Dress Up, Dine In

My family is coming up for the holiday tomorrow and despite our best efforts to make the Ranch more complete, we managed only two rooms. Although Seth would argue that a room without a ceiling fan/light is not finished. :) I'm learning to be okay with the fact that it still looks like it needs loving. I just got too inspired by that "restoring carousel" phone ad. Surely if they can do that in a day then we can eventually finish our house.

It feels like fall is already here with today's weather and I'm ready for the change. This was our summer in pictures: lots of looking for things in boxes occasionally lounging around running away to california coming home and realizing we had more wallpaper than we thought keeping our sanity with hiking and before you know it, it's time for the new (school) year

It was a perfect day for treasure hunting. The sun was shining, there was open road and one picnic area was empty save for sprinklers that were a blast to run though. We explored 6 rest areas and came away with nothing but a chipped windshield. It didn't matter though, a day spent with the Tez is treasure enough for me!

What's more fun than refinishing your house? Treasure Hunts! Lauren turned me on to this ridiculous book, "The Clock Without a Face." If you haven't heard about it, it's a "children's book" about an apartment building that's been robbed by it's own tenants. (The most expensive thing missing were the numbers from the landlord's clock). The best part of the story is that each of the floors contain clues about where the emerald clock numbers are hidden... in real life! When you figure out the clues it leads you to a rest area where there's a tree with an upside down shape of the book and a jeweler created/emerald embellished number. Lauren and her friend found the #2 in Bushnell, FL! Since it's summertime and the kiddie lit major in me loves this stuff, I'm going to take a mini road trip with my buddy Tez and see what we can find in the state that's hinted at in floor nine. At the very least we can buy real beer on

It's been forever since we've updated! What have we been doing this whole time?! We strutted our mutts for No More Homeless Pets. We made lots of trips to the dump. We finally moved into the Ranch! We cocktail-ed it out at Canine Casino Night. Tezzie is enjoying the summertime as well although he's had to bow out of the last two puff events (too cold and too many people). He prefers to lounge on the new carpet and eat plastic starfish. So, there's a sneak peak at the carpet that went into the addition. I'm in the process of trimming it and touching up. Once it's a little less painter's-tape and a little more finished we'll do a reveal here. In the meantime...happy summer (of renovations)!

We've been so determined with these renovations that we haven't taken any pictures of weeks two or three. You'll just have to believe me when I say that we painted the formals (living & dining), the hallway and the "baby room." We also tore up all the 70s fab carpet/padding/tack strips/staples and the carpet in the bathroom. Yesterday our floor guy arrived to begin the long process of restoring our awesome hardwoods. Because of this we're on a hiatus from the Ranch until Tuesday. I peeked in the windows tonight though and the front room looks spectacular! While we wait (I mean pack up the rental) enjoy these pictures from back in the day...the first week of renovations: I hope we're still smiling like this at the end of the project first mold sighting and our vintage doorbell the first of many instances where the outer layer might have been better than what was under it the orbs looked in on our initial attack on the wallpaper of doo

We're in the middle of renovation week dos and I just realized we didn't post any pictures of the Ranch as it was when we bought it. Prepare to step into our time warp of decades past. It's got good bones and we're definitely discovering cool things while updating. first fireplace as you walk through the door every formal living room should have green carpet dining room teapot wallpaper family room time warp bar into fam room hallway of (wallpaper) death guest bedroom master bath, his & her closets, and a sneak of more wallpaper on the back wall what we're calling the "baby room" but don't get excited people up bath minus the shot of the ceiling wallpaper down den plus haunted piano food storage in case we want to jump on the bandwagon laundry room with vintage sinks down bath that will need major reno future English-major hide out screened in porch backyard escape

We're homeowners! We closed on the Vintage Ranch yesterday and got our keys today. It's hard to believe that the hunting has graduated to renovating. We had a lot of awesome people helping us get our forever home and I can't wait to make it ours and party! For today it felt good just to sit on the floor in the downstairs den, listen to Seth play around on the haunted piano, and realize there were already pegs for the Christmas lights outside.

There's nothing like hiking in the supreme outdoorness that is Moab (more on that later) and finding out that the Trolley house has meth in it. It's only a little bit of meth (like someone smoked it) but I don't use qualifiers with drugs. That stuff is crazy. Last night we went back and forth about it, saw another house by the dog park and got really dejected. On our way to eat and mope, our agent called and told us to come see a house on her street (in Murray). She knew we didn't want to move out of the city but she thought it had a lot of what we were looking for. I'm aware of how very boy-who-cried-wolf this whole hunting experience has become but we fell in love with this house. The "Vintage Ranch" is an estate sale, built in 1949, has 2978 sq. ft. and is on .33 of an acre. This is the forever home we weren't finding (aside from Nevada) in SLC. It's going to need some updating but we think it's going to be fun deciding what funky vin

I'm winding down an excellent Easter by watching HSM3 on Disney Channel. I'm a teacher so I'm totally allowed to do things like that. It's taking me back to when we just moved here and I had to rip through the wardrobe boxes to find something to wear for the grad scene. Getting paid to get a tan on East High's lawn, eat free food, and dance was one of the easier things I've had to do in my life. It also made me the coolest teacher at school. According to my extras website, they're shooting 4 here next Spring. Think I could still pass as a high school kid at 27? before the Utah red carpet premier

We've got an accepted offer in on the Trolley house! On deck: meth test, general and FHA inspections, and hopefully closing if all looks good! While we wait, we've been looking at old photos of SLC. This is the Trolley house although the date it was taken escapes us.

Four years ago today, Seth and I stormed the adopt-a-thon at the Oaks Mall to find a skinny Shih Tzu mix that had been picked up in a puppy mill raid. I had no idea about the extent of his health issues or how much we'd have to work to get him out of his old life mindset. I just knew that he curled up in my lap when we were signing the adoption papers and we were in love. Tezzie's petfinder picture in 2006 Today is his "9th birthday!" after a long day of partying, 2010 When I think about all the life changes he's been through with me, it's a little overwhelming. Probably the biggest was when we moved to Kissimmee. We ate lots of dinners together on the floor in front of the TV. He kept me company while I met new people, started new jobs and tried to keep my lights on during the summer with a minimum wage paycheck. He was also the perfect trav

[Update: The Nevada house got turned over to Freddie Mac/Home Steps. An already crazy situation just got extra ridiculous. The Zen & Cookies house is in a bidding war at full price.] We think we found our house! It's a 1905 "mini Victorian" that's downtown, central to 9 th and 9 th , Trolley Square and Liberty Park. We call it the Trolley house because we're pretty sure the extra wide street it's off of is where they ran the old school trolleys . It's got 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. At 1241 sq ft, it's smaller than most places we've looked at but it's more than enough to get us through those early family years. We especially like that its list price is really close to what we pay in rent a year. It's also mostly turn key and ready to go! Seth is going to be in St. George for the next 2 days and when he gets back we're going to go look at it again (cue the big purchase nervousness). If we still feel good about it we're