Posts Tagged ‘house’

House Warming

Monday, January 5th, 2009

So we’re settled into the new house! We still have boxes to unpack but we are getting closer to being completely settled in every day. Of course, we’ve been living here for the past month or more, and we still have junk to do, but that is mostly because with Christmas and everything we’ve been busy doing other things. Tomorrow is the day that I’ve decided to take all of the Christmas decorations down, so that’s what I’ll be doing once I get home from my volunteer stint at the Sagemont Library.

Mom came and went; we dropped her off at the airport this morning. It was really nice to have her here, we spent a lot of time just relaxing, talking over a cup of coffee and hanging out. Of course, we did our fair share of shopping too. This means I’m done shopping for the next few months! Christmas was great too, we had the family over for Christmas morning (more like noon, but you know…) and then we had dinner with the extended family that evening. Between work, Christmas functions and New Year’s Eve parties, I’m bushed. I’m actually quite looking forward to getting back to the regular routine of things. Classes don’t start up for me until Jan 20th, so I’ve got another 2 weeks to relax in between shifts at the bookstore.

Well, it’s a new year and you know what that means. Resolutions! To sum up last year, I did not lose 10 pounds but I did read a lot of books. I’m going to keep track of what books I read this year too, but I’m not doing my monthly updates anymore. You can keep track of my progress on my 2009 Books page (located on the sidebar). So that means I needed a new resolution. I think last year I was too ambitious. This year, I’m reading through the Bible in one year. I picked up a One Year Bible from work (yay employee discount!) and I’m trying to get into it every single day. It’s only 5 days in and I’ve already missed one day, but I did go to church that day so that counts for something, right? I’m blogging about the process, so if you are more interested in reading about my bible reading, lemme know and I’ll forward you the URL. The goal was to blog every single day, but considering how slack I am updating this one, you can imagine how the other is faring (re: not well). I think now that I’m getting back into my routine, though, I might be able to turn it around.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a great New Year! If there are any resolutions out there, let me know in the comments so I can pray for and encourage you.

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Posted in House & Home, Life |

L-Ike a Hurricane.

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

My goodness. Ever since Wednesday things have been in total chaos. I’m sure if anyone has been watching the news at all or not completely under a rock (that means you, Sarah) you probably have figured out that I’m either in hiding or I’ve been Hurricane’d. Today is my first day of unfettered internet access although I seem to have lost any semblance of cellular reception in the process. I’ve spent most of the past week either crying, panicking, or travelling somewhere to get away from the hurricane. We stayed Thursday through Monday at our friends’ place in Troup, TX (about 2.5 hours southwest from Dallas) and although we had no power Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon, it was a pretty good time. We got to visit with them and relax. I actually felt pretty good about things until we got closer to Houston. The damage is really scary to see. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to be here when that storm hit.

I spent most of today trying to get my schoolwork under control but it’s difficult considering I can’t hook my own laptop up to the internet and have to use someone else’s computer. So my notes are on mine and I have to look things up on this one – very inefficient. I’d go somewhere to hook up to the internet but at this point I just don’t know where to go. I don’t even know if I have an appointment tomorrow with a doctor since I have no way to get ahold of anyone. Very frustrating.

I mostly just wish that Mike and I had our own place to go to since we’re staying with his grandmother and I just feel weird about the whole thing. It would be nice to have our own private space to be in. Of course this storm has probably made our house even farther from its completion date. We’ll be lucky to be in there by Christmas. I know I sound discouraged and mopey and I kind of am, although I do feel relieved and happy that the damage wasn’t worse and everyone I know made it through safely. Some more breathing room would be nice though.

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Posted in Dear Diary, House & Home |

Meags’ Pantry Dive; Or, Not a Hitch in the Kitch

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Since we are moving out of this apartment to who-knows-where in less than three weeks, I’ve had to be a little creative with dinner. I decided on Sunday that I would not do a traditional grocery shop (including for lunches) until after we were settled into our new digs, whether that be at the in-laws’ or the new house (I’m praying we’ll have a place to settle before mid-October). So that meant taking all of my frozen meat out of the freezer and searching for recipes by ingredient on Allrecipes.com. I searched for about 30 minutes and came up wanting (found some things I definitely want to try, though!), so I headed to the kitchen and started throwing things into a pan. Here’s what came out of it:

Meags’ Fly-by-the-Seat-of-My-Jeans Goulash

  • 1/2 lb ground beef (freezer burnt optional)
  • 1 tsp minced garlic (about 1-2 cloves)
  • 3/4 cup diced onion (or a handful)
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup diced sweet green and red pepper
  • all the elbow macaroni you have (about 3 cups)
  • 2 14.5oz cans diced tomatoes (don’t drain)
  • 6oz can tomato paste
  • 5oz can mushrooms (drained)
  • dash salt and pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese (grated by husband – trust me, it tastes better this way)

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Brown the beef in the oil at about medium-high heat, tossing in the garlic and onions at first, then add the sweet peppers when the meat is almost browned. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to directions. Once the beef is browned and the veggies sauteed, add the tomatoes and the paste. Stir around so that it becomes a thick sauce. Add the mushroom and the seasonings, then simmer for a few minutes, until heated through.

After the pasta is nice and al dente, drain it and put it in a casserole dish. I used my 2-1/2 quart corningware dish and it was brimming over – so maybe a lasagna pan. Then pour the sauce over top and stir it in so that noodles are all covered in the sauce. Top with mozzarella cheese and bake until the cheese melts (about 10 minutes). Serve!

I was actually quite surprised by how good it was considering how few ingredients I used (not to mention, I’m not really a recipe inventin’ kinda gal). I think in the future, I would add some oregano and basil to the recipe, and maybe some marjoram. Spinach would also taste pretty good in the sauce. We’ll see if I start inventing more recipes as the last few weeks here at Apt 7302 come along.

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Posted in Food, House & Home |

Almost Slab-Pouring Time!

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

We got some good news on Thursday afternoon – the permit for our lot is in so they are going to start building our house before the end of the month. I still can’t believe this is all happening. It’s very exciting! We’re going to have a meeting with the builder before they start and we’ll hammer our all the fine details then. So it should be this coming Thursday or Friday and then pretty quickly they’ll start the house! We’re hoping it will be completed in November so we can move in before Thanksgiving and get the holidays going. We’re still waiting for some of the paperwork to be finalized but it’s pretty much just a formality at this point. Yay! I’m hoping to have pictures up on Flickr sometime soon, so keep an eye out for that on the sidebar.

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Posted in Dear Diary, House & Home |

The Home That The Melgares’ Built

Friday, June 13th, 2008

So if you haven’t heard the news yet, we’re having a house built in Pearland! We’re really excited about it, been picking out the brick and tile and carpet and all of that stuff. We still have more decisions to make, but we’re hoping we’ll have it all sorted out by next week. This is our floor plan. We’ll be going to the Design Center on Tuesday evening to make our final decisions on all the interior things (and a few exteriors), and we need to pick out our stone type by Sunday evening. The community is in a really great place, and it’s sort of a small one, so it’s good. No getting lost in it, like Shadow Creek Ranch. That’s actually how we found Southern Trails. We got lost leaving Shadow Creek Ranch. I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. The neighborhood is really new and hopefully there will be lots of good neighbors around. We should be moving in sometimes around October! I’ll definitely be having a housewarming sometimes in November (as long as we get into our home in time).

The big issue that we’re dealing with right now is our apartment situation. We found out that unless we renew for 7 months, the rent is going to be a little bit higher (ok, a lotta bit) than we’re willing to pay. So unless we can get them to bend to our will, it looks like we’ll be living in Friendswood with Mike’s parents for a couple months. Which isn’t all bad, I mean, they have a lot more room. We’ll have to put our things in storage until the house is built, which doesn’t thrill me, but it’s better than overpaying for an apartment. We haven’t completely made the decision yet, but it would definitely save us some money if we could do that.

Other than that, there’s not too much news. Getting a house is pretty huge news though! It hardly counts as news, but Mike bought me a DS for our anniversary. It’s a DS lite, and it’s pink! I’ve been playing Super Princess Peach for days now, it’s such a fun, cute game. The reviews I read were that it was “too easy” and “too girlie” but I think it’s just fine. Really, sometimes I can’t finish games because I think they are too hard. This game, I think, is very enjoyable because it’s not too hard but still interesting. I’m not sure what my next DS game will be but I’m considering a crossword game, My French Coach, or one of the Mario platform games. Also Professor Layton & the Curious Village is a contender. I’m trying to do them one at a time, because otherwise I’ll have a ton of half finished games, like with my Advance.

I’m hoping to put up some pictures of our lot and stuff in the next couple of days. They are currently building the two houses on either side of us, and I can’t wait until they can start on ours! Huzzah! it will probably be another month or so, but all we can do is wait and see. Hopefully I’ll have an update on our living situation soon.

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Posted in Dear Diary |