Tough Decisions

Some of you know that I've fostered dogs a few times.  The first dog was a disaster.  He was returned to the rescue after his owners had him a year due to "allergies."  They owned the dog his entire puppy-hood and I'm pretty sure they just got tired of all the destruction.  The dog had no manners and didn't know how to act around my dog. I could have dealt with the no manners, but in combination with him not getting along with my other dog, it was just too much.  So unfortunately I had to return him and try to foster a different dog.

I ended up fostering the sweetest dog ever, Lilly. (Photo Right)

She had/has a skin condition which I was helping her with. I would take her to the vet and try to figure out what it was. But because of the skin condition she was un-adoptable for several months and I ended up having Lilly for almost 3 months.  Needless to say, even though I tried my hardest to not get attached, I got attached.  I knew going into it, that I would be giving Lilly away to her forever home, but its real difficult for me not to fall in love with animals.  I just couldn't help it, I guess.

So now comes the hard part.  I am ready to foster again, and I texted the rescue I work with.  They have a 4 month old beagle that also has some medical issues.  They asked if I could take him/her.  But I know it will be the same thing as it was with Lilly.  I'll have this puppy for several months and I'll start getting attached again.  Lilly went to an amazing home, honestly I couldn't hope for a better home for her.  But what if the next dog lives with me for several months and goes to a less than ideal home?
But how can I saw no to this puppy who really needs some human companionship right now?

Unfortunately, I think I have to tell the rescue that I am not ready for that puppy, but I feel terrible saying that and I can't bring myself to text them.  I know there are tons of adult dogs at the shelter that would just love some human companionship.  Its a much easier transition if the dog has been in a home, around people, and gets to learn how to be a house pet.  They are much easier to adopt also because the potential adopters can ask you questions and you can say with confidence "Lilly did not have a single accident inside while I had her."

I know what I have to do, but its not going to be a fun text. :(

Goal 1 - Accomplished

Alright, first of all I have to say Please don't make fun.

So - I have asthma.  Exercise induced asthma.  Which makes exercising complicated.  My face gets bright red and sometimes I wheeze... its not fun.  It also doesn't help that I HATE my inhaler. I hate that it makes my heart race and I only use it after a run if I get a coughing fit (which is probably 99% of the time).  I know I should use it more often, but I'm really NOT a fan.

Due to the wheezing, and more importantly the BRIGHT red face, I would much rather exercise in the privacy of my own home / neighborhood then go to a gym.  I know its irrational, but I feel like everyone who is in shape at the gym is staring at me and laughing at the out of shape girl.  Going to a gym is out of the question. 

But, I recently decided I was tired of being out of shape.  I'm not so concerned about loosing weight, I'd just like to get my heart/lungs in better condition.  Considering running is very little investment, running is it.  I've never been a good runner, but running is the only exercise I sort of enjoy, aside from horseback riding.  And Horseback Riding is a HUGE investment.

A few weeks ago, when I started running, I came up with a set of goals for my running.  The first goal was to run around the block 1 time without stopping.  Our block is about 0.4 miles, and yesterday, I ran around the block ... and then some!  GOAL 1 Accomplished!!!  All in all it was about 0.43 miles without stopping. :) I wish I could explain to you how huge that is.  A few weeks ago, I could barely run half way around the block without stopping. I'd reach the end of the street and be wheezing.  I'd have to walk 2 block lengths to catch my breath before I was able to run again. 

I know so many people are going to say you are pushing yourself too hard.  I know all the rules.  "You should be able to hold a conversation while running, if you can't talk your running too fast"  I know. I get it.  But I feel most comfortable at a specific pace.  So I run in short lengths that I think I can accomplish without killing myself.

I have several other goals.
Goal 2 - Run twice around the block without stopping
Goal 3 - Run a mile without stopping
Goal 4 - Run a 5k under 40 minutes (Shhhhh I know that's still really slow)
Goal 5 - Run a 5k under 30 minutes
Goal 6 - Run a 5k without stopping
Goal 7 - Finish a 10k
Goal 8 - Finish a Half Marathon


So, I'll keep posting on my progress.  Not sure when I'll accomplish Goal 2, but I don't plan on stopping running any time soon.

:)

What do you do with all your digital photos? Part 2 of 2

Last week I posted the first part - What do you do with all your digital photos?

Essentially I'm still not convinced digital is the way to go.  I feel that hard copies are nice.  You can look at them and display them.  Shutterfly is my website of choice.  They have pretty decent prices and always have sales.

But then the problem is, once you make all these photobooks, what do you do with them?

I saw this pin on pinterest. - I thought it was great.  She used plate hangers. And I thought that was a great idea.  You can display them and everyone gets to see them.  They can get taken off thew all extremely easily.  It was perfect.

 So this is my interpretation of displaying photobooks.  Right now I only have 2 to display,  I guess I've been busy getting married and remodeling the basement. Haha.  But that didn't stop me from wanting to hang the 2 photo books I have.

The problem came when I tried to decide how many plate hangers do I buy?  Do I buy 2? Do I buy 4? 6?  I really liked this hanger from Amazon priced at $6.55 each. But how often to things change slightly, or go out of stock.  And how would I know how many I would eventually need?  Or the bigger problem, where to store them.  So, I came up with the idea to buy 2 now, and then every time I make 2 more photo books buy 2 more slightly different hangers.  I think it'll look good, a little eclectic, and unique.  And then you don't have the matchy matchy problem.

Now to make more photobooks. :)

What do you do with all your digital photos? - Part 1 of 2

Honestly, I would love to know what you do with all your digital photos.

Do you upload them (all?) to Facebook?  

Do you print them out at Walgreen's?  

Do you upload them to a photo sharing site?

Nothing?

I guess I do a combination of everything.  (including nothing).  I upload some of them to Facebook.  I make some of them into photobooks. (Left and Below) 

Shutterfly is my favorite for making photo books.  I also like it because you can easily post them to a shutterfly website. 

  And others... just sit on my hard drive.  

The last one is the scariest, because I'm always terrified of my laptop crashing.  I used to have an external hard drive to backup my laptop (I've always been a fan of laptops).  Then one day my laptop crashed and before I could go buy a new laptop, my external hard drive crashed.  All that work of backing up stuff... wasted.  And who has the money to spend sending it to geek squad or whomever to get it fixed.  As sad as it is, a hard copy may still be the best way to keep things safe.  

C and I have talked about getting a real website, mostly for storing photos and stuff.  Or buying storage to store photos.  But there is always the pesky problem if costs.  

So, what do you do with your photos?

DIY Raised Garden Bed

It has been my dream to have my own garden.  And literally a weekend or so after we closed on the house, back in 2012, I built this raised garden bed.  

I used the instructions here - http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to-00400000011938/

After reading the comments in the above link I read that the wood would sometimes bow outward due to the weight of the soil.  So I added the separator in the middle and so far it works great.  It has been 2 years and there haven't been any problems.  

Building the raised garden bed was a piece of cake.  One of the challenging (and expensive) things was filling the bed with dirt.  I can't remember the specifics, but I think I bought $100 worth of top soil.  I didn't even buy the fancy plant stuff, just regular black dirt and it barely filled the bed 1/2 way.  Each year I just figured I would buy a few more bags of dirt, or through in some peat moss or compost or something.  Last year I bought 2 bags of dirt and 1 bag of peat moss, and I'm sure I'll do the same thing this year.  

The bird netting is kind of a pain in the behind when it comes to mowing the lawn.  I need to figure out a better solution for it.  The netting always gets caught in the mower blades, or I don't pay close enough attention and the plants grow through the netting.  This year I think I may just keep the netting on the garden while the plants are seeds or when they are first planted, and then chance the birds.  We'll see.

I can tell you I've definitely got my money's worth of vegetables from the garden. :) Just ask my mother and friends.  I constantly drop off extras with them so they don't go bad. 

I'm so tired of winter that I'm already starting to plan springs garden. 

Remodeling the basement - The aftermath of the flood. Part 1

Of course C and I had to return to Pitt.  We had to go back to work so we couldn't devote time to redoing the basement right away.  That, and with the wedding in November, as much as we wanted, this was just not a "now" thing we could handle.

What we did start doing was brainstorming.  How could we make the basement waterproof.  And we came up with this fantastic idea... tile!  Tile floors and tile walls up to a chair rail.  Tile is waterproof, just think of your shower.  We can make the basement just like a big shower.  We didn't like the idea to put tile all the way up the wall because its pricey, and its not very easy to hang stuff on tile.  At least not as easy as drywall.
We also planned to elevate the electronics, dvd's, books, basically anything that we want to hang on the walls will be higher than 1 ft off the ground.  Sofas, coffee tables, all that can just be thrown out if it gets wet.  We were tired of sorting through our possessions and having to choose, keep or toss.

In the months since the flood, I even built an elevated Rubbermaid rack.  Notice the bottom shelf is elevated.  See, originally I thought I was smart.  Cardboard is porous, but Rubbermaid containers are not.  So if we ever did get water, all our "stuff" would be safe!  WRONG.  When you get 11 inches of water Rubbermaid containers get buoyant and float and then turn to a side.  Then water gets in the containers because the top is not waterproof.  I knew the top wasn't waterproof, but I didn't think about the fact that the container would get buoyant and then flip on its side.  Live and learn...



Anyway, we thought our plan - tile - was golden.  Until we talked to a contractor.  It was too expensive.  Like WAY too expensive. Like we could add a gigantic addition onto our house for the price of the tile in the basement.  Our contractor said we might as well build a pool into our basement.

He said, get the insurance (which we have) and do drywall.  Yes it sucks, if you get water, but its cheap and easy to replace.  So, unfortunately, we are currently installing drywall, framing and carpet.  Maybe our second house will have overhead sewers....

Misery Loves company - Home ownership part 4

Well, last we left off C and I had just emptied the basement.

Once the basement was empty, C cleaned the basement first with Lysol and then after it all dried (a few days later) he used bleach.  It was the only thing we could do in order to try to get rid of some of the smell.

It was still pretty cold in the house because the circuit board was fried on the furnace.  It took a few days to get the new board in stock.  But, it wasn't too bad.  The next few days were warmer and sunny.

My mom came over one day and helped us clean the things we were going to keep.  Although I have to say this whole experience taught me that the chemicals you can buy at the store are worthless.  Seriously, read the fine print.  Bleach may kill 99.9% of bacteria, but there is always a little asterix next to the statement.  It doesn't kill ALL bacteria, only a certain strain.  And NOTHING you can find at Walgreens or jewel can kill mold.  I guess that's why the pro's cost so much money...

The quote the pros gave us over the phone was 2,000-2,500 for the square footage of the basement.  When they got to the house they estimated it being closer to 3 or 4k.  But that's OK, I had a feeling the original price was low.  We showed them the basement, and asked if they could keep the wood paneling.  They said no.  It had to go.  So they basically just took a circular saw and cut the entire basement wood paneling off.  Thus making our "partially finished basement, no longer anywhere close to being finished.

I think one of the scariest parts was after the techs took off all the wood paneling they already found mold growing.  It was nothing serious, only a patch of mold about 3 inches in diameter.  They were able to get rid of it with special antimicrobial spray stuff.  I was shocked.  It had been less than a week.  But I guess that's what happens when you get water.  The told us not to worry, concrete is porous and would absorb the spray solution stuff.  As long as the basement dried properly, we wouldn't have to worry.

It took over a week for the basement to dry.  Unfortunately, that also increased the cost.  It ended up costing $6,000 to properly clean and dry the basement.

Of course none of that includes any of the amount of damage to the walls any of the furniture or other possessions we lost.

And... insurance didn't cover any of it.  Insurance doesn't cover "acts of God." Although I should call it an "act of stupidity."  Apparently some moron didn't open the deep tunnel in Chicago and that was the main cause of the problem.  Anyway, I called the insurance company and said there was water in the basement, we don't know how it got in.  It could have been coming in through the window wells, or up through the sinks, or the sump pump, we have no idea.  They said they don't cover water coming in through the window wells, and we don't have flood insurance which would cover it coming up through the sinks.  And we don't have sump pump failure insurance which would cover if the sump pump failed.

Let me just say, Lesson Learned.  Now we have sump pump failure insurance (a few hundred a year), flood insurance ($1,000 ish a year), and major appliance failure insurance ($20 a year).  Major appliance failure insurance is if your water heater or washer burst and flooded your entire basement.  Basically, I never want to deal with this ever again.  It was hell.

Just an FYI - Insurance only covers permanent possessions.  Walls, carpet, washer/dryer, furnace.  So that real expensive surround system you have in your basement?  You'll get nothing for that.  Not even $10.

It is now almost a year later (10ish months) and we are JUST starting to redo the basement.  More on that later.

The damage -

Bridesmaid Hangers - Pinterest Inspired

Some of you know I got married last November. Which is part of the reason why I slacked on the blog. Sorry about that! Anyway, I've finally got the time to update the blog on everything I've wanted to share over the past year. :)


Bridesmaid hangers!

 


I absolutely love the bridesmaid hanger shot. You know, with all the bridesmaid dresses and all on matching hangers. So I started to research how to make those really cute hangers. I didn't want to spend $20 on a hanger for 1 picture (which is the cost to buy it via etsy) especially since I had other ideas for gifts for my bridesmaids. So, DIY it was. :)


I also made them for my mother and my fiance's mother. I got the hangers at Bed Bath and Beyond. Then I went to Michaels and got the blinged stickers. I really wanted to do glitter, but my MOH hates glitter and calls it "The H*rpes of Craft." Haha. She says glitter always gets EVERYWHERE! And since my Bridesmaids and my dress have zero glitter on them, I didn't want them to have any glitter specks on their dress.




One of my bridesmaids is married, so I put her last name on the hanger, And I put my new last name on the hanger as well. :) I don't know what the bridesmaids thought of them, but I think they liked them. I can't wait to see the photos from the professional photographer!

All in all, I love the way they turned out.

DIY Wedding Invitations

Man o Man.  The wedding invitations were probably one of the biggest decisions of the wedding.  I started looking for invites early, and either I didn't like them, or they were obnoxiously over budget.  So I mixed and matched.

I was a bit picky with the invitation itself.  Seriously, I think I had 100 + samples sent to me over a few months because I couldn't figure out what I wanted. I wanted the raised lettering for the invite so that it was a bit fancier, so I didn't want to print the invitations myself.  I found some beautiful Vellum invitations at Michaels. My theme was vines/shamrocks and these were leaves and trees.  But they were close enough and I love the way they turned out.

I'm also a huge fan of the pocket invites.  So I ordered the pockets through cards and pockets and created the inserts myself.

























Honestly, the inserts were difficult. Not the RSVP.  That was pretty straight forward, although I was not 100% sure what to put on the RSVP.  In hindsight, it would have been better to ask who wanted the Chicken, and who wanted the pork.  Instead of a circle for them to fill in, a line probably would have been better.  Oh well, just a lesson learned.




But trying to figure out what to put on the inserts.  Very challenging.

Misc on the Left, Directions on the Right.


Although the most challenging thing was creating the map.  I took a screenshot on google maps, and then placed it in paint.  Then I just drew the lines and then deleted the background.  It took a LOT longer than I expected.



I also ordered the damask monogram band through cards and pockets.  These I could have printed at home, but by this time I was tired of printing everything, the RSVP, misc and directions were difficult

Another big decision was the envelope color.  I knew I wanted calligraphy on the invitation envelopes and I knew I wanted the RSVP envelopes to be the same color as the invitation envelope.  My colors were Dark Purple and Dark Green. If I had envelopes in dark green, how would I address them?  I would have to use white labels, and I thought that would look tacky.  So the two choices were lighter green and white.  And I didn't want white.  So light green it was.

I ended up getting some inspiration for the labels. I put a little shamrock on the labels for the RSVP's and for the return addresses on the invitations.  I thought it looked very cute. :) The addresses for the invitations were done in calligraphy by my husband. He is a man of many talents.


I couldn't believe how long everything took to make.  I would recommend budgeting about 3 weeks for 100 invitations.  Especially if you are DIYing everything.


I don't think I would change anything, except the trees... I would have loved to find a vellum invite that had shamrocks or something on it.  Just small details only I would notice. I still love the way they turned out. :)

Thanks to my Neighbors

Chicago has gotten 55+ inches of snow this year.  More snow this year than the past 2 years combined.  All I have to say is, Mother Nature... I'm done with winter. I'm done with the cold and the snow.  Where the heck is Spring??

But the purpose of this post is not to complain, its actually to Thank my Neighbors.

C has been gone for a few weeks now working in Ohio.  I've been stuck shoveling the driveway because our snow blower is out of commission, and frankly fixing it is not on the top of my list.  (I'm hoping have it fixed by next weekend though) I think this is the only time in my life that I'll be grateful that I only have a single car driveway.  But I'm lucky because there have only been a few times when I had to shovel the sidewalks.

See there is this one neighbor, who owns a 4-wheeler and a plow.  Every time it snows he plows all the sidewalks in the entire neighborhood.  Honestly, its wonderful.  If I could find out who the neighbor was, I would go and give him a bottle of scotch.  But I have no idea who he is!  I have only seen him once of all the times he has plowed our sidewalk.  I think he does it while I'm at work or something, no idea.  The one time I saw him it was at the beginning of the snow season (this year) and he was on his 4-wheeler happy as a clam on a Saturday.  I wasn't prepared to stop him to ask where he lived.  I just waved and screamed Thanks, and he waved back.  So, to the neighbor out there, if I see you, I owe you a bottle of scotch.  Seriously, Thank you for plowing my sidewalk this year.  You've saved my back!

But I'm still stuck shoveling the driveway.  Which really isn't that bad.  Except for the fact that we have a single car driveway and the snow is piling up.  Before today the snow piles were so big and so wide that they were encroaching on the driveway and I could barely get my car in the driveway without driving over the banks.

So, I woke up this morning and shoveled the 6 inches of snow we got and left for work.  On the drive home I prepared myself mentally for attempting to shovel the rest of the snow that fell and attempt to widen my driveway entrance.  Mind you, the snow bank was basically as tall as I am so it was going to be difficult.  So I came home, parked on the street and went inside to change into my boots.  I went outside to find my wonderful neighbor in the process of plowing the apron that I was just about to dig into.  He was even making it wider for me just like I was going to!  How amazingly nice is that!  Had I not walked outside to shovel I'm pretty sure my neighbor would have started on the rest of my driveway.  Honestly, it was the nicest surprise in the world.

I plan to buy ingredients for cookies, or brownies or muffins or something this weekend and deliver them as a Thanks.

But To both men and their families... Thank you very much.  I appreciate it!

Do Not Disturb - Pinterest Inspired

I saw these on Pinterest, and I absolutely loved them.

 

So off I went to Vistaprint. I designed the layout myself and sent it to Vistaprint to print it there.  I had a groupon so I printed everything on high quality paper cheaper than if I was going to print it myself.  I used the "note card" on Linen Finish.  I had a minor heart attack when the door hangers arrived from Vistaprint because they didn't print correctly.  One side was printed upside-down.  But a quick call to Vistaprint remedied the problem and they sent new ones right away.

 Then I went to Michaels and bought a 3 inch circular punch by Fiskars.  It was a long process, because the paper was thicker than the punch was meant to be used with, but I love the way they turned out. :)

We put them in the hotel welcome bags.  I can't remember if everyone used it, but I know I saw a few on the doors when my new husband and I were walking back to the rooms.

Misery Loves company - Home ownership part 3

Well, we left off here - http://dizzyingthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/misery-loves-company-home-ownership_11.html

We came home and saw the damage.  The house was freezing, and basically it was gloomy.

We woke up the next morning "ready" to start digging through everything, but we weren't ready emotionally.

I had made several phone calls to flood cleaner people.  They couldn't come for at least 3 days, possibly more.  So off we went to taking as much crap as possible out to the garbage.  Most of the things were easy-ish to take to the trash.  Chairs, sofas, papers, all had to be taken out to the trash.  But there were certain things we had to think about.  What about a sleeping bag?  That can be washed... but do you really want to sleep in a poop bag?  Nope... so off it went to the garbage.

There were other issues with certain things that were not electronic or fabric that didn't need to be thrown out.  Those were just placed in a "to clean" pile.

Then there was the issue of actually taking the sofa outside... first of all, the sofa was 100% waterlogged.  It was heavy as all could be, and it was just C and I emptying the basement.  So, off we go, to the top of the stairs to get the sofa out of the basement.  It was the most difficult thing I think I have ever done, and it was exasperated by the fact that it wouldn't fit through the door.  Since we moved in we changed the door to the side yard and neither of us realized that the door was slightly smaller.  By an inch or so.  And unfortunately that inch meant the leather waterlogged sofa wouldn't fit through the door.  So after I had spent a TON of energy pushing the couch up the stairs, and C had spent a TON of energy PULLING the couch up the stairs he told me. "It doesn't fit."  Honestly, I wanted to cry.  How can this stupid heavy as h*ll couch NOT fit through the door!!

It was the worst words to hear.  So we take the couch back the basement and C starts waking it with a crowbar and saw and hammer and whatnot taking it apart.  I mean at this point, its not like it needs to stay in one piece.  I think C got a lot of aggression out this way. He dismantled 2 full size sofas, 1 loveseat, and 2 chairs.

We had to throw out a lot of emotional things...
Up until this day I had every single ribbon I had ever won while horseback riding.  I had every 1st, every last, and everything in between.  But when they are covered in poop water, its not something I want to keep anymore.... I threw out the first ribbon I ever won with my first horse.  Several first place ribbons.  Several national titled ribbons...

My horses halter was saturated.  The last halter he wore when we had to put him down.  That was rough.


C's uncle was in the military and back in the day his cousin and uncle would send him letters, snail mail.  Before this flood he kept every single letter they sent him.  Those all had to be thrown out.  You couldn't even read them anymore.  He also had a few external hard drives that had photos on them.  Those were waterlogged and had to be thrown out as well.

Those were the hardest things to throw out.  The memories.  I mean the furniture sucks... we had perfectly usable mini-fridges, enough couches and chairs to sit everyone comfortably, but the memories.... Sucks... To this day, almost a year later, it still brings me to tears.

Anyway, these are the photos.  I only managed to take photos of the 1st garbage trip.  We had just as much garbage the 2nd day of cleaning.