Life as a Farm Wife

I spent who knows how long this morning going back and forth about creating a whole new blog or just updating this rusty, old thing. Well my decision is obvious, as this is an update with just the Blog Post being titled "Life as a Farm Wife" instead of a whole new blog. My decision is only partly based on my enjoyment of going back and reading old posts but mainly centers around the difficulty of naming a whole new blog with something "unique" and not already taken by the plethora of other farm wife's out there!

So a few things have changed since the last time I updated this blog. In fact, the day after my last post (June 29th, 2012) I found out I was pregnant! After 4 years of struggling with infertility, it was an amazing moment. That positive pregnancy test came after our 3rd cycle of shots in the stomach, every other day visits to the clinic that was 2 hours away, followed up with an IUI, and yes - it was all worth it.

I got huge! And I have to explain- the reason the belly's hanging out the bottom was because I wore that same outfit in every picture as we documented the bump. Also this picture was literally like an hour before we went to the hospital. We were scheduled to go in, to be induced, so no middle of the night madman rush to the hospital, which Mark was disappointed by (but seriously, we lived 2 blocks from the hospital, I doubt it would have been that crazy.)

This is when Mommy and Clarabelle Hope got to see each other for the first time. She is beautiful.

 

Here we are during last year's harvest. This was actually on my birthday, June 30th.

 

At our wonderful friends' wedding (the Cantillon's). Both Mark and I were honored to stand up as part of the wedding party.

 Showing off her masterful skill of quickly and quietly climbing everything. We have now resorted to only using folding chairs in the kitchen so we can fold them up after we're done eating.

There are hundreds of other pictures I want to share to document how adorable and rambunctious and sweet my little girl is....but I just want this to be an update of the past 2 years! Another exciting, scary, and long awaited thing is that we have moved to the farm. You might have noticed in the above picture that the dining room looks very different than the previous pictures I have shared of our house. Our house in town, that I absolutely love, is for sale. It was our first home, I spent hours-days-weeks updating and painting and decorating so that it felt like "us" when you walked in. The farmhouse we have moved into was Mark's grandparents. And if you have ever moved into a family member's previous home, you know the difficulties and emotions that come with it. But there are many wonderful things about being able to live on the farm-being out in the country, so close for Mark, it really will be wonderful. Yep I now truly get to experience everything that goes along with being a farmer's wife, including the "trips to town" I remember from growing up - where those 10-12minute drives into town seem like such a chore, and any chance you are in a town with a Wal-Mart or equivalent store requires a stop because who knows when the next time you'll be there will be.

And so....such is life. The Minutes that are purely Miranda's are few and far between. But life has become much more enjoyable and meaningful in the hectic moments. And I hope to keep updating and documenting all of my minutes.

Decorating with the husband

I love decorating my home and I tend toward the shabby chic style. Lots of antiques and re-purposed items and mainly just lots of stuff. But I love the cozy feeling and I love it all just kinda put together in a natural come-together kind of way. Tonight, after I finished my coffee filter wreath, my husband asked me where I was going to hang it....

I said, Ok, you'll have to follow me with this. I want to move the coat rack by the door out and move that mirror in the kitchen over there. Then the screen that hangs behind the tv will go where the mirror is and my wreath will either go over the screen or maybe just where the screen used to be or Maybe I'll just put it right here in the middle of this wall and move all of these picture frames somewhere else...

And my wonderful husband, he understood the whole thing, didn't question it, told me that he thought the wreath might be too big to go on the one wall and I should try it over in a corner. And then, he told me I should hot glue the scrabble pieces that spell out our last name onto their little holder so they don't get knocked off (and so my Cody dog doesn't eat anymore letters.)

How I love that guy, not only does he not question my craziness - he actually helps and encourages me.

We're an old, married couple

In the past three weeks, my husband and I have cut down a tree in our front yard, ripped out nasty old carpet in our entire upstairs, picked out (together) and had installed new carpet, transplanted plants, seeded new grass, had a garage sale, and a backyard barbecue to invite over friends and neighbors.

Now I'm not telling you all of this to impress you with our work ethic, because quite honestly we're a couple of really lazy people, but instead I'm just reflecting on what our life has turned into.

I spend my time thinking about what area in my home to work on next (seriously though, what area should I do next-cause they all need it, and they all seem like a huge undertaking-HELP), I worry about Mark and I finding the time and money to start a family, I want to host parties (and get better at that too-you know I want them to actually be fun...) Mark and I have been married longer than the period of time we were just boyfriend and girlfriend (and so no, that doesn't include the amount of time we were engaged, it's just a comparison people.)

Life has been crazy at times, we've dealt with some sucky things. Job issues, family issues, marriage issues, wanting different things at different time issues and feeling like you don't understand me issues. We've grown apart from some friends, we've rekindled old friendships, and whodathunkit, but I've even made female friends (I know, crazy right?) We've made goals, we've reached goals, and we've been lost without knowing what goals to make next.

But we've done it together, and we've made it so far. Mark might be tired of my lazy ass never putting away the clean clothes, and I am only slightly tired of all the farming talk that goes way over my head. We got married young, and were kinda crazy and naive. But right now, we're in a place that makes us happy. Even more happy without that ugly tree in my front yard (and yes, I got a "You were right" from my mother-in-law, and you had better believe I will use that for all it's worth and then some.) And our weekends may be full of yard work and garage sales and parties that are over before 11, but it's been worth it. So thanks Mark for doing it all with me. And thanks for understanding my need for Mt. Dew or other sudden impulses (like yes I might want chili cheese fries from Sonic-even if we did just eat supper), and for only slightly being annoyed by it.

And yes honey, now I'll stop procrastinating and go spend the "it only takes 5 minutes" time to hang up my clothes.

Follow through?

On Sunday I had some time to fill, what with no company, no TV, and my nap already done. So I decided to finally finish priming my basement from after we tore down the walls. I ran out of primer before I could quite get done with the last wall-but it already looks so much better. Don't you agree?




Oh wait, you don't see a picture? That's because for approximately 2 months now, I have been completely unable to find the charger for my camera. Yep-gone! No idea. No pictures. No fun.

But last night as I was pulling out my overnight bag from the top of my closet, no reason really, I'm not staying overnight anywhere, but there it was! So maybe, and I stress the maybe I will get some pictures up of my recent thrifting finds and the progress in the basement and the bathroom.

Of course, I won't promise that I will actually follow through on that. I seem to have a problem. Like I said, I was so close to finishing up the priming in my basement. So last night, I buy another bucket of primer, bring it home, and what do I do? Instead of spending 20 min. finishing it up I figure why not start tearing down the border in the bathroom. Seems like a good idea. So now I not only need to finish priming but I also need to finish the border removal!

*Also, don't forget my Giveaway! One lucky person will be getting a copy of the best new magazine-Flea Market Style. Sign up below!!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner! *Giveaway at bottom

I got it! I finally got it! I finally found and got my hands on my very own copy of Flea Market Style Magazine. I am so excited. Flea Market Style is a blog that I have been following for quite a while and they have been working on putting out a great magazine, and it was finally released and sent to stores about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Since then I have been searching the racks at the stores in town, Wal-Mart, and any other store selling magazines-trying to find one. Well for once in my life, Pamida in Clay Center came through for me. They may not have Wii remotes.....but hey, at least I got my magazine.

Flea Market Style is everything I want my home and my own style to be. It's unique, beautiful, tells a story all its own, and can typically be pretty low budget. I have already been poring over the pages, being inspired and amazed what others have done. Since I am so new to decorating my own home and figuring out what I like and enjoy, it's been a lot of fun to see many different possibilities and to be encouraged as to how easy it is to do in my own home.

So in honor of my fun find, and because I hope that sales for this magazine will be wonderful, prompting the editors to create more- I have bought at least one extra magazine, to be given away to one lucky person. So, while there maybe no actual chicken dinner, you can still be a winner of the magazine, and maybe some other fun little things that will also fit in the package.

So to enter for this awesome giveaway, simply
1) Leave a comment, telling me who you are, where you're from, AND what your own design style is at home.
2) Become a follower
3) Leave a 2nd comment, telling me that you linked to this giveaway on your own blog.

That's it! The winner will be announced next Sunday, March 6th. So stay tuned, as I may be adding some fun to stuff to the total winnings as we go along this week!

Oh and if you want to check out the Flea Market Style blog yourself, just follow this link.

We lost a bedroom

This weekend Mark and I had my younger brother and sister over. They were excited to hang out with us for the weekend, and we were excited for the free labor. So we put them to work. We decided it was time to attack the basement. Our house is a split level and so there's "4 levels." When you walk in our front door, you walk into the living room (which has already been remade into a beautiful room-if I do say so myself) and from that living room you can walk down into what would probably be considered the "family room."














It was decent sized, probably about 12 by 20. So not bad, but when you consider that we want a bar, and a sectional and a big screen and a hotdog cooker, there's not a lot of room. And of course it had paneling, because what family room is complete without paneling.













There was also a bedroom, the "Coca Cola" room, with wallpaper and border and cement floors, and paneling on two of the walls. This was one of the 5 bedrooms. But these are all the "BEFORE" pictures! Because.....

We tore down the paneling (just for full disclosure-this was actually done probably about 5 months ago.)

We tore out the ceiling in the bedroom (again like 5 months ago).

And then this weekend the real fun was had. This is everyone punching, kicking, and karate chopping through the walls.

Oh yes, good times were had by all.

This is why they come to hang out with us, we do typically put them to work......but it usually involves demolition. And what almost 10-year old and 14-year old don't like destruction!

The holes are getting bigger!

I love it!

We opened up the window and just passed all the dryboard chunks out. It was like a relay, I felt like I was on Holmes on Homes.

And finally-Victory! Our home is no longer a 5 bedroom, but instead a 4br with a (soon to be gorgeous) family room.

Lazy Days

I love having lazy Sundays. I have a few things that I am slowly getting done today, laundry, eating out at the Mexican restaurant, a little more laundry, and napping. Yesterday Mark and I were both in the same cleaning up mood so we got a lot of things done-which could be explained by the weird behavior associated with Halloween. But anyways, we went with it and got lots of little things and big things (like mowing our lawn for the first time in about two months-yes we're that kind of neighbor) done.

About a month ago I stopped at our farm and pulled 3 old doors and a screen out of the grainery. Yesterday I finally got around to washing them off and placing them in the house. Now they still need some love and decorations, but they're really cute and I love them so much. And they even passed the husband test, which was important. (not really)

So I placed the first one with the window in the dining room. Love it! And you can't see it in this picture-too dark, but that's my purple dining set on the table. Love it even more!


That's my "Congrats on the new house" plant from my mom. I really only have it sitting there because I thought it needed some more sunlight-since I had kind of forgotten about it in my Mary Kay room.

Here, on the right side of the picture you can see the screen that I put up plus the gold clock that I spent a fortune on out at the Pamida-but hey I like it! The screen came with the old blue paint which happens to look beautiful next to my blue wall. I think it was meant to be.

I needed a headboard for the spare bed and I think it works ok. It needs some more stuff on the wall and maybe even on the door. My friend/interior decorating advisor Alicia suggested maybe some of those wooden twig balls with lights in them.
Also-let it be known that I do not love this comforter-I like the colors, but I guess it just seems a little too dorm room to me now. But I did pick it out and someone was nice enough to buy it for us for our wedding-so if it was you I'm sorry! It's not your fault-it's all my fault that I changed my mind.

And finally the front porch and the last door. The steel pail and plants came from a wonderful co-worker, cause Lord knows I could never grow anything-she had to get me the simplest, easiest, can't kill kind of plants (like with the plant from my mom that I forgot about and left on the floor of my MK room for about 3 weeks-whoops.) This door needs a wreath but I love the old barn door look.

What do you think? Kinda fun, free decorating. The best kind in my book!

The Living Room

After my fun adventure along Highway 36, I came home with some real treasures. I was so excited to start decorating, especially after finishing up the gorgeous paint in my living room. Below is the picture I am most excited about. I painted all the frames so they matched, except one which is gold. I framed scrapbook pages, one old door lock, and in the middle frame I hung the gold M that was our wedding topper. And this picture honestly doesn't even do it justice.

Also notice that Mark and I made those spindles disappear. You see, there were spindles here separating the living room and dining room, they matched those that we also removed from the bathroom and the ones that I have yet to figure out what to do with in the kitchen (I still need your opinions!) We got the sawzall out, and he even let me have a turn! -Obviously this picture was taken before this weekend, as it still has the hideous blue gingham wallpaper and sunflower border that was the "Before" shot of my kitchen.

I love it! Now I actually am starting to feel like I've put my own stamp on this place.

Whatdoyouthink?

So I thought it would be fun and amusing to post my kitchen pictures on here again, the beautiful ones with all the white walls (well if you can get past all the crap I have strewn everywhere) and ask you, my wonderful talented friends to give me some advice. I was going to ask what colors? what changes? what to do with those dang spindles? all of that. But then, oh goodness let me tell you, but then my dear friend and co-worker Alicia came over and saved me the trouble. I said, ya know I've always wanted to paint it green, but I also like purple, but seriously I love how open and big it seems now with the white, but I want it to go with the blue in the living room (OH MY GOODNESS-I haven't shown you my living room! What in the world have I been doing? Oh that's right, catching up on my DVR'd new Fall TV schedule and avoiding the computer-whoops.) But so she solved it all, she figured it out, she made the decision so easy for me, which believe me Mark will forever thank her for making me decide things.

But still, I want to hear what you think, where you think I should go, what would look beautiful and modern and cozy and mainly beautiful? Green-light, celeryish, not lime green? or Purple and fun and different? or stick with the neutrals and add some fun pops!? or a family member of the blue in the living room? (I swear I'll put a picture of it up tomorrow.) Or yellow, orange, red, grey, brown, something else? And notice the spindles on the bar, they've got to go, but I think they're pretty important to the cabinets up above. New spindles? Different support? or just get rid of the cabinets above? And if you can, notice that I have yellow counter tops. Which will be staying, at least for awhile more. They're not horrid, but I definitely don't want to call attention to them.

So give it all to me, all opinions, thoughts, admonishes for the way my countertops look, whatever! I'll take them all. Maybe you'll change my mind, or give me a different thought on how to approach the whole thing, or give me an idea for a different room, or give someone else an idea for their own house! Leave a comment, let me know or you can also vote in my color poll on the side, if you're not too wordy (unlike me.)

Thanks for anything, I'll enjoy reading your comments.

Well, if you leave me any.

And not that I'm being desperate, but please leave me a comment, it'll make me feel so cool! Just click on the little words below the post that will say (0) comments and then type away in the box. You don't have to have a blog to comment, you can just leave your name.

Maybe I'm being a little desperate.

Operation Wallpaper Removal

STATUS: ALMOST COMPLETED

At the beginning of today, this is what my kitchen and dining room looked like.

Well, w/ a fridge and stove in those holes, but with that same blue and white striped wallpaper.

Yea, it looks more like this.

Don't you love how well the two wallpapers meet.

I employed a good friend to help with the removal. She came in handy, because just the same as when shopping for the good stuff in antique stores, her tallness is great when I need to use the stepstool.

She may kill me for this.

Yea! Wallpaper is gone!

Look at all that white, clean, open goodness.

Now it's time to pick a paint color.

I've got LOTS to choose from. My new friend Sarah from the Manhattan Home Depot gave me this little beauty on a recent shopping trip. I love her. And I love my paint chip thingy. If there is an official word for this thing, please let me know. And yes, when you look at the picture above I was holding it backwards, so all you see is the white back of each sheet.

All in a Day's Trip

I woke up at 4:15 Saturday morning, and I jumped up-got in the shower, felt good, felt awake and was headed on my way within an hour. Surprising considering the fact that it takes about an hour to continuously hit snooze on my alarm clock almost every day before going to work. But Saturday was different, Saturday was exciting, Saturday was Highway 36 Treasure Hunt Day-funny considering the fact that Saturday was also International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

ARGH, me mateys-I was off to find me treasure.

Now as you recall, I started out the day with a list.

Below you will see the multitude of picture frames that I purchased. I think I spent about $1.25 on all of these, plus you can see that I bought a door lock. It's in the middle of the middle frame. That was $0.50. All of these frames will be painted, except maybe the metal one on the bottom right.

I also bought this big picture frame-beautiful! Cost me $2.00.

This is a close up detail of the frame.

And I did say that I was going to buy baby stuff...and then I did say that I was kidding-Majorly Kidding! But what I didn't realize was how much fun I would have looking for my friends's babies. I found this adorable outfit-that it is way too big as of yet-but it only cost me $0.50 and one day my adorable friend Bailey's adorable son-to-be will look as cute as you can get in this thing.

Next despite my husband's ridicule, I could not pass this beautiful thing up. Yes, it's a window, and yes it's going on the inside of my house, on a wall. And everyone's doing it anyways, honey! It'll look good I promise-and yes, if everyone else jumped off a bridge.....

It was supposed to cost $2.50, but my darling friend, Dana, who made the trek with me ended up buying its sister, and just gave the man the $5 bill, and wouldn't let me pay her for it. She said she owed me. Basically I love Dana, she was the one who invited me, and I was so excited to go with her. She was fun, encouraging, has a good eye, plus she's tall-which is useful when at an antique store with really high shelves. But I promised her that was just icing on the cake, not the only reason we traveled together.

The following picture shows off the beautiful Christmas decor that I got for....FREE! An elderly lady tried to give me about 6 boxes of free Christmas stuff, but basically I would have just had to have my own garage sale for the rest of it-I mean it was pretty sketchy. The lady was so nice, her and her husband were dumping other boxes so that I could have empty boxes to cart off more Christmas stuff, but Dana and I had to sneak out of there with just the couple of boxes that I did actually want.

And I do mean sneak, I literally ran behind the tent of the people set up next to her.

I'm sorry elderly lady, please don't take offense. I'm sure your 70 years of collected Christmas items will make someone else very very happy.

I bought this lantern for $3-I thought it was kinda overpriced- I should have offered $2, but when we saw other lanterns that were just a little more cleaned up for $15-$30, I figured I must have done ok.

After searching through thousands of glasses, I finally scored with the perfect sized, clear, slightly tapered glasses. $3 for all four.

I can use them to display my Mary Kay items. Perfect size for eyeliners, mascaras, facial highlighting pens.

Or as a decorative piece with some beautiful fresh cut flowers. And yes, that is displayed on my new window.

And finally my largest purchase was this old mirror with a horrid wallpaper border. It is old and it does have some scratches at the bottom but something about Liquid Plumber will fix that right up. I don't know-I'll have to google it.

But I do know that this will look un-frickin-believable at the end of the hallway when I'm done with it. It's about 4 foot tall, including the frame. LOVE it! And I love it even more knowing that I only spent $10. I probably should have offered $5, just to see, but it was worth the $10.


Plus here's a sneak peak of what's behind the wallpaper. Gorgeous, weathered painted oak wood.

My comrade in this ordeal, Dana, also made away with some great deals. I definitely know we're doing this next year, and we may even be hitting up some of the antique shops and thrift stores that we stopped at or new ones that we have to discover sometime soon. We did pretty good and when talking to her husband, he said the amount we had spent was not bad-so we know we can up our limit next year as well.

I definitely came home with some extra cash-even after all the snacking I did Saturday. Total, after adding up all my purchases I spent a whopping....$20.25.

After thinking about that, I'm kinda pissy and want to go back and buy about twice that. I mean seriously.

*If you are visiting from the Flea Market Style Party-First of all, WELCOME! I posted this back in September after my first time experiencing a flea market. Check out what I did with the picture frames in this post. And know that I am hooked! and plan to continue searching out all the great deals, and I'm excited to visit each of you and see what you have found, and to learn all the good Flea Market Secrets from you all! Thanks for stopping by!

Bathroom Blunders

The Bathroom:

Now, I have to say-we're not actually working on the bathroom right now. My husband has this idea that we need to actually finish one room before going on to the next, which I vehemently deny-I mean come on, who doesn't want to tear those nasty spindles out?






The best part of that border is that the toilet seat matched.

Sad story though.....I don't have a picture of the toilet seat. The toilet seat was one of those cushy, sit down and the toilet seat sounds like you're letting the air out of it kinds. And so, to really help spruce things up-I bought a new toilet seat. A regular old white one.

And you know what, I kind of miss the cushy, exhaling toilet seat.





Did I mention, I'm allergic to cats?

So the After pictures for the bathroom will be really exciting. Except for the fact that we probably won't get around to that until oh, about 2012.