Let me take you on a BEFORE tour:

Life has been INSANE. And I do mean insane. It's always been a bit of a stress to work so much with Annie here now, but add to that a clog competition, making costumes, buying and then starting renovation of a new house, 9th grade end-of-level testing, and several Annie issues and I have been hanging on by a thread. Hence, the back-blogging. On top of it all, Q and I have cut our spending (and I do mean cut) and we've had to go off sugar for some kind of science experiment for Megan.

I have to say, I honestly did not realize the absolute relief and coping abilities of shopping and sugar. No more Zulily. No more Baby Steals. No more Mama Bargains. No more TJ Maxx. No more Ikea chocolate bars. No more Cadbury Eggs. I haven't totally made it cold turkey. Something had to give with all these balls in the air. I slipped in some banana choco-chip cookies on Sunday and 32 pretzel M&M's last Wednesday- but with the spending, we have no choice. The minute we signed the mortgage papers we all but cut up the debit cards. Now we spend money on gas and milk and that's it. We have been living off our food storage and eating at my mom's. Annie plays with utensils instead of toys (she's sick of all her old toys and we can't buy her new ones), and her wardrobe is steadily decreasing with every inch she grows... We even plan to give jars of nuts from our orchard for Christmas presents this year [hope you like pecans and pistachios].

But persevere we must! And it's not just about the money. We had become so commercial and "stuff" oriented. I want Annie to grow up like I did- devoid of everything she wants. I want Christmas to be special and birthday gifts to be important and not get lost in a sea of a million things she'll never remember. I don't want to give her everything she wants... and even more difficult, everything I want her to have. The money train has absolutely and positively come to a painfully halting stop. We will not be commercialized. We will not forget frugality. We will not have everything we wish we had. We WILL simplify.

It's tough. Real tough. Painfully tough. I almost died of thirst the other day because I wouldn't spend $.88 on a drink at the store. Alas, the wretched tightening of the purse strings can't be helped. We have 2 mortgages and don't make much money. Worth it- but a difficult lifestyle change none-the-less.

So here she is: The dream-

We had our first family gathering at our new house a few weeks back when Matt and Ash came by for the tour. It is definitely a before tour because we are renovating... again (and I do mean to use the term renovation as opposed to the less formidable remodel).

The exterior isn't being touched for a few years which means Q has to survive the ugly factor (he HATES the front of the house). But we have plans.... And someday...
We will, however, make the inside our private shang-ri-la. I even get my library!

Quinn demoed all the tile in two days.
I must say, we were both shocked and amazed by his skills.
I keep telling him how glad I am that I didn't marry a sissy.
No sissy could have done what he did.

We demoed to open the living space and allow for varied layout options.
This way we can move the dining table in front of the wood burning fireplace for Thanksgiving
or leave the imaginary sectional we will be able to afford in 2020 there instead.


There have been some surprises in the demo. We have to have the entire upstairs re-plumbed and there may have been some contraband hiding in some of the old pipes. But we've also discovered how well built the house is and are the benefactors of a previous $100,000 renovation.

Q finished building my library on Monday and we've decided on an ink blue/white/tan/black color palate at his suggestion. Still, a big part of me can NOT believe we are already doing this renovation thing so soon again after our current loft. Truth be told, we bought this house exactly 12 months too early and ahead of plans. Yipes. Things are going to be super tight until we get on the other side of that 12 months. When I get stressed, I go to the house and stand on the back porch looking out over our almost acre. It calms me in a second and I feel completely satisfied that we made the right decision and got the most we possibly could ever get for our money.

Crazy thing is- even in this state, and before we had owned it a week, a realtor came by while Q was working on the demo and tried to buy it for his clients! The day we closed, another somebody wanted to pay cash $31,000.00 over our purchase price for the place. This, plus our 2 amazing appraisals, make me so excited about our built-in-equity (my number 1 goal when buying a home). It helps keep me calm about the whole crazy, exciting, unbelievable, stressful affair.

Annie slept in the backyard
while I sat on the porch and envisioned
her running around in the sprinklers
and having birthday parties
on the lawn (future lawn- it's a forest of weeds right now).