House tour-1 year later

Thanksgiving morning the house was clean waiting to host some friends for dinner. I figured it was a great time to take some new pictures [for my mom] since I finally have my tansu. Sadly the walls are still looking quite bare. Like I've been saying for years... maybe one of these days I will get around to hanging more pictures...

 

I should also point out, Frank was still deployed, as to why it is exceptionally clean ; } The girls also have a new toy box that we all love!

 

Hello girls!

I can't get enough of my tansu if you can't tell?!

I am also very much in love with our new table. Frank is equally in love with it which makes me happy :]

I was trying to be creative.. I left the flash on : /

Next up, House tour Christmas addition...

House tour

When we moved in 7 months ago I promised a house tour once we started getting more furniture. Well I feel now is better than ever. For those who know us or have been reading the blog for a while might remember how we sold most of our furniture while we paid off debt. We pretty much only kept our bed, computer desk/laptop, couch. During that time we added a table and got rid of our laptop that was on it's dying days and bought a desk top. Fast forward to last summer when we were doing our pack out to come to Japan and we got rid of whatever else we had that was old and falling apart. I think the only large items we got rid of were our desk and computer chair.

 

Our apartment was pretty bare when we moved in last December! Since we were buying everything with cash rather then credit it obviously has gone much slower ;] However, we have gotten quite a bit of stuff so I figure might as well do a house tour now.  You can go HERE and check out the pictures. For those new to the blog this would be lovely outdated military housing in Japan! Pale pink is not a color we would choose on our own ;]

 



Without further ado... 

 

Standing at the front door. These curtains are my favorite!

The clock above the TV doesn't work.. I always look at it for the time though ha.

Whoops, got the wrong length for the curtains! They were the last ones that I finally bought so I really didn't care to take them back.

How about another shot of the living room!??

That clock looks so lonely on the wall haha. What is that I see sitting on the counter?? Melanie and CJ's wedding invitation! :] Too bad we can't make it though.

Yup had to show off my juicer again since I had it on the counter ha.

These curtains are not exactly what I wanted but for 799 yen I figure they would do for now.

I hate that the table is not centered with the light, but it makes no sense because it leaves so much space by the window and takes up quite a bit of walking space where it's needed.

The spare bedroom. Don't let the bedding fool you.. it sucks! I will be changing it out once again before my mom gets here.

Turn around and you are in the office! ha

Bathroom.. nothing special. We do have a large tub that I LOVE!

I had originally planned to hang that mirror above the dresser but I loved it in the corner like that.

Our one lonely picture on the dresser ha.

Ellie wanted to say hello!

 

Well that is our home as of now. I still need to hang up pictures, buy a Tansu (I want one like the stairs), get two more rugs.. I have actually drawn out what I want to do to each room and the area outside our front door. Hopefully I will have more to update soon on our progress! Right now I am loving making my yard look nice. I've turned into my parents! ha



What we've been up to...

I realized today that I hadn't written a real post in quite a while. I thought the reason we were having issues with loading pictures and such onto the blog was the Internet. Turns out it was the computer, we had some big download going on that I didn't notice. All is better now.

Let's see.. We've been BUSY! Dogs have their second appointment next week for being able to go to Japan.

Someone Frank works with bought him Diablo 3.. Many arguments will be coming because of this. I'm not the laid back play video games all the time type of wife. That's what being single is for.

I will be spending much more time with the iPad because of the above. Glad we have this at least!

Tomorrow were going to the safari park (part of the San Diego zoo, I can't add links) with Ricky and Yumi. Best part it's for free : ] Frank and Ricky can use their military ID to get in free and Yumi and myself will use the free tickets we got from Ashley and Tony. I've been wanting to go here since we moved to San Diego. Finally making it 3 years later and 2 months before we move ha.

Shampooed the living room, dinning area, and entry way today with the Kirby for the first time. Love it! So much easier to use then a big bulky shampooer and drys so much faster since its waterless.

Every weekend is pretty much booked with spending time with friends or doing things we've wanted to do before we leave. One thing we want to do is hike El Cajon mountain. Gotta prepare for Mt. fuji next summer : ]

I've decided that when Frank goes to school from October to December I am going to stay in Washington (we'll be there all of September) so that I can get my group X certification while paying off debt. Only two months, I'll be busy studying and training. And of course volunteering at NOAH, so it should fly by.

As mentioned above we plan to leave the states debt free. We have very little left and want to start debt free and working on our savings while in Japan. We know how much we can save a year while there.. So we want to get a head start. Also it will be amazing to see how far we've come while in California with our finances.

I need to make a list of places I want to travel to while in Japan. Hmmm... Frank and I have already talked about this, but if we can we would like to stay overseas after Japan. Italy, Spain, even Guam (yes Guam ha), Germany.. Anywhere really.

Once we get to Washington I'm getting my travelers passport (I will have two, a no-fee military passport that is only good for getting to Japan on orders really). Can't wait to stamp that thing up!

Well that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure within a few minutes of posting this I will think of more stuff that has been going on. Until next time blogland...

Randoms

• I've been back for almost a week now and every day has been busy for the most part.
• We're getting ready for Frank's family! They come in on the 21st, his mom will be here a week in a half and his brother and his family will be here 2 weeks. Frank just now realized we will have a very full house!
• We are now proud owners of a Kirby vacuum. So far loving it!
• Afternoons like today make me wish I was doing more with my life (It was a boring/lazy afternoon.. and now night). Hopefully soon though!?
• So happy to be back to juicing.. missed it so much.
• You MUST try THIS recipe from Edible Perspective. So good :]
• I am always happy to be back to our church after I've been gone for awhile. I heart THE ROCK!
• We are so close to having our debt paid off! It is so close that I feel like everything is getting in our way to make it happen. Patient is something I need to focus on ;]

That's it's for now! Maybe I'll get around to posting pictures in the next few days....

Work it work it!

I thought with Frank gone I would have more time to blog.. guess I was wrong. I've been busier than ever.
I added some new stuff to my IA Challenge. Keri over at [The Ronk's] is doing a sugar free month for the second time. It was too late to join in so I decided that April I will go sugar free.. for the most part. There is some sugar in my Advocare products, and since I'm not going to stop those I will be going sugar free minus Advocare ha. So if there is anyone out there who wants to join me, let me know! It will be fun. I'm also doing the 21 day vegan kick start in April.. but again it won't be 100%. There is some milk based products in the protein shakes and bars. So if you want to join me for either.. or both it will be fun :]

I wrote this post yesterday but as I was going to post it my Internet decided to stop working. And it only saved the first paragraph of the whole thing... it of course was a long post! My brain has pretty much already gone to bed so we'll see what I can manage...

I have had 30 Day Shred for a while now, Frank and I love working out to it every once in a while. We just have never done the whole thing straight through. I decided that was something I wanted to throw into the IA Challenge. I started yesterday with level 1 (I'm going to do 10 days each level possibly) and flew through it like it was my pre-work out. I have to thank Advocare for that! My energy, strength and total physical abilities have improved so much in the last (almost) two months I've been on products. So for those who think they won't work, I'm proof that it does :] However, today my lower back feels like it's going to snap in half if I move wrong... so no Jillian today. Boo I will do the whole DVD straight through at some point.

I finally got around to organizing the closest in the spare room the way I wanted too. I am very happy with how much better it looks. I also got a bookcase for our DVDs and Advocare products that are up for sale. I'm very very happy tonight because of those two things. I didn't stop there of course, I went through every square inch of this place re-organizing and getting rid of stuff. I love organizing far too much.

I think I'm going to end it there tonight. I have a lot of blogs I want to get up... and the bath is calling my name... : ]

Exciting news

Some awesome news to share... George has been adopted! I was almost emotional over it, for good reasons, but then the excitement took over in me.

Two weeks ago he went with an older couple who were more than excited to bring him into there family. I took him out there for a meet and greet and knew immediately that he was in the right place. They love big dogs, I believe George is the smallest they've had. And best of all they knew he was going to require lots of work to help him heal from him past. The day before there one week trial was suppose to end Debbie (George's new mom) called and asked for an additional week. They had had a major set back the day before. One of George's problem is being afraid of being left outside since he was left for dead in a park. They live on 4 acres that are fenced so they wanted him to explore on his own and get a feel for it all. Apparently George went crazy and ran off and hid for a while. After he came back he had shut down from everything. They didn't want to give up on him though which is why I still felt like he was meant to be with them.

They called in a trainer to work with him and after just a couple sessions George had made huge improvements. The trainer was certain he would pass with flying colors. So less than a week after asking for the extension Debbie emailed me telling they wanted to finalize everything :] What an amazing couple they are. I couldn't have been more happy for them to find George, they cared and loved him and wanted to help him as much as we did. I continue to pray for them and George, I only want them best for them all.

In other good news my BECU credit card is officially paid off and CANCELED! It feels great. Now we only have our Navy Fed card and two car loans left. Once we start making money from Advocare it will be going straight to the card and getting that thing knocked out.

By the by.. I got a birthday coming up in a few months. If you want to get me anything (and no I'm not asking but there are a few people who will want to do something) just give me cash to put towards our debt. I really don't want anything, I always feel weird getting gifts.

More random posts to come soon. I have some dishes to get done tonight and don't feel like staying up late just to do that, not want I call a fun reason to stay up late.

Happy blog-aversary

So it's been a little while since I've actually written a post.. of any kind really. Hope y'all didn't forget about me :). There really was so reason for the little hiatus, just stepping back from the web for awhile. I still checked blogs here and there and facebook from my phone so I wasn't completely gone. Anyways, I am back now and already have a few posts lined up. The next few weeks/months are going to start getting busy for us then before we know it the holiday's will be here, we'll be back home for the FIRST time during them (wish us luck!) then we'll be planning my birthday. It seems we do more for mine since Frank's is in the middle of our busy time. Not only is it his birthday it's also my mom's as well as a cousins, then shortly after that is our anniversary followed by his moms birthday the next day and a few days later his brothers. And we can't forget his younger sisters birthday a few weeks before Franks. Busy birthday time!

Along with all those birthday... today is my one year blog-aversary!! How exciting!? I can't believe I've been blogging for a whole year. It also means it's been one year since somebody decided to let themselves into our house and go through our things. Ellie still is mean to anyone who comes by our patio. Thankfully they all understand and are nice about it. They know she's a sweetie deep down. I'm still hoping to one day bring a dog trainer to our house to work with her on her behavior issues.

Now onto the real reason for this post. I am very happy to say... we bought a carpet shampooer!! My oh my how much we have needed this. We have been looking around on craigslist for a decent used one for months but had no luck finding anything. With Nick's visit coming up soon and the spare room smelling even worse we were becoming desperate, so we were just going to rent a shampooer from a store. By the grace of the shampooing Gods I found a Bissell ProHeat 2X deep cleaner for $80. It's only a few months old and in great condition still. I'm in love :) I would like to say the spare room smells fantastic now, but this morning while I was gone one of the dogs pooped and I believe peed in there play pen. Such turds! However, this is why we wanted to buy one. They only ever go to the bathroom inside in there play pen if they didn't get it all out before being locked up. I knew it was most likely going to happen since they only peed before I left. I love that I don't have to be upset every time that happens now. I plan to shampoo the area tomorrow since I don't have the time today, and it will be back to smelling good. Yippee!

So far we've done the spare room the hallway and the entry way. I'm going to be doing the dinning area tomorrow and then I hope to have the bedroom and living room done sometime before Nick's visit. Getting Frank to move furniture is the hardest part, I really don't blame him for not wanting to though. But I win this battle because.. well I do ha. He also knows how much I want the carpets done.

**Just a little heads up, none of these pictures were edited since I didn't really have the time. So don't mind how bad they look.**

Had to get a before shot! We've grown so used to seeing a gaping whole in his mouth since he doesn't wear his tooth retainer very often. I tend to forget when taking pictures.

 I love that you can already see a difference in the carpet!!

 Doggie jail! We blocked them off from the back half of the apartment so they wouldn't get in the way. Molly wasn't too happy about that part.

 I'm just that cool, I had to put it on the calendar so everyone knew ha.

 Aw so pretty! I can smell the fresh clean scent :)

Tree Hugger

In the past I've mentioned how I'd been wanting to make my own cleaning products. I knew it was easy. I knew it was cheap. I was just being lazy about it. A few months back I started with an all purpose cleaner, then it just went from there. I have become in love with making my own cleaning supplies! As of now I have non-chlorine bleach, dusting spray, Pet deodorizing room spray and the all purpose cleaner. Next up on the list is dish soap, I'm just waiting for my bottle to run out so I re-use the bottle I have. Window cleaner might also be added to the list in the next few months, but I need to do some more investigating into different recipes.

All Purpose Spray

• 32-ounce plastic spray bottle
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon pure castile soap
• 3/4 cup hydrogen peroxide
• 20 drops tea tree oil
• 20 drops of lavender or lemongrass essential oil

{Courtesy of 'Gorgeously Green' by Sophie Uliano}

Non-Chlorine Bleach

Equal parts water and hydrogen peroxide with 3 tablespoons lemon juice. You could use less lemon juice if you make a smaller amount.

Dusting Spray

• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil

I found this spray here while searching the Internet.

Pet Deodorizing Room Spray

• 1 cup distilled water
• 6 drops cedar wood essential oil
• 3 drops tea tree oil

I love the site I found this one at, they have a long list of many many different sprays you can use around your house. I've been wanting to get lavender oil so I can make a spray for my bed.. one day. For now you can check out all the options here.

Random Nothings

I had hoped to do a food update but when I was going through all my pictures, I realized that I did a horrible horrible job of documenting everything. I seriously need to get better at it. Coming soon will be Mikey's banana bread, mint chocolate chip cookies and fudge brownies :) yum.

You ever run out of EVERYTHING like a week before pay day? We got lucky and had that happen last week. No fun! I ended up spending a butt load today stocking back up on everything.

Because of all the errand running we didn't have time to go to the gym today. I was really wanting to run since I didn't get to yesterday. Pooy, tomorrow for sure.

Tomorrow Frank checks out of his class and goes back to work. Neither of us are looking forward to that, we've loved his easy schedule the last 3 weeks.

Glee starts back up soon, I need to look it up so I don't miss it. That would be sad.

I've gotten addicted to making my own cleaning products finally. So far I have made a room spray to help with the smell of pee in the spare room thanks to the dogs. An all purpose spray that I use to clean the entire kitchen and bathroom, a dust spray and some non-chlorine bleach :) I just can't stop myself ha. I love it, the only thing I've spent money on is having to get more peroxide and vinegar.

Hope you love my little bit of nothings.

A little bit of everything

I just want to start this by saying sorry for all the grammar mistakes in my last post. I was tired and trying to hurry up and finish the post. I'd also like to give a little shout out to miss Lily Mae for being the cutest stink in kid ever! Molly and Ellie send kisses back to you :)

Since I posted the wrong pictures in the last blog I'll put up a few from our day at the beach with Ashley, Moose and Charlie.

This is my favorite picture of the day, I just wish I was able to get Molly in it all the way.

Now for the food...

Tonight I tried making baked vegetable egg rolls for the first time. They were extremely easy to make, although I found out that I have no idea how to roll something like a burrito. They would have been really good if I had the right kind of wraps. I guess I had bought spring roll wraps. I still had a few even though they were a little... off. I do want to try them again though! I found them here. I also didn't take a picture because Pam's look MUCH better than mine did.

Pancakes how I love you. Now that I'm thinking about them, I think I'm going to have a few for breakfast tomorrow. Yum. I got them from Ree over at the Pioneer Women, so of course they were destined to be delicious. She calls for cake flour, but I just used bread flour since I didn't feel like buying any for just one recipe. I would also like to note that this is the first time I've made pancakes, and they turned out perfect! Frank is the pancake maker in this house (which is odd since he's a waffle guy).

Last week I made this amazing taco casserole, and I can't remember where I got it. I can't seem to find it in my recipe book either. Not liking that. If I am ever able to find the recipe, or remember where I got it from I will try to remember to share it with you all. I really liked it, Frank didn't care much for it but that was because I had used soy meat.

Well that's my food update for now. I think!? Not sure where my mind has wondered off too. If you find it please let me know.

I would just like to say to all of you who went to the beach today. Why didn't you invite me and the dogs!? Okay I really only knew of two people going, but still I was a tad jealous. Who wouldn't be. I did however start some spring cleaning :) Now that I do love. So far I've only done the spare room, but that is the worst since it's our storage room at the moment. We don't have much since I'm always going through it and donating or throwing away what we don't use, but I'm always able to find more. It's madness. One nice find was a much nicer camelbak. Frank forgot where he had put it, then forgot about it completely. I made sure to hang it up with the other one so now I have options. Is it sad that that makes me happy?

Because of all the cleaning and the lack of sleep I got last night, I ended up doing my workout during the biggest loser tonight. Normally I like to sit on my butt eating an apple or Popsicle (sugar free) while watching, but it was kinda nice doing sit ups, push ups, lunges and so on while they were working there butts off as well. I may have to continue doing that from now on. Anyone else like to work out at night while getting in there TV time?