It's cleaning day at our condo, the worst day of the week (or sometimes month...we are kind of disgusting when life gets crazy). Most of the cleaning products we use are from our wedding gifts (we got so much household items as wedding gifts and we are so thankful), and most people went the natural route and gave us 7th Generation and other natural (expensive) housecleaners. However, we ran our of the natural stuff so we decided to use the chemical filled stuff that we had left over from our college dorms. Bad idea.
Why such a bad idea, you say?
Well, besides the obvious chemicals....Amanda has horrible, horrible excema. So immediately her skin flared up and we had more problems than just a dirty house. So we threw those chemically ones away and bought the natural stuff. However, it's expensive. VERY expensive. So, we are going the frugal route now and making out own (mostly, we're not very good at following through on projects).
Our first project we are trying (this week, hopefully!) will be making homemade detergent. You can find the tutorial we used here if you want to try if yourself.
Wish us luck with our cleaning and diy cleaning, we'll see how it goes!
Today was Martin Luther King Day so Nathan didn't have school. We decided to have a lazy day and make some Pinterest recipes. We settled on a very easy toffee recipe that only took half an hour to make completely.
Today was the Kansas City Bridal Spectacular, which is a huge bridal show hosted each year at the Overland Park Convention Center. Our friends Reece and Katelyn are getting married in October of this year and we are honored to be part of their bridal party. Something fun (and new since our parents got married) are bridal shows, where brides can get ideas and speak with vendors all in one place.
Last night, as news of impending weather conditions hit our regular programming and it began to get darker and darker, Nathan got more and more optimistic about a snow day. However, the only thing we woke to to this morning was a little snow and a very cranky dog. Our dog hates the snow and shows her anger by barking at it, and then randomly walking through the house barking randomly as if complaining loudly. It was funny the first time she did it. Not so much hours later.
So now she's just laying here, wiped out from all of her barking.
We tried a new recipe last night, which required that we finally use the steamer we've had sitting in the garage. Basically, it's a light version of Baked Potato Soup that for the most part that sneaks in cauliflower. We went a little crazy on the cauliflower so while our soup was super healthy, it was also kind of bland.
Here is the recipe if you want to try it: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/02/baked-potato-soup.html.
This week marks Nathan's first week of classes as a graduate student. He has his books and his anxious to begin and see what his program will be like. He's also very nervous.
This marked another week of job searching for Amanda. To distract from the monotony of applying for jobs and the long wait to hear back from the hundreds of applications, she has continued on training for Warrior Dash. Today was filled with start of running (instead of just cycling) as well as organizing the condo a bit more and straightening up. One upside of the job search is that our condo has never been cleaner.
One last thing we thought we'd mention, we sometimes use HauteLook for gifts for our friends and family. Here's the link to the website (we get a credit if you use it, he he): http://www.hautelook.com/short/3ARlA
Hope you are enjoying your Monday!
Nathan & Amanda
May is going to be a big month. Nathan will be finishing his first semester of his graduate program in School Administration and his first school year as a 3rd grader teacher. Amanda will be filming a good friend's wedding from her graduate program and participating in Warrior Dash.
What is Warrior Dash, you might ask? Well, it's the ultimate reminder to work out and start eating healthy. It's a little over a 5k race/obstacle course. The course requires trudging through water, a lot of climbing obstacles, crawling under barbed wire, and ending with a jump over fire. Our friend Katelyn bough it as a Christmas gift for Amanda, and they are training for it together (well reporting their workouts to each other and keeping each other accountable). Hopefully, this will be a great training tool and a helper with getting the weight down before Katelyn and Reece's wedding.
Maybe a little scarier than Warrior dash is Nathan's six credit hours this spring. Between that and work, he's going to be busy. His first class is over the fundamentals though, and he's ready to get to work. Life's relaxing right now, but with a little luck and prayer, Warrior Dash training will pick up, a job will appear, and Nathan's classes will be well worth the tuition.
-Nathan & Amanda
With grad school finished for one of us, and starting for the other, we decided it was time to organize our lives. We took a whole day to clean out the guest room, which was brutal but worth it once the dust had settled (and then swept and dusted away). One of our new things we are trying is an organization binder, courtesy of all the ideas on Pinterest.com. We organized our schedules, upcoming dates (no more losing wedding invitations hopefully), health records, finances, and other important things we need in one place. So far, it's been very handy. Here's the highlights of what we have done:
Nathan & Amanda
Well, we decided to do New Years resolutions. We've never done resolutions as a couple before, but after discussing it we decided we needed to make some changes.
So without further ado, here are our 2012 New Years Resolutions:
We'd both like to 1) Attend church at least 3 times per month (We've been horrible about this since we got married) 2) Workout four times per week and 3) Eat at the condo at least five times per week.
Nathan would like to finish 18 hours of his masters in 2012 (yikes!) and Amanda would like to limit her diet soda intake to one can per day (also, a yikes!).
That's it for now, good luck in the new year!
-Nathan & Amanda
We decided to start a blog to keep up with family and friends, and to share what's going on in our lives as of late. Since we can't travel to Lamar, Oklahoma, St. Louis, Omaha, Georgia (you get the picture...) as much as we'd like, we decided this was the next best thing. We thought we'd share pictures, stories, all of the stuff we don't have time to cover during holiday gatherings.
Nathan's beginning his spring semester of teaching 3rd grade in the North Kansas City School District tomorrow and is working in his classroom today. He's ready to see his third graders, not so ready to start getting up at 6am again. At least we now have a Keurig to help him during hectic mornings!
Amanda's job searching and keeping the condo clean for once. To catch you up, she graduated in December with her Masters in Counseling Psychology, but can not take the test to be licensed as a Licensed Professional Counselor until March. So, she is looking for some kind of interim job in the meantime.
Our dog, Penelope, is doing well as always. We spent an hour trying to give her her heart worm medicine last night so today she is ignoring us/ripping up anything she can get her teeth on. She obviously doesn't appreciate a clean condo.
-Nathan & Amanda
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