Almost a Landlord!

Woo hoo - I think we have a renter for my house!  They verbally committed today and want to move in at the end of the month.  I can't tell you how excited I am - mainly because this the first (and only) couple I showed the place too!

I'm going to miss my living room!

I must admit, however, I am super sad to move out.  This was the first place I owned - and all by myself.  Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to start my life with Darrin, but I liked the feeling of independence and success I felt for making it on my own. 

Anyway, I wrote up a Rental Application to send tonight and wow did I feel like an obsessed stalker.  I'm pretty sure I asked every personal question I could, but I just want to make sure there are no surprises.  She's a teacher though so I'm pretty sure everything will be fine but after a CRAZY rental issue that happened with some of our employees at work I'm trying to be overly cautious!

And as if that wasn't good enough news for the day, I talked to Margarita (yes that is her name and yes it is a different Margarita than my bf from college!) today and she told me Home Depot is going to get us new flooring for free!!  For those of you who don't remember - or don't feel like scrolling down a post or two (lazy lazy readers!) - we have a little...a lot...MORE than a lot of issues with our floor.  Hearing from Home Depot was the icing on an amazing day - made only better by the fact that Darrin sold his couch tonight and got WAY WAY more than it was worth (in my opinion at least). 

Now I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance and starting to look forward to our trip to Charlotte on Friday.  Also, anyone else think Mitchell and Caitlin are all kinds of Awesome!!  I can't decide if I like them or Melanie and Marko better! 

Have any of you ever rented your house?  Was it a good experience or did it leave your wishing you hadn't?

I Love Snacks and I'm Darn Proud of It!

A few days ago I was making myself an evening snack (pretty sure it was just an apple and peanut butter but I had to cut the apple so I'm going to go ahead and say I "made" something) and I started thinking about how surprised Darrin is going to be with how much I eat.  Not that I eat a lot - I've lost over 60 pounds in a year (take that crazy hormone issue that made me balloon up in 6 months time!!) - and I eat really healthy, but I do eat a fair amount.

So my apple and peanut butter (Jif Natural Peanut Butter, which is amazing!) made me realize there are still things that Darrin and I don't know about each other.  I tried to ask him what he thought I was going to be surprised by living with him but he never really answered me - guess that mean all of my faithful readers (aka my mom and grandmother) will get to learn all about Darrin with me. 

There are definitely some things he's going to be a little surprised to learn about me.  I mean, he knows I'm a huge reality tv junkie (Bachelorette SPOILER ALERT: My heart broke for Ryan tonight by the way and I adore JP) and he knows I can't resist the frozen yogurt bar in town but I don't think he realizes that I blast show tunes when I clean or that I have a very specific get-ready-for-bed routine.

Now I know that none of these are deal-breakers (or at least I hope not!) but I do think they'll lead to a few very funny evenings and probably an embarrassing moment or two.  I have to admit though I'm pretty excited for it.  In a way it's like starting a new relationship but with someone you already love and are going to spend the rest of your life with.  All the fun none of the stress!!

Speaking of late night snacks, I'll leave you with a picture of mine tonight - which was amazing and super healthy!

So Yummy!

Just some Laughing Cow Cheese (only 1 WW point for 2 wedges of the Herb) some tomatoes and water crackers, which are also really healthy.  Plus a glass of wine, which I more than needed after today!

Now time to watch Emily's interview on why she and Brad didn't last - which may have been the biggest shocker of the year (she said thick with sarcasm;) )!!

Easy-Peasy Dinner!

So remember when I said I needed to find some Simple Dinners- I found another one!  I helped a friend move yesterday and knew I wouldn't have much time to cook dinner so this seemed like a perfect nice to experiment.

 Easy Chicken Burritos
Ingredients:
Chicken tenders
1 C uncooked white rice (you could use brown too, but burritos just seemed better with white)
1 can of Ro-tel
1 can of black beans - rinsed
Lots of cheese
Fresh jalapeno, chopped

First, I seasoned the chicken tenders with a little salt and pepper plus a lot of garlic and onion powders.  A friend suggested to use lime and cilantro too.
I baked the chicken for about 40 minutes (I struggled with over-cooking chicken b/c I'm afraid of under-cooking it)
While the chicken is cooked make the rice (which takes about 25 minutes for white and 40 for brown).
When the rice is cooked transfer it to an 8x8 baking dish
Add the Ro-tel and beans and stir all together
Add some cheese (as much as you'd like) and mix together again
Finally, sprinkle some cheese on top and add the jalapenos
Take the chicken out of the and put the rice and bean mixture in - just to melt the cheese.
Shred the chicken while you wait.
Finally, assemble your burritos. with a scoop of the rice and bean mixture and some chicken
We added some sour cream and salsa but you could put anything in them (lettuce, tomatoes, etc)

It was a really simple dish with limited prep time and it was really yummy! Maybe I'm getting the hand of this easy dinner thing after all!

Kryptonic Floor

So I've realized two things in the last few days:
1. This blog is slowly morphing from a blog about being a new wife to a blog about remodeling a house.  I'm hoping that in two weeks that changes dramatically.  I'm not exactly a "This Old House" kinda gal!
2. I kinda stink at posting on a regular basis.  Also something I hope changes in the next few weeks.

Now on the floors.  For those of you who don't know, the kitchen floor has been the thorn in my side throughout this entire home remodel.  We got no glue vinyl flooring over Memorial Day weekend when my wonderful family was down helping us work on the house.

My wonderful uncle and grandparents!

Now none of us had ever laid this type of flooring but we were up for the adventure.  We removed all of the appliances and the quarter round from the walls (which was actually kind of fun).

The old floor

 Rolling out the floor was pretty easy and even cutting it to size was okay.  We made a few minor errors, but nothing that couldn't be fixed.  We nailed the quarter round back in and installed the two new pantry-sized cabinets - everything was smooth sailing up to this point.

The new floor

Then disaster struck!  

While putting the range back into place a VERY large tear was put into my brand new floor.  Now let me tell you, I did not handle it very well.  I even ran out of the house and up the street at one point.  After I calmed down - and apologized to my family for acting like I was 12 - I spent an hour laying on the floor trying to cut out the perfect patch.  I got very, VERY familiar with a utility knife.  The patch looked - okay?  But thankfully it was in an area that could be covered with a throw rug!

Flash forward about two weeks.  We needed to move a shelf in our new refrigerator.  I was so scared about moving it out because of the floor.  Darrin said it would be fine and did it one Tuesday while I was at Small Group.  He said everything was fine...but I came to find out that wasn't the case that FRIDAY when he finally told me the floor had pulled up and bubbled.  According to Darrin my reaction was much better then he expected (could have had something to do with the fact that we were out to dinner and I was on my second glass of wine and knew something chocolate was in my future?).  He had a friend fix it that weekend and our wonderful flooring guy said he'd work on it when he installed our carpet.  

Now by this point I'm afraid to even walk on this floor.  Which isn't good because the kitchen is a pretty important room in the house - I mean, we have to eat, right?  Honestly, I'm pretty sure everyone who's had a 2 minute conversation with me knows about this floor.  I figured that it was okay though and it would last us a year or so.  

Well this past Friday Darrin was out with a friend and went over to the house to build our drawers that match our (new) desk!  I took a quick peak in the kitchen to see if I needed to do some cleaning, and that's when I saw it...it was huge, and right there in my new floor.  ANOTHER TEAR!  Now I'm not even sure HOW this happened.  It was right under the freezer  - but there it was, starring me in the face, mocking me for my new-found serenity over this floor.  This time, I kind of lost it.  This floor (which is less than SIX WEEKS OLD) is advertised as being No-Tear.  The first tear I could get over, the stove was big and not exactly normal wear-and-tear, but this second tear?  No clue how it happened.  Nothing was dropped or moved or anything. All I could think was, "God, I know there is a reason this $150 floor is giving me this much aggravation, PLEASE let me learn it before I lose my mind."  

I was able to call Home Depot that night and explain the situation.  The manager was very nice and told me to come in the next day.  I went and saw him and am hoping that we can get a new floor for no cost.  I also called our flooring guy and he's going to install a new (hopefully better) floor for us next weekend when we're in Charlotte (he's also charging us about 40% less then normal since we've been using him a lot - there really is something to be said about forming relationships with people).  

So after about six weeks of stress and borderline total obsession I'm finally getting a new, NEW floor in my kitchen.  

I'm still not sure what lesson I should be learning from this?  To let the professionals do it?  That there is still good in people (mainly the nice guy at Home Depot who is working to get this fixed for me)?  That it's just a floor and I'm lucky I have one to stress out about? Or maybe that everything will work out in the end.

Well, now I'm off to work on the dining room floor - don't worry, it's real hardwood so I'm just going to polish it and lay an amazing area rug down!

Just curious - have any of you ever remodeled your house?  Did you have any hiccups like this?  Leave a comment below! 

The Great Desk-capdes!

A desk might be the easiest piece of furniture to buy.  Or at least it should be.  A flat surface to write on, a few drawers to store things in, maybe a shelf or two if you're really feeling adventurous. 

At least that's what I thought until we went out to find a desk.  I wanted white to match the bed going in the "office"/spare, spare bedroom.  We couldn't find a white desk that wasn't $400 or made for a 10 year old girl.  Neither was acceptable, especially to Darrin.  So I decided to cave and go with black.  We're doing a mix of black and white furniture in our bedroom so I figured it wouldn't look too bad extending to another room of the house.  We looked a several desks and I realized that each of us had very different views on what we were looking for.  After a day (and about 10 stores) we had narrowed it down to two choices, one I liked and one he liked.  In the end, his pick ended up winning.  He did tell me I could pick out the chair though.  I want an accent chair NOT a desk chair so I want something unique looking - which is kind of hard to find. 

Anyway, we buy the desk and carry all 300 pounds of it into the garage.  We were going to wait until the carpet was laid to assemble it.

On Monday after the carpet was down we decided to build our first piece of new furniture.  Terry, our wonderful handyman, was over painting and doing some other work around the house and warned me that this was going to be a very long project.  I figured he was nuts and that I could have this baby knocked out in under two hours (cue very VERY loud laughter!).  Two days would have been a more realistic goal.

The issues began before the desk was even out of the box.  Darrin had laid the box down upside down.  I had already started to open it before I realized this.  I felt like I was digging for buried treasure as I searched for the instructions and hardware package.  Plus I wasted a good 15 minutes!!

I put the first three pieces together in a very fast 30 minutes, only to realize that they seemed a bit uneven.  I took them apart and did it again.  Same results.  At this point I decided that maybe they would be this way until more of the pieces were added (Note to self: Like multiple choice tests, it's best to go with your first instinct when building something - if something is crooked and it shouldn't be it WILL NOT fix itself the more pieces you add to it).  So anyways, I kept building.  After a few more steps (did I mention there are 29 steps to assembling this desk?) the instructions told me that I had to measure 1 1/4 inches to nail in a peg.  I've built a lot of things in my 28 years and never once have I needed a tape measure.  That's why I buy the furniture instead of building it from scratch. 

After a tape measure and hammer got involved (and another 45 minutes passed) it was time to start putting the tops (yes tops, multiple) on.  That was a two-person job to say the least.  We're over two hours in at this point and still have about 10 steps left.  I was starting to get frustrated.  All that was left at this point was the drawers and the door.  We moved the desk into place and I stepped back to admire my work.  That crooked piece from before was STILL crooked.  In fact, it looked worse.  So much for my genius idea that it would fix itself.  Although for the life of me I still can't figure out what I did wrong.

I needed a break (and I was super excited to try KP's chicken recipe - see previous post - which was beyond amazing by the way) so I decided to call it a day.  I thought maybe once the door was on and drawer in it would be fine.

I went back today and got the door on - crooked spot not fixed.  Then I started on the drawers.  After 5 minutes of comparing numbers on screws to the number on the instructions I realized that I was missing screws.  Second Note to Self: NEVER throw away a box until whatever you building is finished.  Being the great guy that Darrin is, he dug through the trash, but we still couldn't find the right part.

I was so nervous about the fact that the desk looked crooked I just wanted to get the drawer built and see if that fixed anything.  Cue our latest trip to Lowes.  And cue the fact that they don't sell #10 1/2 inch screws at Lowes.  I finally threw up my hands and asked Darrin if we could please return this cursed piece of furniture and pick out something else.

I called Office Max and they told me I could return it - just to disassemble as much as I could and bring it back.  I didn't even need the box!  Pretty sure that's my favorite thing about the desk - the fact that it can go back!!!  So now we're back to square one.  Tomorrow I plan on taking it apart and returning it and hopefully having a beautiful, straight desk by this weekend. 

At least I'm pretty much an expert on putting things together - which is good because all six pieces of the bedroom suite we're getting in two weeks needs to be assembled!!!  If those of you another part of the country here very loud screams next Sunday you'll know it's me trying to get an wardrobe or two built!

Chicken Be My Muse!

We spent a LOT of time working on the house last night so I'm taking a morning off.  Honestly, I'd be at Church right now but Darrin started volunteering in the middle school ministry so I'd have to go to the early service alone or he'd have to go to two back-to-back services - I'm not a fan of either option, so until we figure something out I'm watching the service online.  But I digress...

With all my "free time" this morning I'm trying to get my grocery list together and get my shopping done.  We have a nice little routine in the Lemmon/Overholt households - after Church on Sunday we go to lunch and then knock out our grocery shopping.  I try to only go to the store once a week - it saves me a ton of money because I don't pick up things I really don't need throughout the week!

I make my list by planning out our menu for the week, so I know exactly what I'll need to pick up.  This works really well for me and my need to be obsessively organized.  I love to cook and try and come up with fairly creative dinners for the nights Darrin comes over.  Right now I'm making us dinner 3, or maybe 4, nights a week.  In three weeks though, that's going to jump to SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK!  Now I'm pretty creative and I can search recipe sites like a champ, but I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to come up with great dinners EVERY night of the week. 

My friend Kristen recently started a blog as well (http://notsodomesticated.com/) and posted a super simple, but really great looking idea for dinner, http://notsodomesticated.com/2011/07/01/slow-movin-bbq-chicken/, and I realized that her 6+ months have marriage have already made her an expert on the whole cooking for the hubby thing and that chicken dish became my inspiration!  I've always thought simple wasn't fun when it came to food (I'll post what I'm cooking for dinner below, which I think it's middle of the road creative/complicated-wise as for as what I usually make for dinner) but that slow cooker chicken looks yummy!  So yummy, in fact, that's going to be our 4th of July dinner (Thanks KP).  I think I'm going to try and make corn bread with bacon and jalapenos to go along with it (who doesn't love bacon and jalapenos, right?) and maybe sweet potato fries or roasted squash "fries."  Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

But that's tomorrow.  For dinner tonight I'm doing a stuffed chicken breast over whole wheat spaghetti.  I've made it once before and it turned out really well!  Darrin is the least picky eater ever - as long as he can't taste the egg!

Ingredients:
Chicken Breast
Package of frozen spinach (defrosted)
1 C. Ricotta cheese
LOTS of Mozzarella cheese (yes, LOTS is a cooking term in my mind)
1 egg white 
Bread crumbs
1 egg (beaten)
Sauce (I used homemade last time, but this time I'm using "jar sauce" which I liken to me spitting on my grandmother, but I just don't have the time to make sauce today)
Whole wheat spaghetti

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Pound out the chicken breast until they're about 1-inch thick (this is still the hardest part for me)
Mix the spinach (I only needed about 3/4 of the package), the ricotta, the mozzarella, and the egg white in a bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon a fair amount of the mixture into the center of each chicken breast and roll up each piece.  (I had to use toothpicks to hold them together last time!)
Dip each piece of chicken in the beaten egg and then in the bread crumbs
Place seam down and bake, covered, for 25 minutes
Remove from oven and pour sauce over the chicken.  Return to oven, uncovered, and bake for another 20 minutes.
Start boiling the water for the pasta and then cook according to the package (just remember whole wheat pasta take longer!)
When the chicken is cooked, sprinkle with additional cheese and heat until melted.

Serve the chicken over the cooked pasta - add extra sauce if you want!

See, it's a tad too complicated to cook like that every night.  Anyone have any easy, but yummy, recipes to share?  Suggestions are always welcome...although maybe I should just start instituting "Leftover Night" - I'm sure that would save me a day or two of cooking!