Monday, April 27, 2020

Our Living Room

Happy Monday everyone!

I promised pictures of each room of our house and today I am delivering! We are going to start off in the living room. 

Speaking of the living room I am sitting on the couch writing this and I just had to stop typing because Sophie jumped up into my lap to get some cuddles and then just as suddenly jumped back down to go back to her watch at the front door.

Our living room is the number one most used room in our home. We spend almost all of our time in here. This is where we watch tv, where we cuddle with Sophie, where we play games, etc. Basically if we are in the house and awake we are in the living room. 



Sophie is ready to show you around!

The view above is from the end of our hallway, entryway to our kitchen.


Here is the view from our front door. We keep things pretty casual in our living room. It's a cozy place with throw blankets and we very quickly move the throw pillows around to make ourselves comfortable. Sophie climbs on top of everything and doesn't hesitate to lay on the couch after digging in the dirt in the yard so we don't get to be super precious about anything. I would love a white couch but that will never work with our lifestyle. Don't even suggest dogs shouldn't be allowed on the couch because then where would we cuddle? :)


When I took these pictures I was watching Gilmore Girls obviously. I wish we had room to do a whole tv stand setup like Alexandra Beuter had on YouTube but unfortunately we just don't have the wall space. Someday when we rearrange the house that may be a possibility. 


My favorite wall art in the house is my it's so good to be home sign. I purchased this on Etsy and I think it works so perfectly in our home. Nowadays it is so good to be home with everything that's going on. I'm thankful to have our home and have a place we can spend time during this crazy time. 


Sophie's bed is right under the window and she doesn't often lay there but I like to leave it here as an option for her. It does make the room a little more crowded but it's nice to give her a place to lay if she wants it. 

Fun fact: In her bed you can see a little pink toy. That is piggy, the first toy we gave her on our ride home. Piggy comes to bed with us every night and often she will go get him and bring him out of bed during the day. It is so cute when she goes to "wake him up"

I am still trying to keep my fiddle leaf fig alive on that table in the corner. Fingers crossed!


One final look towards the front door.  Thank you all for stopping by and taking a look at our living room! Is your living room the most used room in your house?

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

I Finished FIVE Books in THREE Days!

Guys, I finished FIVE books in THREE days! When quarantine first started I was reading Sarah J Maas' new book House of Earth and Blood which is part of her Crescent City series. I have loved everything that I've read by Sarah. Some of my favorites books have been a part of her A Court of Thorns and Roses series and I also loved the Throne of Glass series. 

This series started off slow. I mean there was action at the very beginning but then it seemed like a million pages to set the whole world up. The world of Crescent City is very complicated and there are a ton of characters and different kinds of creatures so I understand why she had to set the scene on so many pages but I moved at a snails pace through the first part. Then three days ago I was motivated to finish it and flew through the rest!



Overall I liked this book but it definitely isn't on the same level as the TOG and ACOTAR series. It was definitely a great story and took some turns that I didn't see coming but I wasn't in love with the main characters, so that made it not as fun for me to read. This is a looooooooong book. So enter  at your own risk! 

Next up, I read an entire four book series.....


These books are the Stella and Sol series by Kimberly Loth. I had heard about these from Elle Fowler on YouTube and I was excited to read them (especially since each one is only $4.99 on Kindle- not a bad price!)



Now this series is about two cities, Stella and Sol. In Stella there is never any daylight. It is nighttime all the time and magic exists. In Sol it is daytime all the time and it's a conservative city where everyone follows the rules. 

I thought the concept of the story was great. I really enjoyed the main character and her struggle between her home life in Sol and learning about Stella and the way they live life there. I loved the city of Stella and all the different types of magic they use there. I loved the relationships in the royal family of Stella.

However, there were things that I didn't love.



Things happened almost TOO quickly. Zwaantie (the main character) would think about doing something, go to do it and it would be done. There was no anticipation. She also flip flopped about decisions over and over again. Changing who she loved or who she was trying to fall in love with. 


Overall, I loved the story as a whole I just wish there had been a little more. I would recommend the series if you are looking for a quick series that you can get through quickly but don't expect a ton of substance.

What have you been reading lately? 

Monday, April 20, 2020

Sophie's April Barkbox

Another Monday working from home! I think we are on week 6 now and I never imagined that I would ever be allowed to work from home for 6 weeks but here we are! Sophie is thrilled, especially since Tim is home with us part of the time so she has all her humans in one place.

Today we are sharing Sophie's Barkbox for April. She always knows when the box is for her, it is so cute. 


We were waiting for Tim to open up the Barkbox with us at this point, because it's a full family event.


Neither of us will open it with her without the other because we both love it so much! She gets so excited and it's just the cutest thing.


Clearly she was getting tired of waiting for dad. 


This months Barkbox was themed "Night at the squeakeasy" and we thought it was very cute! I also want to point out that one toy is missing from the above picture because as soon as the lid opened Sophie grabbed the first toy she could get to and ran off. 


The toys that Barkbox sends over are always super intricate with so many details! I also love that there are toys inside most of the toys so if your pup destroys them then you have a ball or something like that for them to play with.

This is the bouncer who looks super angry.



A two in one toy, the whiskey glass with an ice cube inside. Sophie is loving the whiskey glass because she can stick her face right inside it and make crinkly sounds.


This is the toy that Sophie ran off with, she seems to like this one a lot too!


As usual all the treats are a hit with Sophie. She ate her long term chew in about three minutes and we've been giving her treats from the bags whenever she's a good girl which is pretty often. 

Do you get Barkbox for your dog? If so, let me know what toys you got this month!



Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The Start Of Our Front Walkway

Good morning everyone! We lucked out and never lost power over here, although many of our fellow Rhode Islanders weren't quite so lucky. Today I wanted to share the start of our front walkway project.

I had a ton of "big ideas" when it came to the front walkway but honestly it mostly came down to price! We ended up choosing gray pavers for the material. Our house is gray so I thought that the gray pavers would be the best choice.

Lucky for us Lowe's had a sale on gray pavers!



I was able to order them online for 60% off! When making a huge home project purchase like this I always like to look for a sale. I knew we would be spending a big chunk of money but saving 60% off a big chunk of money makes my deal loving heart so so happy. So 1000 pavers later we had two pallets sitting outside ready to go!


Tim and I spent some time laying out rope to see where we wanted the walkway to lay.


We plan on bringing the gardens to wrap around the walkway so hopefully it will look really nice once we finish, make the gardens look nice, and get some nice looking grass in here!



Now here we go with the before pictures:





Now we were able to get started laying the pavers.


I highly recommend laying out a row or two of pavers so you can see the flow of the walkway. Sophie was very interested in what was happening. 






We kept going back and forth between a curved edge and a flat edge. You will have to come back to see what we decide!


This past Saturday was digging day! We attempted to both dig with Sophie around and......


it wasn't working. Sophie was interested in what we were doing, wanted to dig in other areas and was just crazy. So I left Tim to dig and sat with Sophie inside. Just when Tim was ready to quit, our neighbor came over to help! We are so grateful because with his help Tim was able to get the whole walkway dug out!


There are now a million other steps to complete before this walkway is done, but we are excited that this part is complete!


Sophie was thrilled to roll around in the dirt and mulch.


Poor Tim was exhausted.


But check out our moat! I kept joking in the torrential downpour on Monday that we could get some alligators and turn this into a moat.


Here's Sophie watching her dad work.



Some more pictures throughout the process. 


Now, over the past few days we haven't really been using our front steps since there is a big muddy drop at the bottom, but it makes me hopeful when I look out and see our new moat :)





Have you ever put in a walkway or another outdoor project like this?

Have a great day!



Monday, April 13, 2020

Paint Touchups

It is a really rainy Monday around here today! We are supposed to have rain and strong winds that could potentially cause a 72 hour power outage so that should really add some interest to this whole quarantine thing! If I don't show up on Wednesday you'll know why :)

Today I'm just sharing a quick project that made our kitchen look a little more put together!

In the kitchen, under our microwave there was a strip that wasn't painted. This is left over from when we moved our cabinets and microwave up a bit and hadn't been touched up since. 



It just looked dirty and gross and needed a quick touchup.


I not only had this gross area to touch up (luckily the previous owners left us all the paint that was used- the whole house was repainted right before we moved in), I also wanted to touch up the baseboard where Sophie chewed up a storm.


After I sanded the area, Sophie was very interested in the area again but luckily she wasn't biting the area anymore, just sniffing.


I want to point out that the floor is dirty from the sanding and I didn't vacuum up till after taking pictures so you'll have to ignore my dirty floor!


Now it's not perfect but it's painted and blends in much nicer now! I also had to paint the baseboard opposite of it where she had bitten the baseboard but not nearly as much as the other one.


All painted!

And here is the area below the microwave...




So much better! My painting isn't amazing or anything but as long as it blends in that works for me! Also it's driving me nuts that the dishtowels are uneven in this picture. I will show you why I was distracted during this time....


Someone is a paint sniffer :)

This girl makes me laugh so much and keeps us on our toes every day!

Have a great day everyone!