Accepted Offer!

Well, we finally got an accepted offer! They accepted yesterday and we signed more paperwork last night. We have our inspection Tuesday night - which is the part that I'm really scared about (where things broke down for us last time, remember?). At least things are finally moving! Thank you God! :)

We're off to buy a new camera today for our trip to the D.R. Mine is from 2004 and is basically a great-great-grandpa in the camera world. Isn't it crazy that a four-year-old camera is considered ancient in the technology world? lol Anyway, those of you who know my brother know that he is an amazing photographer, so I called him this morning to ask his advice. He said that Sony makes really good cameras in the $250 and under range, so I think that's what I'm going to set out to look for. Does anyone have a camera that they love/hate? I'm not sure I'll actually purchase one today, so I'm open to suggestions!

Happy Saturday!

Sweet summertime

Well, sorry about the lack of recent updates this week! We have been having a lot of house drama - too much to list here - and I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that we are still waiting on the bank to accept/reject our counteroffer so that we can hurry up and get our inspections done before our 10-day time limit is up. This wouldn't be a problem, except that the time we will be in this country is quickly drawing to a close. We leave for our 10-day trip in the Dominican Republic on June 30th. Technically, we have internet in the mission dormitories, but I really just wanted to be completely focused on this trip and the people I was serving and not be stressed out everyday about the house.



So if anyone from Fannie Mae is reading this, could ya hurry my house along?!



Thanks.




Anyway, I did get to go strawberry picking on Friday, and it was great! I got nine pounds of strawberries, and only have about two cups left. Yes, we love us some strawberries up in these parts. ;)



Two of my favorite things to do with this most delicious of all fruits:

Strawberry "shortcake" (on biscuits is the way I really make it):

And strawberry jam.....(disregard the clutter on my counter - everything once again had to be pushed back from the wall since we found more ants last night! ahh)

The thing about jam: my sister-in-law and I made freezer jam on Saturday, and it really, really is SO easy. Anyone can do it. Freezer jam doesn't require any kind of special seals or boiling. And it is soooooooooooooo good. You will want to eat it plain. By the spoonful. Trust me on this.




Hope you're enjoying warmer weather and strawberries and sunshine and all of that good stuff that June brings. ;)

Tonight we put an offer in on house number two!!! Here's hoping! :)

Oh and I got a 101 on my first test in my math class! Good day, good day!

Thanks for the tip, Mary! I guess I would need to get an egg slicer first though (and thanks for that hint about the dishwasher...did you all read that?). Another thing to keep my eye open for at yard sales....lol as if I need another excuse to go....

*Sigh*

I was saddened today to realize that a fellow blogger had copied one of my blog ideas only a day after I originally posted. This is not the first time she has done this. She's not a regular commenter or anything, but I knew that she read my blog and vice versa. She's not anyone I know in real life, but she does profess to be a Christian.

She has recently been writing about/asking others for new ideas for her blog, saying that she was fresh out. I guess I'm mostly disappointed because she has a ton of readers, and I have...well, not a ton :)...and maybe she has figured that since so few people read my blog, no one would realize she was copying my thoughts almost exactly?

I e-mailed her today about it. Because even though we live in this virtual world, as Christians we are supposed to admonish one other when someone has done something unpleasing to God. I was very kind - not rude at all, although I wanted to be! haha


I've just always hated when people condescendingly say, "Copying is the sincerest form of flattery."

No, actually, it isn't.

It's unethical, lame, and just plain rude.

*Whew* Okay, had to get that off my chest!



In other news, has anyone gone strawberry picking yet? I've been waiting for about 3 months now and I think I'm going to go this Friday, since I don't have class. My mouth is dying to taste strawberry shortcake again. Does anyone have a great strawberry recipe? Please share!

[new to me] Good Things

I have two things I wanted to share with all of you today.


First, this amazing book, which I discovered at our local library:








This woman is seriously a genius when it comes to organization. And it's not your usual lame tips like, "Have a way to sort your laundry." :) She is hard-core about home organization, and offers a lot of tips that I never even thought about - just little things that make you think, "duh!".



For instance, one of her little ideas is to designate certain areas of your dishwasher's silverware holders for certain silverware. Rather than having spoons, knives, and forks scattered in each little holder, put only like silverware next to each other. You can grab it in a bunch rather than spend 5 minutes picking each fork out of the holder, then the spoons, etc. Of course, I don't have a dishwasher right now, but hopefully that tip will help all of you fancy people out there who are lucky enouch to have this most basic machine that every woman in 2008 deserves to have to save hours of unnecessary work every day machine in your kitchen.


She covers a ton more stuff in her book....most of it really easy stuff like that, but stuff that really makes sense.


She even inspired me to organize and label the shelves of my closet.













I realized that I was buying duplicates of an item (like lightbulbs, for instance) because I didn't know they were already in my hall closet. I realize this list makes me seem OCD, but this is my only closet (yes, you read that right - I don't even have a clothes closet. Yes, you have permission to feel bad for me.) and I really wanted it to be organized. In all honesty, I actually had fun doing it (gasp!).



The second [new to me] item is this website: http://thepioneerwoman.com/. I just discovered her today, but boy-oh-boy am I excited. This woman gives step-by-step pictures of all of her recipes, and ohmygoodness do they look amazing!

Be inspired! Have a wonderful day. :)

Update on the Ants

Well, the ants aren't gone. Yesterday I did kill about 45 (literally) within about 3-4 hours.

It. was. not. a. good. day.

My husband may or may not have gotten some desperate voicemails.

Anyway, I sealed, I killed, I sprayed, I doused papertowels in rubbing alcohol where there was a big gap between the carpet and wall (hard to describe). I bought some ant spikes and put them outside. I killed more ants. I started to feel like I was going nutso.

Chris came home and poured gasoline over the line of hundreds (literally - no exaggeration) of icky black ants walking in a line across the driveway into the corner of our bedroom wall.

That made me smile.

Has my landlord done ANYTHING yet?

Nope.

God bless my friend Lindsay, who offered to let me come over tomorrow, since I don't have class, to watch Friends and escape my house. Friends and a place of escape. Now that's true friendship. ;)

(By the way, Mary, I'm taking a 3-credit math class for the entire month of June to satisfy the 6-credits of math required by PA for me to be a music teacher and/or subsitute teacher next year. You don't even want to get me started on their logic for that!)

Thanks for sharing your stories, you guys! It really makes me feel better to know you guys have dealt with this, too. I keep telling myself it could be worse.



It could be spiders.

The Ants Come Marching Into My House, Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I feel as though my LIFE is being over-run by these insects!! I'm literally on the verge of heart palpitations, I kid you not. We discovered itty bitty ants about 2 or so weeks ago in our kitchen - I had labored for hours over a hot stove (no really, I did) to make two beautiful apple pie tarts, left them cool on the counter, and came home to find them swarming with ants. Dis.gust.ing. So, we borrowed some Terro ant killer from my mother-in-law (once we realized where they were coming in), and they have all but died off. Still a few every now and then, but they go straight to the Terro and then leave. Okay. *Sigh of relief*. I can deal with that.

But.

Last night, we discovered carpenter ants in the bathroom. Waaaay worse (in my opinion, anyway). They move like 80 million times faster, and I swear, these things have 9 lives. You can whack them with your husband's Adidas sandal like, 12 times (hypothetically, of course), and they will not die. It's like they enjoy testing you or something. Or the more likely conclusion that I've decided on: they want to ruin my life and make me paranoid.

Well, DH and I spent about 45 minutes last night sealing off - with duct tape; classy, right? - every possible hole they could be entering. We live in a basement apartment, and saw some coming out of some holes and some other ones coming out of a hole in the dryer pipe/vent. DH sprayed Kilz for good measure, and then we turned the empty dryer on high to teach those mean ants a lesson.

Except.

This morning Chris and I found one in the kitchen, which totally thwarted all of our ideas about entry. Chris told me it was probably just a renegade ant from last night.

Except.


I came home from class (have I mentioned I'm taking a class yet?) and saw 2 in the kitchen, and 5 in the bathroom. One ant was even carrying another ant! The nerve.

Of course, if this were my own home, I would have called an exterminator (or at least some ant killer!) first thing this morning. Except....it isn't. Chris called our landlord last night and then again this morning after I called to tell him I'd found more. (In all honesty, while they're just horribly annoying to us, they really could be eating the inside of his house - apparently these are the house-eating ants.)

Meanwhile, the ants are free to terrorize me. Which means I want to cry.

If anything happens, I will let you know.

As for me, I'll be looking at ceilings, floors, and walls anxiously for the rest of today, feeling like a crazy person.

And wishing I was as cute as Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View.