Wee Memories Challenge #62

When Meg and Robyn came over to the house yesterday, they brought presents! How sweet of them! One of the goodies was a new bottle of nail polish. Purple is actually a nail polish color that I don't already own so this was a welcomed addition. Sally Hansen in Grape Going!.

My realtor stopped by this afternoon and gave me some surprise gifts: a bouquet of flowers and a container to put mail in. I thought it was funny that she gave me the bouquet since I was thinking of buying some flowers yesterday but didn't have enough cash on me AND I bought a vase at a yard sale on Friday. Now I can actually use it! :)
The milk's expiration date was coming up so one of my goals was to use it up in food today (I don't really like the way it tastes just straight). I ended up making instant Oreo pudding and mac and cheese with broccoli and tuna, a spinoff of this recipe.

Here's my take on Wee Memories Challenge #62: Clean and Simple. I've been really wanting to use this butterfly stamp that I bought at a yard sale recently. I used the embossed resist technique with my Distress Inks. By blending the red and gold color, I got the orange color in the middle. I had a scrap piece of polka dot paper that I thought would be a good contrast to the warm colors used with the butterfly. I used a scrap piece of black ribbon to break up the colors. I popped the sentiment on foam adhesive to give the card a little dimension.
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in white
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird. Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Barn Door, Wild Honey.
Stamps: Studio G (sentiment), Stampin' Up- Stipple Butterfly
Paper: American Crafts- Abode
Die: Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 8
White Gel Pen: Inkssentials
Foam adhesive: Thermoweb

P.S. This marriage proposal was cute!

Good bye, Harry Potter

Training: the workout today was to do 6 miles @ 11:30 minutes. I don't have a stop watch, but I was going to be thankful if I made it through the 6 miles. From my place to my parents' house is 3.5 miles so I figured I'd go there and back and walk the last mile. I was out by 7 AM and came home around 8:30, so I think I did alright. The heat wasn't so bad that early in the morning. When I got to my parents' house, I took the newspapers right up to the door and ran back home. When I stopped by there later in the morning, Mom told me that Dad thought it was my cousin that did that. Hah!

Yard sale: I planned a yard sale route, but the only one that I bought something at wasn't one that I originally planned to go to. I ended up taking a large hexagon table for $5 for the living room and some measuring cups for $1. Now all I need is to find a nice lamp to put on top of it.

Putting the table in my car was a challenge. I didn't fit in the back seat or the trunk. A guy walking by asked me if I needed help. "Uh no, that's okay..." He responded with "It looks like it's going to be a little tight" and walked off. Yeah, tell me about it. I finally got it in the front seat and got back in the car. The same guy walked by and gave me a thumbs up.

I came home to drop off the table and headed back out to the movie theater to get tickets to tonight's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 showing. The same area was having a farmer's market, so I picked up some peaches. I was going to pick up a beautiful flower bouquet, but I didn't have enough cash on me. Womp.

Family: My sister won 3rd place in her age group (13 years and older) in the town's sidewalk chalk contest. Her entry was a squirrel eating some ice cream.

Friends: I had my first visitors come by the house that were not family. Meg and Robyn stopped by tonight to check out the house and pick me up so that we could go see the final Harry Potter movie. We ate at a TexMex place and go to the theater 30 minutes beforehand to get good seats. We were lucky to find 3 seats together because the place was getting packed quickly. The movie was EPIC. SOOO good. I felt a sense of sadness when the movie title showed up though. There won't be any more HP movies to look forward to. Fortunately with the books all being published and the movies will all be available on DVD, I can relive the magic over and over and over again. Next up, Captain America.

Fall-To Layout #149

For a day off, today was rather busy! Between 8 AM and 12:30 PM, I ran the following errands:

• ATM and gas station. Nothing exciting there.
  
• my parents' house to get some my stuff and helped Dad load up the mini van with things that needed to go to the dump.
• a yard sale. Came back with 2 Corningware casserole dishes, a Willow Tree doll holding a heart and a crystal vase. Total: $25. I hadn't realized how much of a deal that was until I got home to Google how much Corningware is. From the looks of it, the lady was trying to sell the old stuff from the house since the house was on the market. When the woman gave me my receipt, she told me "Well, if you're interested in buying a house..." Mmm, sorry, no. I just bought one. Thanks for helping me fill it though! :)
• Post office. I was trying to get information on how to get my mail forwarded permanently to the new place.
• Petsmart to give the adoptable kitties some love. Eventually, I'll be able to bring a lucky one home. There was a pair of black and white ones that were especially cute.
• Staples for some copy paper that was on sale.
• the electric company to get the electrical bill switched to my name. They only had 1 person available to handle the long line of customers. Hello?! If you had another person in the second window, we would have been out of your hair a lot sooner! Duh.
  
• the animal shelter only to find that the kennel was opening at 12 and it was only 11 AM. I didn't want to wait around for an hour.
• Marshalls to get some baking utensils (measuring cups, measuring spoons and a wisk).
  

When I came home from all my errands, I worked on getting some photos printed to put in some picture frames that I had. The photo paper pack that I had really came in handy. I'm so thankful that my boss let me take the day off. It would have taken me a lot longer to get all these errands done if I had to break them up.

Here's my take on Fall-To Layout #149 (my last card was over a week ago, yikes!). I decided to make a birthday card for my cousin, just in time for his birthday tomorrow! Note to self: I really need to find some more masculine themed stamps because trying to find a stamp appropriate for this card took the longest time tonight. I finally settled on a dog because he has a dog back in Taiwan. I used the stamp-off technique so that the dog wouldn't be too dark and clash with the sentiment.
Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird, Warm Red, Chestnut Roan. Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen.
Stamps: Studio G (sentiment), K.I. Memories- Pet (dog)
Paper: American Crafts- Abode
Punch: Fiskars Upper Crest border punch, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Other: Black American Crafts Stamp Marker

My long run is on the training schedule for tomorrow: 6 miles. This should be interesting...

Whoaaaa. According to Blogger, this is my 500th post! I'll have to look into getting a giveaway together. Stay tuned.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Hello, blogosphere! I finally got internet and cable television hooked up at my new place. I'm so happy to be getting back to blogging! :)

Craft room: Here are some pictures from my new craft room. The only new item in here was the folding table that my parents got me from Costco. Everything else, including the huge shelf unit on the wall was in my bedroom at my parents' house. I love it because I can raise or lower the shelves, depending on how high I need them. I like the flexibility. My mom bought this unit from the Container Store years ago, so I'm not sure if they have it available anymore. I love how much sunlight the room (and the house in general) gets. I have a closet on the wall facing the shelving unit, which is mostly empty at the moment.8K training: Yesterday's workout was 2 miles at 9:50 minutes per mile (this is the pace that I'm shooting for at the September 8K). I went to the gym yesterday right after work and did the workout on the treadmill, with a few minutes walking between each mile. My usual race pace is 10:30 so cutting back 40 seconds was tough, but I managed. I'm having a hard time envisioning that I'll have to keep that pace for roughly 5 miles come September, but this is only Week 1 of training. It'll get better, right? Tonight's workout is spin class. THAT I can do.

At the office: One of the IT guys closed on his place the same day I did last week. Yesterday, I was whining about how I needed to go to the electrical company in person to prove that I'm the new owner of the house. He said "That's because you sound like you're 12 years old. People probably want to talk to your mom when they hear you on the phone. I never have that problem." Hardy har har. ::eye roll:: I'm taking the day off tomorrow to run some errands, one of them being to pay a visit to the electrical company.

Parents: Mom called me last night. "I'm making you that rice dish that you like. You want to come home for dinner?" Ah ha. She's luring me with food. Yep, that'll work. I went over for dinner and got some leftovers too!

Song of the day: "Honey Bee"- Blake Shelton

P.S. Thank you for all the kind blog comments that I've received regarding the new place! :)

Moving Day #2

Yesterday was another busy day with moving into the new place. Dad borrowed my uncle's truck and we moved my new bed to the new place. Then, yesterday afternoon, I went with my parents to Costco. OMG, I haven't been there in a while and then I was reminded why I really don't like going there. The foot traffic in that place ranges from the "slower than melting glaciers" people that want to look at every item to the people that zoom around the whole place only looking for the items that are on their list. The store staff need to put traffic lights at the major intersections of the warehouse so that people don't ram their carts into one another. Dad was very generous and bought me a new TV for the living room and a table for my craft room. I can't wait to get my cable and internet hooked up on TH, but it's not so bad being unplugged for a little bit. At least I have internet at work.

This whole moving-to-a-new-place feels very similar to when I went to college. New surroundings, new neighbors (I met quite a few already!), etc. The big difference is that my parents are only 10 minutes away, instead of a few hours. This will lead to more opportunities to chat and raid the fridge and visit Ginger. ;)

I also killed my first bug at the new place last night. It was a ginormous moth in the bathroom. It was too high up for me to reach, so I ended up dragging out the vaccum cleaner to get it.

On a non-new place related note: my 8K training program starts today. For today, the training program says that I can go to spin class. Thankfully that's indoors. Running outside is going to be a challenge with the heat and humidity this week, but I'm just going to have to figure it out!

Song of the day: "For Good"- Wicked Soundtrack

Moving Day

Whew. Even though I didn't go to spin class today, I definitely got a workout in by moving a bunch of my stuff into the new place! Mom and I started loading up the cars around 8:30 this morning and then 3 of my cousins came to help finish the job. Once the cars were loaded, I lead the cousins to the new place. They all seemed very impressed with the place. I think they'll be more impressed when I have artwork hanging up and the house is fully operational.

It's amazing how one person has so much stuff! Most of it went to my craft room, imagine that. After two trips today, most of my kitchen and office is set up.

The dining room table that I'm going to be using actually started out at my house and has been passed on to many family members until it finally came back to us. One less thing to have to buy!

Tomorrow the plan is to get the mattresses over to the new place, a desk for crafting, maybe a new television, and some chairs for the dining room. I'm planning to put my full bed on risers and put a twin mattress underneath for any visitors that might stay the night. Originally, I thought of using the smaller bedroom as a guest bedroom, but I don't foresee lots of visitors that would stay long enough to need a bed and I thought it'd be a waste of space to have a bed in there that's rarely used. I'm so excited to have more space for crafting. This could be dangerous, ha ha.

Settlement Success

Settlement today went so smoothly.

Actually, let me back up.

My realtor and I went by the property to do a final check of the place, to make sure that everything was in good condition. The place looked fine. It actually still looked like a home (as opposed to completely empty) since the previous owner was nice enough to sell me some of her furniture. We then drove to get the final papers signed.

Before we went into the conference room, the settlement offices had a wall full of junk food goodies and drinks. I guess they like to keep their clients, employees, visitors happy and well fed. I didn't snag anything before signing the papers, but I did take a Laffy Taffy and two Peppermint Patties and a bottle of water on the way out.

Since I had more paperwork to complete and the owner of the townhome hadn't gotten there yet, they let me start with my paperwork. Midway through, the owner, her husband, and their realtor came in. Perfect timing! We signed a bunch of papers for an hour, I handed of the biggest check I'll probably ever have to write, and the owner handed over all the keys. She was super nice during the meeting, giving me tips on how to take care of the rose bushes and things she had left at the house for me (weed controller, manuals for the major appliances, etc.).

On my drive home back from the signing, it was pouring rain so I couldn't immediately move my stuff in. However, the rain eventually stopped and I went with my parents to the new place to put some small things in there. My cousins have been recruited to help me complete the move tomorrow morning. It's nice to have help around!
I'm officially a home owner. It feels good to be able to cross one more thing off my New Year's Resolution list. (I got this fortune cookie fortune at Dad's retirement dinner. I didn't think it was especially applicable then, but it definitely is today.)