Teenage love date night

So the hubby and I have been busy lately with our new house. We finally just bought some living room furniture so we don't have to sit on the futon anymore! (Yay).
We started a tradition of Friday night date nights a few years ago and have been pretty good at actually committing to them.
We used to do themed dates where we would try to match where we ate with the movie we were seeing or whatever activity we decided to do that evening. Sometimes it worked out, and sometimes not.
I missed the creativity that went into planning those dates and wanted to start again. I got a lot of inspiration from http://loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/ which is a wonderful blog full of great ideas.

I knew we wanted to go see Snow White and the Huntsman so I was thinking of what fit with that. I came up with nothing but I did think that it would be cute to do a teenage "going out to dinner and a movie" kind of thing. The first thing that came to mind was making a mix tape. I mean, what else did you make for your boyfriend in high school??

I made mix CD instead with these gems:
1. You're My Best Friend- Queen
2. I'm Yours- Jason Mraz
3. Fly Me To The Moon- Frank Sinatra
4. Wouldn't It Be Nice- The Beach Boys
5. Truly Madly Deeply- Savage Garden
6. I Can't Help Falling In Love With You- UB-40
7. Chasing Cars- Snow Patrol
8. I Want You To Want Me- Letters to Cleo
9. I Swear- All-4-One
10. Grow Old With You- Adam Sandler
11. Love Song- 311
12. All My Life- K-Ci and Jojo
13. Come on Eileen- Save Ferris
14. Crazy Little Thing Called Love- Queen
15. You and Me- Lifehouse
16. Ocean Avenue- Yellowcard
17. That's All- Michael Buble
18. I Like the Way You Move- Outkast
19. For you I Will- Monica
20. Let's get it on- Marvin Gaye

We ate at the fanciest place I ever ate at on a date in High School which was Olive Garden, and then we went to the mall to see the movie which did not live up to the hype. The date was fun though and I am now inspired to come up with some more themed date nights!

We bought a house!

I have been meaning to write for a while as many things have been going on lately. Shortly after my last post, my husband and I bought a house!

Of course this makes the process seem easy, and for the most part it was. I was actually surprised by how effortless it really was (except on our savings account).

We have been going to open houses whenever we felt like. It was mostly to see what things were going for and what to expect and look for in a house. Knowing our budget is limited for the area we work in, we were more than willing to put in the effort to renovate a house. We were not looking for granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. Our must-haves were:

-liveable conditions so we could move in without HAVING to do renovations first.

-a place for my husbands woodworking tools

-at least two bedrooms

The second weekend in January, I saw an open house for a few townhouses, one being within walking distance to the metro but also at the top of our budget.

Now I have to add a little bit of back story. My parents have a house that was built in the late 50's and most of it has been renovated except for one bathroom. Everthing in this bathroom is electric blue. For some reason, my dad loves it and that is why it hasn't changed.

*Not actually their bathroom, but it is similar.

Ok, now back to this townhouse. We walk in and see why it is in our price range. Not much had been changed since it was built in 1971. About all the owners had done was put in new cabinets and granite countertops in the kitchen but left the old 1971 vinyl floor. The basement was scary and half finished. But, given the awesome commute I would have my husband and I thought we could live with it and renovate.

Upstairs we went. I turned left and I gasped in horror. The SAME horrible blue bathroom my parents have stared back at me.

Needless to say, I came to the realization that moving to this house would not be possible. Knowing that this house was at the top of our budget and with that knowing we would not be able to change the bathroom for a long time. I couldn't do it.

However, out we drove to the other open houses. Of course these were not next to the metro, but were 50k less than the one we just looked at. Now I want you to understand that we have been to a lot of houses all over the county. We walked into the next townhouse and were told by the sign when we walked in to take our shoes off. The house had brand new hard wood floors and carpet. It had three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a basement that was half finished and half-unfinished with enough space for my husbands stuff and since was an end unit, we had an extra patch of grass for my garden. We put an offer in the next day.

Throughout the entire process I was dwelling on the fact that some horrible event was going to happen. I have watched enough HGTV to know that if the home inspection didn't turn up a horrendous rodent problem and mold growing in every crevice, that it would come in above the appraised amount and we would have to back out.

Surprisingly, nothing liked that happened. The sellers didn't give us everything we asked for (some credit money for some things to be fixed) but besides that, everything else was fine.

Twenty-five days after we put our offer in we were living in our house.

Now I don't know if I mentioned it in a previous post, but my husband and I before we bought our house lived for three years with our roommates and their daughter (who was born 3 months after we moved in together and is now 2 1/2). The arrangement worked out wonderfully despite friends and family telling me that it was a bad idea and would never work.

I will admit there were some difficulties. Two couples were never meant to share a TINY apartment sized kitchen and one refrigerator. We had very different diets so everything was separate and I got accustomed to having all of my groceries for the week fit on a single shelf in the fridge. There also wasn't much room to cook with the 2 feet of counter space I had that wasn't taken up by the toaster or microwave.

Now I have my own kitchen with more cabinets than I currently know what to do with. Hopefully that and my soon to be garden will mean more posts! :)

What up in 2012

So..the holidays are over with which is bittersweet. The cold weather is a lot easier to get on with when there are gifts to open and yummy foods to look forward to. Now I need to focus on getting my garden in shape and figuring out what to plant in about 3/4 months.

I also make new years resolutions. I always could be in better shape and instead of going at it with no plan I have made a new plan!

Each month my husband and I are going to learn a new activity. This month we are going to do rock climbing. Next saturday and for the two Saturdays after that we will be learning to rock climb.

The classes each month aren't just going to be fitness related. I would love to take some guitar classes and maybe some art or language classes but we will see. Hopefully this and the wonderful jar of summer peaches I got at the last day of the farmers market will get me through the winter!

So...what now??

For the past 2 or 3 posts I have started it off by apologizing that I don't post more often and I always end with a commitment that I will do more so in the future. Then life happens and I forget.

The summer was lovely. My husband and I booked a trip to Hawaii in July. We went to the Big Island, Maui and Oahu. It was amazing.

Haleakala National Park in on the island of Maui and we went up there to see the sunrise and do some hiking one morning. After the sunrise, we walked a few miles on the sliding sands trail, and this was our view. It is the most breathtaking landscape I have ever seen.

Also during the summer I faced some medical problems. I was diagnosed with IBS which has made me have to make some changes in my diet. The only dairy I have on a regular basis is yogurt. Kashi protein bars are my best friend!

I have also had a long term issue with my left shoulder and I have finally started to go see a chiropractor for it and have noticed wonderful results. I have done physical therapy, acupuncture and cortisone shots and I was amazed at how quickly I have felt better with my chiropractor!

Other personal issues have come up in recent months so with everything going on I have neglected my garden.

I planted peas, carrots, green beans, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and some other vegetables. The peas TOOK OFF! They grew to be about 6 feet tall. My lettuce did well and my green beans (the three plants that decided to sprout) did well too. My broccoli also did well.

Everything else was either eaten by the deer or didn't grow. I don't know what happened to my carrots. I got one. The one was great and tasted wonderful. It rained really heavy right after I planted my carrots and I think all of them were washed away except for one. My cabbage also did great but a few days before I wanted to pick it, the deer decided that it would be a wonderful nighttime snack and left cabbage remnants and hoof prints in my garden.

I did raised beds for the first time and they turned out wonderfully. I bought just regular white wood (I think pine?) boards and my husband built them for me. Every gardeners book I read recommended cedar but the costs were astronomical and I felt that it was more cost effective to buy the pine boards and replace them if need be in a couple years. So far they are still fine and it has been 10 months since we put them in.

The farmers markets are done for the year except for the one community close by that has the year round market. It is always a sad time for me. I feel that my summer is officially over and all that is left is the cold winter. I know I have Thanksgiving to look forward to and then Christmas but I love being outside and it makes it difficult when the sun goes down at 5pm. I even bought some peaches in a jar at the last farmers market. I told my husband I was waiting for a dreary day in January or February to open those up. Yummm....thinking about those now.

My husband and I are going up to PA/NJ to visit his family for Thanksgiving. That is first for us because it is my favorite holiday and we have always spent it with my family. Sooo..this year I am having a nice dinner with my family the sunday before Thanksgiving and I told my mom I am going to cook everything and that it will be all vegetarian. I promise I will try my hardest to remember to post pics and recipes! :)

What's to come

So..yeah. Haven't written in forever.

I was online just wasting time and reading one of my favorite blogs:

http://pacingthepanicroom.blogspot.com/

I felt inspired to start to document my life more. I enjoyed posting my recipes and food but I couldn't be creative and culinary day after day. I'm sure people don't want to see me on the days I throw together tacos. I enjoy photography but haven't really been serious about it since high school. My husband has taken over that role in our family. We have a sleek new DSLR that I have fiddled around a bit but..yeah. I'm thinking this blog is going to be less about food and more about lifestyle. Really, I just want to tell my story. :)



This past weekend my husband and I went out with friends of ours who happen to be married and happen to be vegan. Its exciting for me to have friends who share my views about eating and the environment. We went to go see Forks over Knives which was a great documentary. It showed how a plant based diet is how we should be eating for our health. They had a few people in the movie who had before and after blood test results and it is amazing after being on a vegan diet how much everything improved for them. I think it is a great movie for non-veggie people to see because it doesn't have the animal rights/welfare focus to it like many other movies of this type have. Not that I think that isn't important, I just felt like this movie could appeal to more people because it isn't about the industry its about personal health.
After the movie we went to a vegetarian restaurant which was fun. My husband and I normally go alone so it was wonderful to be able to go there with friends (Both of our families and all the rest of our friends are meat-itarians).
After the movie I pledged to be 95% vegan. I have for the entire week and have seen great results so far. I haven't changed much of my diet (I didn't have that much dairy in it in the first place) but have become more aware of my food choices and overall health.

Need my passion back

I became a vegetarian when I was 12 years old. I remember having to learn about what I could and couldn't eat and learning how to tell my family about why without sounding preachy. I was so passionate about it. I mainly became a vegetarian for animal rights reasons because to be honest, at that time I really didn't know about the health or environmental reasons. I just knew I didn't want to eat animals anymore and I never went back to it. I tell people it is probably the most important decision I have made in my entire life. I say that because of the impact it has had on so many other parts of my life besides my diet.

So fast forward to today. I am still a vegetarian and I cook most of my meals at home and from ingredients I get from local farms, but I feel something is missing. I have tried talking to my husband about it, how I feel that I don't have the passion that I used to have. My feelings about animal rights and vegetarianism as a whole are still the same but I don't know how to express it. I am all for joining a club or a group or donating to a cause but I want to do more. While online reading a few of the vegetarian blogs I like, I got excited when I saw that on Sept. 11 there is VegFest DC! I'm hoping this is my vegetarian revival :).

http://dcvegfest.com/

A girl can dream

My husband and I have been talking on and off since we have got married (almost 2 years ago) about where we are going to live. Currently we share a 3 bedroom + den apartment with another couple and their 1 year old daughter. Believe it or not it has worked out great despite everyone telling us they would never would be able to do that! :)
My dream would be to own a house with a little land for a garden and a nice deck or patio. The other day my husband and I got to talking about houses again and decided that we would love to build one. He got his sketch pad (thank god someone has artistic ability cause it sure isn't me) and we sat in a park for three hours and talked and doodled about what we wanted our house to look like. I love craftsman style houses and would love nothing more than to live in a bungalow with nice big windows!
I then started to research what the costs would be and I was a little shocked. To get what we wanted would cost a lot more than I was thinking. I was searching online earlier this evening for how much it would cost for eco-friendly building materials when I stumbled upon this:

Photo credit: Tumbleweed Houses

I don't know if you have heard of the guy that lives in his 67 foot square house. I found his website (http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/) and thought to myself, "now if my hubby and I decided we weren't going to have any kids, this would be perfect for us." Most of the houses have a multipurpose room, a small kitchen, bathroom and then a ladder to a loft which is where you sleep. I then found this one. It is a 743 sq foot house with 2 bedrooms or it can have an optional 3rd bedroom for 837 sq ft. It comes with 1 1/2 baths too! I was so excited. Not only can I have my craftsman style house for a price I can afford but I can also have kids!

Now, I do have a tendency to get obsessed with an idea to find out two or three months down the road that I was crazy but at least this gives me hope and something to look forward to! :)