Idahohnoyoudint.

I'm not sure of the exact date, but around this time give or take a couple of days, we were pulling off of the i-15 and into the city of nothing, our new home, Idaho Falls.

Immediately, I was unimpressed, but I wasn't anticipating anything more so it didn't surprise me. I was, however, a little surprised at how quickly the feeling of dread and despair had overwhelmed me, since I had about a week to try and convince myself it would be ok. I had that heavy almost painful feeling in the pit of my stomach as we passed the wal-mart, the forlorn looking pancake house, and other buildings that looked just as sad to be in this town as I was.

                             

As we pulled up to the light located right next to "The Falls" I stared at the water, not knowing at the time that I was seeing absolutely all there was to see in this city. I looked to my right, a car was stopped next to us at the light, an older, beat up and rusted, white sedan with the windows down that contained a lone driver; a woman, possibly in her mid thirties, looking like the midway point of the faces of meth photo series--not completely overcome with meth face, but well on her way. She was wearing a spaghetti strap pink tank top, her hair pulled up with a scrunchie, smoking a cigarette. That's when my emotions surfaced, the flood gates opened, and the tears came. That woman, her cigarette, and her scrunchie were a symbol of all that I lost leaving beautiful Savannah, GA for Idaho Falls, ID, a town where people still wore scrunchies.

I still remember that day like it was yesterday. It's been a hard pill to swallow knowing that this place is my home, the place Taylor and I have been in the longest, and the place where my first baby was born. AND, Although there are terrible things about this place that still keep me from loving it (and knowing that I definitely will not miss it when we finally get to leave), there are good things that help me cope with being trapped here. Target, D.I., a few good people and friends I've made, the extremely low cost of living, the proximity to other places I'd rather be (I.E. Bear Lake, Yellowstone, Salt Lake City) my cute house, and my cute family. When I get asked the question "How do you like living in Idaho Falls?" I can now say, "It's ok, in the summertime." which is an upgrade from "No comment" or "I don't." or "This is what hell will be like."

Here's to hoping that I can survive the next couple of years here unscathed.

The painting in the nursery.

I wish I could say the nursery is all the way done. But I am happy to say it's MOST of the way done. There are only a few more things to hang. But Emerson only sleeps in there for naps so I think it's okay that since it's only partly his main room that it's only partly finished.

When I started nesting mode and was brainstorming what I wanted to do for the nursery. I KNEW I didn't want to do any particular BRIGHT color palette or anything too baby-ish like mickey the freaking mouse or whatever the hell. Cause that ain't my thing. ANYWAY.

One weekend early in my pregnancy, we went to my grandma's in Bear Lake and she pulled out this painting and told me how my mom had found in an old abandoned house in Idaho near Bear Lake. (That was a thing my mom was into, going into old abandoned houses and finding cool things, and somehow she was really good at it.) She asked if I wanted it. When I saw it I immediately knew that it had to go into the nursery and that I would work my decor around this painting.

Luckily, the painting isn't the only sentimental thing in my little mountain man's nursery.

this is the painting up close, and the frame that came with it. love.

Eye spy a little Emer man.
Also, the painting isn't crooked-- it's just my sub-par photography skills.

This rocking chair used to belong to my great-grandparents, and I was VERY close to them. When I was little my grandpa would come inside from working in the yard he would sit in this chair to take off his shoes and I'd climb in his lap and tell him about my day. I miss them both so much everyday. I am so glad I get to rock my baby in this chair now.

DON'T MIND MY EXCESSIVE BABY SHOE COLLECTION.
 I'm not much for hunting, but when we first moved to Idaho I wanted to paint some antlers and my grandpa is an avid hunter so I asked him if had any that I could have, he did. But I never got around to the craft so I decided to hang them as is in the nursery. It's fun to have a little piece of Emerson's great grandpa (still alive though, btw) in there.

After we decided to name him Emerson, I was downstairs looking through Tayl's books for pretty books to display on our bookshelves in the living room and I found this Ralph Waldo Emerson book. I felt like it was a sign. So I had to put the book in the nursery too. If you can't see it, it's "Emerson on man and God." ALSO, my BFF Jen gave us those cute little moccs. But they won't fit him for awhile so right now they are part of the decor.
And if anyone asks what the fox says, I'll find you and punch you in the throat.

My aunt gave me this bible while I was pregnant,
which just so happened to be my mom's from when she was little,
it even had her name engraved on the front. 

This is the adorable mobile that my BFF Jen made
which I have yet to hang over the crib but I WILL do it.
Just one of the things I still need to do.

my special juice is gonna help me bloooog.

i was really feeling like i was keeping up with blogging until i realized that it's been a WHOLE month since i last blogged.  so geez.

well, basically everyone already knows this but...

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

She's so cute right? I mean I would someday like to paint the house on the outside, but whatever.

In other news in Idaho; nothing.

Oh except that last week it snowed so I woke up to this:

but this week it has been in the 60s so I was like whaaaaat. is going on. But I'm totally not complaining. I'll take what I can get in this spud ridden frozen tundra. 

We are mostly moved in to our house except that my clothes are still in space bags and covering my bedroom floor. DONT JUDGE ME, I need a dresser. and I'm lazy. But anyway, this house is HUGE (to me) and I feel like I need to buy a bunch of crap to fill it up (aka hoarding). Luckily I'm basically obsessed with target clearance/the D.I. so that should be happening in no time at all. Look for me on A&E or TLC soon. 

Wednesday, as you know if you are a regular person, was Halloween. Our Mexican friend, Vickie had a little Halloween shindig giving us an excuse to dress up. So, I got Lux a dog-wig

She's a pink lady if you didn't catch that.

 and we dressed up as old people/Florida retirees. 

I'd like to inappropriately note that those are not my real breasts.

So that happened. The best part was when a girl showed up to the party we were at and thought she was at the wrong party because we were the first people she saw and she thought we were legitimate old people. So that made me feel good because I put minimal effort into these costumes. (the fact that my shirt and pants matched so dern good was an act of God, found them separately at the D.I.) 

This evening we had our friends over for LOW COUNTRY BOIL! which I will be blogging about TOMORROW, to give you pics AND the recipe. Cause seriously, you haven't lived until you've had a good old low country boil, says me. 

Also I made everyone try go-go juice, which if you live under a rock, is part red bull part mt. dew.

 In other words, I am super buzzin right now and maybe gonna die. If that's the case, I have to apologize for not giving you the Low Country Boil recipe sooner. 

But lets hope we make it through the night. 

livin on a prayer & a travel sized bottle of wrinkle releaser.

whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
okay. hi. remember us?

so we're in Idaho now. I don't necessarily want to say we LIVE in Idaho because it technically doesn't feel like we do yet.

let me rewind.


so we packed up all of our crap and drove across the country. the few and the proud who follow my instagram were tortured for 3 days straight by my constant road shots from the passenger seat (sorry about thaaat.) . let's relive a few of the highlights:

WHAT UP GUYYSSS?

St. Louie

Mom Jeans in Nebraska. I'm not a woman anymore, I'm a mom.

Ohhh I was so jealous of her.

That all seems so long ago...

So here's what's happened since we've arrived in Idaho Falls:

Taylor started his job. He likes it so far. Some really devastating news for me is that he has to wear a respirator mask AND SO HE CAN'T HAVE A BEARD!!! I mean, it makes my heart hurt just to type it. So he's keeping the mustache but it just isn't the same.

Our first week here, we stayed at the super 8 while we decided to look for rentals. That didn't go great. On Sunday at church we met a lady who is a mortgage officer person lender guy madam sir. Whatever they like to be called. We ended up getting pre-approved with her on Monday for a home loan and decided it would be a good time to buy, instead of throwing away money on a stupid rental again. The mortgage sir lady gave us the name of a realtor who we decided to go with and he is great.

So, we house hunt while staying in the Super 8 and house after house we don't have a ton of luck, until Friday when I find this adorable perfect little house. So we put an offer on it and our offer got accepted! Yay! But less yay! after the inspection happened.

By this time it's week two and we're staying in an even WORSE hotel hoping to be able to move in to this house early but it turns out, this little dream house was actually a wet dream and I don't mean that in a perverse way. The basement was wet and moldy and the only way to fix it would be to excavate from the outside and fix the foundation. This was a very stressful time for us because we did not want to keep living in hotels because IT'S EXPENSIVE! But then by the grace of God and the goodness of the people of Idaho, we got hooked up with an RV in an RV park. So yep. We're living in an RV. It's okay, you can call me trailer trash, I won't even be sad.

I know what you're dying to hear, WHAT HAPPENED WITH THAT ADORBS HOUSE? Well, they refused to fix the foundation before we bought and so today we were like SEE YA!! Which I'm not really sad about that either because I can't deal with wet basements. I really hate em.

This blog just got way too long, even for me. And Taylor is eating an apple way too loud so I'm in a bad mood right now.

But to sum things up, we are starting the house hunt over tomorrow, we are RV trash, we are doing okay, and we have some really cool friends near by. Also it's getting cold, which sucks. But, I love to be fat and wear sweatshirts, so BONUS.

land of spuds.

I haven't pre-approved this announcement with my husband but...
we are moving to Idaho Falls, IDAHO.

Next week.

For reals.

It kind of gave me anxiety just to type that. I haaaaaaate the cold and the snow and Idaho. but at least we will be closer to my family and friends I left behind two and a half years ago. I'm going to try and have a good attitude because *supposedly* that helps. Gandhi/Confucius/Marilyn Monroe said so. And plus, at least it's not China. or the midwest.

I'm excited for a new adventure with my husband but what I am most excited about is that I feel as though this job that Taylor got will be much more fulfilling for him. It really bummed me out thinking that he was wasting that genius brain of his at work everyday, so I am glad that he is excited about not only the company but also his position.

I will update you more later because I can't talk about how much I am going to miss the dirty souf without wanting to cry. But in the meantime, pray that we make it to the land of spuds in one piece.

(And it's okay to congratulate Taylor, because it is seriously a blessing that he got a job exactly one month after he got laid off.)

HOW TO COPE WITH UNEMPLOYMENT.

look, I already look kind of homeless and it's not so bad.

sometimes your husband gets laid off, and sometimes you need to do things that keep you from being depressed while taking a break from near constant job hunting.

 here are things we've been doing instead of crying:

well for starters, I've been cooking/baking a lot. Like almost every night. And I'm sure better housewives (and mothers) than me would scoff at that, but I mean I've been going HARD in the kitchen. Like I am getting in trouble because we have too much leftovers.

For example, I've made this (as pictured above). and this. and this to go with these. and this. and these.

And most of it was with the help of my lovely new kitchenaid!

Which I'd like to point out was pretty much free.

We spent almost 5 days straight in the house in attempt to find a job for Taylor and also save money, obviously. BUT yesterday we caved and decided to go see The Dark Knight Rises. DON'T WORRY, it was the super matinee so it was only 5.50 a ticket. And Batman is my favorite so I had to go, finally.

It was sooo grood.


To supplement our income and also to be nice we have been dog sitting for the family that I "nanny" for while they are out of town for the week. It sure is different having  TWO regular sized shedding dogs in our house on top of my sassy little virtually shed free cotton ball. But they are really sweet and Lux likes to boss them around and make sure they don't get on the couch and they think she is an idiot, but strangely, they are also scared of her. Also they are basically in love with Taylor.

the boss

lily and ella

And then today we decided to plant some flowers in our ugly back yard.

IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL I MIGHT NEED TO HAVE A GARDEN PARTY!! and get some G.D. garden lanterns.

If you're wondering how the job search is going, it's going well. I mean not well in the sense that we have any specific leads but there are plenty of jobs for Taylor to apply for. In fact, so far I've compiled a list of about 80. And that was a list I made while being picky about locations. Currently Tayl is thinking about switching to teaching so we're trying to get more information about doing that. So if anyone knows anything about becoming a teacher in the state of Georgia (for someone with a Masters Degree), holla at us.

All of your kind words and prayers and helpfulness and well wishes are GREATLY appreciated. We love you all! We're gonna be okay. Probably. But if not, I think I could find a way to make a cardboard box a home. I'm resourceful.

hiatus. tayl returns!

it's sad that my life is so that when I don't blog for 6 days it feels like I haven't blogged in 12 years. But, I mean, blogging is really one of my main duties as a wife and I should at least be blogging on Wednesdays and I totally skipped. Sorry to all my dedicated readers of Wifed Up Wednesday (aka just Jen.)

Monday felt like Monday, Then Tuesday felt like Saturday and a little bit of Sunday. So Wednesday felt like Monday and everything was out of control. In a good way.

The real Monday (not Wednesday) is when Taylor came home, finally.

His flight wasn't due to arrive until 3:55 PM so I went about my day as normal as the strong independent woman I had developed into over the past 3 weeks. In the afternoon, I was doing my make-up I got a call from Taylor at about 3:50 PM saying that he had landed, collected his luggage, and was waiting for me. I felt bad that I wasn't there waiting for him, but I forgot that Savannah airport is not like Atlanta.
So I hauled my butt out the door to get my man.

When we got home Taylor and Lux had their reunion and it was like I stopped existing to them.

Lux missed her daddy, and his leg:

The day went on and we relaxed and did normal married people stuffs. I did Taylor's laundry. (The first non-asian to do his laundry in weeks.) Then we went to the Hunger Games (again for me).

Random note, homecoming day also happened to be wildlife day in casa de Taykyns. 

That morning April came over to play tennis with me and she brought the mail in with her and informed me that this was in our mailbox:

 It was dead, obviously, but so pretty. I hope that in spite of the fact that it was dead, it was still a good omen.

Then while helping Tay unpack I went to hang up his coat in the coat closet and I saw this next to the frame of the front door:

And I was like, what the hef is that?

Oh no big deal, it's just a tree frog, in my house.

Don't worry, I set it free. I'm just glad it didn't suffer the same fate as it's forefather. (see:  the massacre of 11/11/11)

Anyway, the next day (Tuesday, which felt like Saturday) I woke up and I couldn't believe that my husband was home. It was weird to roll over and see not just a pile of laundry and a fluffy bed hogging doggy, but a MAN IN MY BED.

Someday I'll show you pictures that he took in China.

wifed up wednesday: DIY "glittering landscape"

I found this project on apartment therapy. I saw it awhile ago but the other day I FINALLY got the last of our wedding gifts and left over decorations in mail from my dad. I found a couple of strands of Christmas lights and remembered this project.

So I went at it.

Here's what you need:

Mini Christmas lights
stretched and stapled Canvas
Hot glue or craft glue
Awl
Pencil
And optionally, you can paint the canvas before working with it.

This took me about 5 hours. Which, as you probably guessed, I was watching Mad Men so I didn't even realize how much time had passed.

First you need to mark where your lights are going to go. You can do this with a pencil on the back of the canvas.

Once you know where your lights are gonna go punch the holes in through the back with the awl (or whatever you have to punch holes). Then stick the lights through and secure them with glue (I used hot glue)


It's a pretty simple process, just time consuming.

 If I were to do it again (and I think I will) I would be a little more careful about where I put my lights AND I would have painted the canvas beforehand. Mine kind of looks abstract and random, but the lights still add a cool ambiance to whatever room you put it in.

she bes domestic.

I have been working on living room decor since we moved in. The search for throw pillows/fabric to make throw pillows has been nothing short of a nightmare. Until recently. I found some fabric at Ikea when we stopped there on our way out of Atlanta. (I didn't even know they had fabric) and then I found some mustard throw pillows at world market for only 10 bucks. Then I found some aqua-ish damask-ish fabric at Joann for the long pillow.

Using my sewing machine has been a little bit of a nightmare cause my presser foot lifter broke in half (even after we glued it.) so even though making pillows should be a simple task, even for a sewing noob like me, it took like 3 days and a couple of cut up fingers. BUT ALAS, I have finished.

the color isn't very good cause this is a cell phone picture.

the pink a little bit darker than that.

I won't lie to you though, those pillows look like a 5 year old made them. but they work for now so it's fine.

in other household news, we finally got our crock pot which I may have already mentioned, and so I went a little crazy with the whole "LET'S SLOW COOK!" kind of thing.  I've made pulled pork BBQ sandwiches, chili (from scratch!), a Sunday roast, and the list will continue on. Tomorrow I am making this http://pinterest.com/pin/82542605640025936/

And I actually really love using the Crock Pot. It's been fun. Especially since we don't have a dishwasher and there are less dishes to wash. I'm not going to go into super detail but I just wanted to share a recipe with you if you ever feel like slow cooking. Cause that is what my life is now, getting excited about crock pot recipes.

This one is Taylor's Faaaavorite

Crock Pot Chicken

In the bottom of a crock pot melt 1/2 cube butter

Add 4 chicken breasts, thawed.

2 packets dried italian dressing mix

2 cans of cream of mushroom soup

Garlic as desired

Let it cook for anywhere from 4 to 5 hours, and about an hour before serving add 1 pkg of cream cheese and 1 regular sized sour cream. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over rice or noodles.

I know I should have taken a picture of it but it looked like vomit, it was delicious though.

Also, just as an added bonus, I would like to share with you the most simple recipe of all time. Whenever I would tell people about this they were like, "yeah, I already knew that" so I think it was one of those things that everyone knew but me, but I'm gonna share it on the off chance that someone out there was like me. And apparently this is a weight watcher recipe, just what I heard.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

In a mixing bowl combine the following:

1 package spice cake mix

1 package chocolate chips

1 15 oz can of pumpkin

Preheat oven to 375. Drop spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. bake 8-10 minutes.

Keep an eye on these because they look pretty much the same in dough form as they do cooked. Since they are so cake-like you can stick a toothpick or a fork in them to check if they're done. That's what I do.