10 New Favorite Things

1. My mint plant! I have loved making sun tea and adding a few leaves, but my most recent discovery, and I'm sure others do it and I just never have, is to add them to hot tea! The best part is that a few leaves will last the whole day, in multiple cups of tea!

2. The babies of the mint plant! Mint will spread very fast, you can also grow new plants from cuttings. So a week ago I put one cutting in a pot with soil and another in a glass of water. This way I could see what method might work better, turns out both work! So I have now have two baby plants that will be kept inside to pick from, and the mama outside still growing strong!

3. Yankee Candles, not a "new" thing but my obsession has grown. I love picking what sent I will burn at the begining of the day. Today is lilac and the whole apartment smells beautiful!

4. Jillian Michales 30 Day Shred, will be doing day three today if my muscles allow. I have to say that Day 1 and 2 have kicked my butt and it is a little painfull to go down the stairs or walk for that matter. I have not excercised like this in years and know that my muscles will adapt to the new workout. This workout is 25 minutes and is jam packed, it is not for the faint of heart but I am excited to see results!

5 & 6. Camera Remote and tripod, invaluable to any photo taking adventure. This past weekend we went to the Battlefield's at Gettysburg and was able to take awesome group shots of al four of us without having to find a stranger to take it.

7. Simple Human Dish Rack took the place of my wet dishtowel next to the sink. It is designed so that the water will drain directly into the sink! My favorite part is that you are able to fit a lot more dishes into a smaller area.

8. Real Simple Website goes along with the magizine, and sometimes I do buy the magizine but only find a couple of articles to read. As a new-ish wife I am finding lots of great and clever ideas here, and have been visiting it almost daily.

9. Pinterest is a new website that you can pin photos that you like and organize them any way to want! It's amazing and inspiring and I have already found amazing ideas!

10. Oops Paint is not always availbale in the most beautiful colors, but sometimes you can hit the jackpot! This week I was able to scoop up two colors that I wanted in the house at a fraction of the price. Typically a gallon of oops paint is $5 and depending on what type of paint it is the normal retail can go up to $30! Both of the bathrooms at the house are ivory; ivory walls, sink, tub and toilet! I found a gallon of blue paint that will work perfectly, the bathrooms are small and I will be able to paint both with the one gallon! Such a bargain! The tan will go over the pink in the living room, and continue up the stairs into hallway. I will probably need about two gallons to paint the whole space, but by getting one oops I can color match to get the second gallon and only pay full price for one gallon!

Kitchen Ideas

So with less than three weeks standing between me and my trip home to do some upgrades on the house I have been non stop thinking about what I want to fix up and change. My number one priority is the kitchen which needs a little bit of love, all easy things. I am using what we have as inspiration, so it's going to be a tan kitchen with lots of red and dark brown accents...

This is our kitchen table and chairs that are from IKEA and are AMAZING! (Sidenote: I love IEKA)

The walls right now are green and need to be changed becuase I refuse to have a Christmasy kitchen. (I'm sorry but red and green together ALWAYS remind me of Christmas) Very excited to finally be able to paint my walls and I am going all out! The only green that will be allowed is my new mint plant!

The mama plant

The cutting that I am going to try and get some roots to grow!

I know that I might possibly be a little too excited over this little plant, however this little plant is AWESOME. Growing up my grandmother always had sun tea in the summer, which we would pick mint leaves to add to our glasses. It's amazing... mint iced tea reminds me of my family and is just want I needed this week. I will be putting it on the window sill in my new kitchen and can not wait to watch it grow. 

P.S. - There are now only 31 days left...

As I keep working on the design of the blog it makes me sad that it only has one post. Today I worked on some self portraits and some extra cute photos of Troeg! We have no idea what type of dog Troeg is, but he looks like a shrunken down black lab with a puppy like face....

I know he's super cute, and the best part is he LOVES to cuddle! (like it's one of his "commands")

I am constantly taking pictures, and to be honest I don't think he likes the camera very much! He is a very spoiled puppy, most days the apartment is a mess with dog toys everywhere, as well as his tunnel! Yup, my dog has a tunnel. When we first got him he would tunnel under the sheets down to the bottom of the bed, and since the arrival of the tunnel there has been no more untucking of the sheets.

He will go through the tunnel just to walk down hallway!

So more on our move... it's in 38 days and I could not be any more excited! We knew that we would only be in the apartment for a year so none of our walls are painted. I did put up what little art we have and some family photos so that the walls are not completely bare. The new house will be an adventure because while it is move in ready, there are plenty of small upgrades that I plan on doing to make it better; such as painting a bunch of rooms, changing the very old thermostat and re-tilling the kitchen back splash which currently looks like this...

(the whole mexican hand painted tile does not go with the rest of the house)

None of these are huge tasks but will make all the difference when we get there, and are so easy to do yourself (hint: there will be posts about these upgrades). Right now the living room is light pink, and that just will not work for me! 

Now I will go back to work and maybe make some dinner, although I'm thinking tonight will be a leftover night to get a bunch of stuff out of the refrigerator? We will see...

A brief history

For those of you who are reading this and do not know me here is a short summary about myself...

I am 24 years old, married to my best friend and living in Pennsylvania. My husband and I moved here almost a year ago for his job and are now moving back to New Hampshire. We could not be happier or more excited right now.

I met my husband in high school sophomore year and we have been together ever since. We have been together for 9 years, and married a year and a half! Seven months ago we adopted Troeg, (yes, named after the brewery in PA). Troeg is a rescue and was found living on the streets so we have no history on him at all, it makes me sad to think that he was all alone in the cold for the beginning of his life. Now, he is a happy, wonderful dog who would be a great poster dog for rescue dogs. He loves people and loves to cuddle, my favorite part of the day is when he falls asleep on my lap while we are watching T.V. I'm sure that there will be a lot of photos and stories of Troeg to come... This is my little family and I LOVE it!!!!!

I am a knitter and while that is my primary craft I am interested in all things craft! I also work at a home improvement store and am excited to put my very general knowledge of things to use in our new house.
I think this blog will be about my general craftiness, future home improvements and some general life stuff thrown in too!