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Category Archives: House & Home

SuperBowl Feast

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We love our local Hawaiian food truck so much that we splurged and got their SuperBowl Platter (meant for 6-8 people) even though we are just 4 people. (Oh darn, we’ll have leftovers.)

So tonight was hush puppies with remoulade, coconut shrimp with orange mustard marmalade, poke nachos, mochiko chicken, and Asian slaw and spam musabi (not pictured). It was all DIVINE.

And if that wasn’t enough, Anna had decided to make Doubles, a traditional Trinidadian sandwich that David hadn’t had in years. (It’s curried chickpeas and cucumber chutney on fried bread.) Those were yummy, too!

And then it was off to the couch to finish watching the big game (or, rather, the commercials). The dogs enjoyed it, too.

It was a school night so we headed home early, totally stuffed but already looking forward to Hawaiian leftovers!

Surprise I hurt my back.

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About two weeks ago I dropped my phone behind the bed. Tom managed to get it out but unknowingly unplugged the bed (it has USB ports in it so it needs to be plugged in) so nothing is charging and no cables work. I’ve not even been charging my phone at night because I haven’t wanted to figure it out.

Fast forward to last night when I thought I had FINALLY gotten a cable working. Aaaand no. And then I dropped my phone BEHIND THE BED AGAIN. Not reachable at all.

So I got super pissed and rage pulled the nightstand away from the bed. I knew I’d pay for it today and yep, my back hurts. I hate being old and broken.

And yes, I also hate all the cords but they’re generally hidden.

All the swears, you guys…ALL.THE.SWEARS

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I screwed it up when I did a shirt like this for his 11th birthday, too. I managed to fix that one but this one I’m just leaving.

I asked and turns out I did design it correctly but I forgot to “weld” the design to print as one solid piece… so the Cricut assumed it knew better than me and rearranged the design to use less vinyl. Lesson learned.

(It says years/days/months instead of years/months/days.)

Aaaand now new flooring.

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When you decide the laundry room floor needs to be replaced before the new machines arrive in three days…

Tom did this today. He’s awesome. (Oh, and he has time to do this because he hasn’t actually had a full day of work yet even though Monday was his first day!)

But check this out. This is what he found when he removed the vent cover! If you look closely you can see something growing in the second pic. Good lord—what on earth happened in the laundry room?!

HOMEOWNER ADVICE

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Everyone go check your dryers right now and clean every speck of lint from every single crevice. Detach and open things if you need to.

Our dryer stopped working last week so we filed a home warranty claim. The tech came and looked and said that there had been a dryer fire at some point — which we hadn’t known for sure but suspected since there were marks in the dryer when we moved in 18 months ago (and honestly we didn’t give it a second thought because the dryer worked fine). We clean the lint very frequently so didn’t worry about it.

But!

The Warranty claim was denied. The powers that be said it was a lint fire and that is never covered because “annual dryer maintenance” is the homeowners responsibility and since we’ve lived here for 18 months, it was our responsibility to find it. Even though it’s worked fine for 18 months.

The tech said that he could tell just by looking in there (when he opened it all up) that the previous owners had probably never taken care of it because there was lint falling out. (He said he really doesn’t think you have to do it every year but that’s how the insurance company screws you out of claims.)

So I asked his opinion on the best avenue to fight the decision and he said we can’t. It’s done.

So that’s it. We’re out the entire cost.

The good news? The new set will be here Friday AND Tom started his new job today.

My typical day.

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Hear Tom get up early to make sure the kids get off to school. Roll over and wake up a bit later and work my SeneGence biz from bed until Tom gives me crap about being a lazy butt. Get out of bed making old person grunting sounds. Text BFF off and on all day. Take a shower. Do my skincare and makeup and take photos for future posts. Take kid to appointment. Do random house things—pick up, let Maggie out/let Maggie in, water plants, let Maggie out/let Maggie in, feed Maggie, organize office, do laundry, let Maggie out/let Maggie in/let Maggie out/let Maggie in, give Maggie her meds, clean kitchen, wonder aloud who left six glasses on the kitchen table/who left candy wrappers on the couch/why there are dirty socks everywhere, walk by the kids’ bathroom and lament how disgusting kids are, let Maggie out/let Maggie in, pop into the office to work for a bit. Spend some cuddle time with Maggie on the couch while working my biz. Run errands. Get nails done. Jump in the hot tub with hubby. Watch a TV show with hubby. Try to make the kids do chores when they come home from school. Make dinner for/with friends. Watch a TV show with friends/Tom/kids. Remove my makeup, wash my face, apply nighttime skincare. Take more photos. Go to bed and work my biz from bed.

I kinda love it all and wouldn’t change a thing (minus the old person grunting sounds, the messy kids, and the geriatric dog that goes in and out 28x a day).

Great Wolf Lodge Surprises

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Did you know that all Great Wolf Lodge waterparks are not the same?! I didn’t until this week.

Anna got a steal of a deal on a weekday suite so we took the kids for an overnight surprise before school starts again.

As broken-bodied adults, we were excited about the hot tub (and, to a lesser extent, the lazy river).

Until.

We learned that this particular GWL does not have a hot tub!! WHAAAAAT?! I know, right? Fail. Big BIG fail. Ughhhh.

And then we learned that the lazy river (among other things) wasn’t open because they were short-staffed.

GAHHHHHHHH!!!!! 0 for 2 does not make for a happy mom.

But the kids didn’t care. And they ended up opening the lazy river later in the day so Anna and I got to be floating blobs for two hours.

But the water wasn’t warm enough for me and the air temp felt too cold, too. I think maybe I’m too old for this.

After checkout, Anna and I managed to find a somewhat secluded couch to relax while the kids are back in the waterpark. We can actually stay until close (!) but I’m thinking we’ll just stay until lunch!

Merry Christmas 2021

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The kids got us up at 7am on the dot—it would be earlier but we let them have their devices precisely so they let us sleep in until 7! I didn’t take any pics because I wanted to stay in the moment. The kids were both happy.

Then Tom and I enjoyed a morning dip in the hot tub!

Maggie enjoyed her spot on the couch.

Then we went to Anna and David’s for dinner and a movie.

New job, new tub!

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Why yes, that’s an inflatable hot tub! Tom accepted a job yesterday (YAYYYYY!) so when we walked into Costco and saw this, we knew it was meant to be! (It also wasn’t nearly as expensive as we thought it would be.)

We are planning to get a real hot tub in the future, but that requires a lot of work first since we want to redo the whole backyard and deck.

So it was inside to warm up so we could inflate it, and then Tom rolled it outside, and now it’s sitting on the deck waiting to be filled and heated so we can use it Christmas morning!

Maggie could care less about the hot tub LOL.

One of the best advertisements I’ve seen for a moving company.

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Needless to say we reached this age a loooong time ago.

The last time we officially had friends help move us was back in 2003 (from our first house to our second house—a mile away and we didn’t have much stuff yet.)Tom actually moved most of it on a borrowed trailer and then our realtor helped unload a bunch of stuff.

I’m very thankful that through all our years in the military they paid for all of our moves. I can’t imagine doing it on our own.

Anna found this related graphic.

An early Christmas present!

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So we got an early Christmas present for us…an Ooni pizza oven (we’d casually talked about it before but then after talking with Jim and Beth over Thanksgiving, our interest was renewed).

Tonight was the inaugural dinner with David and Anna (and kids) as guinea pigs. Initial setup was on the deck but torrential rain moved it to the garage.

Unpacking and setting up immediately upon delivery!
Tom made all the dough 24 hours in advance so they were ready for dinner!
About 90 seconds and it’s done!
First pizza a success!
My pizza with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, Italian sausage, and basil.

And it was absolutely amazing! I foresee a lot of pizza in our future…

This feels more daunting this year.

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For the most part I have always replaced regular decorations with holiday—like normal everyday things on shelves/walls got replaced with wrapped boxes/kids artwork. Candles and candlesticks got put away and replaced with reindeer and small trees.

But this year I’m rethinking.

Maybe it’s because we JUST finished redecorating the living room (and there’s lots more stuff now).

Or maybe it’s because we’ve only had one Christmas here and I just don’t have a set place for everything.

Or maybe it’s just because I’m exhausted.

Or maybe it’s because I forgot I bought a lot of clearance stuff last year.

Or maybe it’s because I usually end up doing 85% of it by myself…