From the suburbs to a small town

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I'm not actually positive what is considered to be a "small town", but I'm fairly sure our new town of about 12,000 falls under that category. This post over at The Simple Dollar got me really thinking about living in a small town. We used to live in a city of over 125,000 with tons of neighboring cities and millions of people within miles of us. It was just 30 miles away from downtown LA. (FYI: 30 miles in LA means an hour drive, just sayin'.)

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the size of the town I live in now and the size of the town I lived in 2 months ago are about the same size, area-wise. The difference is, there's about 113,000 less people.

When we first announced we were moving to Tehachapi, we got a lot of interesting comments. Some people seemed down right offended that we would move from our home town to Tehachapi. "What are you going do DO there?" The answer: Live. Live without the traffic, the overcrowding, the overpriced EVERYTHING. Live while focusing on what's important which is living itself. Let's face it - to afford to live where we used to Blaine and I would have had to work like crazy just to MAYBE afford a tiny house on a tiny lot on a busy street. No exaggeration. I wasn't going to school to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything where I would be able to afford a decent place to live in that type of a city nor do I really feel like it's worth the money even if I were able to afford it. Then we would start a family and if we were lucky we would be able to afford to pay for a decent person to raise our children for us since, you know, we would have to work even harder to provide for a family. From the beginning of our relationship we decided that is not for us.

So we started searching for a place to settle down, a place where we could have the life we want that would be our own life, not one dictated by how to get by. All in all we discovered that I'm too attached to my family to move more than a couple of hours away. My uncle had a farm in the area that we used to go to all the time and I looked into the area. They call it "the land of four seasons" which is pretty rare here in southern (or are we in central now?) California. Sounds nice, right? Then we looked at housing and were blown away by the fact that not only could you get a house for a decent price, it actually had a REAL yard where we could go out back and throw a ball for the dogs to chase without worry of it bouncing over into a neighbors yard. Madness, seriously.

Then an opportunity presented itself and my parents decided they wanted to come too. They will be grandparents some day and it would be nice to have them around. So here we are. Yep - right now I live with my dad. My mom is living with my grandmother, since her job is still in Los Angeles, while she searches for a job closer to our new home. Blaine is living with his family, where his job is, until he finds a job up here in a few months after our wedding. We're all making sacrifices to be here, but the important thing is that we're all willing to make these sacrifices because we know that in the end we'll all be here together. I'm so happy my parents decided to join us in moving to this town and I hope my little sister and her husband do too once he's out of the Army.

It's a new journey, moving from a metropolitan area to a small town. It's very different, but so far I'm still very happy about this decision and I think it's definitely the best decision we've made.

Happy Easter!

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Happy Easter!

I'll be celebrating in Lake Isabella with Blaine's family & my dad. Unfortunately, my mom has to work (hospitals don't take days off) so she can't join us. Hope you all get to spend it with the people you love the most!

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Spotted Moth

While browsing wasting too much time on Pinterest I came across an adorable dress that led me to SpottedMoth.com. How did I not know about this site? It is full of adorable items that are exactly my style. There is not a huge selection, but I pretty much love all of it. I've been dreaming about new dresses for months.

Some of my favorite items...

Our 54 month anniversary

I know. Worst quality ever, but I love this. I was trying to demonstrate how my kitty, Grease, sleeps on me - right on my side. See what a saint he is for putting up with me?

Blaine & I still (usually) remember to say "Happy Anniversary" every month as if we had only been dating for short period of time. Today is our 54th month anniversary aka 4 years and 6 months. Only 6 months until we get married. Our wedding date is our 5 year anniversary and I'm so excited to marry that boy.

Epic Room Makeover Giveaway Entry!

Oh boy. This is like fate has stepped in. Did I mention we JUST bought a house? And that we suddenly have almost 2000 sq feet of house to decorate, buy furniture for, etc? Yeah. Well I recently came across the blog Vintage Revivals and I am in love with this girl. I thought I was creative, but she's in a whole different ballpark. Seriously.

This post is my entry into her Epic Room Makeover Giveaway! If I win she'll come and decorate one of my rooms. Cross your fingers people!

The room I'm choosing to enter is our "Great Room"... that's what Blaine decided it is. Mostly it's our family room. It's a HUGE converted garage with a concrete floor. Other than wanting to play around with painting/staining the concrete (hey - we have another 1500 sq feet to put flooring in, man!) we have no plans except that it's going to be the main "hang out" spot in the house. You know, where there's a comfy couch, a TV, a few dogs lounging by the wood burning stove and lots of friends and family (I hope!). Maybe Mandi will make me one of her freaktasticly awesome rugs because you know, a big room with a concrete floor needs something to warm up the space. There's also a little closet that used to house the washer and dryer that I may attempt to create a "closet office" in.

Unfortunately, this is the only photo we have of the room (for now!). However, I may sneak over and take pictures through the window. Escrow is set to close June 12th and if I win we'll get started ASAP! Yaaay!





Have a room you want made over? Enter her giveaway... and stay turned! I'll be linking up so you can vote for me!

Things That Make Me Smile Thursday.

So many things that make me smile today! I had to stop myself from posting more.

This dog. Chewbacca dog. So silly, I want him.

Thai Iced Tea. Mmm.. SO good.

This old house. I've always wanted to come across a gorgeous old house like this and fix it up. Dream house.

I'm not even kidding, if you ever wanted to steal my fiance from me, owning this book might do it. I think I may have to buy it for him... even though I'd be the one doing all the cooking.

Genius!

I'm definitely going to be on the search for pretty old phones for our new house.

So cozy. I think I need this. How do you even find yarn that large!

I love this colorful cake. It looks so happy!

Sources: chewbacca dog. thai iced tea. amazing old house. sriracha cookbook. watermelon jug. pretty phone. cozy blanket. rainbow dot cake.

Camping.

All this wedding planning makes me want to go camping. That sounds weird, right? Well really it makes sense. Our wedding is going to be a camp wedding :) So all the planning and thinking about the details of the wedding really makes me want to go camping. Summer is creeping up and my goal is to go on at least ONE camping trip.

I wish I could get lots of friends to come with so we can have fun campfire time and group hikes.

(look at the guy on the left hand side, is he sitting in a pool? lol)

Um... this looks super dreamy. I would so be down for this.

Let's go, who's in?

Great, now I wish I had a child to shop for!

I do a lot of online window shopping. A lot. I don't usually buy stuff because I can talk myself out of it, lol. However, I was on Hautelook today and they have THE CUTEST RUGS on sale from Momeni. No seriously...

I'm not really into the whole Sesame Street or Winnie the Pooh stuff for my future children. This stuff is right up my alley, I love it!

There are probably worse things....

I walked into the kitchen the other night at around 11:50pm. See my dad pouring himself a bowl of cereal.

Me: Cereal! Great, now I want cereal. I think I eat more cereal in the middle of the night than for breakfast.

Dad: There are probably worse things than cereal.

So true. Thanks Dad :)

Follow Friday: Blogs I Follow

I've been meaning to start this feature for a while because there are so many blogs out there that I adore.

My first official feature is With Love From, Kat!

I just recently started following Kat's blog, but I already read it almost daily. She has such great taste and posts pretty much daily! Her posts range fashion, home decor to her personal life. Kat's posts are packed with photos which is almost always my favorite part of reading blogs - all the amazing photos. Did I mention she's gorgeous? Well she is & she's got great style.

Things that make me smile.

I'm pretty sure there's a J.Biebs song that says something about "when you smile, I smile" but I'm not sure... that's what I think of when I hear the word smile now, sadly. Thanks a lot, J Biebs. (If I'm wrong, then I just look really dumb now. Cool.)

Is this painted? A decal? A light shining through that lamp with his shape in it? Whatever it is it's amazing.

This is exactly my relationship with my dog Einstein. All 60 lbs of him would like to be in my lap at all times.

Look how cute this car is. I need to ask Blaine what it is and if he can get me one. It's ADORABLE.

I pretty much agree.

Oh dear. Now I need a puppy.

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In case you missed it.... I'm obsessed with pinterest!

I love food.

My love for food is probably obvious by the fact that I'm trying to lose weight, HA. (Five pounds down, 20 more to go!) But in the last few years, mostly since becoming a vegetarian, I've come to really pay attention to food more. My fast food consumption is down to almost nothing (though In N Out still holds my heart) and I try really hard to find good recipes with wholesome ingredients. That said, there's nothing that can keep me away from big bowl of good ol' spaghetti. I made a variation of Baked Spaghetti & Mozzarella that I found on Pinterest (my new obsession). I was trying to work with what we had to make dinner for my dad and I tonight. We always have an almost full fridge and overflowing cabinets yet there's "nothing to eat" as my sister always complained before she moved out.

I used a box of Ronzoni Tricolor Spaghetti, Jar of Ragu Garden Sauce, added a chopped tomato & mushrooms and the last half of a log of fresh mozzarella. I'm really not a cheese person, but mozzarella is delicious. Then I microwaved some green beans and toasted some Basil bread we got from a local bakery last week. SO good. Definitely enough left overs for 3-4 more servings. I'm hoping I forget about it or my dad who eats like a bird mysteriously scarfs it all down so I don't have the option to eat it tomorrow. I almost NEVER stuff myself past full, but for some reason I always do when it comes to Spaghetti. It's. So. Good.

Hey Baby, I think I wanna marry you.

This is my desktop background right now. Inspired by the song sung in an episode of Glee that I somehow didn't know existed until then. I kind of love it.



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We got a house! We BOUGHT a house!

 

We are SO excited. We made an offer on Sunday and got news Monday morning that it's ours! Now we just have to wait for escrow aka the longest 60 days ever and then we can get to work on it! It's definitely a fixer, but it's mostly cosmetic and I'm so excited.




The Kitchen has brand new cabinets and counter tops which I'm so excited about. I hate nothing more than ugly oak cabinets (no offense to anyone with oak cabinets!) that I would end up painting ASAP. These look pretty good and we'll see how they look once we put new flooring in and paint the walls something that's NOT bright red. We're hoping for stainless steel appliances since there are none (the dishwasher in the photo is missing too).







One thing we won't have to really do much with is the bathrooms. They're pretty new looking and just need a few things, like this one needs a mirror. I don't remember if there's flooring or not, but if not we'll just use the same dark wood we're getting for the whole house.





The living room has this brick fireplace I'm excited about. I'm thinking we'll add a big mantel and paint it, but we'll see. I kind of like the brick, but if makes the whole room feel outdated we'll end up painting. We're (hopefully) putting dark wood floors in this room.




This room is HUGE and Blaine has started calling it the Great Room. It's a converted garage with a wood burning stove that will come in handy during the winter. We're thinking of experimenting with the floors in here and trying to do a cool painted concrete to save on flooring since we've already got to put flooring in 1500 sq feet of the house, we're hoping we can leave this 500ish sq ft and paint it to save some money.


There were SO many pictures on Realtor.com but within hours of our offer being accepted the listing was down! I wish I had saved them all, but at least I have these and we'll definitely be taking lots of before photos before we get to work. It's going to be A LOT of work, but it's going to be SO fun because we get to pick everything out ourselves. Eee! I'm so excited. This is going to be the longest 60 days of my life. I'll probably start collecting pieces for the house immediately. I've pretty much got the color scheme figured out. I'm guessing we'll need like 20 gallons of paint to paint the whole house. None of the colors are really doing it for me and the person who painted the house wasn't very good at it.

Let the planning begin! Between buying a new house and our wedding in October, this is going to be an amazing year... and we're going to be broke at the end of it. For good reason.

Nerdy Aileen

July 2010

Just read the nerdy tidbits post over at the veda house and decided to do the same. This is just the tip of the nerdyness iceburg.

Five random nerdy facts about me:

• I know the words to pretty much every classic Disney song. Like "Bonjour" from Beauty & the Beast... including all the voices and talking parts of random characters. My sister has a video to prove it.
  
• In high school while kids fooled around in class or napped I thought up businesses. I'm not joking. Like wrote down notes, calculated start up costs and profits, etc.
  
• I created my first website when I was 9. NINE.
  
• It was about Hanson.
  
• I coupon. Like hardcore coupon. Like I have 8 tubes of toothpaste, 6 bottles of body wash, 7 deodorants, etc that I got for free and once bought 16 boxes of cereal because my sister and now fiance eat it like crazy & they were .10 a box after coupons. (Not exactly as crazy as Extreme Couponing on TLC, but still.)

Yep - I'm nerdy.

Toms!

I have a well loved pair of Toms that I got from a friend for Christmas in 2009. I had to stop wearing them several months ago because I wore them out. So sad. Since then I lived in my Uggs, heels and flip flops. But I really do need some real shoes. My new blogger friend Kat's post reminded me how much I miss them! Now if I could only choose...

At least since I'd rather buy a Vegan pair that limits my choices or else I would be completely overwhelmed with choices!

 

The plain black ones would be safe. I LOVE the Elephants, but don't know if I want white Toms. My friend Kim painted some white ones and gave them to me and they didn't fit so I gave them to my sister. They got dirty pretty fast. The purpleish ones are pretty cute too. But I'm leaning towards the last pair. I'm indecisive, can you tell? ♥

Pretty Nail Love!

Back in high school I used to spend all sorts of money at the salon. Spa pedicures ($20), Pink & White Acrylics ($35) and then I'd need to get them filled every other week ($20). Maybe that helps to explain the debt I'm still struggling to pay off today! For the past couple of years I'd go once in a while or do my own nails, but I wouldn't regularly keep up with them at all. But as of late I've been painting them myself at home on a regular basis. I like to keep them relatively nice, it makes me feel more feminine.

This morning. Excuse under eye bags. Love this color! And my mug. Slutty is the new black in case you didn't know.

I recently a post over on The Dainty Squid about Sally Hansen Nail Strips and now I really want to try them. I'm really cheap and they're about $10 a pop for 16 strips. Not quite enough for 2 full applications, but maybe a full application and then another application with a few coordinated painted nails. So lets say that's $5 per "manicure" which still beats the nail salon, but it still way more expensive than nail polishing at home. If I can find a sale on them (see? I told you I was cheap) then I might buy a few and give them a try. There are some super cute patterns!

Fears

Danielle over at Sometimes Sweet posted on her fear of birds which prompted me to talk about my fears. I can almost say I'm afraid of everything. Heights - I get dizzy if I'm higher than about the 5th floor in a building, I've never been on a real roller coaster and I hate planes. The Dark - I'm trying to get over the whole "turn off the lights, run & JUMP into bed" thing, I swear! Maybe that's also partly "under the bed monster" fear? It's so funny because I know how illogical most of my fears are and if I try really hard I can usually talk myself through them. But there are two fears of mine that seem sort of related. The Ocean & Space.

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Ocean. Honestly, any deep water freaks me out. Especially if I'm in it and can't see the bottom. I have this thing about the huge abyss below and around me that could swallow me whole. The funny thing is I'm not even really afraid of fish or sharks attacking me. Obviously it's not like I go around looking for them, but I just don't like what I can't see! What I hate even more? Driving by the ocean in the dark. It gives me chills. I'm also kind of deathly afraid of tsunamis. There's a great restaurant in Malibu right on the ocean and every time we go there I have to remind my family that if there was a tsunami, we would be screwed. Nice huh?

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Space. Oh god. When my dad starts talking about space I freak out. I don't even like to try and think about how much SPACE there is in space. I think it's another thing with the whole "abyss" fear. It's too big. It's so hard to grasp and it makes me shudder if I think too much about it.

Maybe I'm the opposite of a claustrophobic?