? It works, and is original to the house. It's got to go, though, because I've got no time for that nonsense and I dream of open shelves. In the brick, amazing right? It's going to be fabulous (I hope).

The fireplace has two sides, one in the walkway to the dining room and one in the living room.

This is the view from the dining room looking into the living room. This space is also pretty long and thin, but it wasn't as awkward to set up as I expected. We found out that the staircase used to be a spiral staircase so they added that half wall later. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed. The box-like things above the windows hide florescent lighting. I like the idea of it, but the quality is terrible. I don't know what the obsession with florescent lighting was with the previous owners, but they are also in the kitchen and basement (all over). 

Here's the view from the corner of the living room. The fireplace needs a lot of love as you can see. I don't like the hearth (bench) because it comes out at a strange angle and has old tile on it. The brick (we think) is not the original and is instead a covering over the top. The basement brick and chimney brick are more of a reddish orange color and the shape of the brick is different. We'd love to take this off to see what is under it. I don't know if we'd leave it the original or if we'd cover it again, but it's nice to know that there are options. I do like having the fireplace in the middle like that though. It breaks up a huge space nicely without closing each room off. 

Also, here's the front door and closet. Love walking in to the main floor without steps!

Behind the staircase is a 4 foot by 4 foot pocket. What do we do with it? Any ideas? You can see the walls above the staircase right away when you walk inside the front door, so I'd like it to look nice. Toy storage, bookshelf, leave it empty, any other ideas?

To the right of living room and entryway is the bedroom "wing" of the house. There are four bedrooms and the hallway is nice and wide. I'm not sure what I will put at the end of the hallway yet. I originally thought a big full length mirror would look good there but then I realized that the long hallway would feel even longer. It's a shallow wall space so there isn't room for any furniture. Thoughts?

Here is the first bedroom on the left. For now, it is our guest room. The view out the windows is the river and you can't see the neighbors' yards so it might be the best view in the whole house. You are welcome, guests. I love hosting people at our house so I am excited to personalize this room and make it extra comfortable. 

Across the hallway is the smallest of the four bedrooms. It used to be an office, which makes sense to me with these ridiculous walls. Unfortunately, the paneling is really good quality wood so I have yet to convince my hubby that we should paint it. I have no idea what we will do here, but I'm hoping to get something up on the big wall to at least detract from the overwhelming "lodge" feeling.

Although this room is the smallest (future nursery? maybe?), it's still not crazy small. It comfortably fits a twin bed and furniture so we are using it for future foster kids. It's right next to the master bedroom and feels cozy and quaint. 

Across the hall, in between the guest bedroom and the girls' room is the main bathroom. I love the double sinks! I'm sure Josie and Audrey will appreciate them too when they get to be teenagers. What you can't see in the picture below is that there is a large opening between the door and the counter, so we could add more storage space if we wanted to. We don't need it, but it's nice to know there is that option. The window blinds stay up in here because nobody is behind us (river view) and the natural light is amazing. 

The flooring in the bathrooms is nice, too. Both the master and main bathroom has this tile and it has a cool but clean feeling. I am thankful for these nice new floors (one less thing to have to think about right now).

Across from the bathroom is the linen closet. I know, nothing special, but it is almost twice the size of our old closet and when I put everything into it (from all over the old house, not just the upstairs bathroom) it was still not even close to full, even though I hadn't started to organize it. I love this closet.

The girls' bedroom is at the end of the hallway on the left. They have two windows and three closets. It's ridiculous and probably something we'll change (more on that soon). With the crib, toddler bed, changing table, storage unit, and rocking chair, the room is still quite large feeling and doesn't feel crowded or messy at all. It is a relief to me as I remember their old tiny room. The carpet is nice for now but I'm sure with two little girls it will get gross soon. We'll see how long it lasts!

Opposite side.

The girls' view of the backyard. We have a shed in the back that matches the house nicely and trees. I love them so much. Of course they can also see the river. Why the master is on the front side, I have no idea. I really hope the girls and our guests appreciate their view!

Across the hall from the girls is our room. It's not huge but it's big enough. There isn't a master closet but there are his and her closets and a master bathroom. I am hoping we can change the stand up shower to either a full size shower or a tub and shower by redoing the closet set up and adding to the bathroom. We'll see... We do have that third closet (a walk-in, although not huge) on the girls' side of the wall that we could play with, maybe flip the door to our side? It's a possibility.

We also have two windows. The girls' room and our room each have air conditioners which is great at night. The other air conditioner for the entire house is in the dining room and it seems to be doing a fine job although it is loud in that room and is old so we have to manually turn it off. 

And the basement!

Here's the floor plan again:

The basement is under half of the house and the garage. When you are down there, it feels like it goes on forever and doesn't make sense if you aren't aware that you are never under the bedroom side of the house. I don't know how much of that confusion shows through on this little virtual tour, but hopefully that clears it up a little.

The first room when going downstairs (stairs are right in front of you when you walk in the front door) is our playroom. I say "playroom" lightly because we don't and won't be doing much playing down here. I more so plan to use it for toy storage so that we can rotate toys in and out upstairs, in the office, and outside without too much confusion. Of course, Josie loves this room more than any other in the house and the fact that she doesn't ever get to play in here just makes it that much more exciting. 

I have big plans for this space. I actually like the rustic wood trim and ceiling boards. I picture this space being kid friendly and welcoming for years to come. I'm sure once we have teenagers, it will become more like a den and I am ever so grateful for that as well. Having a "getaway" in our own house means our kids can be here instead of always at a friend's house, and this mama likes that.

(This view is looking back on the room. The staircase is on the right side).

Because of the fireplace upstairs, there are a few random corners in the basement that seem questionable. The "bar" area has one and then the hallway between the office and playroom has another. That one even has it's own light! I so wish I could have seen how this home was decorated in the past. Why put a light in this random little corner when there are so many other places and storage areas in this house?

After that little hallway is the office. It's a large space which will accommodate a few toys, bookshelves for the kids, our smaller tv, and our workout equipment comfortably. Technically, this space is considered our fifth bedroom since there is an egress window and a half bath.

The closets in the picture below hide the electrical panels. The bottom three are functional for storage but unnecessary so they sit empty. There is another mini walk-in closet that is not pictured in this room as well.

Sorry that I photo bombed these pictures...

After you walk in, if you turn to the left, this is the view. We set up our office space right in front of those doors and staircase. 

If you were sitting against the wall at the desk, this is your view. The door on the left is the half bathroom and the door in the middle goes to the sump pump. The staircase goes outside. 

On the other side of the office is the storage space under the garage. It is quite large and we are going to put shelving up on two of the four walls. The other side will serve as my craft storage/work space. It'll be so nice to leave everything out and ready to go. I'm actually a little giddy about it. The room could use some sprucing up, but that will come in time.

The "surprise" room is to the left of the storage room. This is the point where everyone thinks, "Seriously, there's more??" It doesn't help that the space is so weird. The house was built in 1959, and the homeowners thought having a bomb shelter was crucial. We have talked about how to use this space and hubby had thought it would work well as a workshop, but his tools usually stay at another location for work or in the garage upstairs. Bringing them up and down the stairs would be annoying and there isn't much circulation down here so we wouldn't want to use this space for wood work (sawdust everywhere) or painting. 

What would you do with this space? It's not unclean, just not polished. There is a window, although small, and a work bench already in place. The floors are just concrete but we think we'll finish them somewhere down the line.

So that is our house! Hopefully I'll do an outdoor tour also before winter sets in (please not for six months like last year!). 

There is a lot to do but we can live in it and do a little here and there. I want to do more before and afters of this house and our progress so check back often to see the latest. I'll have a tab at the top of the blog eventually so it's easy to get to. 

Hope you love it as much as we do!

For your convenience, you can follow Living with Intention by choosing one of these options:

The good and the bad

Moving is such a funny thing. First, you walk through the house with no intentions of buying. You awkwardly glance at each room quickly since lingering feels strange and you don't want to take it too seriously because you are only looking a little and don't want to be too intense (the house might get freaked out and break up with you if you move too fast or show too much interest). Then, suddenly, you decide that this!is!the!house! and you make an offer. You are so excited. The offer gets accepted and you feel like you won the lottery. They are going to take all of my money! Yay!

And then.

You wait.
And wait.
And wait.

Closing isn't for a few months and by the time you move in, you have all but forgotten what the house actually looks like. Hey, you practically forgot you were moving except for all of that annoying packing that has been going on at the old house. The new house is kind of strange. Each room is like a big surprise, and it isn't always a good surprise. You try to stay optimistic and not think what have I done oh man this was a huge mistake but inevitably those thoughts will creep in. Thankfully, the extra space, storage and bedroom both, with a nice view in the back (a river! a real river! in town!) and so much potential will speak sweet nothings in your ears and all will be well at the end of the day.

Like I said, moving is a funny thing.

Our house is becoming more and more our house and I do like it quite a bit. This blog is not going to be all "my house, it's fabulous, please love it with me" all the time but let's be real. I'm excited and there are a ton of things house related going on in my life all.the.time.

So here is what I am loving about our new house:

• In the morning, when the hubby is up early (because I can never get my act together to be up as early as him even though I'm the early riser of the two of us) he can grind his coffee beans as long as he likes because the kitchen is far enough away that it doesn't wake any of us up. Ditto with the ice maker.
• The carpet in the bedrooms is so soft and heavenly on our feet. The rest of the house? Laminate (that my hubby hates with a passion, but it's new so we deal with it until we have to change it in the distant future) that is easy to clean up and look decent enough for this mama.
• The laundry room is right next to the kitchen.
• So is the mudroom with the deep freeze. For real yo. It's oh so convenient.
• When you look out the main window in the living room, it feels like you are out of town in the country somewhere because all you see is trees and river with some yard. It's quiet and wonderful (even though the street in the front is semi busy and the neighbors aren't far away at all). I may or may not have set up the living room so my spot on the couch has the perfect view. I love it, but haven't had much time to enjoy (thank you, children, who don't let me sit down. I love you stop growing so fast.)
• There is a fireplace that is calling out "help me!" and we cannot even wait to make it our own style. We talk about this fireplace's future more than our kids' future.
• Two stall garage, separate garage door openers. For some reason, I love this. I don't even know why.
• The park is only one block away.
• Grandma and Grandpa are only four (or so) blocks away. (A six minute walk, we timed it.)
• The bedrooms feel awkward with only one kid in them, so it works great to have two per room (which means we have two guest rooms right now... it's great).
• The basement's playroom is screaming "homeschool room!" Don't tell my hubby.
• The office in the basement has room for the girls to have toys/books/movie time in the same room so I can work without worrying what they are doing in the playroom next door.
• We have a huge storage room in the basement that gets to double as a craft space. I cannot even wait to use that space.
• We also have a bomb shelter, great for tornadoes and all other miscellaneous things. I'm sure it'll be used for something magnificent.
• Generally, we don't have to deal with stairs. I grew up in a house with stairs but we didn't use them much outside of bedtime and mornings since it was just bedrooms up there. Our previous house was a bilevel and the stairs drove me crazy. I hated being on a different floor than the kids when I needed to switch the laundry and we had things like cleaning supplies, batteries, storage, etc on both floors meaning duplicates like you wouldn't believe. It was wasteful and frustrating. Now, there is a place (plenty of space, we have an abundance of valuable and usable storage) for everything. One place, not two or three in random corners of the house.

But of course, there are the things we don't love...

• The kitchen is awkward. Just... awkward. The "peninsula" consists of upper cabinets that you'd find over a peninsula, maybe between a dining room and kitchen (two sided with four doors total) on the ground with a skinny (freakishly skinny) counter top mounted on top. The oven is on the backside so you can't use the two doors on the kitchen side. The counter is too skinny to use efficiently. So are the cabinets. I had to be very creative with how I used that cabinet space. I want a real island/peninsula and it just makes me mad when I have to use this space... Everything appears to be almost falling off all the time. Plus it's like 50 steps (exaggerating, but it's a lot) from the sink. Like I said, awkward.
• There is one of those pantry closets with the pull out shelves (two sided) so you can use the space way in the back of the deep deep shelving system. It seems great, but when you pull out the movable shelves, it hits the fridge. This means that everything stored behind it are super hard to get to and can only be a certain size or smaller to fit through the narrow opening. Again, awkward.
• This one is for the hubby. For how large (square footage wise) this house is, the garage is quite modest. (I obviously care deeply about this. I mean, come on, we have a shed in the back and a bomb shelter in the basement. How much more space do you need??)
• All of the superficial things need to be updated. Lights, wall color, cabinetry, hardware, you name it, all cheap and outdated. It will take years to get all of it switched and will not be cheap. Thankfully, though, the house was built properly and we don't have structural things to worry about. That helps.
• Our bedroom (the master bedroom) does not have a walk-in closet. Instead, there are two closets with those hideous sliding doors that are always in the way. We all know that the female needs more closet space so now I'm stuck wondering if I should steal some of the hubby's closet space or risk keeping some of my things in the girls' third (yes, third. They have THREE closets...it's absurd) closet that is currently empty. Also, the master bathroom only has a standing shower, and it's not large. Do you know how hard it is to shave in a space like that?! I do love having a master bathroom though. I feel like a grown up.
• The master bedroom is on the street side, not the river side. Instead, the girls get to enjoy the lovely view with the black out curtains that never lets any light, let alone scenery, in to enjoy. Logically, I don't get this one, you builders from the 50's. What were they thinking? My theory is that they were parents and wanted to know for certain when the kids were home and what they were up to out there with their friends. Why else would you want to be right off the driveway and street?
• There is an awkward corner behind the staircase going to the basement in the living room. It is 4'x4' and has a half wall to the stairs while it is open to the living room. How do you use that space? It's so strange. We've debated using it for the kids' toy storage, putting a bookshelf back there (sticks out like a sore thumb though) or just leaving it empty. None of those ideas are any good.
• The river, beautifully brown that it is (cough, not so pretty, cough), is like 30 feet down from our yard. It's not a slope, either, it's a cliff. This means that until we get a fence up, we don't use our lovely back yard. I practically get a hernia every time Josie isn't holding my hand back there. I mean she gets it, the river is dangerous and you need to stay back but I just can't relax a tiny bit when we are back there. The front yard is okay enough to play in though. The driveway curves a little so there is a lot of relatively flat concrete to ride bike on and enough grass for the two little girls that can't run far anyways. It'll do for now. (And I can sit down for at least three seconds without having a heart attack...winning.)

I'm sure there is more, but this is quite a long post for this lady. I have a bunch of pictures taken with a floor plan, too, that I will be posting soon. Stay tuned! (Riveting, isn't it? What, you aren't fascinated with our house like we are??)

What would you do to dress up our curb appeal? It's a little lackluster.

For your convenience, you can follow Living with Intention by choosing one of these options:

Things I've learned from moving

We've started making piles of things in random closets/storage areas that were previously packed frantically in random boxes and let me tell you. I thought I was organized in our old home. I really did. The reality really puts me to shame. We have a plethora of cleaning products, like three toilet bowl cleaners, four different kinds of shower/bathroom cleaners, two Windex varieties, four floor cleaners and then of course my home remedies (you know, the stuff we actually use). On top of that, we have six to eight varieties of Oxyclean, which I've recently decided is way to chemically strong for this household since I accidentally got some on my hands and immediately had burn marks on my fingers and palms. I freaked out and had to get them under cold water which did help, but can you imagine if Josie or Audrey got a hold of it? Makes me shudder just thinking about it. That stuff is no joke. I really have no reason to keep it around though because my homemade stain remover is the most amazing thing and I'll never go back. (want to know what it is? Just good old hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and Dawn dish soap. It's faaabulous.)

Moving in inevitably means unpacking, organizing, and reorganizing things like ten to twenty times before you feel that it is just right. Of course, in six months to a year it will have to be reorganized again because now you really know how it should be. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Two year old girls love to dig through boxes, so the faster they are unpacked shoved into random closets with closed doors the better.

Nine month olds don't like when you spend all of your time unpacking said boxes. In fact, they would much rather you just hold their hands so they can walk all around aimlessly for hours and hours. If you think you can possibly put the nine month old in front of a fun!toy! you are sadly mistaken. No toy is as fun as a distracted, busy mama.

Light switches probably won't make sense for a while. You will find yourself walking around randomly flicking them up, down, in, around (yes, some are the spin types while others have to be held in instead of flipped) and then frantically running around to see if any lights magically turned on. I would imagine it's humorous to say the least. All of these big windows provide quite the show to all the passersby.

Hanging up big huge block letters spelling our last name really helps make it feel like the place is ours. But... that feeling will quickly disappear when you cannot find a single telephone jack to hook up the internet in any of the rooms. Walking around aimlessly while two girls scream for attention trying to locate just one that isn't in the kitchen just doesn't cut it, and definitely doesn't scream "this is your home you live heeeere!"

There is a never ending to do list lurking around every corner and the minute you sit down, you'll jump back up with just one more thing that must be done riiiiight now. It's exhausting and I'm ready for it to play out.

Moving is fun! Right?

Pictures to come of the house, I promise. But here is a preview:

She's so intense.

Moving in, trick foot, life update and more

What an eventful week! We've been busy moving in and figuring out life in this new house. Josie spent some time at my parents' lake place so today is our first day here together all day. She may or may not be acting like she owns the place already. Its mildly humorous. With just Audrey, I managed to get a bit more unpacked but the house is a bit of a chaotic mess. The kitchen, in particular, is slightly horrific. I have yet to find a place for the random food items so you can see me walking in circles between the laundry room/pantry, kitchen, garage, and living room at all hours of the day.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor for my foot and guess what! Stress fracture. He gave me a boot to wear for three weeks and sent me on my way. I have to take it off to drive and have to wear my tennis shoe on the other foot because all other shoes are too low and the unevenness gives me super bad hip pain. Moving in has all but come to a halt because I just can't do laps around my house and still chase the girls (because, yes, Audrey is now crawling, pulling up, standing, and inching her way around furniture like a mad woman now, perfect timing). I'm so thankful that my dear friends gave up their time on Sunday and Monday night to help us move out of the old house and into the new house as much as possible. My parents and sister also helped a ton and my in-laws watched the girls for almost the entire weekend. Seriously, so grateful over here.

We're in the process of figuring our logistics to get hubby ready for a huge job out west. He just found out today that he will start on Tuesday. He needs a camper to stay in, time to quickly finish up his current job, and would love to find someone to work for him while he's there. Talk about a lot going on! We are so thankful he has work, but this is not our favorite job thus far. He said it may take up to four weeks of him driving back and forth between here and there, balancing family with a huge job, to get done. I just pray it goes smoothly so it isn't extended even longer.

And lastly, my weigh in this week. Weight hasn't been a priority this week bur I managed to still lose .4 lbs. What a relief! Now that we are more settled I'm hoping to focus more on it again. Food is everything since I can't exercise much.

Here's to the weekend being busy but productive. We truly want to enjoy our lives even when things are chaotic. Its possible, right?

Things I've learned whilst packing

T-shirts with skinny jeans are just never okay. Never. Don't fear, though, I quickly changed out of that monstrosity of an outfit and got myself into a nice three quarter length shirt from Old Navy. (not a plug, just the facts.) In fact, it looks like this:

Ahh.. much better.

Having a hubby with a totally different method of packing is quite overwhelming. Yes, quite. For example, he likes to take everything out of the cabinets so they are "cleaned out"... except then the counters are full of random things and my brain is exploding. I, on the other hand, like to jump from room to room with no particular logic or order twirling around, packing one or two things at a time, and then quickly move on to the next room before anything can truly be accomplished. 

It's important to have a hubby that can do the things you can't, like take down all of the command hooks (seriously, it's like I have ten thumbs when it comes to those things). Also, a hubby that has three trailers at his disposal makes for a crowded driveway but happy movers. It's great not having to rent u-hauls.

Friends are awesome. Friends that help move are even awesomer (yeah, I said it).

Beautiful weather makes for happy movers also. When the windows can be open with a nice cool breeze coming in, I find that my attitude is more of the "whistle while you work" variety than the *!@*! variety.

Having family to watch the girls so we can actually get things done pretty much makes me walk with a skip in my step. I cannot imagine packing boxes full of breakable things with two little blondies underfoot. I'm cringing just at the thought of it.

Part two will come shortly, once we're settled (maybe someday we'll have internet at our new house? And maybe someday I'll get my head out of boxes long enough to write that post?)

Up next: Move boxes that we packed today into trailers. Then, try to sleep at night knowing that we are homeless and unable to move into the new house until the next day. Then, close on old house. Then, close on new house. Then, move in as fast as humanly possible to new house. Then, sit around awkwardly without tv or internet (the horror) instead of using the time wisely to get legit settled in the new house. It shall be interesting in the Deyle house, that's for sure.

For your convenience, you can follow Living with Intention by choosing one of these options:

NSVs and the weekly weigh in

Non Scale Victories:

 

As KTJ says, "It is nice to take time to see the accomplishments you’ve had during the week, big or small, even if that scale isn’t moving!

Too many of us base our success just on the number we see on the scale, but there is so much more to it! All the little changes we make are helping us make a healthier lifestyle. Whether you lost weight this week or not, let’s celebrate your non-scale victories! So whether you said no to that birthday cake in the office, ran a 5k, or tracked your food every day this week. . . it is time to celebrate!"

 

So here are mine:

 

With rough bedtimes being the downfall of almost every single day lately (two year olds are so fun, right?) I have had some serious emotional eating temptations after dark. Like my whole attitude revolved around this inner dialogue: I am going to eat a huge plate of nachos and then top it off with a Hershey's bar. It's going to rock. No, self, that will undo every single thing you've done this week. Stop for real. Just stop. Oh my goodness where are some crackers? I could put cheese on them. And then make brownies and eat the dough. No need to bake them. Bahh stop! Go drink water! You can do better than this! You are not reliant on food! BAhhhhh! You know what would be so refreshing right now? An ice cold beer. No, a summer shandy! No, a glass of wine! HELLO that is like 4-8 points that you don't have any more because you ate all of those chips and cheese. Get it together, self.

 

So yeah. It wasn't pretty. But thankfully I won out more times than I didn't. I did give in a little but it is so much more controlled (and appropriate with portion sizes) than it used to be.

 

Last night, after having eaten a ton at a friend's house who had a little women's retreat (tacos, brownies, cookies (yes more than one), coffee with sweet creamer, etc) I came home and made spaghetti for the family. We're trying to use up as much food as possible (less to move and store when we are fridge-less) so our meals are creative and not at all good for you. Instead of eating a huge bowl of it, I made some green beans and ate 80% of those and 20% pasta. I stopped when I felt satisfied and didn't even finish my meager serving. It was so rewarding to know that I had that kind of control in spite of how tired I was and how bad the day had already been. 

 

And sure enough, it paid off with a weight loss. But the NSV honestly means so much more to me.

 

 

Weigh In info: Down another 1.2 lbs. Total weight loss: 11.4 lbs. Slow but steady! I am happy for a loss in general this week. My heart wasn't as committed every day so I had a few more slip ups. Generally, still feeling "in this" but thoughts of moving and the craziness that is about to happen with being in limbo between houses, not being settled right away, and not having a full kitchen for the first week makes me just pray for a maintenance week. I'll still do my best though!

For your convenience, you can follow Living with Intention by choosing one of these options:

Josie says

And the role call begins. While looking at a sheet of paper, "Name? Momma Deyle (pronounced Dye-lee). Name? Audrey Deyle. Name? Momma Grace (her middle name, not mine). Name? Josie Deyle." It goes on and on and Audrey patiently sits on with big eyes and a belly laugh now and then (who knows what is so funny but it's contagious).

My dad decided to take out our recyclables (thank you, Dad) and asked Josie if she wanted to help him find the recyclables in the garage or stay here for just a moment. She replied, "I want to go and look for the moment." I wonder if she found it?

Josie's shoe slipped off on her heel one day as she was playing. When she asked me to help her, she said, "You will help me sweetie!" How kind of her to sweeten up her demands with a pet name for me.

Josie loooves to have her toenails painted. She will point at my toes and then point to hers and ask me to "paint her tonytails."

Josie and I are standing by the window, watching daddy get out of his truck and make his way inside. I tell Josie to say hi to him and she quietly says, "hi daddy." I tell her to say it louder so she says it at the same volume but an octave higher. I tell her again to say it louder, and this time she goes so high that my ears can barely hear it and the second half of daddy falls back down to normal speaking volumes except now its ridiculously loud. Of course the whole time, she's jumping and laughing and saying "Audrey's standing, Audrey's at the window, hi daddy, Audrey, daddy!"



You will hear this around our house often:
Josie: "I want cheese!" (or anything else, cheese is the most common though)
Me:
Josie: "I want cheese!"
Me:
Josie: "I wanna ask nicely!"
Me: "Ok... go ahead"
Josie: "Please??" (sickeningly sweet smile to go with it)Me: "May I..."
Josie: "May I have cheese pleeeease?"

I can't get enough of that girl. "I want to ask nicely!" Seriously!!





For your convenience, you can follow Living with Intention along by choosing one of these options:

Bedtime, there is no love for you

Bedtime has kicked our bottoms (that's what we call them around here) lately. Like I'm sitting here eating watermelon by the pound while both girls scream in their room because one wants water and one won't lay down and keep that pacifier in her *!@!* mouth. At some point, there's nothing more I could possibly do so here I sit. Listening to them both, oh wait now it's just one, scream her face off for nothing. 

Most nights, we start the bedtime routine around 7:00. Tonight was an exception because we had some "need daddy with" shopping to do so we didn't get in bed til 9:00. Regardless, each night is about a three hour ordeal with time outs, stuffed animals taken away, potty breaks, scoldings, mean mommies, mean daddies, stern faces, and crabbiness all around.

Like I said, it's kicking our bottoms.

Prayers? Thanks.

The good old days, when this actually happened.

Josie

Audrey

But seriously, we make some cute babies.





For your convenience, you can follow Living with Intention along by choosing one of these options: