Our Make-shift Ladders....

When we found our home here in Germany, we didn't realize that when the tenants that lived here previously moved out, they were going to take all of their light fixtures with them. This would be NO problem if we lived in the states, because think of how many places you can get nice light fixtures in the US..... but for some reason it's been like pulling teeth to find nice lighting here that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. For the first few months of living here we just used lamps and floor lamps for lighting, then gradually we found fixtures here and there that we liked. We had such a hard time finding a nice chandelier type of fixture for the dining room, and finally this weekend we agreed on one.

Now, since our ceilings are 13 feet high, and we don't have a 12/13 foot ladder, it's a bit of a challenge to replace the lighting. Or at least I thought, but leave it to my husband to come up with a solution.....

This is in our bedroom. We put in a very simple fixture.

If you look closely you'll see that he has taken a small table, turned it upside down and placed it on our bed. THEN he sat a chair on the upside down table and used this as a ladder! Maybe not the safest way to replace lighting, but hey.... it worked!

This was last year when we first moved in and desperately needed light in the kitchen, Jon took a desk, put a chair on top of the desk and TA...DA! a ladder.

My husband is definitely a handy man! Now we only have one more light that needs a fixture and our lighting situation will finally be over. Whew, what a pain!

Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Hello all you lovely bloggers! It's Wednesday, which means only two more days until the weekend. Jon and I are planning a small day trip to Heidelberg, weather permitting, but forecast calls for rain all week and weekend, so it's not looking too hot. Just a couple of things going on in our little lives:

• This morning as I was making my morning coffee, I looked out of our kitchen window and there was a surprise! Look what's finally growing:

My peppers!
Now I can make salsa with home grown peppers.

• Last night I watched Jon play in a softball game at the airbase. His office put a softball team together and Jon told them he'd play as a backup player. There are several people from his office that are on TDY so Jon played catcher last night. It is an easy position at times, but can be one of the most important positions at certain moments. He did pretty good for not having ever played. Even though they lost, I was still a proud little wife!
  

• My parents officially booked their flights and will be coming to visit us at the end of September. They are staying for two weeks! I look forward to their visit.
  

• We watched a couple of movies this weekend that I thought I'd share. We REALLY enjoyed all of these, you should check them out!
  

This just came out yesterday on DVD.
It's so good! I love movies like these.

• Big bummer, the buyer on our home fell through, so our place is still on the market! I thought it was all taken care of, but last week our realtor said the buyer backed out. Ouch! I don't understand why it hasn't sold, it is the cutest little house! But, I have faith, I believe it will sell soon. I'll just stay positive and keep my fingers crossed!

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!

Weekend Update

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend! Ours was great! On Easter we met up with several friends and had a nice lunch.

During holidays it makes Jon and me realize how much we do miss our families. I was so sad to miss my nieces and nephew hunting Easter eggs and getting together with my family at my grandparents for a big meal. I missed putting together an Easter bunny nest (a tradition in Jon's family) and waking up Easter morning with lots of wonderful goodies.

But the fact that I have Jon on this Easter in Germany means more to me than anything. I am very lucky to have him in my life.

Well, all the gooshiness aside,
Saturday Jon and I decided it was time to buy some much needed things for our home.

When we first moved here we bought a new dining room table but had trouble finding chairs that we liked. So for 6 months now we have been without dining room chairs. We used fold out chairs and our computer chair to sit on.

This weekend we decided it was time to get out there and find the perfect chairs for our table. (nothing says redneck like an old rolling computer chair at the dinner table!)

We went to Ikea and found nothing suitable for a dining room table. But we did find a rug for our living room.

I think it matches our place spot on.

With no luck at Ikea, we headed for Mann Mobilia knowing we'd probably have a better chance of finding a more suitable set of chairs.

And we did.........
We completely lucked out, these chairs were on sale and I really think they go perfectly with our table. Plus they are super comfortable to sit on.

Nothing like a little furniture shopping to make your entire weekend.
I feel like our house is finally coming along. There are only a couple more pieces of furniture we need to make our home complete. Now if I could only just blink and my entire house be clean, that would really make my day complete!!

I hope you all have a great week!

Balcony Fun

We finally found cushions for our patio furniture. Let me tell you guys, this was such a chore, as there really is not much to choose from at our local stores. So we grabbed these cushions and think they are pretty perfect for the spring season.

We bought this beautiful tree today and planted it into this fun pot. Our patio needed a touch of plant life, and we thought this would be perfect for our morning ambiance.

Now I absolutely love our balcony. I can't wait until it is a little warmer outside, so I can plant flowers to make it even more colorful. Can you tell I'm in spring mode?

Something I was super excited about was finding these this morning. My little herbs are sprouting! I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed weekend!

Weekend Update

Lazy.... Lazy..... Lazy, is all I can say for this weekend. Jon and I were extremely sedentary! I feel terrible, especially for my body which probably gained a couple of pounds from not moving off the couch. I guess this is what we needed because our bodies wouldn't do otherwise.
We've made a promise to each other that we are going to start going to the gym after Jon gets off work at night. We are starting first thing tomorrow evening, no backing out.

Saturday we went to Ikea to grab some necessities. Curtains, curtain rods, light bulbs, etc.
We then came home and hung some of those curtains.

Kitchen curtains (mind the dishes)


The Salon curtains


And lastly MUCH needed bedroom curtains ;)

No more scaring the neighbors, for me!

Randomly, Jon is a really great artist. He can draw so well, but doesn't draw because he thinks he's terrible at it....... I don't get it. I think he is amazing. We have a ginormous canvas that we bought back in the states and have yet to do anything with. Saturday we found an awesome antique map,

and decided we should paint this map to put on our wall in the dining room.
We drew the map on the canvas.
It's a terrible picture and extremely hard to see. Click to enlarge.


Later that day we went to the PX, the craft store on base, and even the hardware store and had no luck finding acrylic paint. So we will be ordering some paint online soon in attempt to finish this exciting project.

That evening we cooked barbecue chicken on the grill and had baked beans as a side. Yummy! It took me back to memories of family cookouts. We played the Wii, did some Wii bowling, tennis, and played a little Guitar Hero. (I killed my pinky rocking out so hard)

Sunday we spent the entire day watching the second season of Arrested Development.


We're completely obsessed with this show. I absolutely love it, LOVE IT! It's hilarious!
I can't wait to watch the third season.
Sunday night we cooked steaks on the grill and had a little "surf n' turf." I've never eaten so much in one weekend, but it was completely worth the couple extra pounds. Jon said he wanted some good home cooked meals for his birthday and just for the heck of it since he's been eating fast food for the last two weeks. We definitely had some good food.

Today Jon had the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day which was a nice treat. We ran a couple of errands but hurried home because the weather was just icky. It's been raining all weekend. (No wonder we were so lazy, who wants to go out in the gunky rain?)
Jon, my wonderful hairstylist, did my hair today and I gave him a haircut as well.
While Jon was slapping the color on my head I asked
"Are you sure you don't mind doing my hair?"
Jon: "No it's actually fun."
Me: "Really, you enjoy it?"
Jon: "Are you kidding, Dude..... I get to paint my wife's head!"
end of story lol.

Again, he made me look like Cindy Lou Who from Whoville
Before:

After:


I feel like a new person ;) And my hair feels so much better thanks to Jonny D.
We had a great weekend!

Have a great week guys!

Let There Be Light!

Well, we finally have a light in the kitchen besides the lights under the cabinets and we also have a light in the office. The people who lived here before took their light fixtures with them so we have been without since we moved in! We just had 20 million lamps set up all over the house. Our plan was to wait until we had all the light fixtures that we wanted for each room before we hired an electrician, but my husband thought he'd just take it upon himself to do the electrical work. eeeeek!

He actually did a great job and now I can see while I am cooking! YAY!

Jonny the electrician.
Yes that is a desk and a chair that he is standing on!
The ladder wouldn't reach our ceiling.

It's so nice to be able to see in my office! Cutting Jon's hair.


This morning when we woke up my mom started making her famous fudge!

Chocolate and Marsh mellow cream

Milk, Butter and Sugar boiled together to reach the temp of 234.

After it reached 234 degrees she poured the mixture into the chocolate and marsh mellow cream. We had to lick the bowl!

The fudge all done! YUMMMM


After making her famous fudge, my mom and I got ready for our day and headed to Ikea. There were several things I needed and she helped me pick out some curtains to hang in our dining room. We also went grocery shopping so she could pick out things she wanted to make for our Christmas dinner we are having tomorrow night. I so look forward to that!

About to head out


We finally made it back and now I am going to get to work hanging my curtains!

A Work in Progress

Since my parents will be here Saturday, I knew I had to bust my butt and get our new place in order. Jon and I have been working our little tails off, making this house a home, it has been a lot of work. I am finally fully unpacked and each room is coming together quite well. Slowly but surely this place will be looking awesome, I am truly happy with the results. There is still so much work to be done, but so far so good! I am going to show a little before and after action of each room, so you can see what I've had to work with!

As you may have read before, Jon and I don't have closets in our house. I guess it's some weird thing they do here in Germany, so we've had to box a lot of belongings up and stick them down in the cellar. The first room I wanted to tackle of course was the living room, because we literally live in this room.

This is what the living room looked like before:

And here is what we've done so far: we still need to get curtains hung.


I really dislike all of the chords showing. I don't know what to do about that yet!


This is a picture of the hallway looking at the front door:

Before

After:

A picture looking at the hallway from the dining room:


Next was my kitchen! Jon and I like to cook, but we were desperately lacking counter space and cabinets! So Jon and I bought a buffet with three drawers and a kitchen island so we could have some extra room.

Here we are putting the island together.

Jon's plumbers crack lol


A picture of the kitchen before:

And After:






The picture on the wall is from one of my long time friends Melissa, she gave it to Jon and I for a wedding gift. If you look closely you can see that each letter is an object shaped as a letter, that spells our last name. Pretty neat! Thanks Mel!



Next was an awfully messy room, the dining room. When Jon and I started unpacking we threw most of the stuff in the dining room and the spare room just to get it out of the way. Here is what it looked like before. Empty dining room:


Unbelievably messy dining room

New and Improved: We have yet to hang curtains or put pictures on the walls.


Due to the fact that we don't have closets in ANY room, we used a spare room that leads into the master bedroom and turned it into a walk through closet. Here is the before and after.



We bought three wardrobes to hold our clothes. And I am using shelves to hold all of our toiletries and towels, because there are no drawers or cabinets in the bathroom.


Mind the windex bottle lol.




Today I am going to tackle getting the spare room finished and cleaning up the office. I will have pictures posted soon of these rooms! The master bedroom is in desperate need of help. Thanks to my mom coming it will be looking great soon!
Hope everyone has a great day!