Goals for October

Occasionally, I like to set up goals for myself to attempt to better myself and


Goals for October:


1) Train for a 5k or 10k in order to beat PR.
2) Sign up for a 5k or 10k.
3) Reach goal weight of 129 (5 pounds down) from current weight.
4) Work out 4 times a week at the office gym.

5) Make a kick ass siren (evil little mermaid) costume for Halloween.
6) Go through at least 1 box a night of childhood keepsakes that were brought up from Cape G.
7) Get our house to a place that we are ready to receive guests and have parties.

and the big one:


8) Attempt to keep a food budget of $75 a week for the 2 of us....


This is the one I will be blogging about. I will keep my receipts and show you how I did and everything! Just like how Budget Bytes does it. She did a similar challenge for herself where she only spent $4.50 a day (that's $33.75 per week and $135 for the whole month on food). Having never done a challenge of this nature, I bet ya $10 to a donut that I am gonna fail, but I am excited to try it out. The first thing to leave the budget, of course, is alcohol. That is the quickest way to waste money at the grocery store ever.

So a budget of $75 per week is $10.72 per day and $300 for the entire month. Considering my budget in Cali was $350-$400, including alcohol, I think that there MIGHT be a chance that I will succeed!


Addendum: I was challenged by my coworker to keep it to $55-$60 range so, secretly, I will be shooting to come in under $60, but I am less confident that I will be able to do that. We shall see!

New House Update!

Slowly, but surely we are getting settled into our new home! Here is a tour of the first 3 rooms that we are done unpacking for the most part:

KITCHEN

As most of you could guess, I moved into the Kitchen first. I feel like the whole house is in disarray if the kitchen isn't in a working order. I guess you can see where my priorities lie. Once you don't have to order pizza, or Chinese and eat it out of a box, I feel like things just go WAY more smoothly.

There is TONS of space in this mystical kitchen of cabinets. Like I have a couple extra cabinets that I will use in place of a pantry. While I do have a HUGE closet which is going to be used at a dried goods pantry, there isn't really a place immediately obvious to be used as a pantry. So I just decided that a certain portion of my kitchen cabinets would act as just that (hence the 2 nearly empty cabinets in the pictures below).

Here are some pictures of how everything has "shaken out" as I call it.

Washing Machine! Huzaah!

This corner is the glasses, Tupperware, Dutch Oven (THANKS JANET), and the Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and Food Processor will live here as well as there is an outlet and plenty of counter space for them.

Mickey may not stay here, but he is dreaming of what the house will be like when I am done unpacking!

This is the best picture of it, but do you like my Soap pedestal? Cuz I love it. It is the cut glass cake stand that belonged to my Grandma Jones. I really like the look of it holding the hand soap, dish towel and soap. I am my mother's daughter with all the tchotchkes on the window sill above the sink.

The lower cabinet shelves spin!!

Look at the sexiness of the lower cabinet....Lazy Susan Shelves for my pans and baking equipment.
Above is a 3 shelf (huge!) corner cabinet. I just need a Lazy Susan in here for easy access to the different Tea types on the first level. Someone in Cali, please send more Winter Dream Tea for Pigeon (Husband). We don't have enough to last the late Autumn/Winter. Though we do have a great selection of hot cocoas right now. This counter corner will house the espresso machine (Thank you Chaglas!), the coffee maker, and grinder. Coffee Corner! You will also notice my Grandmother's Two Tier Dessert tray. I decided that I didn't want it to be hidden away in storage, so for now, it is housing a bowl holding my garlic and my butter crock. More things will end up living on there I bet, but for now, that is all I got.







Pretty, new GAS RANGE stove.

So much space still available here if I organize this area better. The stove, oven, and microwave are just the prettiest with the annoying to clean stainless steel, but they work very well and they came with the house so I am happy with it.

Pull out drawers?!?! AWESOME!

All the foods shall live in here! Well, not all of it, but a lot. There are 8 shelves of space for food stuffs and spices! Below I have my casserole dishes and baking pans on one side. Then there are the pull out drawer shelves...they are so good looking. the bottom shelf currently houses my Food Saver (THANKS AUNT EILEEN), which is one of the greatest inventions ever, and the toaster (which we finally found in the dryer....). The top shelf has the blender, the immersion blender, and the waffle iron. So easy to get to and, Yes, I do use all these things. I know Minimalist kitchen-ers would roll their eyes at all my tools, but I do in fact use them.


So that is my kitchen for all intends and purposes for now. I will be pickup a marble top kitchen separator from Poppa and Care Bear's house this weekend to finish off the space. Then on Tuesday of next week, my 2 interior designer friends from work on coming buy to give me some ideas and suggestions! I can't even express my excitement about this!!


Until next time...cook it up and organize on!

*For When We are Moving into our house* TEST 1 2 1 2 This Is Just A Test

The Regularly Scheduled Blog Will Be Up And Running Soon.

*For When We are Moving into our house* TEST test Test? (one of 1 allow 6 posting days in between)

Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Will Be Down For The Next Week (Or So) 

While The Writer Moves Into Her New Home!

PAX Cosplay Pictures

There were some solid Cosplays at PAX Prime this year so I figured I should share with y'all my favorites.

Mad Maxxing it!

Mad Max ala Mario Brothers.

Some rad cosplay thanks to Magic the Gathering Booth.

Courage the Cowardly dog with Muriel.

Hagrid enjoying one of the PAX 10.

Bender living on the edge.

An amazing Red from Transistor

Master Shredder looking for some youth to corrupt.

My attempts at cospaly: Ellie from The Last of Us.

...and my personal favorite: Miss Frizzle goes to PAX Prime.

Seattle Sight Seeing: Chihuly Garden and Glass

Can we just take a minute and recognize how amazing Chihuly is?!? Y'all in St Louis, might recognize his work as the Missouri Botanical Gardens have one of his most impressive chandeliers on display in the main building and few other pieces through out the garden. If you love those pieces and you ever end up in Seattle, then you REALLY need to go to Chihuly Garden and Glass. It was the one thing I wanted to spend money besides food and it was totally worth it!


Here are a few pictures I took:



The first exhibit room was a breath taking work of light and glass.

Underwater Basket Weaving

Glass Bowls no longer have to be symmetrical!

Turtle Turtle!

Now don't get all crabby!

Not a chandelier, upwards of 400 pieces, carefully stacked in a wire frame.

Much like his ceiling at the Bellagio, this was a breathtaking moment that make you think

you have been transported to Wonderland.

The ceiling piece is back lit and has little snail sculptors to add to the other worldliness. 

Welcome to another realm!

I love the alien and psychedelic look of this piece.

The green and black striped pieces were Pigeon and my favorites in this piece.

The beach ball boat and the party boat!

His chandeliers always give me chills

He not only did the Chandelier, but he also designed the Green house.
It was so breath taking that I didn't notice the Space Needle outside the greenhouse.

The colors of this pieces were perfect for my tastes. It was raining which added to the beauty of it all.

I don't know if it was designed this way, but the shape of the flutes of the red glass piece
echoed the shape of the Space Needle beautifully.

This swirly piece was striking against the grey sky of Seattle.

They are both so tall that I decided we just needed my eyes in the picture.