That's Amore

We had a very nice, low-key Valentine's Day.

Plans were made to go out to dinner and then come home and watch a movie and I had even picked out what I was going to wear to fulfill that "dressy, yet comfortable" look. This can sometimes be challenging and even more so when 96% of your wardrobe is dirty and waiting to be washed. But, even with the obstacles, I managed to find something decent to wear. We had been out doing errands all day, seperately so we were making plans via cell phone and rushing. Actually, I made Danny make the plans...I do that sometimes. I hurried up and took a shower and then somehow ended up in unmatching pajamas on the couch. It was too early to put on my "going out" clothes, yet I had already showered so I just threw on my pjs and when that happens...I tend to become lazy. PJs = tv on the couch or sleeping. Plans tend to fall by the wayside when I don't get completely ready in one swoop. And then the kicker, Danny sat right down next to me and we started watching House.

Well, dinner plans went right out the window.

We ended up ordering Monicals pizza, renting a pay-per-view movie (The Dark Knight-good flick), and drinking our respective alcoholic beverages. It was really nice! I even mangaged to remain awake throughout the entire movie! And...I got to stay in my unmatching pj's which are in no way dressy, but completely comfortable.

As for gifts, I got some of those "last minute" flowers and he got a frozen pizza and a can of artichoke hearts with the promise of me preparing the pizza adorned with the artichoke hearts. I don't know if you can tell from the description, but this was also last minute and pilfered from my Mom and Dad's house. Go us! Harrison got new rawhide bones, I'd say she scored most of all.

I did manage to clean the downstairs big time on Sunday. And having Monday off was great! I went out with Mom to pick up paint samples and have pretty much chosen all the colors for our house. The bonus of buying their house (one of them) is that I can look at paint chips in the actual rooms I will be painting, instead of waiting until we actually move in. We can change our address early to make sure all the mail is ending up there and that really excites me. I am still getting mail for the old occupants of our current house 2 years later. And some of it is like, personal mail...well, I'm assuming.

Here's the bummer of the weekend- We are no longer refinancing since we're moving, but, we had already had some title work done and had the house appraised so we had to pay for that which ended up being a few hundred dollars which we had not planned on spending. So that sucked, but my mom bought me some new shoes and coffee, so I felt better about myself then!

I really enjoy having days off, this whole working thing, though keeping up afloat financially, really cuts into my daily enjoyment of life.

These Are Days to Remember

Okay, I just uploaded pictures from my camera ranging all the way back to Thanksgiving! Wow, I'm not good at keeping things up to date! And somehow, I have Christmas photos before Thanksgiving...so bare with my little slideshow here...and, yes, there are like 900 pictures of Harrison, but she's the only kid we've got so far, so deal with it.

Okay here we go:

Our lovely Christmas mantle (I will so miss the mantle)!



Our lovely Christmas tree (fake, yes, but I don't appreciate the mess of a real tree).


Backing up to Thanksgiving...we're on our way to Bloomington!

Harrison, enjoying the ride and the view.

My nephew, Austin, attempting to get something off the counter.

With Uncle Danny!

I know, I know, Classy!

Even more classy!

Harrison spent the day out in the backyard...taunted mercilessly by the Miller cats.

I know this one is blurry, but she was so cute sitting out there in the exact middle of the light on the snow...I bet her butt was cold though!

Enjoying an early Christmas gift (yes, still oddly out of order).

Christmas Eve at Danny's parents...the annual poker game!

Now we move into January. This was the little house we stayed at in Peoria for the wedding...very cute, right on the IL river.

Looking out the back doors...

My oh-so-happy-to-be-there husband! I love those chairs!

Looking back into the dining area from the living area (where Danny was sitting).

My sister's 31st birthday celebration!

Posing the grandkids...see my "finger of discipline" coming into the shot...such authority!

There's a good one! Same facial expressions too (kind of bored?).

Snow dog!

Here she is laying on our bed, destroying Nick's (remember him?) old dog bed. Just ripped the stuffing right out of it...and on our bed, no less. Her eyes always glow when she's in destructive mode!

And here is when we thought it might be fun to dig a giant hole in the backyard right after a thunderstorm. She really gets into her projects!

So it was bathtime (2nd in 2 weeks).

All clean!

Clean and dry and just hanging out (literally). This is the "relaxation" montage.

So there you have it. A few days in the lives of us. Maybe nothing too monumental, but they were fun or at least funny in retrospect. Lots of memories made in our house in just a few short years...good times!

erin

He's Down on His Luck, It's Tough

Well, we all know the state of the economy right now is bleak. Everyone is affected by it in some way or another.

In our case, we were able to refinance our home for a way lower interest rate (well, we're in the process of doing that right now) so that's great. Of course, we're moving, but it will be great for the resale still. On the other hand, Danny is laid off, has been now for 5 weeks and that's not so great. Fortunately for him, he will go back to work when work picks up. He's not one of those laid off indefinately, which we're thankful for. But things are starting to get tight for us, financially. We've gone through this before and made it through and we will again, but this time its just so up in the air as to when he will get back to work. It makes it hard to find the silver lining when there is no light at the end of the tunnel quite yet (How many sayings can you use in one sentence?).

As I write this, Danny is working on not one, but possibly 2 side jobs for friends and sooner or later that unemployment check will make it to us and I'll breathe a little easier but it would be great if some kind of magic could work itself on our world and get things going again! So if we randomly show up at your house for dinner, don't be alarmed, we're just looking to cut corners!

That's all for now!
erin

Feels Like Home

Big news from the Moyer household...

We're moving!

I never thought I would be doing this again this soon after purchasing our first home together 2 years ago, but here we are...moving again!

My parents decided to build a house in a little "over 50" development called "The Gardens" about 2 miles down the road from their current house and they asked if we wanted/would buy their home from them. I was skeptical at first, but upon sharing this news with Danny, he jumped on it and said he definately wanted to. I was surprised because we all discussed this before when it was more of a fantasy on my parent's end and he wasn't really interested. But now after living in our home for a couple years, we're going to go ahead and jump on this opportunity.

Here's our thought process...
We love (well me more than Danny) our current house. It's got charm out the ying yang, has great living space, big rooms, really cute decor, basement, etc. We've added many upgrades and improvements as well such as: new plumbing, new toilet, removed carpeting to reveal hardwood floors, new drywall and recessed lighting in dining room, repaired master bedroom ceiling crack, fenced in yard with privacy fence, insulated/heated garage, new water heater, and eventually a new front door and new kitchen floor (looking back we've really done a lot of stuff!).

During these past few years, we've also come to realize the eventuality of moving within the next five years due to children (hopefully) and more outdoor room for our giant dog. As we realized this, we made a list of wants/needs for the next home, as people do: one story, bigger fenced in
yard, ability to add on/expand, attached garage, different school district (if we could get it).

Mom and Dad's house (my childhood home) meets all these wants/needs and then some and won't require us to necessarily pay more than we did previously for our current home, which is a huge bonus.

So, to not take this opportunity just because I didn't think I was done living in our current home wouldn't be very logical, plus I could not imagine any other family living in that house. I would be sad to have it changed in any way by someone else. That said, I plan on changing just about everything...but that's okay, because it's me!

So anyway, Mom and Dad will be moving out in September, so we've got to get our house on the market asap! I hope it sells in this economy, yet it if sells too quickly, we'll be moving into Mom and Dad's house until their's is finished. That'll be interesting!

That'll be our project for next few months, anyway!

North To Alaska

Well, more like North to Almost Wisconsin...

I'm going on a road trip!

Hang on, don't get too excited...it's a work road trip. I am going with 5 other people, all men. Needless to say, I get my own room! I think it will be fun due to the people going. I went on a similar work road trip last year and it SUCKED HARD due to the people who went. Sorry, I hate the phrase "sucked hard" but feel it clearly illustrates the amount of horridness that was that work road trip, so if you also hate the phrase, you can suffer to some extent as I did those 2 days I will never get back in my life.

On a completely different note...here is some useless info about me I just posted on facebook that I will now share here. Is that blog cheating? Too bad if it is!

1. I was always one of the shortest people in my class.
2. In high school I dated this kid named Danny Moyer and figured it wouldn't last, which is didn't. But, 6 years later I married him.
3. I require veg-out time. I need to just sit and do nothing but watch tv for a good chunk of time.
4. I was a member of the Elwin Stamp Club and am proud of it! Those were some good times!
5. Before I got married, my initials were all E's and everyone felt the need to point this out to me like I wasn't aware.
6. I am not teaching like I went to college for. I am okay with that and wish people would stop asking me why I'm not a teacher.
7. I strive to know the words to songs because I had some pretty embarrassing mis-heard lyrics in my youth that I am still made fun of for.
8. I will probably never move out of the Decatur/Elwin area and I'm okay with that too.
9. I used to always want press-on nails after seeing the commercial for Lee press-on nails. Press-on nails brought to you by the Lee company. So I thought all press-on nails were called "Lee Press-on nails" and I asked for them all the time. I was finally set straight years later and I did eventually purchase press-on nails only to be let down by their level of quality.
10. I am so ready for motherhood, it's not even funny.
11. I sing in a band...it's a dream come true from the days I used to pretend to sing in a band in my basement.
12. I have the cutest dog around!
13. I have 2 tattoos. Got the first one, a sun, before high school graduation, got the second one, danny's initials, right before I got married.
14. I am extremely close to my family. (I stole this one from my sister's, but it is very true)
15. I never really dated all that much. I found it way more fun to just hang out with a bunch of guys, therefore by-passing all the guy/girl drama for the most part.
16. I used to be a hotel maid...those were certainly not the days!
17. I have a fear of bridges and drowning. I think that a bridge will collapse while I'm on it and I will then drown in my car in the river below.
18. I was absolutely terrified of Malificent, the villian from Sleeping Beauty, for months after I saw the movie. I was convinced she was waiting for me in the hallway that led to my bedroom. 19. I made my family participate in a fire drill at our home during fire safety week during my grade school years. I appreciate them going along with it. We all met in the driveway, though I'm pretty sure I enacted it at dinner when we were all in one place.
20. Along with teaching, as a Naturalist at Rock Springs, I took care of all the reptiles and amphibians and can now handle snakes with the best of 'em!
21. I miss riding my bike everyday of the summer like I did as a kid, but would never do it again.
22. I hate all hot tea and rarely drink cold tea.
23. I learned to like coffee at Theater Fest my sophomore year of high school in the U of I student Union. I remember it so clearly.
24. I cannot sleep if someone is snoring. It just doesn't happen.
25. I couldn't swallow pills until I was like 15 years old. I always thought I would choke on them.

Other things I didn't put on this list but could have:
In addition to being a maid, I have also been a dishwasher, bean walker, and corn roguer. Man I had some fabulous jobs!
Even though I'm not a teacher, I was KICK ASS at teaching. And I hope to teach in some capacity, be it as a Naturalist again or just for my own kids (though I am not a fan of home-schooling unless you have no other means of education).
I was a pretty good clarinet player, though I haven't touched my instrument (try not to make that dirty like I am doing right now in my head) for years!
I taught myself to play the piano. It kind of shows.

I think that's all for now.

A Change Would Do You Good

Who else is tired of things?

-The weather. Yes, winter is inevitable, but I'm still done with it anyway.
-The economy. Thank you rich old men who feel the need to screw over everyone. I appreciate all you've done for your country.
-Trying to accomplish goals. Whether in life or work, striving for something that never seems to come just blows.
-Stupid people. Enough said.
-Dumb, thoughtless comments. We all need to simply put a bit of thought into things before we say them.

So shall we try to find the brighsides of these things (because that's what I freaking do):

-Spring is a mere months away. Also inevitable.
-Even though Danny is laid off, he always finds ways to support us and I am employed which, though a curse is still a blessing, and we haven't been too affected just yet.
-Eventually, it all comes to be.
-They're everywhere, so you better learn to deal.
-There are worse things. And, people are stupid.

So there. Kind of a blah post, but you'll have that. It's February now, so we're that much closer to some change, even if it is just the weather.

Have a good one kids!
erin