March Barkbox

Last week we received Sophie's Barkbox in the mail! I'm telling you one of the few things that can give us that much joy in the mail is her Barkbox. Especially with everything that is going on we were so excited to open it.

Sophie couldn't sit still when Tim was trying to get her to sit, she was just SO excited!

The theme this month was the Australian Outbark and I was so excited when we opened the box and saw that! What a cute theme!

Every box has three plush toys. The ones we received in our box were:

A koala

A platypus

and a crocodile.

They are all super cute but the biggest hit so far has been the platypus. For some reason Sophie is drawn to it and we played quite a bit of tug with her with this one. 

In your Barkbox they always have a picture of all the other toys that went out. I love the lizard and the kangaroo! I'm always so tempted to order more but really does this girl need more toys?

We the answer seems to be yes because I added this piggies in a blanket toy to her box because I saw it on Facebook and thought it was funny!

We always give her one of each kind of treat so she can test them out and both were instant winners. The "long term" chews aren't quite as long term anymore. She can suck those down in a couple of minutes, but she still seems to enjoy them at least!

The only picture I managed to get of her during the box opening. This girl is always blurry when it comes to her Barkbox. She has the platypus in her mouth in this picture. (Turtle pictured is not from Barkbox and was gifted to her back in the fall)

Do your dogs get Barkbox? What toys did they get this month?

Life Lately: Social Distancing

We are getting really good at social distancing over here.  As an introvert I'm very good at being alone, so being alone with my husband and puppy is pretty easy for me! I do like to get on video chat with my friends and I talk to my mom every single day so it's not like I have no outside contact I'm just not seeing anyone in person right now. Which is what should all be doing and if you're not, GO HOME AND STAY HOME. Nothing matters more right now then staying home and letting the essential employees get their jobs done. We've been asked to stay home and do nothing, it's not that hard.

Anyways, here is what we've been up to around here!

I was very sad, although unsurprised when Tom Brady announced that he was leaving the Patriots. He has been a part of the Patriots family as long as I've been a Patriots fan and it will certainly be weird to cheer on another quarterback. Unless of course it's Sophie who gets the job. I sent this picture as a resume for her, so hopefully she'll be signing a contract soon :)

We've been trying to get out and go on a walk or do something active every day. Sophie pretty much demands it. Here she is sad she's not outside.

This is such a blurry picture but I love the way she is just standing over me :)

I already owned this shirt before the social distancing so you can see why it's not hard for me to stay home right?  You can find it here on Amazon. It's very soft and I'm wearing a medium.

We let Sophie run around in the backyard and she got herself covered in dirt. She was a disaster. So, she got a bath and this is how sad she looks after bath time!

On Sunday morning we lounged around in bed in the morning and Sophie didn't mind one bit! She usually is the one to wake us up in the morning but that girl is in no rush to get out of bed. She just wants to roll around and kick her legs so make sure you stay out of her way!

On Sunday afternoon we did a 3 mile hike! Sophie was exhausted afterwards but it was just what we needed to get outside and get moving!

My heart is so full! These two make it all worth it!

Quick family selfie! Look at that tongue!

After the hike it was time for a nap!

On Monday morning this is how Sophie was laying in the hallway. She has trouble when Tim and I are in two separate rooms. Tim was still sleeping and I was getting ready for my work day and she was forced to lay in the hallway between us. 

Sophie has been obsessed with the birds lately. She wants to get outside and chase them so badly. It was pouring rain on Monday afternoon and here she is watching the birds. 

She also had the chance to FaceTime with her cousin Attie.

More green popping up in the garden! Woohoo!

My friend Rachel introduced me to a new app the other day which was really fun! It's called HouseParty and we were able to chat with 5 of us on there and play trivia games and Pictionary. It was a ton of fun and nice to be able to hang out with friends virtually during this time!

What have you been doing to stay busy during this time? I am still working full time remotely so I am able to stay in the house but that does eat up about 40 hours of my week. Besides that I've been watching Netflix, cleaning, and hanging with my fam! 

Share any creative things you are doing with me, I'd love to hear them!

Quarantine Organizing: 5 Minute Organization Projects

Happy Monday friends!

I know this is a crazy world right now and you are probably spending more time at home than you normally do. I'm very blessed to be able to work from home in this craziness but it is certainly an adjustment being home day after day. 

If you are at home like me and are looking to get your house in order hang around because I'm sharing some five minute organization projects today! I know that starting a huge organization project can feel like an overwhelming task but sometimes if you just start with ONE drawer you can make a huge impact in just a few minutes.

First up: Office supplies. Specifically writing utensils.

I will be the first to admit that I have a hoarding problem when it comes to useful things. If something works and I can use it up I will hold onto it until I use it up. That's the case for pens, pencils, hilighters, markers, etc....

When we moved in I basically shoved everything into drawers in the office, made sure the drawers could shut and then moved on. I don't have a before picture of this drawer but one of the big Alex 9 drawers was full of writing utensils and it was insane. 

I took the time to organize all my writing utensils into categories. 

It's not beautiful, but it's organized by category and once I can get some matching bins in here I will be able to separate everything into containers and it will look much better!

I know I have a bit of a problem but like I said, I love to use things up. If I ever pull something from this drawer and it doesn't work I will toss it, I don't hoard old useless things. Since I am working at home currently this will help a lot because I can find what I'm looking for and potentially use up a couple of things while I'm home.

In the drawer that originally held everything, now I only have coloring supplies inside.

Markers, colored pencils and crayons fit in here nicely! From time to time Tim and I will do adult coloring books and it's nice to have these around.

Next up, in our guest room nightstand were two drawers filled with cords, electronics, and other things that we hadn't seen since we moved in last September. 

Honestly most of it we kept because it was electronics for Tim's video games, or we can always use an extra power cord but I managed to weed out a few things that were donated or listed on Poshmark to sell. 

Most of this stuff just simply didn't belong in this room. Anything electronic seemed like a better fit for the cabinet under our living room TV.  Organizing doesn't always mean getting rid of a ton of items, sometimes it can mean just moving things to a more appropriate place. You need to set up areas that work for you and keep all like items together. If we had been looking for a power cord I would've looked in the TV cabinet, not the guest room so now everything is nice and together!

The drawers in the nightstand are looking good!

The top drawer holds some extra coasters (and since this picture was taken the blue ones were moved to a side table in our living room), the remotes for the tv and dvd player in this room, and all of our Norwegian freebies! I'm not quite sure what to do with all these freebies from our honeymoon cruise but I can't bring myself to get rid of anything just yet.

The bottom drawer is completely empty! I created space in this room which is exactly what I wanted to do when I started this project. 

Like I said before, just find a drawer or a small area that you can sort through in five minutes and you will feel so much better! It truly makes a difference in your home environment and makes you feel less stressed. 

I'm hoping to get some other projects done while I'm home but I am still working during the day M-F. However I'm able to keep up with things like laundry and cleaning much easier now that I don't have a commute and can use my lunch hour to clean up a bit. I'm not going to lie, I'm totally digging this work from home life and wish I was able to do it every day!

I hope that you are healthy and know that I'm thinking about everyone as we navigate through this crazy time. I hope that you can visit my little corner of the internet for a quick escape and know that I'm definitely nervous in this scary time as well but I'm going to try to keep things as normal as possible around here (posting on Mondays and Wednesdays) with a little bit of everything :)

Have a great day!

Kitchen Paint Touchups

In my ultimate house to do list post I shared that I wanted to get touchups done on the paint in the kitchen. Mostly on the cabinets next to the oven and the little areas above the cabinet where we had raised the cabinet up. I knew neither area needed to be super intensely painted but I just needed it to be the same color as the rest of the cabinets. 

When I moved the stove it was pretty gross underneath so I made sure to clean the floor while I was back there. 

It's amazing how things get gross so quickly! 

Sorry for the blurry picture but this the side of the cabinet where I needed to paint. 

Ptimed and ready for some paint!

So much better!

Like I said, it didn't need to be perfect. It just needed to be painted to match the rest of the kitchen and now it does! A lot of our projects are ones to get us buy until bigger redos in the future. I love our white cabinets, but someday we might completely redo our kitchen and that would probably involve all new cabinets. So this project is to hold us over until we can afford a full kitchen renovation. Or until we decide to move or add on one day. Who knows what will happen!

The cabinets look so much better with that small touch up! Now there's no more wood poking out!

Same on this side! Now Tim is just going to touch up the paint under the microwave and the kitchen will be pretty much all set!

What projects did you work on this past weekend?

Social Isolation = Yard Work

Hey everyone! How is everyone doing with the current situation? Here in RI we were told to isolate at home which I'm not going to lie is kind of nice. There is a ton to do around the house so it was nice to have an excuse to make no plans. As an introvert I totally love staying home, so I don't mind being told to not go out at all!

On Saturday morning one little girl was ready to wake up!

Hello mom, it's time to wake up!

I know last Wednesday we talked about the front gardens so here is what it looked like on Saturday...

I think that these might be true forget me nots. I used an app that identified all the plants in the fall and based on that I think that they a forget me nots. We shall see!

I think these are crocuses, so soon we will know for sure!

There are a few other things poking through. I can't wait for a month from now to see what it looks like out here.

Now up towards the street (we have a big front yard so this is kind of far from the house) we have our well cover which needs to be replaced. I'm not sure what is around is but I'm thinking about putting common ivy here so it will be more covered and look nicer. 

I'm not sure what this tree by the road is, my mom thinks it is something that will flower this spring. I can't wait to see what happens!

This is a tree on the other side of the yard. I'm also not sure what this one is, but we will see soon!

This is a Siberian elm which is Sophie's favorite tree! She loves to run underneath it when the leaves are all on it.  I'm honestly not a huge fan of it and think it's really strange looking, but I will keep it up for her!

You can see the buds on the trees which is super exciting!

I worked out in the garden quite a bit on Sunday. I finally bought a rake so I was able to rake the garden out and clean everything up!

Now I just need to figure out what to plant in here! I would also love to get some window boxes but that is a long term project that I'm not sure will get done this year. As Tim reminded me on Sunday, "Everything costs money" so we need to prioritize what we want to get done this year. 

Here are my loves on Sunday morning. Sophie is so happy that Tim and I spent the entire weekend with her! She also got quite a bit of outdoor time too which she absolutely loved. 

I picked up a fiddle leaf fig plant which I absolutely love the look of! At the end of this post I'll show you where it ended up.

I also worked on raking some of the backyard and cleaning up the sticks that I found. We have a big backyard and are still figuring out exactly what we are going to do with it. The firepit is going to be disassembled and rebuilt on the side of the yard instead of the center. We also talked about where we would put a shed in the future. 

There is so much to do! Do the projects ever end??

We hooked Sophie up to the long leash so she could hang outside with us and we wouldn't have to worry about her.

We have forsythia bushes on the side of our yard and I can see the yellow flowers already! I can't wait till they fully come in.

Here is a glimpse of whats to come.

Another picture of the backyard after a bit of raking. 

These pictures are weird because of the way the sun was coming over the house, but the garden looked so good by the end of the day! Just raking everything out and getting all the dead stuff out made such a huge difference. Now I can see where things are growing and go buy some plants. 

Tim also started working on installing the lattice on the side of the deck. The whole deck will be stripped and restrained this spring.

The rest of the lattice needs to be cut in order to fit along the deck. Tim is going to get that done and then Sophie will no longer be able to get under the deck. Eventually we would love to put up a composite deck but right now since we aren't really ready to add onto the house, we are just making the deck we have look a little nicer. 

More pictures of the backyard.

Here are some of the plants I'm planning to plant. I think I'm going to put the hosta in around our mailbox.  I'm not sure where I'll be putting the sunflowers. I also picked up lupine because I thought it was pretty and I think I'll plant it in the front garden. 

I definitely have quite a bit more to buy though! I was looking for boxwoods but didn't find them yet and also definitely want some hydrangeas. 

Meanwhile, my fiddle leaf fig is hanging out in the corner of the living room and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays green! I really want to add more plants into our home, so any tips would be great!

I'm also watching Garden Answer on Youtube and after watching her garden tours I'm now obsessed with at least making my yard presentable!

Have a great day and stay healthy ya'll!