I love cards! I love those little creative cards that sit on my desk with a beautiful picture on them and say thoughtful words inside. BUT...I have always been really bad at sending cards in the mail. I mean all sorts or cards: birthday, anniversary, thank you, congratulations, belated birthday, etc. Even when I see someone in person, I usually just write a quick note on a piece of paper and attach it to the gift. I know, I'm lame...but I've accepted that and am trying to problem solve. I definitely feel awful for my lack of card sending because I truly want people to know I am thinking about them on their special day.
So, I got to thinking....Although it would be nice, I know that I will most likely not change my ways and start sending cards instantly and my life sure is not getting any less busy.
I am going to start sending e-cards!!!!!! I can same some time, money, and paper while still getting cards and thoughts to people I care about!!
We recently attending a wedding of some great friends and they had a photobooth with unlimited photos at their wedding. It was a riot. I am thinking we need one at our next luau.
My dad has become a beekeeper and it's probably one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. Whenever I travel home, we venture out to the bee hive in our paper white hasmat suits to check the bees out. They are always busy bees, collecting pollen to bring back to the hive. This last trip, I got the privilege of helping my parents harvest the honey. We snapped some photos to show the process...
Beehive full of honey. We harvested the right side of this box. We only took 1/8 of the actual bee hive.
All the honey comb with some stray bees
Bees removed from honey comb
Mashing comb with hands to get all the honey out
Pouring mash through a screen to filter out waxy comb
Letting the honey, strainer, and comb siting in the greenhouse to warm up and flow faster\
Our harvest! We got about a gallon of honey this time.
The final product, ready to go on our shelves and in out tummies!!!
Literally one of the most amazing experiences. I am convinced that I will be a beekeeper one day as well when my neighbors don't live so close...
Have you ever had Kombucha? I had never heard of it until I moved to Portland. Although there is little research to prove the health benefits of Kombucha, there are many claims that it provides a wealth of health benefits to your body. It can serve as a digestive aid, detoxifies, your body, increases energy, and so on. I really enjoy kombucha. It is a little funky at first, being that it is fermented tea, so you get a little fermented flavor plus a few bubbles. It i typically made with green or black tea but I assume you could use any tea you'd like. Anyways, Tom got my a Kombucha starter kit this Christmas a I thought I'd give it a shot.
Below you can see the big jar, tea bag, kombucha starter (sometimes called the Mother, basically a piece of the bacteria that ferments the tea), and sugar for the bacteria to eat.
It is very simple to make. You first brew the tea and add the sugar, then you wait until it has cooled to room temperature and add the Mother. It is really gross looking but I got over it.
The tea itself has to sit and ferment for about 2 weeks and then it will be ready to drink. Below you can kinda see the shadow/outline of the mother that had grown larger to cove the top of the jar.
After the tea was done, I was still pretty cautious of drinking it. I tasted it and it seemed normal but I was still worried that I had done something wrong and the growing mother was actually bad bacteria. I kinda freaked myself out.....So, I dumped the tea and kept the mother so I could try again. Although I never drank the tea, it was a fun experience and I am super stoked to try it again.
I don't even know what to say, I am truly sorry for making you wait so long for a blog. I swear I have a huge line up of posts fighting to get onto your screen and off my iphone list...I swear. Life has been a bit crazy for Tom and I this past few months and I finally feel like the dust is settling a bit, although we are still quite busy...hmmm...maybe we have just become to accustomed to the dust and debris flying around in our lives. Anyways, before I begin posting more ideas on how to simplify your life, would you like an update about what we've been up to?
yeah that is what I thought.
Well, as told in previous posts, we bought a house and got the keys on April 8th. That gave us exactly a month until our lease was up and we had to move out of our apartment into the house. Ready...set...GO! Oh goodness, we worked so hard to get the house painted, replace the floors, install the new appliances, deal with a water heater that decided not to like water anymore and empty it's contents into our basement and take apart and then install semi new bathroom. Well, we did it...almost! The bathroom upstairs is now called the "bathroom in progress."
Larry, Tom's amazing dad came for a week to work on our to-do list and help us with anything we needed. It was amazing!
Then the week we had to move my fabulous mom came and basically packed up our entire apartment with her two hands while I was working and Tom was doing the work and school thing. We could not have moved without her!
Then it was just us! We slowly unpacked and got settled into our little homestead. The floors are still not completely finished, there are some paint touch-ups required, and the list goes on but WE DON'T CARE! We love living in our home and are completing projects when we can.
Then there were 3! We enjoyed living by ourselves for a week or two and then Danielle, Tom's sister moved up to Portland from Arizona to be our roommate. It has been wonderful to share this space with her and enjoy her company until she finds a place of her own. We are stoked to have some family in Portland too!
Then there were 4 but we ate it! We had our first annual Luau and cooked our first pig in the ground, Hawaiian style. We had a huge crowd and a lot of pork but it was a blast. The pig was donated by a local farm called Heritage Farms Northwest and the farmers came out to the BBQ to have some of their pig and teach us about their farming practices. We felt like we were straight out of an episode of Portlandia....If you haven't seen this gem of a show, it is a comedy sketch that pokes fun at Portland culture. Check it out below.
Tom has now transitioned out of school/work mode into externship/work mode. Does he ever stop? I don't think so! He is doing his externship at a restaurant called Noble Rot. It is a popular wine bar/restaurant here is Portland. If you watch the food network, his head chef, Leather (yes, Leather!), was recently on the first episode of the new show Extreme Chef. Visit their website if you want to learn more. They have a rad roof top garden and delicious creme brulee :) [UPDATE: Leather offered Tom a job at Noble Rot! So proud of him and all his hard work!!!] Tom also drove the food truck back to Portland so we can put the final touches on Mac N' Dash and get her ready to set sail. If you haven't done so, search for Mac N' Dash on facebook and "like" the page so you can get the updates.
I am still working full time and volunteering while preparing to add grad school to my calendar in the Fall. I am so excited for this new adventure. I will be studying Social Work at Portland State University. Check out the School's site if you are interested in learning more.
And then there were 4! We adopted a beautiful dog from a local shelter. His name is Mazipan but we call him Marz or Marzy. He is a 5 year old Springer/Clumber Spaniel mix and is the cutest thing in the entire world. He is the best cuddler and loves to do everything with us!
Marz loves doing errands with me because he gets to ride in the car
And then there were 7! No we are not having triplets! Stop it with that baby talk. We are dog sitting for one of Tom's coworkers. If you know anything about us, we are not little dog people. But now we have three cute little dogs following us around and enjoying our yard. They are slowly growing on us :)
In order from left to right, their names are Hairy, Elliot, and CoCo
And now there are 10!!! Larry, Jen and Danielle's boyfriend, Matt are all staying will us for a few days. It may seem like a lot but we truly enjoy sharing our space with everyone.
Well I know that has been an update of novel proportions but a lot has happened since we last met. I can't wait to start posting more simplifying posts here real soon.
I hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine in your part of the world :)
Instead, I am sitting in a CPR class refreshing my ability to save lives.
~Beach in Kauai~
We spent hours on this beach, watching the sunset, collecting seashells, and jumping off the rocks into the amazing, beautiful waves. Oh, and a sea lion swam right by us too! oh how I wish I could teleport there right now...
Who ever knew that buying a house was so much work?.....
Actually....a lot of people know this and those said people told us it was going to be a lot of work. Never the less, we bought a house with an already busy schedule and decided to fix it up before we made it our home. Here are some before pictures to curb your curiosity. I have yet to take any "in progress" pictures but will do so the next time I am at the house (which really means tomorrow tee hee). Okay enough talking, here are the pictures you have been waiting for!
Upstairs Bathroom
Our Yard-It goes all the way to the back fence. The blue thing on the right is a open shed thingy.
Okay, let me be honest with you. I enjoy purchasing clothes and shoes (especially when it is an amazing deal!). Just like some people invest in video games, books, and so on, I choose to invest in amazing clothes and shoes every once in a while. But I would never say that I am a shopaholic.
In light of Tom and I simplifying our worldly items, I went through all of my clothes and shoes and filtered out the items I never wear. I was going to take them to Buffalo exchange (a shop that buys used clothes and re-sells them) and goodwill. So I went through all my clothes and purged the unnecessary items but was too tired to go through my shoes. I don't have that many pairs of shoes anyways so I didn't think twice about holding on to them for a little longer. Well, one day I receive a text message from Tom....
When I got home that day I immediately went through my shoes (it was a lot easier than I had expected because I already knew in my head which shoes I did not want any longer. Tom said that I had to get rid of at least 5 pairs. Well, guess what?! I got rid of 25 pairs of shoes!!!!!!! It was an amazing feeling when all my shoes fit nicely in the closet instead of piled on top of each other.
Do you know how many pairs of shoes you own? I didn't think I had very many until Tom laid them all out of the floor. I encourage you to try this, whether it be with shoes, belts, pillows, whatever it is. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
We all have our vices. You know, those things that get us through the trenches. Mine is coffee. It is a little six letter word that has improved my mornings for years. I look forward to my cup of jo every morning. The best mornings are those that I programed the auto brew button the night before. As I lay in bed trying to wake up I get wafts of the coffee brewing.
Anyways, I could go on and on about my love of coffee but that is not the point of this blog. Most mornings I make my coffee at home to save money and because it is better than the coffee at work. We were gifted a coffee machine when we got married a few years ago and I love it. For awhile we were not using it because we had purchased an espresso machine and so we had my parents take the coffee machine to their home to store. At some point, we missed our coffee machine. When my mom returned it to us, she included a reusable filter. It's genius!!! It is effortless and you save so many coffee filters.
After you brew your coffee you dispose of your grounds or save them for your garden or compost, you simply wash the filter out and it is ready for the next batch. There are of course other ways to avoid using paper filters.
You could use a french press . I prefer french press coffee but it takes too long for me to make it in the morning and I am not willing to sacrifice those minutes of sleep. I save the french press for weekends and days off.
Another valid choice is this awesome cloth filter. I am not sure if you can purchase these but if you click on the link it shows you how to make one yourself. I may need to whip one of these up and test it out when I have some free time haha. There are many coffee/tea making choices that don't use paper filters. My hope is that after reading this post, all you coffee drinkers will consider switching to a more environmentally friendly choice.
I have missed all of you while I was gone. The past few weeks have been a whirl wind and I felt like a ninja chopping through every situation like a pro.
Unfortunately, I have not had any time to blog. I promise this wont happen often. I do have some awesome projects in the works to tell you about so watch for the upcoming posts. In the meantime, Tom and I have been working on two amazing, life changing, and humongous endeavors.
First, on March 8, Tom and I purchased the truck that will soon become Mac N' Dash our mobile food cart!!!!
Isn't it beautiful and fantastic!!!!! We are so excited about this opportunity but also a little nervous, as any new business owner should be right?! I will occasionally post updates about the process. The next step is to get the truck to Spokane so Tom's dad can work his magic on the truck.
Second, today we found out that the offer we placed on our first house was accepted!!!!!! We have been looking at homes for the past two weeks and never thought the process would go so fast. It is unreal how quickly we were pre-approved for a mortgage, found an amazing realtor, and found a spectacular first house. We really feel like grown ups now! I will post pictures of it as soon as we close and the property is ours. We are trying not to get too attached to the house just in case something shows up on the inspections. See haven't I been a busy bee?
So in attempts to be honest with you, my readers, I feel obligated to tell you about my big mistake today. The past two weeks I have had the word "frugal" on my mind. I have been trying to have a frugal mindset and make conscious decisions. Well today I failed. Tom and I have been collecting documents for our mortgage broker because we are trying to get pre-approved for a house. Anyways we collected our pay stubs, W-2's, and investments and e-mailed the broker about dropping them at his office. He replied that he preferred them mailed or faxed. Well I was definitely not going to send all that personal info in the mail so I headed to Fred Meyers to fax the 36 page document. Freddy's charges $.10 per page so i wasn't worried about the cost. So I hand the large stack of papers to the customer service rep and ask her to fax it. I then began to wait for what feels like eternity. The rep comes back and explains that she can only fax 7 pages at a time so my wait has really turned into eternity. When she places the last 7 pages into the machine, she walks over to me and says "You know it is $1.00 per page right?!" "Um, WHAT?! No I did not know that but I wish you would have told me when I handed you 36 pages, are you crazy?" I thought to myself as I begin to scan the signs to look for a posted fax price. I don't see any. I respond to the woman like I knew they charged a bazillion dollars for using their fax machine- "um, yeah I knew that but I had to fax this so I guess that's the price I pay for not trusting the mail system" . So needless to say I had to pay $36 to fax my monetary history to a broker I barely know-AWESOME!!!!
Five steps forward for frugality and $36 backwards.
Happy Monday! Xoxo
Photo of the week: foodtruck planning, sunshine, document collecting for mortgage preapproval, local tulips, HOBY organizing and blissfulness. Hope you have a lovely weekend!
I have always liked the ideas of using coupons at the grocery store but I usually forget until I am walking out of the store or I forget to look at them all together. With the impending life changes (grad school, opening a business, and potentially buying a house-YIKES!) that will affect our income, we have been searching for ways to save a few more pennies. Lately, I have been browsing a few sites that makes coupon using easy. If you are interested, check out these sites:
On Frugal Living NW, they refer to accessing your grocery stores online coupon ad. I had no idea this existed. We mainly shop at Fred Meyers, minus the occasional Whole Foods or News Seasons visit for health related items and the farmers market for fresh produce, so I headed to Fred Meyer's website. They ask you to put in your Fred Meyers rewards card number and create a login. Done and done! I then headed to the coupon sections and to my surprise there were so many coupons! We were in dire need of toilet paper so I look for a toilet paper coupon. Found one! The next part was so easy...I clicked the box next to the coupon and then clicked the "upload to my card" button. It immediately uploaded the coupon onto my rewards card so I never had to take a paper copy with me!! Woohoo!!! When I got to the store I checked out the weekly adds and realized that there was another coupon for the same toilet paper. After both coupons, I purchased toilet paper that was originally $8.50 for $3.00!!!!
After today I am definitely going to look for coupons before going to the store. It kinda helps me plan out for meals before going to the store as well, because I tend to be an impulse grocery store shopper.
Does your grocery store have online coupons? Check it out and it may make your life easier! I know that some even have applications for your phone!!!
We just received our energy bill in the mail and it reported to us that we were using double the energy from last month. Oops! Granted it is cold outside (it snowed today for the first time this winter!!!!!) and so the heater is one a bit more but we could still practice better energy conserving etiquette. For example, Tom is constantly reminding me to turn lights off that are not necessary and I am on a mission to remember to turn the heat off when we go to bed or leave the house. So, I have two ideas that will help you fell better about your energy.
1. Every time I drive home from Portland, OR to Spokane, WA I look forward to seeing the massive crop of gigantic wind turbines (or as I like to call them, wind mobiles) on the hillsides. They are quite beautiful and somehow peaceful to watch. Well anyways, the Portland General Electric company has a renewable energy program that allows customers to choose renewable sources of energy instead of those that pollute our environment. We have chosen to pay a little extra on our monthly bill in order to be a part of the Green Source source program. The energy we use and pay for comes from renewable sources such as the new wind (from the peaceful wind mobiles!), low-impact hydro power, new biomass, and new geothermal energy. So at least I can feel a little better about the energy usage, right?
2. I am really excited to share this fun gadget with all of you. I came across this great product the other day and immediately knew I had to test them out. So, I immediately an used an amazon gift card I had to purchase two of these babies and anxiously awaited until they arrived in my mailbox. It is called the Belkin Conserve Socket and runs about $10. The basic idea behind the socket is that it will easily allow you to conserve energy in your home. I am so guilty of plugging items into the outlet and leaving them there for eternity. Okay maybe not eternity but you get the picture. When you use this socket, you can choose how long (1/2 hr, 3 hrs, and 6 hrs) you want it to be on. So, for example I will plug my phone into it and instead of leaving it there overnight, I will set the timer for 3 hours and then the socket will shut off. It is genius! If you are not able to purchase the conserve sockets, think about unplugging items in your house when they are not in use.
I hope this has inspired you to think of some ways you can reduce your energy usage and save some money along the way.
I recently did a post about organizing your clutter and somehow my little fingers deleted it..boo! Hopefully I can recreate the magic of the post once again while keeping the mouse away from the "delete" button.
When my humble abode is cluttered, my body feels cluttered. I don't feel inspired to create things or cook a meal. I don't feel like folding laundry only to put it into a cluttered dresser and I tend to hide the clutter behind doors-out os site out of mind. Well I have decided that while attempting to simplify our life, we need to desperately de-clutter our belongings. No one needs 3 spatulas or those hand towels you never use but thought were cute. Really, you don't NEED them. So, one saturday afternoon I made it my mission to de-clutter a few of our cabinets, kitchen drawers, and pantry. Everything that I came had to go through the same application process to earn a spot in our kitchen. Do we use this at least once a month? Is it necessary in our lives? Do we already have a duplicate? And so on. After purging the failed applicants, I slightly organized the areas to be more pleasing to my eye. I would love to have some fancy matching containers, these ones from Ikea to put all our stuff in and make it look like those kitchens in the Ikea catalog but that is unrealistic with our little budget. So I did my best. Because the best blogs have pictures, I have also uploaded some pictures of my progress. Take a look and then start thinking about your drawers, closets, and cabinets that need a little tlc from you this weekend.
