Finding My Voice

To say that I have been mildly absent from here recently would be an understatement.   I really would like to grow this blog more and have it truly be what I set out for it to be a while ago, about my life as a wife and mom.

I have struggled to find my voice, I often find myself censoring what I write on here and that isn’t how I want to utilize this space on the interwebs.  I want to speak my mind, I want to write how I speak (if that even makes sense), but most of all I want to be successful on here.  I don’t feel only sharing the good times with you is fair.  Because lately; while overall life is good, I have been struggling with some darker feelings and trying to overcome them.  I haven’t been that successful in doing that but I think if I have an outlet to voice my feelings one of two things might happen.

Someone out there who reads this might be going through something similar to me, and seeing how I deal with it or overcome it might be helpful.  Or the fact that they are not alone in their feelings in and of themselves might be helpful.  I don’t know, but I do know that I personally have read a post or two that spoke to my soul and helped me see the bigger picture.  I can only hope to be that for someone else.

I might meet someone who has similar thoughts or feelings as I do.  I already feel like I have “met” some amazing mommy bloggers who I would love to call friends. Heather of Cookies for Breakfast, Kathy of Kissing the Frog, Ashley of Sorry Kid, Your Mom Doesn’t Play Well With Others.  These are just three of the AMAZING mom blogs I read on a daily bases.  But you know what is great; all three have very different voices behind their blogs.  I wish I could find my niche in there to have my personality come through in my writing as well as these fine ladies do.

So that is my new goal, to find my niche in this blogging world I am in.  I am going to count today as a fresh start for me and my blog.  I hope to get caught up on the rest of the house stuff, and how my kid refuses to be healthy for more than a week at a time!  But most of all I hope you come on the journey with me; there will be good days and bad days but most of all I hope I can find the meaning or at least some humor through it all.

I am excited to also say that in the next couple of months, I am going to be working with a couple lovely ladies who are going to be helping me put together a new blog design & character illustration.  I am just having some trouble deciding what kind of illustration I am wanting more.   If you could take a moment and answer the poll over there to your right I would greatly appreciate your input!

Until next time my beautiful friends!

Jenn

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Product Review { Simply to Impress}

This last Christmas I decided to check out living social to see if I can get a good deal on our cards.  You see we send out over 60 cards each year to family and friends all off the country.  I was so excited when I found one that had cards that were slightly different that the normal ones you find on shutterfly and various other sites for a smoking deal!.

What is this fabulous website called you ask. Oh well let me tell you.  It is Simply to Impress.  Let me tell you impress me they did, from the simplistic and problem free ordering right on down to their customer service and even their packaging is a dream.  They are simply AH-mazing!

So, once it came time for me to order our moving announcements I knew exactly where to go.  I found one that I loved and I eagerly awaited for their arrival.  It wasn’t but a couple of day until I got an email saying that my cards were ready and on their way.  And as a bonus they upgraded me from standard shipping to 2 day air for FREE.  That’s right they wanted me to have my cards right away too and offered to get them to my house within two days instead of the 5-7 that I had chosen and paid for!

It couldn’t get home fast enough this last Monday as that was the day they were coming.  Once Zach was in bed I couldn’t wait a second longer to open it.  But I want you guys to experience it will me so I pulled out the camera and snapped a few pictures to share with you.

The boxes have this amazing velvety texture to them. I have no idea how they do it but it seriously is amazing!

Every order comes with a thank you letter from the company.  It is down to the little
details like this that make you want to continue to go back to them. 

I love that is says "Welcome back"  since this is my second order with them.

They even offer a service to address and mail the cards out for you.  No muss no fuss for you.  I elected this time to have them just put our return address on the back of the envelopes so I would have to worry about that.*

Isn’t that packaging beautiful!  I mean seriously I am contemplating saving the box to store my hand made cards in because I just think they are so great to look at!  How awesome is it that they included two extra cards just in case I needed a couple more. 

I would encourage you to check out their website the next time you need to order cards or invitations.  I promise you that you will not be disappointed!

* I have covered up the address on the envelopes as well as the cards because, well, while I love my followers I don't exactly want my address all public on the interwebz and all! 

  

*** The opinions of this post are purely mine; I did not and will not receive any compensation for this post.  ***

Building our dream home updated {drywall & more}

Oh gosh ya’ll I cannot seem to get in the house and take pictures fast enough these days!  I go on Monday without my camera and one new thing is done then I go on Wednesday, again without my camera, and 10 MORE things have been done! By the time the weekend rolls around I have so much to write about.   It seriously is blowing my mind how quickly this is going.

I know I hinted last time about our closing date so I should probably tell you that it is February 27^th!!! I can’t believe we are just one month away from closing on our dream home, when I first wrote and told you guys that this was happening I thought it would be this slow process and it truly has flown by.  CJ and I are so excited for this new chapter in our lives together.

Now let’s get down to business, shall we?  On my last update they had insulated and the dry wall had been delivered.  Well since then the following has been completed.  Dry walling is done, plaster/texture is done, exterior was stuccoed, interior painted, exterior painted (almost complete), roof was installed, AC unit was installed, cabinets & shelving was installed, doors were put on, door handles & locks are now on, window’s cleaned and they have started framing out for the rest of our fence. Oh and the weather stripping was added to the front & garage doors and the low voltage guys came in and plated off all of their stuff!

We have run in to a couple issues, well one mainly.  We had selected a raised vanity for the Master Bath, well somehow it was overlooked and not added to any of our paper work.  So when they installed the cabinets they put the wrong ones in the master.  I looked through all my paper work and it was missed by the design center.  Well to save you from all the gritty details I will say that thanks to the AMAZING girls in the sales office they will be putting in the raised vanity!  Seriously, Christie & Susie are the kindest hearted women and have been so sweet and helpful to CJ and me through this whole process!   I don’t know what we would have done without them both!

Also, our mortgage rep has been great!  I have been working on getting him all the updated documents he needs and I am happy to say that we have locked in our rate and we couldn't be happier with where it is.

Now, who is ready to see the pictures!? 

View of the garage!

The pantry, the shelving goes all the away around.

The built in desk off the dining area.

View from the living room corner!

So freaking excited about that island!!! Cabinets AND drawers on both sides!

Entry way

Zach's playroom

Linen closet at the top of the stairs.

Loft area!  We plan on making this a movie room area!

My craft corner!

Entering Zach's bedroom!

Zach's room

Entering spare room on the left and Master on the right.

Kid's bathroom

Spare Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Oh my gosh, ya'll I have waited such and LONG time to show you this tub! I can not FREAKING wait to take a bath in it, look at the freaking built in seat! AH-mazing!!!

Closet in the Master Bedroom.

Other side of the closet!

This is the view from CJ's and my bedroom, you can also see the roof tile, I love the flat tiles!

View of the backyard from the patio, if you look carefully you can see the rebar is in for them to finish the fence. 

Building our dream home update

In the middle of December CJ and I had our framing walk through.  This was after all the electrical, hvac & plumbing stuff had been run.  This was so we could go over our concerns with them and they could verify our options.

 It went really well, at that point in time our only concern was the placement of the thermostat cable upstairs.  We I didn’t like where they had it placed and I asked them to move it.  It was funny when they guy tried to tell me it wouldn’t fit where I wanted it and I just simply told him, but that is where it is located in the model.  It was moved the next day.

So what was to happen later that same day was the city inspector was going to come out to inspect the framing.  If it past then insulation & drywall would go up next.  We left and went to work hoping a praying that it would pass inspection just because we heard the inspector is kind of well how do I put this…. Umm… he or she is kind of a hard a$$ when it comes to the number of nails in things… I know strange right!?  But whatever it is his/hers job and I am thankful that everything looked great and that we passed with enough nails flying colors! 

So when we went the following weekend I about had a heart attack when we drove up and THIS is what we saw!

Our address plate!  I never knew that they put it on BEFORE doing stucco! 

The entire house was foamed out & chicken wired for stucco!  I was so excited because it looked like the house I have been envisioning for months now!  It seems so much more real, and trust me I say this with each phase, but I could just envision more and more the life I will have with my family in this home.

As we walked up we saw a HUGE pile of drywall, in fact in more than a few rooms there were huge piles of drywall.  I was so excited!  And the entire house was insulated!  Man these folks work fast!  So I had a sharpie with me and I have had an idea in my head since we started this whole thing. I wanted to do something that would leave our mark on the house, on its bones, something that only we would ever know was there.  So I took a sharpie pen and wrote around the house on the framing our initials, even covered FBL(s) which stands for Future Baby Lindauer(s) you know just in case we have two more instead of one…. Twinsies run on both sides of our family ya’ll we have to be ready ;).  On one wall in particular I wrote the following “May God and Steven bless this home.”

This last one was especially important to me, if without God we would not have the blessings that we do, and we know that Steven is always watching over us and helping us all stay safe, healthy and happy.  He will always be a huge part of our lives and will always be there watching over us in our home.

  

This is our garage!

Looking into the laundry room & kitchen from the garage.

Piles of drywall like this one were in four other rooms besides this one.

Delivery sheet for the drywall.

Standing in the kitchen looking towards the dining room & living room.

Standing in the dining room looking towards the kitchen.

Zach's playroom.

Looking towards Zach's playroom & front door from the living room.

In Zach's playroom looking towards the half bath & linen closet.

As a totally side note how adorable are these pictures of my son & husband!  Yep it is for sure I am one lucky lady.

My cup runneth over!

So that is it for now I guess…. We did have some exciting news today… We have an official close date on our house!!! But more on that later.