The GREAT OUTDOORS tries to COME INDOORS!

Sorry this one is late, but it has been a pretty crazy week!

Last Friday afternoon our office closed early so I got off early. My mom and I headed to the Legends, Mall, and Gordmans to do some shopping. At Gordmans we came up with the idea of putting vases above the fireplace. Not on the mantle, but the triangle section above the mantle where the fireplace stops. So we hunted and I mean hunted for vases that were different textures and sizes, but a natural color palette. We went as far as setting them all up on the corner of a register. We swamped them in and out to see what went with what. This was seriously a good hour and half process. We finally ended up leaving with a perfect combination of 8 vases. We get home and I show off my accomplishment to my husband only for him tell me "That isn't $200.00 worth of vases (I actually spent $161.00 and it included two brackets to hold pictures up). There are flowers. No flowers. I don't like it". By this point my heart just dropped! Talk about raining on your parade! Boys just don't get it! Josh is not a typical guy. During the whole wedding planning process he had an opinion and he wasn't the groom that said do whatever you want it is more important to you than me. Nope Josh was involved. With that being said do you really think he isn't going to have an opinion about how our house will be decorated. Later that evening after I explained that when I am excited about something you need to be happy for me whether you like it or not. Fake it. I don't give a shit, but be happy and don't rain on my parade. Of course I had to give an example of how if he came home with a deer and wanted to mount it and I acted like he did how would he feel. The point got across after that.

Saturday did not start any better! I could tell from the start when we first headed out that we really weren't in the mood and the task to find a picture for our house would be much more difficult than I thought. Josh suggested we go to Cabelas first. Cabelas is a hunting store..... oh, but they had pictures! Apparently Josh wanted to bring the GREAT OUTDOORS INDOORS! We had pictures of pheasant, deer, dogs, etc. The one of the horses really caught Josh's eye and I told him there was no way horses were going to be galloping through my living room! That is just not happening! We left Cabelas a little pissy at each other and headed to Nebraska Furniture Mart in hopes to find a picture we both liked. NFM was horrible. It was one thing after another. We started looking at dinning room tables only to move onto chairs, then to couches, and finally to we just left pissed off at each other! Everything seemed like a battle and we could not agree on a damn thing. Which is frustrating for both of us. Josh thinks that every single of piece of furniture needs to recline! My comment to that is... Is everyone going to come into our house and sprawl out or what? Shit... every piece of furniture does not need to recline. Come on now! So we drove home and took naps. Yes, we took naps. We argued all the way home and when we got there we laid in bed and took naps like little kids. We both needed one! We woke up and sorted out or differences on paper. We wrote down a list of things we wanted in the house and for the house. Of course mine were a lot of I want this, I want that, etc. Josh's last one on this list of course was... I want you to be happy in OUR house. Yes, he did write it just how I typed it. By the time this was done we felt much better. So off to Target we went! Round two was much better than round one. Right off the bat we found a picture we both loved! Yay! Thank you Target! You just may have saved our marriage! Just kidding, but it was great! The rest of the evening went so well and much more pleasant than the morning! So we officially have a picture to hang on the wall!

I am telling you buying a house, moving, and decorating have really challenged our marriage. We love each other very much, but some days it is harder than others. Oh, and Josh is still tobacco free! I am sure that is not helping very much either. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we notch away the next 21 days until we move!

Three Weeks Chew Free and the Storage Unit from Hell!

Right off the bat I want to update everyone on Josh's chew-free status! Today he is THREE weeks and FOUR days dip free! Yay! Big ol' smooch to him! And the best thing about the smooch....tobacco free! He is still going strong chomping on those nasty white life saver mints. Pop them one after another. This past Saturday was a rough one for him. He spent the morning at his mom's house grading out her front yard. Well I think Jason did the grading and Josh assisted or supervised. Not really sure. But anyways, Jason and Tim (later joined them once the work was complete) both chew. So boys being boys.... Jason and Tim both gave him a hard time! Including saying "I am going to tell Melissa you were chewing!" Silly boys! What they don't get is this is all Josh! He is the one who decided to quit. There was no nagging, bitching, or threatening on my part. I simply gave him a little more motivation. Ok so Josh is still going strong and if you have his phone number, facebook, my space, etc. give him a pat on the back or a way to go! He really deserves it and appreciates all the support!

House Update....
So many of you know that we after our wedding we opened all our gifts, sent out our Thank You cards and put all our gifts into storage. Now our wedding was nine months ago. Yes nine! How time flies! So we both have no clue what we got as gifts. To add to this situation, when we were packing up and moving out of our duplex I got into the habit of saying pitch it we will either get one for our wedding our we can just buy a new one. Well...this leads us to not knowing what the crap we need! I do however distinctively remember saying screw taking the trash can it is going to the curb. So I do know we need a trash can and I am currently on the hunt for one ;) In fact Mark, my brother, aka Sparky, is moving out today into an apartment. His end tables, dryer, and coffee table are being stored in our storage unit. He was very persistent in wanting to get these items out even after I told him that they are most likely buried with wedding gifts and other items. So we went to the storage unit last night and returned home empty handed. Mark did crawl to the back and found his coffee table buried under a headboard, box spring, Josh's man chair, which was broke into two pieces for easy storage. Needless to say he could not get to it with out breaking something. To top it off, even if he could unbury it, he would have to scale Josh's dresser, a couch, washer, and dryer in order to make it out! I am not sure if he even found his end tables. This just shows how unorganized, jam packed, and out of control our storage unit is!

Other random notes from this past week and weekend:

We took our dogs, Harlie and Ella, to be cleaned Saturday morning, only to have to take Harlie to the vet. The place we take them received an incorrect shipment of shampoo and Harlie had a horrible reaction to it. The vet had to shave a 3 inch long and 2 inch wide patch of hair down the back of her neck. It looked like a really bad burn that was scabbed over. It was very nasty! Needless to say the grooming company paid our $80.77 vet bill.

Josh finally got to cut down the tree that he hates at my parents house. It is the one that cracked his mirror on his truck and always puts sap crap on the cars. This was a late Saturday afternoon/early Sunday morning project. He loved every minute of it!

I am officially "training" for the Tiblow Trot! Lexie and Chrisie will be doing it with me! Yay! It is a five mile run through the town of Bonner Springs. I have to start now in order to build up the five miles! Wish us luck!

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend! Oh, and KFC's grilled Chicken ROCKS! Try it!

AN OUT of CONTROL SOMBRERO and TWISTER!

Ok, so my house blog was ridiculously long so I had to do a separate blog for my BFF, Lexie's birthday celebration. Lexie's birthday was Wednesday, May 6th and she wanted to have a little get together consisting of dinner and games. Needless to say the evening was a blast!

Some of highlights of the night were:

Lexie hitting the Marg's pretty hard! Love it! Oh, and the Mexican restuarant employees sing to Lexie as she is wearing a huge, out of control sombrero!

Team Two Ovaries and a Wiener! Thank you Jenny, Jen, and Josh! BTW you guys rock at Taboo!

Twister! In a not so spacious area! Jen took out the lucky bamboo plant and the entertainment center which made the decorative plate tumble. I realized that over the years my ass has gotten bigger and it was much easier to play this game when it was smaller and I was younger! Sorry for wiping you out with it Jenny! Note low cute jeans and twister = ass crack! Thanks for sheileding ours Lex!

Oh, and the famous Spoons game! Poor Clayton.... spoons never is enough letters so we always have to give him spooning! This way he gets to stay in the game longer!

The night was a blast! I must say that hanging out with my group of friends is always such a joy and it is great to watch us grow up and change! So to my girls here is a shout out that I love ya and I can't wait to see what the future holds for all of us!

Oh, and the next day I heard that later that eveing after Josh and I departed the barking spiders came out to visit Clayton!

The ugly becomes LOVELY!

I am ecstatic to report that Josh and I have purchased a home! Well almost.... we are scheduled to close on June 19th! I am sure you are wondering how the hell this happened! Especially since we were having a rough time house hunting last week as noted in last weeks blog! Weeelllll here is the gossip, 411, dl, etc.:

Wednesday evening of last week (I had already posted our blog that afternoon, otherwise I would have reported this) we went to three houses. The first was all brick. It was kinda dark and not very airy or bright inside. It made me feel like a hermit. It wasn't the worst house we had seen, but I didn't fall in love with it. Josh liked it, but he didn't love it either. Oh, I forgot to mention that all the houses we looked at Wednesday evening are located in Basehor, Ks. So we moved on to the next house and kept the brick house on the list as a maybe. We pulled up to the second house of the evening and I thought to myself that this house looked nice from the outside. But it was the moment I walked inside that I realized I absolutely LOVE this house. The more we walked around the more I fell in love with it! The kitchen was open and had plenty of room for Josh to cook (if you didn't know Josh does most of the cooking. I hate to and he is VERY good at it). It has three bedrooms down the hall from the kitchen and one more down in the basement. This house had everything! A nice big garage and "man" room for Josh. The master bedroom had a walk in closet and bath with a whirlpool tub! If this house was sitting on 10 acres we would have just found our dream home! This house was the first house Josh and I both loved and agreed on! The back yard was nice and big for our doggies! Even better it was built in 2006 so maintenance would be minimal for us! Big high five there! Oh, and it is move in ready. We got in the truck to see the next house and I told Josh I LOVE this house and would like to put a bid in on it. Needless to say when we arrived at the third house of the evening it didn't even have a chance. I found so many things that I really disliked because I was comparing it to the previous house that I loved.

So Thursday evening we took my parents and Jason Moore to the house for a look and decided to put a bid in. Now for those of you who are not aware of this. I have recently became a little penny pincher. So this being said you should not be too shocked when I tell you our offer was 30K less than the listing price. You will also not be shocked when I tell you they rejected our offer and our agent had to talk there agent into counter offering. The whole process was extremely frustrating for Josh and me. The sellers did not want to come off their price at all. They had little room to negotiate given they had only lived in the house for 3 years. It wasn't until Monday morning we finally had a signed contract by both parties. Our scheduled closing date is June 19, but we are shooting for an earlier one if possible. Below are some pictures I took today at the inspection. Please note the furniture is not ours.

Josh's 'Man' Room

Living Room

Back of House

Loooking in back yard from deck

Kitchen

Relaxing in Oklahoma and The Ugly gets Uglier!

This past Friday Josh and I headed south to Oolagah, Oklahoma to spend the weekend with my cousin, Lacey and her boyfriend, Jacob. Friday night after Mexican food we headed back to the house to hang out. Around ten Lacey and I both decided to get ready for bed. About 20 minutes later we both come back into the living room sporting our Arkansas Razor Back pajama pants, a white oversized shirt, and our retainers. It was so funny. We even took our retainers out and compared them. Josh and Jacob just looked at us like we were crazy. We busted up laughing! Saturday morning we all went to an early lunch at the Silver Dollar Cafe or maybe it was a bar. Not sure. From there the guys headed to the gun show and we headed to Tulsa to do some shopping. Shopping was fun and it allowed for Lacey and me to get caught up on some girl talk. Later that evening we met up at the house to grill, watch the derby, and the boys shot their bows. After dinner we headed to the Bowling Alley! It has been really long time since Josh and I bowled, but it was a lot of fun. Jacob ended up winning the first game and I ended up winning the second. Sometime during the two games Josh hurt is hip. So he has been whining about it. I don't even know where to begin to think how you hurt your hip bowling. We spent Sunday morning watching a movie and around 1:00 pm we headed back north. It was great to see Lacey since the last time I saw her was my wedding. Oh, and during our stay Josh and I slept in a full size bed. Now when I say slept I mean that Josh slept and I ended up on the couch the first night and I was too damn tired to second night from the first night of not sleeping to even make it to the couch. It was an amusing experience for the two of us.

Ok on to house hunting! Blah! Tuesday evening we went back to the Tongie house for a second look. This time we were able to get into the back yard and this time we confirmed that the house has foundation issues. Yikes! So we marked this house off the list and we are officially out of houses to look out that meet our specifications. Crap! Needless to say the drive home was a little intense. Two reasons: 1) Josh really liked that house and was a bit disappointed and 2) he is a week and two days into being chew free! So after some discussion and frustration we have decided to change our criteria. We have dropped the acreage and now are looking for 3 bedrooms and 2 baths in a reasonable price range, our price range. Now this comes with some thought. First we love my parents and we are very grateful for everything they have done for us, but it is time for us to move out and have our own house. Second we have decided that with our price range in order for us to get land we have to sacrifice the features of the house. Which I am not willing to do. So this lead us to our final thought. We can buy a house we like and in 5 to 6 years move or build on acreage. That evening I called our agent and lined us up to view three houses in Basehor tonight. Two are in a subdivision and one is just on a city lot. After tonight I am done looking out houses for the week! Please send all happy house thoughts our way!

Tobacco Free Update: Josh is one week and three days chew free! Yay! I am so so so proud of him! Although on the way down to Oklahoma he was eating those nasty life saver mints like they were candy. I know they are candy, but I mean he wasn't even sucking on them. He would pop one in his mouth and five seconds later he was gnawing on it like a steak. Good thing he bought the BIG bag! Question.... Have you ever been house hunting with a man that just quit chewing? It isn't always pretty! ;)

Josh shooting his bow.

Lacey and me at the bowling alley!

Josh at the bowling alley

Husband and wife at the bowling alley!

House Hunting.... The good, the bad, and the Ugly!

Josh and I started looking at houses this week. Sunday evening I contacted our real estate agent, Renee. By the way, she is great! Thanks for referring us to her Megan! I found this house in Basehor, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath and it sits on an one acre lot. Yes! Everything we wanted! Wrong... not everything we wanted. We get to the house Monday evening only to find out it has major foundation issues. Major cracks on the basement floor, garage floor, and up the walls. We quickly say no. As does our agent. Now of course I am crushed since my hopes were up so high. I am just devastated. Pictures can be so deceiving. So Josh and I cruise the Basehor area in hopes of stumbling upon our perfect house. Needless to say we did not find our perfect house and we wasted gas in the process. Monday was a very disappointing house viewing evening.

Tuesday morning I emailed our agent and we setup showings for three houses for that evening. One in Tonganoxie, one in Basehor, and one South of Lansing, just off K-7. We, as in me, Josh, my mom and dad, met the agent at 5:30 pm at the house in Tonganoxie. The house was an instant hit for Josh. He fell in LOVE immediately. The 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house sits on 5 acres and has a shop and stocked pond. Seriously I think Josh would have moved in the next day. I, however, didn't have that gleam in my eye like Josh did. The house is a split entry and needs a lot of updating. I mean A LOT. The kitchen cabinets are so old and I believe the counter top is the original one. Did I mention it was a yellow counter top? The only room that has been updated is the main bathroom. The driveway will need to be dug up, re-graded, and poured again due to water coming into the garage. Crappy construction! This house would take a lot of work, sweat, weekends and I am sure cause some husband and wife spats/blow ups. I do like the idea of remodeling a home. I think it could be fun, but I am not sure about the drive. It would take Josh and me 30 to 40 minutes to get to work. Our future children would also end up in the Tonganoxie School District. Overall the first house of the evening was a hit for Josh and had potential for me. We moved on to the house #2 of the evening in Basehor. It instantly got marked off the list. No mater bath equals NO offer. On to Lansing! Now this house was very interesting. The owners converted the garage into living area for their elderly mother. It had a living room, bedroom, bath, and kitchen area. However, the second living area was a turn off. And the fact that my husband made the comment that he would just stay down there to live and wouldn't have to come to the main level to see his wife. I knew it would be true! He would turn it into his “man room”. On that note we ended our evening of house hunting.

So after one major fight and many discussions, Josh and I are going to go back to the house in Tongie this Tuesday to take a look one more time and most likely make an offer. Unless some major problem jumps out at us then all bets are off!

Those of you who think house hunting is fun....well it is not. Not for us at least. We have two opinions and we are only purchasing one house. And we are two very stubborn people! Please say a prayer for us. Divorced before our one year anniversary would not be good ;)

Oh, and Josh has been dip-less for four days! He as not had a dip since last Saturday! Last night when we went to Wal-Mart he stocked up on gum and grabbed the biggest bag of mints I have ever seen! He has had a couple of moments that he is not thinking very rationally and is easily irritable, but overall he is in a great mood and is doing a GREAT job. His only complaint is that his jaw hurts from chewing so much gum. Keep your thoughts and prayers headed his way! I am so proud of him! Just as I promised… I put $40 into his “man account” this week!

Try to stay dry everyone!

Josh Steps UP to the Challenge and College Fun All Over Again!

Josh has accepted my offer! Last Wednesday we went to Wal-Mart and when we were checking out I watched Josh grab two packs of gum and a pack of mints. He looked over at me and smiled. At first I was wondering what the heck he was doing, but then I put two and two together and realized what he was doing. Instead of quiting cold turkey, he decided it would be best to wean himself off of it. He has cut back drastically and he is very proud of himself. Since starting his mission there have been two occasions when he has taken his can out and showed me the contents followed by "See look how little is gone. This is the can I opened two days ago!" He is like a little kid and you can tell he is excited and proud. As his wife and best friend, I couldn't be more impressed or prouder! So everyone keep Josh in your thoughts and prayers that he can keep the good work up! Oh, and those of you who are wondering- he hasn't really been cranky.

For those of you that have not heard Josh and I are approved for a Rural Loan. This is exciting news for several reasons 1) this loan is a 100% financing which means we do not have to put any money down 2) there is no PMI and 3) we can begin looking at houses! When we first started the pre-approval process and looked into this loan option we made too much money and did not qualify, but as of this past Friday the board changed the requirements and we now barely qualify, but I will take it! Needless to say is was a great Monday!


This past weekend I headed to Hays, Kansas with one of my bestest (yes bestest) friends, Lexie. Some of you may remember her from my wedding. We have been friends since college and lived together in our sorority house. The reasoning behind this road trip to Hays was to attend the Delta Zeta Formal. The chapter advisor was resigning and they were honoring her with a special award so several of us decide to attend. Now this was a girls weekend. We left Saturday morning and came back Sunday afternoon. I must say it was an absolute blast seeing everyone and acting like we were in college all over again. Our evening began at Judges Bar and Grill. Where we had a Judgement Shot and Drink. (Side note: In college every Tuesday Lexie and I would go to Judges and have drinks and blow off some DZ steam. These outings became Judgement Tuesdays. ) After reminiscing we headed to Formal where we meet up with the rest of the gals. After Formal and some pictures (see picture below), we all decided to change and meet up at NeighBARS.



NeighBARS was a no-go! A $5 cover charge for a band I didn't even know. No thanks! So we went to Chucks (right below NeighBARS) and had a drink there. There we realized the UFC fights were on and they were blaring the TVs. So after one drink we jetted to the Q. The Q ROCKED! The special that night was $2.50 doubles, yes $2.50! That is super cheap. So needless to say we, as in Lexie and I, proceed to consume our share of $2.50 doubles! Now the Q is a bar and grill. It has a ton of pool tables and makes me think of Sidepockets, but better and the food is cheaper. Now after several doubles, we all were ready to hit another bar with some music. Just like old times we ditched the car (we are strong believers of not drinking and driving) and trucked across the railroad tracks to the Sip N' Spin. Famous for its dance cage (yes we have all been in it) and the big yellow bus the DJ sits in, the Sip brings back some great memories and was a favorite.


(Note the big yellow bus in the background)

From the Sip we trucked 3 blocks to the Rose, well it seemed like 3 blocks. This was one of Josh and my favorite bars to go to. Since then it has really changed, but you still see cowboy hats among the crowd. Now, our car is at the Q and we are at the Rose and it is time to go back to the Nasty Ramada Inn (formerly the Holiday Inn). So we called the Safe Ride Bus! Let me tell you that the Safe Ride Bus scared US, well at least me. This guy drove like a bat out of hell! I am surprised we didn't puke! Now this bus apparently isn't just for college students, because we picked these two 40 year old chics up from the Sip. The 20 minute ride across town to our hotel sure was full of drunken chatter with total strangers! Below is a picture of all the gals that came back for Vicki's resignation. We all had a blast!