TMI?

Do your kids ever eat all the marshmallows out of the cereal (mine don’t like milk so they can eat all day long…) and then leave all the “yucky” cereal in the bowl? Yeah, I was going crazy, so I did a quick loop with fishing line, and it all of a sudden became the coolest thing ever!

Don’t mind the pajamas and crazy hair, it’s just after breakfast!

Okay, so just because I like reading other’s blogs when they seem more real, and maybe this will help you understand where I’m coming from, I’m going to share some *relevant* parts of my personal life. If you don’t care, that’s just fine, but if you want to get to know me a little better, here it is.

A little over 5 years ago, I married my wonderful hubby.

He had a job previously that he always had at the back of his mind. He always thought it would be fun to own his own business of this job. I’m not going into too much details on employment, or cities, or whatever, but just general. He got a job, so we moved way up to Northern Utah. We bought a house, had a baby (I made that dress for munchkin, by the way)

and life went along. During this time, I learned about this guy. He became a purely platonic love, but I was hooked.

Yes, he’s as old as my father, probably, but he’s amazing. Dave Ramsey helped us get out of debt, build up a savings, and start learning about investing. I heart him. If you haven’t heard of him, go read Total Money Makeover. Like now. Serious.

Then, same story as everywhere else, hubby’s company started laying people off. He was safe, but he got tired of the insecurity. He I mean, we decided the time had come to go buy the business he’d been dreaming about for so long. So about 1 month after this, (birth of munchkin #2)

we moved out of my hometown state, onto new adventures. We couldn’t sell our house (big shock, right?), and we had just finished the basement, and I didn’t even get to decorate it, use my new crafting room, or anything! *Sniffle* By the way, I don’t want this to come across as complaining. I don’t regret anything we’ve done, or anything we’ve learned. It’s just this is who we are and what we’ve done. Anyway, we moved in with the hubby’s parents, who were supportive while we tried to learn how to be business owners. Over the course of the next year, we received $0 income from our business. Stupid business loans. We moved 4 times. But during this time, I found craft blogs. I had no idea such a thing existed. My awesome sister-in-law inadvertently introduced me to All Things Thrifty by a link on her blog. Seeing as how we were living on the savings we built up thanks to Dave, and had $0 income, Thrifty caught my eye. But the blog wasn’t anything I expected! Because of the inspiration from her blog, as well as others that I found after that, I did my first huge project, knowing zero about it.

Not too bad for $8? I’m sad that it’s just sitting in a storage unit right now. Oh well. That led to me re-doing the kitchen cabinets & backsplash of our rental (with their blessing, of course!)

Before:

After:

Big surprise, but shortly after, their rental sold, due to all the work we did to it. We had to move back into the in-laws (in about 2 weeks notice time), and about this time, we talked a lot, and decided we are just not business owners. We like having security, insurance, income, time with kids & each other, and in general, a life. We tried to sell the business, and had a lot of interest, but we just found out this week that the most promising lead decided against it. Discouraging. Anyway, hubby applied to a bunch of jobs, in his actual degree, and after 4 months, got an interview, then a job offer to start in the next 3 weeks. Yikes! So we had Christmas, and then moved again. Back to Utah, into my parent’s house. I told you a little about that here.

So long story short, probably 3/4 of our stuff (shoes, clothes, all the furniture we own, kid toys, etc.) are in another state. So if it seems like I’m doing a lot of crafts or clothing refashions that are on the smaller scale, well, I am! I have literally boxes and boxes of supplies, a sewing machine, a serger, random odds & ends, paint, and tons of project starts that are inaccessible to me. But, I’m doing the best I can!

I love pinterest! It’s making me itch to get our own place again. It’s hard to have a house you’re not living in, with lots of ideas, hoping it will sell and we can buy another house someday. But, thanks to Dave, we want to save up and get a good down payment first. Since starting this blog, and reading other blogs, I’ve learned about blog conferences. And there’s one I would LOVE to go to, here in lil’ ol’ Utah. Have you heard of SNAP? It’s awesome-sauce craft and bloggy conference.

I would love to go, because SO MANY bloggers that I follow faithfully will be there! Like Mandi, Shelley, Jen, Lara, plus professional amazing photographers that can help teach me how to take better pictures! (I know you all want that, right?!) Honestly though, seeing as we have debt on a business, and a house we haven’t been able to sell, and we want to re-build our savings, and save a down payment, it’s not likely to happen. Unless I win a ticket. We shall see. I think I deserve a girl’s retreat, right? The only thing that would make it more awesome is if Nat and I could both go! But $200 a ticket, going up to $250….*sigh*

Mostly, I’m just having fun learning about the blogging experience, and crafting, decorating, and sewing up a tiny storm (until I have my own place again…mua hahaha evil maniacal laugh). I love getting comments from you, and seeing any projects you do. If you’re on Pinterest, let me know so I can come follow your stuff! If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, I’ll send you an invite if you give me your email. You can thank me later!

Thanks for stopping by, and hope 2012 will be good for us all!