This morning Donovan and I picked up our marriage license, and then we closed on our home! Yay!! We are SO excited; although, we haven't been able to really enjoy it yet because as soon as the closing was finished I had to return to work and Donovan started moving. I can't wait to go home to our house tonight!
This week has been so intense. Monday night someone broke into the new house and stole the stove! Seriously, who steals a stove? Well the builder had to scramble to get the stove, back door, and flooring replaced before closing, and thankfully they were able to do it.
We are so thankful and blessed for everything that we have. I just want to go home now!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Almost there
We are 3 days away from closing on our house and moving in, and 12 days away from the wedding! I'll be sooo glad I will soon get to rest again! But all this work is definitely worth it. I can't wait to see the end results. Donovan has to meet the builder today for the final walk through to make sure everything is perfect before we close on Thursday. Also, Thursday morning before the closing, we are picking up our marriage license!!
Here are some pictures of the house:
I've decided to change the table centerpieces for our reception. I can't believe I didn't come up with this idea sooner because now I only have 12 days to pull it together. I'm really excited about it, but don't want to release the details because it's a surprise! I will still be using everything I've made. Yesterday it was brought to my attention that my current centerpieces are very small, and they will get lost in the giant tables we are using. I need something to stand out more, so I came up with a great idea to fix that.. I'm hoping it all works out.
For the past 2 weeks I've been going to physical therapy for my knee, but it's just too much right now. I'm putting it on hold until after Donovan and I get back from our honeymoon. My body is not in rehab mode right now anyway. Too much stress and not enough sleep.
Speaking of honeymoons, Donovan and I are going to Gatlinburg, TN! Four days in the mountains!! We rented a little cabin nestled in the mountains near the Arts & Crafts district.
I feel a little bad because it seems like all I have been talking about for the past few weeks is how excited I am to be marrying Donovan and buying a house with him. BUT it's all I can think about! I am truly blessed and so thankful for everything that is happening right now.
Here are some pictures of the house:
I've decided to change the table centerpieces for our reception. I can't believe I didn't come up with this idea sooner because now I only have 12 days to pull it together. I'm really excited about it, but don't want to release the details because it's a surprise! I will still be using everything I've made. Yesterday it was brought to my attention that my current centerpieces are very small, and they will get lost in the giant tables we are using. I need something to stand out more, so I came up with a great idea to fix that.. I'm hoping it all works out.
For the past 2 weeks I've been going to physical therapy for my knee, but it's just too much right now. I'm putting it on hold until after Donovan and I get back from our honeymoon. My body is not in rehab mode right now anyway. Too much stress and not enough sleep.
Speaking of honeymoons, Donovan and I are going to Gatlinburg, TN! Four days in the mountains!! We rented a little cabin nestled in the mountains near the Arts & Crafts district.
I feel a little bad because it seems like all I have been talking about for the past few weeks is how excited I am to be marrying Donovan and buying a house with him. BUT it's all I can think about! I am truly blessed and so thankful for everything that is happening right now.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
wedding decorations
For our wedding reception, I decided to make all the decorations because it would save us so much money (and would be way more fun). Here are some of them:
The jars will be used for the centerpieces, one on each table
There will be two bells on each table. When someone rings the bell, the bride and groom have to kiss!
We have duckies for a wedding cake topper!!
There will be two duckies on each table as well. They have bubbles attached to them and little charms that say "thank you."
Not shown: decorative honey jars, 6 on each table. I haven't started on these yet.
31 more days until the wedding. There is still so much more to do!
Everything that is finished so far:
The jars will be used for the centerpieces, one on each table
There will be two bells on each table. When someone rings the bell, the bride and groom have to kiss!
We have duckies for a wedding cake topper!!
There will be two duckies on each table as well. They have bubbles attached to them and little charms that say "thank you."
Not shown: decorative honey jars, 6 on each table. I haven't started on these yet.
31 more days until the wedding. There is still so much more to do!
Everything that is finished so far:
we are buying a new house!
Donovan and I found the most perfect house.
This is the housing listing.
It is nearly exactly what we want. The only thing is that it doesn't have a privacy fence. It's our ONLY complaint about the house. We just love everything else. The layout is perfect, the yard is perfect (very large backyard with woods behind it that cannot be torn down). We put in our official offer today. We will agree to the asking price if the builder pays all closing costs and puts up the privacy fence. We should hear from our realtor this afternoon with the builder's response.
Regardless of what house we buy, we are on the 5 year plan. Donovan wants to stay in North Augusta, SC but I want to stay in Evans, GA where the better schools are in this area. We realized that we don't have to worry about school choices until at least 5 years from now, assuming that we get pregnant as soon as we get married, which is definitely NOT the plan (we want to wait AT LEAST a year), so I agreed to live in the rural area for now. It's only about 10 minutes from anything that we need, and it's right in between Augusta and Aiken, which means is a 15 minute drive to work for both of us.
If the builders don't agree to the fence, which they probably won't, we will still try to buy this house if they will come down on the price. We're hoping that since they have a lot of houses already built that haven't sold yet and this one has been up for a few months already and because we want to close before the end of the month, that they will be willing to agree to our terms. That was a really long run on sentence. I can't wait to find out!!
We are trying not to get our hopes up just in case this doesn't work out, but that's so difficult when this house is everything we want. It's literately our dream house. Please pray for us!!!
This is the housing listing.
It is nearly exactly what we want. The only thing is that it doesn't have a privacy fence. It's our ONLY complaint about the house. We just love everything else. The layout is perfect, the yard is perfect (very large backyard with woods behind it that cannot be torn down). We put in our official offer today. We will agree to the asking price if the builder pays all closing costs and puts up the privacy fence. We should hear from our realtor this afternoon with the builder's response.
Regardless of what house we buy, we are on the 5 year plan. Donovan wants to stay in North Augusta, SC but I want to stay in Evans, GA where the better schools are in this area. We realized that we don't have to worry about school choices until at least 5 years from now, assuming that we get pregnant as soon as we get married, which is definitely NOT the plan (we want to wait AT LEAST a year), so I agreed to live in the rural area for now. It's only about 10 minutes from anything that we need, and it's right in between Augusta and Aiken, which means is a 15 minute drive to work for both of us.
If the builders don't agree to the fence, which they probably won't, we will still try to buy this house if they will come down on the price. We're hoping that since they have a lot of houses already built that haven't sold yet and this one has been up for a few months already and because we want to close before the end of the month, that they will be willing to agree to our terms. That was a really long run on sentence. I can't wait to find out!!
We are trying not to get our hopes up just in case this doesn't work out, but that's so difficult when this house is everything we want. It's literately our dream house. Please pray for us!!!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Oh noes!
Looks like I completely forgot about this journal until today when I was reading the Google blog about unsubscribing to newsletters. How convenient of them!
Anyway, there have been so many changes recently, and all of them quite wonderful!! For convenience, I shall list them in chronological order:
- May 20, 2009: I turned 24 (really not exciting but my birthday present certainly was).
- May 22, 2009: My dearly beloved, Donovan, and I departed for our first vacation together. We went to Orlando, FL and had a most wonderful time at Universal, visiting the Orlando Temple and seeing my family and a few of my college friends.
- May 23, 2009: I received the best birthday present ever!!! That evening, Donovan asked me to marry him, and I said "OF COURSE!!!" All the details about our proposal (including the video) and our wedding are located on our wedding website: located here
- June 13 and 14, 2009: I was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is absolutely one of the best decisions I have ever made. I had been investigating the Church since January of this year, and the more I learned about it, the more I loved it. I'm so thankful for Donovan and him bringing this into my life. I could, and probably will, write a whole entry about how wonderful this Church is, so I will save that for later (assuming I remember to come back to this blog).
- July 20, 2009: My first visit inside a Temple! Donovan, one of his sisters, and I went with a other members of our ward to the Columbia, SC Temple to perform baptisms for the dead. I'm still excited about this and can't wait to go back. Because I have to wait a year after I've been a member to perform other sacred ordinances, Donovan and I will be sealed together in a Temple in June of 2010. Also, I've been reading this great book about Temples by Boyd Paker called The Holy Temple (see here for more info). Combined with scripture study, the book helped prepare me for yesterday's trip. I definitely recommend it, especially for non-members who want to know more about the Temple.
Up coming events:
- Donovan and I are buying his mom's house!! (official date not set but it will be sometime in August).
- September 5, 2009: Donovan and I will be married!!
- September 6, 2009: We leave for Gatlinburg, TN for our honeymoon!!!!!
I'm rather excited... if you couldn't notice. We've both been working really hard and preparing to be married, and it will be happening in just 36 days.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Veggiemania
One thing that has bothered me about being vegetarian is that most non-veggies are always trying to get me to eat meat again. It's so frustrating! Five years ago, I made a personal choice to stop eating meat, and not once have I ever tried to force someone to not eat meat or tell them that it's wrong to eat meat. Never. If people come to me about it with legitimate questions, I will be more than happy to give them more information about my diet and why I chose to eat this way. But I'm really getting tired of people trying to convince me to eat meat. It's a constant struggle, and it makes me feel very disrespected.
Also, I did not face this problem so much until I moved back to Georgia. It seems like in Florida, the vegetarian life style is much more accepted and promoted. While attending UCF, I joined the vegetarian club, a group that met once a week to discuss vegetarianism and share recipes. I had plenty of friends who were also meat-free. There were even restaurants that were entirely vegan, or at least vegetarian. In downtown Orlando, there is a fabulous Chinese restaurant that serves all the traditional Chinese dishes, but they are of the meat-free variety. Sweet and sour *fake pork* was my favorite! I miss places like this. =/
And on that note, I will now bake some delicious vegan oatmeal cookies. Here's the recipe I created:
Ingredients:
2 cups apple sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
4 cups old-fashion oats
1 or 2 cup raisins (add as many, or as little, as you like.. or substitute for nuts or chocolate chips, or dried cranberries. anything goes good with oatmeal!)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F)
2. Mix sugars, flour, baking soda, and spices
3. Add apple sauce and vanilla. Mix well.
4. Add oats and raisins. Mix well.
5. Drop my spoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet
6. Bake 12-14 minutes
7. Enjoy!
Note: This batch of dough will make A LOT of cookies. I like to make rather plump cookies, usually about 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie, and this will make about 12-15 large, thick cookies. If you don't want to make a lot of cookies, but the excess dough in the fridge and make more another day!
Also, I did not face this problem so much until I moved back to Georgia. It seems like in Florida, the vegetarian life style is much more accepted and promoted. While attending UCF, I joined the vegetarian club, a group that met once a week to discuss vegetarianism and share recipes. I had plenty of friends who were also meat-free. There were even restaurants that were entirely vegan, or at least vegetarian. In downtown Orlando, there is a fabulous Chinese restaurant that serves all the traditional Chinese dishes, but they are of the meat-free variety. Sweet and sour *fake pork* was my favorite! I miss places like this. =/
And on that note, I will now bake some delicious vegan oatmeal cookies. Here's the recipe I created:
Ingredients:
2 cups apple sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
4 cups old-fashion oats
1 or 2 cup raisins (add as many, or as little, as you like.. or substitute for nuts or chocolate chips, or dried cranberries. anything goes good with oatmeal!)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F)
2. Mix sugars, flour, baking soda, and spices
3. Add apple sauce and vanilla. Mix well.
4. Add oats and raisins. Mix well.
5. Drop my spoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet
6. Bake 12-14 minutes
7. Enjoy!
Note: This batch of dough will make A LOT of cookies. I like to make rather plump cookies, usually about 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie, and this will make about 12-15 large, thick cookies. If you don't want to make a lot of cookies, but the excess dough in the fridge and make more another day!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Reinventing the roof
Greetings land of teh interwebs. After much lurking, I have finally joined the blogging realm, at least for the first time publicly.
So a little about me. My name is Kimmie, and I'm 23. I don't really have a "hometown" as I moved every 2-3 years throughout the Southeast. I went to college in Orlando, FL at the University of Central Florida where I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Criminal Justice. In 2007 I moved to Augusta, GA. It's a completely different lifestyle here in comparison to Florida. The atmosphere is much more laid back and relaxed. The people are warm and friendly. It's really quite nice. Although I do miss the "indie" scene... all the indie film theaters, coffee shops, bookstores, clothing stores, etc. Also, the thrift stores were way better in Orlando. Anyway, I digress.
Music is my passion. I have been playing flute for 11 years, and absolutely love it. I also love crafts and baking. I make purses and wallets out of duct tape (but I have another site for that: www.chestercreations.org). Recently I joined the hand bell choir at my church, which is so fun! My life would be incredibly empty without music, so I welcome any opportunity to play or perform.
Speaking of church, I am a Christian, and I live my life for the Lord. I'm so thankful for all that He has given me. Family is also very important to me. My mom is my best friend, and I always try to be a positive role model for my two younger siblings. I have an amazing boyfriend named Donovan who always puts a smile on my face. Now that I have achieved my academic goals and have established myself in my career field, I'm looking forward to starting a family of my own one day.
Well that's about it for now. I'll mostly be using this blog for reference on arts & crafts, baking, recipes, books, and/or whatever else comes to my random mind.
So a little about me. My name is Kimmie, and I'm 23. I don't really have a "hometown" as I moved every 2-3 years throughout the Southeast. I went to college in Orlando, FL at the University of Central Florida where I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Criminal Justice. In 2007 I moved to Augusta, GA. It's a completely different lifestyle here in comparison to Florida. The atmosphere is much more laid back and relaxed. The people are warm and friendly. It's really quite nice. Although I do miss the "indie" scene... all the indie film theaters, coffee shops, bookstores, clothing stores, etc. Also, the thrift stores were way better in Orlando. Anyway, I digress.
Music is my passion. I have been playing flute for 11 years, and absolutely love it. I also love crafts and baking. I make purses and wallets out of duct tape (but I have another site for that: www.chestercreations.org). Recently I joined the hand bell choir at my church, which is so fun! My life would be incredibly empty without music, so I welcome any opportunity to play or perform.
Speaking of church, I am a Christian, and I live my life for the Lord. I'm so thankful for all that He has given me. Family is also very important to me. My mom is my best friend, and I always try to be a positive role model for my two younger siblings. I have an amazing boyfriend named Donovan who always puts a smile on my face. Now that I have achieved my academic goals and have established myself in my career field, I'm looking forward to starting a family of my own one day.
Well that's about it for now. I'll mostly be using this blog for reference on arts & crafts, baking, recipes, books, and/or whatever else comes to my random mind.
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