Renters Insurance...

Way back at the begining of the month I called my car insurance provider and added the Mr to my plan and I added renter's insurance to our plan. Apparently it's a good idea to have it. I've been renting for 3 1/2 years (counting college) without it but whatever...

One of the questions that the guy at the insurance company asked me was if I ran a business out of my home. I don't. But it got me thinking about how much I want to. I would love to be able to work from home. I would love to be able to make things, sell them, and have that be my job. I know that it would be hard. I know that I would have problems finding the motivation to do work and to make things. I know that I would have to sacrifice other things because I probably couldn't make the same kind of money that I do here at the church (which isn't much, believe me). But I would love the freedom. And I would love to be home with our children someday. But then I think about the reality of it all and the kind of things that I know how to make and that I'm good at making are the kind of things that etsy is already full of. Do you guys think that the market is already over saturated with homemade crafty things? Do you think there's room for one more? Do you think I'm crazy?

For those of you that do run a crafty business out of your home: do you find that you make enough to survive on? Do you feel pressure to be creative and make new things? Do you have motivation to make things? Do you still like crafting or does it take the fun out of it?

I don't really know where to go with this or what to make of these feelings that I have. I'm just throwing questions out there for the time being. We'll see what comes of it.

Love, Mrs. K

Valentine's Day Mantle

I love fireplaces. One day I really really really want to have a wood buring fireplace in my house. The look, the smell, the sound, :)...

But for now, I live in a rental to I'll settle for just a mantle. That's right, I just have a mantle form, like an outline.

See? While, since Pinterest came into my life I have seen plenty of fun ways to decorate your mantle. So on Sunday, while the hubs way away, I crafted.

Actually, the mantle was not my intended target when I started crafting on Sunday. The front door was...

I had seen this wreath on Pinterest and really wanted to make one:



via

So on Saturday while I was in Fargo, Ashley and I went to Hobby Lobby and I got fabric (I hate that I have to drive 2 hours to go to a Hobby Lobby, who's idea was it to move here??), but I couldn't/didn't have time to find a wreath form. So when I got home I ripped and cut the fabric into strips that were 8 x 1 1/2 inches.



Lots and lots of pieces of fabric. Then I got out some wire that I had at home from making wire words (check out this post to read about wire words) and I made a heart frame. I figured if I had to make my own wreath frame I could make it any shape that I wanted. Then I started tying the fabric to the heart

Then, after lots of tying and squishing together and tying and squishing together and adding a ribbon to hang it from- I had a finished heart shaped wreath to hang on my front door:

Aside from the wreath- it's my door beautiful? I love that it's old and it has bevelved glass and that there are sratches in the wood. It's not very warm or energy efficent but it's so beautiful and it just looks like it has stories to tell. I absolutely love old houses. I love their charm and character. The Mr wants a new house that doesn't have problems and is energy efficent. Blah, blahm blah. We'll just have to build one someday that looks old... Think I can talk him into it??

When I finished the wreath I had a bunch of little strips of fabric left. Well, I had seen this on pinterest and really wanted to make one:

But I didn't have an extra string of white lights and I didn't really know where I'd put it. It'd be beautiful wrapped around a banister on an open staircase... but our house is only 1 floor so no staircase. It'd be cute in a little girl's room with mostly pinks, purples, and yellows... but no babies for us yet. Hhhmmm....

Now I have all of this left over fabric from the wreath. And I have white Christmas lights hanging in our bedroom that we never turn on. And I have a mantle that just has country chic looking things hanging from it. I could change it just for a month couldn't I? Of course I could, the Mr was out west snowmobiling- who was going to stop me?

Sorry it's kind of a bad picture, but you get the idea. And we already had nails to hang the lights from on the mantle from the country chic things and our Christmas stockings. Score!! I printed this off of pinterest and got the white frame at HL 1/2 off!!



Isn't it cute? I wish there way someway that I could show you how great it really looks when it's lit up at night. I love it!

After I finished that on Sunday night I figured I should be productive around the house... not nearly as much fun. But ever since we got married the Mr has been asking if we could have dinner at our dining room table. It kind of just became a dumping ground. It had wedding stuff all over it, cards, gifts, programs, favors, plates (paper plates still in the packages, not dirty ones), etc. It was basically covered in stuff that I hadn't gotten around to putting away yet. Apparently, eating dinner at our table is important to my Mr. If you read my SWW post today you'd know that it isn't as important to me since I am totally ok with chips and salsa for lunch. So I thought while he was gone I would get the table cleared off and...



I did!! Isn't our $50 rummage sale find table great?? But the clean table came at a cost...

My craft room...



From the door and then from the closet. Isn't it bad? I can't believe I'm actually sharing these with you!! You can kind of see the pile of gifts that need to be put away in the computer room from the picture by the closet. So I guess this needs to be my next project, clean and organizing the craft room so I can use it again and I don't have to craft on the living room floor (cuz I'm sure the Mr loves that...).

How about you? Did you decorate for Valentine's Day? Are you going to??

Love, Mrs. K

SWW... fail

So What...

*if it's Thursday and I'm just getting around to writing this? If you've been here for a while you know that I work in a church and churches are crazy busy on Wednesdays.

*if I write my SWW list during the week when I think of things so that I don't forget them?

*if I wore my pj's all day Sunday? Seriously- I got home from church and changed into them.

*if while the Mr was gone I had chips & salsa for lunch one day and ceral for dinner another day? When you don't have to cook for someone else it's way easier to eat what you want.

*if it was super easy to slip back into my "single life" while the Mr was gone? Now, I don't mean I was hanging at the bar and hitting on hot guys. I mean, I spent entire days in my pj's, crafted on the living room floor while watching sex & the city, didn't do my dishes until the night before he came home, things like that.

*if I crafted on Sunday afternoon instead of cleaning?

*if I don't leave for New Orleans for 2 weeks but I want to start packing already? I'm already thinking of how to make everything fit into a carry on...

*if I bought 2 cds at Target on Saturday and that's more then I've bought in the past 4 years?

What are you saying So What to this week?

Head on over to Life After I "Dew" to see what everyone

else is So What-ing and to link up!

Love, Mrs. K

My 1st Award!!

Cindy from Living... Laughing... Loving... gave me my first bloggy award. Yay! Thanks Cindy! Cindy gave me the Liebster Award:

Here's what her blog says about the award:

 "This award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers in the hopes that it will bring many new friends/followers.  Leibster is German and means 'dearest' or 'beloved' but it can also mean 'favorite'.

 The idea of the Leibster award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers.  So, in the spirit of good fun I am passing this award on to five other bloggers.  Please stop by and visit them.

The Rules are simple:1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your five picks for the award and let them know.

3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers.
5. Finally and the best rule of all..........have fun and spread the love!"

So now I get to pick my 5 favorite blogs with less than 200 followers and pass the awards on to them! Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Marcy from Marcy's 'Mazing Moments

2. Ana from Caffine & Cocktails and Adventures In The District

3. Emily from Bubble Baths & Shopping Bags

4. Bethany from the Holte Life- she hasn't posted for a while :( I miss you Bethany!!

5. Heather from GurleeGirrl- I just started following her last week & she's great!

 

You really should go check all of these ladies out- they're all great.

Have fun spreading the love ladies!

 

Love, Mrs. K

honeymoon recap #3- DISNEYLAND!!!

when i was little my family went on two vacations to disneyworld in florida. we went once when i was in in 2nd grade and again when i was in 7th. both were cool for different reasons. when i was in 2nd grade we went with a bunch of my dad's military friends who had kids close to my age so that was fun, i got to hang out with kids and meet disney characters. when i was in 7th grade we went with a program from our middle school where 2 teachers lead the trip and you get to learn things while having fun. also cool. we got to go on space mountain with the lights on as a science lesson. it's scarier with the lights on. that ride is seriously on top of it self and all scrunched together.

anyway, both times we were there i saw girls with minnie mouse bride ears. well they were probably in their mid-20's so not really "girls". and i knew that i wanted those ears one day. i knew right then and there that i wanted to either get married at disney or go there on my honeymoon. it was still mine then, not ours because i didn't know who i'd be marrying.

fast forward 13 years (gah!!) and i'm the one getting married and trying to plan a honeymoon. thankfully, my mr didn't also have a plan in his head that had been there since forever about where he wanted to go. thankfully, he was game for disney :) love him.

so, without further ado, here are the disneyland pictures that i know you have been dying to see:

we got to anaheim on sunday afternoon and we didn't want to pay for a whole day at disney just to see it at night (and they don't do 1/2 day or twilight tickets- whats up with that?!). i was bummed because it was the 8th of january and the last day that they're really decked out for christmas and the last night that they do the christmas parade. and there weren't going to be any parades or fireworks on monday when we had planned on going there. i pouted a bit, not gonna lie. but the mr said we could just go to downtown disney and see the decorations there, have dinner, and go back to our hotel where we could probably see the fireworks. we were seriously walking distance to disney. a 20 min walk but walking distance none the less. so that's what we did. we wandered around downtown disney, i got my minnie bride ears (i had to talk myself into, because let's be honest, who wants to spend $20 on ears that you'll really only be able to wear once. but they were the reason that we went to disney, so i got them- so happy!) and i tried to talk to mr into the mickey groom ears but he was not having it. he tried them on in the store and let me take his picutre but that was it. he told me that if i bought them for him, he wouldn't wear them so it would just be a waste of my $20. party pooper.

and we were able to see the fireworks for our hotel. in fact, we sat in the hot tub and watched them.

hello disneyland :) this was the 1st picture i took on monday

i feel like you just have to take this picture when you go to disney. it's iconic with the train station and mickey in the flowers.

here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy

they still had the tree up on main street!! ahh!! i was so excited!

the mr and i in front of sleeping beauty's castle

my bride ears :) yes, i wore them all day. i put them on at the hotel when i got dressed and only took them off when we went on rides.

first ride of the day- space mountain

it's a small world was still decked out for christmas :)

the lady working this ride was so funny- she gave the mr so much shit for not wearing the mickey groom ears

the clock had a santa hat on and the ride sang jingle bells and deck the halls along with it's a small world

i'll spare you all of the pictures from inside- each world was decorated according to their winter/christmas time holiday. so cool! i had my camera phone out the whole time.

minnie's house

us with minnie. we seriously had to wait in line to meet her. we were the only ones in line without kids.

the mr was embarassed.

minnie was jealous of my ring. the lady working with her (since minnie doesn't talk) told minnie that she should really talk to mickey about getting a ring like mine :)

mickey's house

us with mickey. mickey was in his "studio".

walt and mickey on main street

when we were getting a snack at disney, the guy working asked why the mr didn't have the mickey ears on. i told him the whole story. then he offered the mr his own just married pin. we had gotten one from minnie and mickey when they send us a picture of them for our wedding gift (if you invite them to your wedding- they'll send you a personlized autographed picture of them!). so the guy working got one for the mr too.

it's a small world.

i told you it was all decked out still. amazing!

disneyland: let the memories begin

as we were leaving we got our picture taken in front of the trainstation all lit up

the next day we went to knott's berry farm which is also an amusement park but it has bigger, faster rides. disneyland was fun but it didn't have the big, tall, fast rides that the mr was looking for. he likes the kind that you need straps over your shoulders for. knott's berry farm has rides like that. and it was seriously the best time to go there. we didn't have to wait in line for anything except for the horse and buggy ride (which was a 10 min ride & they only had one buggy). we went on all of their big coasters- some of them we went on 2 or 3 times. they have one that goes from 0 to 82 mph in 2.3 seconds. we went on that one 3 times.

the whole place kind of had an old west theme to it

the mr found a new girl friend outside of the saloon

we went on a train ride in a trian car that was pulled by an old school but called the galloping goose.

they have a building that is made entirely out of old wine and whiskey bottles. it's called the bottle house.

sorry that's hard to read- it just tells you about how they built the bottle house and why.

a knott's sign at night. the o turns into a berry!

on the last day of our honeymoon we went to manhatten beach to enjoy the beach one more time. i love the ocean, and the sand. i love walking in the sand barefoot. if i could be barefoot all the time i would, or at least wear flip flops all the time :) so here you have one last shot of the beach:



yes, i stopped walking in the middle of the cross walk to take this picture :)

before we had lunch, we walked around for a while and i saw this store. i couldn't resist taking a picture:

designer shoes AND fine chocolate?? yes please!

while we were having lunch in manhatten beach, i googled "things to do in LA" on my phone. we were looking for something fun to do for our last afternoon and we had no clue what to do. as you can see in the picture, it was kind of cloudy & a little chilly so we didn't want to spend the day on the beach and the shopping in manhatten beach was a little expensive for our taste.

the first link that google gave me was the top 100 free things to do in LA! then the website broke it into different catagories like museums, parks, art & culture, music. we picked the california science center. it was free to get in but the website didn't tell us that we'd have to pay $10 to park there... it's ok, $10 for an afternoon of fun wasn't bad.

the california science center is basically an interactive science museum- you should check it out. while we were there we:

picked up a truck. no joke- the mr really picked it up using the fulcrum. and it was a real truck!

rode a snowmobile and pretended we were at home

the white wall off to the left is a wall of ice!!

we also saw a huge human- they have this big simulator thing named tess that they use to teach people about the human body, i think she was 50 feet tall, but she way laying down. we also walked thro an aquarium, learned about sound & light, tried to fly an airplane like the wright brothers, and lots of other stuff. but we ran out of time! the museum is on the 2nd & 3rd floor of the building and they have a big imax screen, we only got to do/see the stuff on the 2nd floor. no 3rd floor, no imax screen. so if you go, give yourself the whole day, not just the afternoon.

then we took the rental car back, we did the option where you can bring the car back empty. according to the info button on the car, we had 8 miles until empty when we pulled into the garage at thrifty rental car :) but that last 10 miles from the science center to the airport were kinda scary- "are we going to make it??" then we took the shuttle to the hotel, had dinner at el pollo loco (the crazy chicken?), and tried to go to bed early since we had to leave for the airport at 4:30 the next morning! who thought at 6:50 am flight home was a good idea? oh yea, that would be alligent air, that's only time of day they fly from LAX to fargo. awesome.

it was such a fun trip! it was the first time the mr and i had really gone on vacation together. last winter we drove to southern mn to spend a few days with my grandparents and to share that part of my life with him (i was born there) but we'd never gone away together. now we have :) i'll probably never take another trip like it (a-honeymoon, b-no planning), but it was great.

so there you have it- our honeymoon :) and no, we did not come home preggers :)

in other news- i have been nominated for my first bloggy award!!! thanks Cindy!!! she nominated me for the "liebster award". in german liebster means 'dearest' or 'beloved' or 'favorite' and this award is for our favorite blogs that have 200 followers or less. this post has already gone on for to long so i will share the details and my nominations tomorrow but i just wanted to let you know cuz i'm so excited! thank again Cindy from Living... Laughing... Loving...!!

hope you're having a great day!
love, mrs. k

honeymoon part #2

on friday night we got all settled in santa monica. we went to bucca (an italian place) for dinner, then back to the hotel.

saturday was a big day for us. first we used the computer in the hotel lobby to book hotels for the rest of the trip (because deciding on the HI in santa monica was such a treat), then we drove into down town LA. oh my! what a different world then NW MN. we parked in the parking garage at highland and hollywood which is basically under the kodak theater. then we wandered for a bit, taking it all in, before setteling on the hard rock cafe for lunch.

after lunch we were off to take in the sights, but not before being haggeled to buy some dude's 'rap' cd on the street. do people really make money doing that? and do they really every get 'discovered'? anyway, first was the grumann's chinese theater:

there is just something so iconic about this building. the hand and feet prints of famous people are all over the grond right in front of the theater. holy crap- there were so many people there! you could hardly even take pictures of the famous concrete. i was suprised as to how small this area really is. there aren't that many suares of concrete with hand and feet imprinted in them. they must change them out, but what do they do with the ones that they take out? and who decideds who stays and how goes? because there were famous people from the 30's and 40's still there right along side the twilight trio.

also in that same area (well all over actually) are the stars on hollywood blvd on the sidewalk. i only took pictures of 3 of them because 1) it was so hard to get pictures with all of the people walking around, 2) i didn't want to totally give myself away as a tourist and 3) i didn't really know where any of the names/stars i would've taken pictures of were. so here is one of the three that i took:

i figured it was only fitting to take a picture of mickey's star since we were going to see him while we were there too :) i also took pictures of shrek's star and michael jackson's. then we went on a starline tour where we got to see famous people's houses. here's me and the Mr waiting to get on our bus:



we both just had t shirts on this day. it wasn't so bad until the end of our tour, when the sun started to dip a little. we were in a 15 passenger bus that had the top cut off so it was like a convertible. we both had serious goosebumps when we were done so we made a quick stop at h&m to get shirts with long sleeves!!

the very first thing we saw on our tour (seriously- the van didn't even have to move for us to see this) was the roosevelt hotel. the very first academy awards ceremony was held here, they gave out 12 awards and it only lasted for 16 minutes. i paid very close attention to our knowledgeable tour guide :) and, if i remember correctly, the same guy designed this and the chinese theater (which you would see if you could turn to the right in this picture/if you were sitting where i was)



our tour guide took us way up the hill to this iconic resturant. ok, i know i said i paid a lot of attention to him but i can not remember the name of this place. it used to be a hotel way up on the hill but now it's a resutrant that only serves dinner. anyway, this is where the tour takes you to see the hollywood sign:

since it was kind of foggy, this is the best i could do :( i wish you could see it better. but it's cool to be able to say that i've seen it in person.

other intersting things we saw on the tour:

the hotel where janis jopplin overdosed in room #105, michael jackson's elementary school (the auditorium is now named after him), beverly hills (that sign lights up at night!), and the hotel from pretty woman. it the movie it's call the regent beverly wilshire but in real life it has a different name, and it's right at the end of rodeo drive (baby!).

we also saw the homes of: frank sinatra, andy griffith, christina agulara, david & victoria beckham, jay leno, and desi arnez & lucille ball, as well as the beverly hill hotel where rooms range in price from $300/night to $5,000/night. yes, $5,000 A NIGHT. my stomach dropped too when i heard that.

after the tour (& getting warmer shirts) we were off to madame tussads was museum. which was cool, but a little creepy because they look so life like. you can touch them & pose with them you just can't touch their face or hair and someone comes once a week to touch up the face and hair. i don't think thats a job i could do. here are just a few of the people we got to see and the things that we got to do:

we saw miss gaga herself, our homegirl judy garland (she's from MN!), the Mr told the silence of the lambs guy who's boss, and i practiced my dancing with patrick :)

we also helped the president with some office work (aren't we nice? hehe! it's really a phone connected to nothing and a guest book), and we got to see the Beatles en-enact the abbey road cover.

the outside of the kodak theater- i wonder what will happen to this now that they declared bankruptcy. hmm... anyway, it was a very beautiful building inside and out.

outside of the theater we got to see the transformers!!!!

i have no idea who the guys are in this picture with them, i just wanted a picture of them and i didn't really want to wait to get my picture with them.

this trip also included my first visits to anthropology and trader joe's. i didn't buy anything at anthro. i swooned over lots of things, almost bought a book, and got a great idea for a birthday calendar (it just has the month at the top of the page, a list of numbers down the side and lines coming out from the numbers to write names on, so you don't have to re-do it every year. genius.). but i did make a purchase at trader joe's. i got pita chips, pretzel crisps and:

my very first two buck chuck. it wasn't bad, but it was $2 wine, you get what you pay for. the pita chips however, were devine!! we should've bought more then one bag.

after we got back to santa monica we walked out on the pier to enjoy it at night. so pretty and iconic:

then we asked the girl working at our hotel where the best place to get pizza in santa monica was. she looked kind of puzzeled and she said "like dominos?" no, i want something that we don't have in NW MN... so she directed us to a place called stephen's (i think) where they sell pizza by the slice. it's in the food court of the complex kitty corner from the hotel. so we walked over and they were closed already (it was a little after 9, we ate dinner late while we were on vaca). while, when we had been riding up the escaltor we saw another place called pizza antica so we went over there. we chose to do a build your own style pizza. when we're at home, we really like the chicken bacon artichoke pizza from papa murphy's. well this pizza anitca place had artichokes on the menu, they had oven roasted chicken, and they had priscutto (not bacon, but close) so we had a chicken bacon artichoke pizza in california:

looks a little different then it does in NW MN but it was still yummie. we ate the whole thing. and i drank 3 glasses of diet coke :) i love diet coke from a fountain, so much better then a bottle or can.

this is the beer list from the resturant. i don't drink beer. but i had to take a picture because some of the names of the local brews were so funny:

"mama's little yellow pills" "stone leviathon" "arrogent bastard ale" "victory golden monkey ale" haha!!

the complex that this resturant was in had benches that looked like ice blocks with lights in them:

funny because we really could have ice blocks that big here. as i was taking this picture the Mr was getting frustraded with me, "really, you're taking a picture of that? can we please just go?"

so there you have it, the second part of our honeymoon. next up- DISNEY!!!!!! whooop whoop!!

hope you're having a great day!

love, mrs k