Our beginnings...

In 2009, we bought our first home. After living with Josh’s parents when we got out of the Navy and a couple of years of apartment living, we decided that it was time to look into buying a house. We started our search online and found a neat little house in Lowell. The realtor for that property was a man named John Cremer. Once we contacted John and asked to see it, we decided that it was a nice house, but not exactly what we were looking for. We continued working with John to find the perfect house.


In the winter of 2008, we received an email from John about a property that he had just purchased and he thought that it was exactly what we were looking for. In the email he gave us the address and told us to come out and look at it anytime. The next day, Wednesday, we decided to check it out. As we are driving slowly down the road, we were quiet, lost in our own thoughts. After coming over a slight hill, we see the house. We both looked at each other and said out loud, “This is it.”

We pulled into the driveway to find John’s car and a slightly beat up pickup truck. After getting out of the truck we walk into the garage to find the two men. John introduces us to the other man who is the mason. John walks us into the dining room and then starts a quick tour of the house. I was sold on the first look of the bedroom. Josh was sold on the first look of the land.

One of my main “things” was that the master bedroom had to be large enough for our bedroom set. We have a California King bed, 2 nightstands and a large dresser. We had many issues with our furniture in the apartments due to its size. I was not going to sell my bedroom set so therefore the bedroom had to be big enough.

Josh just wanted space. He didn’t want neighbors so close that you could spit and hit their house. He wanted to be out in the country.

Needless to say, no one else looked at the house. We told John that day that we wanted to start the paperwork right away. Four months later, the house and land was ours.

The house we purchased is an 87 year old three bedroom, one bath cottage on 5 acres at the Caledonia/Dutton border. It has two barns and a ton of potential. Since moving in 3 years ago, we haven’t done nearly as much as we thought we would have had accomplished by this time. Josh and I both have full time jobs that keep us away from the farm for substantial amounts of time during the daylight hours. Most of our “upgrades” have been done at night or on the weekends when Josh and I aren’t working.

Regular posts coming...

Josh and I have started documenting our lives as we start to make our farm into a self-sufficient farm. I have been writing "chapters" as each new event happens. Josh told me to start posting these for others to read and so everyone (who actually wants to) can follow us and what we are doing with our house and land.

I plan on trying to post a "chapter" every Tuesday.

I really hope that everyone likes them.

Enjoy!

My insane life...

So, I finally got the internet back thanks to Virgin Mobiles Pre-paid thingy. It works awsome and I highly suggest it to anyone who doesn't want a contract. Okay, now that I've done my public service annoucement for today, let me tell you how different and spastic my life has become.

My job: I started working at Wendy's in April of 2011. In December of 2011, my store had a fryer fire and was shut down for almost a month. I transfered to another store just down the road. I am going back to my store at the end of this week.

My critters: I still have my 3 cats, Landon, Liam and Bella. I now have 4 dogs. George and Daisy had 11 puppies in August and we were dumb and decided to keep 2 of the puppies (James and Jules). The others found new forever homes and are doing well. We dogsit for a friend every other weekend so on those weeks we have 6 dogs in the house. Those weeks are typically crazy, but the money comes in handy.

My house: We have finished remodeling the bathroom and it looks soooooo much better. There are still a couple of things that we have to do in there, but that is mainly touch up painting and trim work. We have now started on the 3 front rooms. 1 is a small closet, 1 is the front door entryway and the other is a small room in front of the bathroom. The layout is funky so we are going to tear out the doorways and make it all into one large room. Once we add the new closets, the layout will make alot more sense. We needed to do this anyways because there is/was little-to-no insulation in any of those rooms. This is one drafty old house. Insulation for those 3 small rooms would have cost us almost $100. Thank you to everyone who gave us gift certificates to home improvement stores!

My marriage: It's been almost 11 years since we were married and we are both still alive and kicking, so I'm assuming that we are doing something right! :) I still love him to death including the times when I would like to drown him in the bathtub. I have found, however, that he actually enjoys being "swatted" with a paint stick.

On that note, I'm going to locate a paint stick and chase my husband around the house. :) Enjoy your night everyone!

An actual update...

It's been over a month since I last posted on here. My goal seems to be shot to hell and back, but hey, its been crazy around here.

We are down to 3 cats. Josh and I talked and we realized that we were being stupid and just couldn't do it anymore. So we have Landon, Liam and Bella. The boys are fixed so we don't have to worry about kittens. We did get another dog, a black lab female named Daisy. She is only 6 months old and is already bigger then George. The vet said the she is going to be huge. Fun fun. Potty training Daisy is easier said then done, but she is a sweetie and is learning fast.

My parents were just here for a couple of days. It was so nice being able to see them and show them around Michigan. We took them to Lake Michigan and showed them the Grand Haven pier and lighthouse. We got awsome pictures which should be uploaded to my Facebook page later today.

While they were here, they surprised us by taking me to Menards and buying us some things to fix up our bathroom. Once I get it done, the bathroom will look so much better. I'm excited to get started. Steve filled the hole under our patio so now the barn cats and opossums can't get into our basement and garage anymore. That will make things so much better.

Before they got here, we steamed cleaned the carpet by the front door and bathroom because it smelled horrible. It smelled better when it was still wet, but then turned a million times worse when it dried, so I decided to just rip the carpet and padding completely out. I am so happy and a little angry at myself for not doing it sooner, because it doesn't smell at all. I got a great surprise when I pulled it out. Under the nasty carpet, was slate tiles. They aren't in the best of shape, but they don't smell, lol. All I have to do now is finish pulling up the carpet tacks and clean it really well. It is such a HUGE improvement.

I guess I better get off of here and get back to pulling up the tack strips.

Blogging

So in my first posting, I said that my goal was to post everyday. Since its been almost a month, I think that I didn't reach my goal. So here is whats new.

We decided to wait on the foster parenting. We talked about it and realized that we need to focus on getting our debt paid off and until we can get the third bedroom remodeled. It honestly won't take long to get the remodeling done, so hopefully by spring we can have that done.

We spent a weekend in Lansing helping Mike build the wheelchair ramp. It looks amazing and should help Jess out alot!

We spend this weekend cleaning and mowing our yard. It looks much much better! We also found out that Josh is no longer allergic to bee stings, as he got stung on the head and neck. The areas were swollen, but I didn't have to take him to the hospital, so thats a plus.

Our cat, Minnie, is getting ready to pop anyday. Of course she got pregnant about 3 days before we were able to get the boys fixed. So if anyone reading this wants a kitten, let me know. LOL.

When we were mowing the yard we found another pear tree and a wild blueberry bush!

I really can't think of much else that has happened, so it's time to go and finish the laundry. The dishes have to wait because I broke the faucet. I didn't do it on purpose either!

Josh's week off!

We decided to go to Michigan Adventure on Monday for Josh's birthday. Both of us had a blast! We spent 8.5 hours there and the majority of them were spent in the water park area. I haven't snorted so much water in my life. LOL. Tons of fun! I can't wait to go again.

I learned that I can't go on the rollercoasters anymore. I went on two when we were there, but they were both way way way to rough on my back and neck for me to ever go on one again. The massive wooden coaster that we went on damn near made me cry because it hurt so bad. The water park side is the best anyways!

Tuesday was mainly spent sleeping. We were both hurting from the rollercoasters the day before so we watched movies and slept the day away. We did go to Family Farm and Home to get some cat litter. :)

Today we tried to take the boat out on Gun Lake. We got it there and launched it, but when we tried to leave the dock area we couldn't get the boat to start. So we got it back to the dock and reloaded it then just brought it back to the house.

When we got back to the house, Josh and his dad switched the mower decks on the two riding lawnmowers and got the one up and running. So now we have a working riding lawnmower! Josh was so excited that he got half of the yard mowed in about 2 hours!

Tomorrow he is going to finish the yard then we are off to Muskegon Beach!

Vacation time!

When Josh gets home tonight our vacation starts!

We really don't have a plan on what we want to do during his week off, but I know that we are going to a gun show on Sunday in Mason. He said that he wants to go golfing at some point, so I'm thinking that Monday would be the best day for that considering it is his birthday. So now I have to find a golf course that he would enjoy. And one that has golf carts for me to drive because I'm sure not going to be golfing! If you know of any good ones, please let me know.

I have a lot of stuff to do today to get ready for our vacation. I want to make sure that the house is clean and kitty proof just in case we decide to go camping our something that will take us out of the house for a couple of days.

Well, I need to gather up all of Josh's socks that the cats have attempted to make off with... wish me luck!