Thanksgiving fun

So I'm sitting here in the living room, loving the smell of the house as food for this evenings dinner is cooking. As most all of you know I'm not the best when it comes to cooking or baking. But, since I've been married I've been trying really hard to learn how to be the next Paula Deen, or Giada Di Laurentis, haha. No, but in all seriousness I actually enjoy challenging myself when it comes to cooking. A silly side of me is when I pretend like I have my own show on the food network. I'll sit there in my kitchen cooking or baking away, and act as if I've got an audience - obviously I do this when Ryan isn't home, or I'd never hear the end of it. I'm a dork, what can I say.

This year I told my mom that I wanted to try and make her traditional candied yams with apples, raisins, pecans & marshmallows. Yummy!! It's my favorite dish! So, I've got that cooking in the crockpot, and the aroma of it is to die for. Love it, love it. I'm also making something I've never made before, but my sister Caiti makes it every year and loves it. It's a Paula Deen recipe - "Gooey Pumpkin Pie Bars". I hope I didn't just over cook it too. Yikes. I just realized that they probably should have been out of the oven about 10 minutes ago. Oh well, it's all about trial & error.

We've got Ryan's family in town for Thanksgiving. It's so fun to have them here, and I'm excited for them to meet all of my family. Whoa...that's a little overwhelming for a smaller family to meet my crazy, big family. I'm surprised Ryan didn't bolt out the door when he first met them. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but I can see how people might be afraid. I mean for one we're all really tall - a little intimidating for smaller people. Second, we all like to talk and be the center of attention; yeah try having about 6 different conversations going all at the same time at the dinner table. Third, there are so many of us that it's pretty much standing room only. Then we have all the nephews who are just miniature sizes of all of us. Oh man...lots of fun!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Ok, this is the last...

I know the past few blogs have been all about our new place. I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about it..haha. So, we're in our home, just about done with the last of the boxes. We got our furniture, Washer & Dryer & new KING SIZE bed on Monday. Last night as Ryan and I did Laundry we stood there just watching in awe as the washer was going; it was like we were in a trans. I guess that happens when you have your first front loader washer and dryer set. They're pretty.

It's funny starting out in a new place. You're not quite used to the house, not sure what the different sounds are you hear throughout. Like the other night I was by myself watching a movie waiting for Ryan to come home from work. I heard this big noise, which startled me (everything startles me, just read Erin's blog). I finally figured out that it came from the ice maker in the freezer. Ok, so I've got that noise down, what's next?

I don't like being home alone yet. I was fine with it at our apartment because I could pretty much peek out our bedroom and see the whole place. Here, there is an upstairs & downstairs so if I hear anything I have to search the whole place for it, and let's face it - if you're home alone and you hear a noise, and you're me...are you really going to go and see what the noise was? Maybe. Those who really know me know that I don't like the dark, no matter if Ryan is there with me. He gets upset when I'm trying to go to a different room at night and I pretty much turn all the lights on, on my way to that room. It's all Erin's fault!! She tortured me and scared me as a child that to this day I can't sleep by myself in the dark, maybe in the light...depends...not in this new house...not yet. Because of her delight in scaring me I have to sleep with ear plugs and sleep with the TV on. I know that doesn't make sense because you have the TV on to hear it but then with ear plugs you can't hear it. Trust me it all makes sense in my mind. I need the TV on as a distraction, and the ear plugs in so I don't hear anyone coming up the stairs, or anyone, or thing, whisper in my ear. I know...I'M PATHETIC. I don't like taking a shower when Ryan isn't home, you know just in case someone comes in the door and tries to kill me...too many scary movies I tell ya.

But I love having friends and family come over to see our place. It's so fun!! Maybe this year we'll host Thanksgiving. :)

"There's no place like home..."

Today was the day where at 2:45 this afternoon I got the call from our lender telling me that we were to close on our house at 4:00. WOOHOO!! You know you hear all these stories about when people close, and how it takes FOR-E-VER (you have to say that like the kid on the movie The Sandlot). We were both surprised when the guy from the Title company said "and here's the last one, we just need your signature and initials right here on the bottom". "That's it?" We both said. Needless to say it was painless and quick. I think the whole process took maybe 30 minutes.

We've been packing things up tonight, although we don't have a lot of things it's still plenty to be carrying down 3 flights of stairs. Glad my brothers will be here to help us. :)

Anyway, tomorrow we get the keys to our new place. By the way the picture of this place isn't our exact home, but it looks exactly like it...just to give you an idea. To see pictures of the inside you've got to go to Ryan's blog and click on the post called, "really people, it's just an empty house". :)

Ode to Ryan

If any of you have never met my husband Ryan, it's a crying shame. He's so stinkin' funny!! It's funny because at first when you meet him you may think he's all serious, but give it a minute or so and you'll see just how funny and witty he can be. If you read his blog you'll see what I'm talking about. Click on his blog link on the right. Love ya babe! :)

I never thought buying a house would be so difficult...

We were supposed to close today but found out on Thursday that the HOA person needed to still sign a certificate and send it back to the preocessor, who then sends it to the underwriter. So, our closing date has been changed to either Monday or Tuesday of next week. Grrrr!!! Although I'm sure things could be much worse, it's just frustrating knowing that we only have a certain few days to pack up and move. I have a work convention Thurs, Fri & Sat of next week and then we have to be out of our apartment by Wednesday the 31st.

I talked to the guy, who is doing our walk through, to set up a time to do a final walk through.It's funny because we met with him about a month ago, he knew when our potential closing date was, and he needed to put in a new counter top for the master bathroom, the old one wasn't pretty. So, I call him to set up the time and he tells me that they were supposed to put in the new counter top YESTERDAY (not a few weeks ago when we first met with him)...hello...we were supposed to close today and they're just now doing our countertop??? Anyway, so he told me that the new countertop back splash didn't fit like the other one, so he's sending a guy out to move the mirror so it fits. I told him that our closing date has changed to Monday or Tuesday, so this countertop needs to be in right away. Ryan said I was too nice on the phone when he told me this. I guess I could have been more assertive; something I'm still learning to be.

Oh well, we were able to find a new couch & chair yesterday that we both agreed on. Today we're going to borrow the pillows from the couch, head on over to our new place and make sure the it matches the carpet and the walls; both neutral colors so we should be ok. It's a really nice couch set that will be put in our living room. It's classy & a bit formal looking...yet it's casual, which is exactly what I wanted. Cross your fingers that we'll be able to start moving in this next week. :)

Oh! The stress of waiting...

...to close on our house. We're told that we are still scheduled to close this Saturday, the 20th. Waiting to know for sure if we close that day is the hard part. We haven't even started packing things up in the house, because we haven't gotten the "yes, for sure we close on the 20th". So we're anxious to get things going and just move in already.

We bought a new washer and dryer, and a king size bed...good thing because we've been sleeping on a full sized bed since we've been married. When we knew our loan was approved we started splitting up the rooms we wanted to decorate. I told Ryan he could decorate the family room, and his office & I would get the Living room and our bedroom; now we just need to do rock, paper, scissors on Lexus' room. Anyway, we're realizing how completely different we are, especially when it comes to our decorating styles. I love the calm, neutral colors, cozy colors while Ryan loves the bright orange, lime green, bright red colors. I guess we'll have to negotiate on something.

Pictures, pictures, pictures...

I've finally put together a little blog showing the pictures I've taken, to help my business grow. There aren't a lot of pictures on there, but they are the most recent pictures I've taken. Take a look at the link to the right of this page. "Shannon's photography blog". Let me know what you think and give me any ideas you have to make that blog better.