black thumb

Park residence, where plants come to die.  For real.  I cannot keep any plant alive.  I love how they look in the house, and I keep telling myself that I will take extra care of it, but without fail, it dies.  Johnny just laughs when I get a plant because he knows in a week or two it'll sit on a counter somewhere all brown and withered.

A few weeks ago, my green-thumbed-mom gave me a little plant as a house warming gift, and of course, it died.  No. Correction. I killed it. I was complaining to my mom that all my plants die and she asked me, "Well, do you water it?" Hmmm. Oops.  I always forget to water it, then overcompensate by drowning it.  I need some major gardening lessons. I'll just have to embrace my black thumb until then.

 

Oh, my poor dead plant. But I feel better when the BFF encourages me by saying, "You haven't killed John."... yet. Ha!

dining room love

Thanks to my interior decorator, aka the bff, we have our dining area set up!  We are slowing working on other spots of the house, and I'll be blogging about it soon, but I just had to share my cute dining table first.  The bff found it on craigslist and it did take some persuading on her part, since I was envisioning a nice wood table, not a pink one!  But I am so glad I listened to her!  I brought it home the next day and it looks so cute in my house.  Even the hubz loves it!


It has super cute hairpin legs and even cuter pink formica top.  We (meaning Ruby) just needs to sew some cute chair cushions to match.  The map was pulled out of a trash pile at work and was used to give some life to our old living room but now it hangs in our new dining area




This is a picture taken by my adorable hubz with his dingleberry blackberry. He was working on editing it for a while, I just had to post it.


 Anyone wanna come over for dinner?!

my fave spot

The rest of the house is still a mess, but this little area was organized the first day we moved in. And it has become my favorite spot in the house.  In the mornings, this is the spot where I'll eat my breakfast (peanut butter & honey toast), go online and blogstalk/email/facebook, do my "il devo", and/or read my kindle.  I don't have a cute table yet, but my lil red bench gets the job done for now.


The bff and our hubbies are off to the flea market after church on Sunday, so hopefully I'll find tons of stuff to make new favorite spots around the house! And of course I'm going to ohhellofriends vintage sale tomorrow! Anyone else going?! So excited!

Happy weekend!

bye bye mini-home! hello la mansion!

Our search for a new home began as soon as we went to our first foster/adopt informational meeting.  That was over 8 months ago!  After months of looking, tons of tears, several fights, hours on craigslist/westside rental, we found a place! 

On Saturday, we bid farewell to our first home as a married couple; our home for 2 years.  I was getting pretty emotional in the days leading up to the move, but on the day of, I was so tired and so sick of dealing with the mess, I just wanted to get out of there!

The night before the move, John and I got in a huge fight and didn't really have time or energy to be sad about leaving our first home.  We woke up and went out to get our rented U-Haul and found that John's car had gotten broken into! It was a pretty crazy day.

John and I calmed down about the petty theft incident, apologized to each other, and then got some major work done thanks to the help of our family and friends.

So here we are now, in "la mansion".  It's really not a mansion (obviously), but compared to the tiny place we lived before, it feels like a mansion!

 

I've been unpacking like a crazy person so I can get to the fun decorating part! Once that's done, we can have dinner parties here! Yay!  

our humble abode - part 1

When John and I got married and moved in together, we had NO furniture. I was still living with my parents and I did not want to bring my old stuff with me. Since I have never decorated a house before, I had no idea where to start. Thank goodness our house is super small I didn't have to worry about decorating too much space!

Our house includes a mixture of new items bought as newlyweds, furniture taken from my parents, goodies found at yard sales, treasures bought at flea markets and antique shops - and my personal favorite, unwanted things collected from my work.

A few years ago, I saw that a coworker had put a couple roll-down maps in the "garbage" section of the staff lounge, and I immediately called the BFF. She, of course, said I had to take it home, so I managed to fit two super tall maps in my little Mini. Two of them! Who would want to throw these amazing things away?! Here's one of them below hanging in our living room.

After almost 2 years of hesitation, I (and when I say "I", I really mean John) finally got the old old old world map up. I was unsure about putting it on the wall facing the front door in fear that it would make our tiny house appear even tinier - if that's even possible!

The red bench you see below was bought at this antique shop. It is an old kid's toy bench. But, it works as a shelf for now. I want to switch that out for some nice old crates. We'll see if and when that actually happens.

On the bench is a nicely weathered globe, it too is outdated. A different co-worker didn't want it, so with permission, I brought it home. Also on that bench are three adorabley colored chapter books. A teacher was retiring and those books were in the "trash" pile. WHY?! It is a great stand for my little tiny black board. John and I usually write little notes to each other on it. I love it! Next to that are some left-over mason jars from our wedding. One collects all our ticket stubs... (we're movie nuts), the other jar collects our change.

Our house may be tiny, but it is sure filled with weird things and most importantly love. <3

pizza party

I don't like to host parties because 1) I'm not a very good planner (My friends and sisters pretty much planned my entire wedding) and 2) Our home is less than 500 sq feet. No Joke.

BUT, John and I wanted to have the high school ministry teachers over not only to hang out but also to thank them for all the love and support they showed the ministry and us personally.

We had a build your own pizza party! This was kind of tricky because the day was sooooo hot and we don't have an AC. Plus, if you're having the oven on at 500 degrees, it's like having a heater on. Also, only 2 pizzas could go in the oven at a time. People had to eat in shifts! Ha! In the end, it worked out. I made sure to have plenty of appetizers out so that people could munch while they waited for their turn.

Some simple caprese minis for the guests to munch on.

All the toppings out. We gave the option of barbeque sauce, pizza sauce or garlic oil (recipe from the Bratchers). Toppings: pineapples, basil, ham, prosciutto, mozzarella (slices and shredded), tomatoes, jalapenos, olives, onions, mushroom, chicken, pepperoni, and arugula. The salad got no lovin'. It was untouched at the end of the night.


John was amazing enough to stand in the hot kitchen and roll out the dough into perfectly flat pizza pies - my very own Papa John! It made for some super crispy and delicious crusts. We now have a life-time supply in our freezer.

I used this recipe here. No joke, it is called the Best Pizza Dough Ever. I don't know if it was the BEST EVER, but it makes for a great crispy crust. I've never made pizza before so I had no clue that the dough would quadruple in size because of the yeast!


This is how you cram 12 people in an itty bitty house. :)

I made creme brulee for dinner. But, it wasn't enough so we headed straight out for some Hawaiian Shave Ice at Teri Hawaii in Gardena. I didn't get too many pictures of the night... it's hard being a host and a photographer!

At the end of the night, Abe the Babe surprised us with another video. Like any other Abe video, I laughed and I cried. Here it is below.