Surprising Myself

...And everyone else, I'm sure. So all of my big ambitions and intentions I had of being crafty and becoming a better housewife came to a screeching halt with my 3rd trimester. I almost never make dinner anymore. Cooking is the last thing in the world that I want to do everyday. By the time evening rolls around I'm exhausted, have no appetite, and my house is 1,000 degrees (we have no AC.) I'm so grateful for a husband who, a) knows how to cook, b) likes doing it, c) is good at it, and d) does it without complaint. He really is so good to me. Not to be all mushy or cheesy but I really do have an amazing husband and I am so lucky every day. Preston, if you read this...thanks for everything!

Regardless of my recent lack of ambition, I have managed to accomplish a couple of things. For starters, I made my very first made-from-scratch pie ever. (I've only ever attempted pie like twice in my life and both times I used store bought crust. I'm lazy like that.) But this time I even made my own crust so I was proud of myself. So here is a picture of my strawberry-rhubarb pie. It doesn't look that pretty but it turned out pretty good!

The next thing I did was decide to become a "coupon user". Preston and I are tightwads and already live super frugally but with a baby coming we wanted to find other ways we could cut back on our budget. We decided we could possibly cut our food spending down if I start learning how to use coupons the right way. I was a little hesitant at first because I was afraid I would have to be obsessive in order for it to make a difference. I am pleased to announce, however, that in spending maybe half an hour of my time each week, I have been able to save us almost $200 just in the last month. I'm pretty proud of myself, I'm not gonna lie. I love saving money. I've felt really bad since losing my job so this is a way I can still feel like I'm kind of contributing, if that makes any sense.

The other thing I finally accomplished was clearing out the room we want to use for the nursery and painting it. We went through 3 different bedding sets and 3 different paint colors before I was finally satisfied. (Did I mention I have a really patient husband? I love you Preston!) I don't have pictures of it yet because I still need to paint a couple more things and then arrange furniture and organize stuff. It's taken me awhile but I think I'm finally nesting. It's driving me nuts that it isn't perfect yet! Not to mention the fact that I have only 5 weeks til the due date. If this kid decides to come early I will probably have a panic attack because of my lack of readiness! Anyways, moral of the story is that I will get my butt in gear, finish the nursery, and THEN post some pictures.

Our garden and flowers are all doing well this year. I feel like it is such a blessing to have a house with a yard that we can take care of and grow things in. It's something we both really enjoy and that we can do together. My handy little husband built some nice looking fences to keep our ginormous dog from digging in the garden and flowers. It turned out really nice, as things usually do when made by Preston.

I love Columbines

P.S. I know most people don't really care about all this stuff but I'm bored so I'm putting it on here anyway. :) Also, our dog isn't nearly as interesting to you as he is to us but until we have an actual kid to post pictures of, I feel somewhat entitled to post pictures of our dog. We think he is pretty funny. For some reason completely unknown to us, he is terrified of the hose. Yes, our 110 lb dog is scared of water. If we get the hose out to water our plants he runs and hides either behind the grill, under a chair, or in the house.

One of the reasons we got a dog like Tank was because we want a cool dog we can take camping who will romp around in the mountains with us and jump in the lake. We can't have a dog afraid of water! Plus we need to be able to bathe him. So we went and bought a little kiddie pool (as much for me as for the dog...I am a walking furnace these days!), and have been trying to slowly get him over his fear. It took us 45 minutes to get him to even step in it. Once he was in all he would do is paw at the water, creating bubbles, and then try to bite at the bubbles. He refused to lay down or sit in the water, but at least he was playing in it right? I tried to post a video of Tank in the pool but I couldn't get it to work so here is just a boring picture.


And just because I think these are funny too, here are some pics of how our random dog chooses to sleep. He's so weird but we love him.



Okay, now that you've vowed never to read our blog again, I will finally end. Since I only blog every few weeks anyway, maybe next time it will be about our kid!