Getting ready for move in day!

I just have to say that I literally have the best BFF ever!

She came over to the new house today to clean my carpets.. she is so nice! :)

The carpets don't look perfect but it is better than how they started!

Thanks Rach! Love you!

See those little black spots to the right side of the picture? The carpet cleaner would get hairballs and spit out wads of dog hair, it spit out a ton and that was after I vacuumed twice!

 

Look right above the cord.. you should see a line of clean and not clean.

 

I also vacuumed the whole house and collected like 5 pounds of dog hair! Ok maybe not that much but there was so much!!!

Pretty sure they never vacuumed while they lived there.

 

I also have another recipe from my whole chicken!!

 

I made chicken tortilla soup inspired by The Pioneer Woman
here is a link to the recipe that I followed for the most part
I basically did everything in her recipe but I didn't measure anything, I basically just put the ingredients in until I thought there was enough.

It was delicious!

I didn't have all the fancy toppings that she did so I just topped it with some cheese

 

\

Yum!

Oh by the way.. We STILL have chicken left over!

I am going to have to come up with some more chicken meals!

 

Tomorrow is the big day! Every one will be coming to help us move and we will officially be in the new house!! YAYYY!!!!

 

Have a good weekend y'all! I'll have a house update for you on Monday!

 

 

Day by Day

We are getting so close to being completely moved into the house! I am so excited!!

Saturday cannot come soon enough!!

We now have a refrigerator, washing machine and dryer!

 

Let me just tell you how stressful it was to get these things installed!

Well mostly how stressed I was while watching the Lowe's guys install it.

 

 

First of all let me say that I was very diligent in making sure I measured the fridge before I got it and it was the right size.

Well when they brought the fridge in they started to install it and the footboard was in the way and it would not fit.

Easy way to fix that is to remove the footboard. Done.

I don't know why it was even there to start with, its not like anyone would ever see it.

 

Once they got that off they realized that the cabinets above the fridge are not even and one side is lower than the other.

We come to the conclusion that Jason will trim the cabinet to make the fridge fit.

 

 

Now on to the washer and dryer.

they got the washer in easily but the dryer wouldn't fit. UGH!

Let me mention that our "laundry room" is more like a closet so there is not much space.

Any who... they figured out that if they switch them and put the dryer where the washer is it will fit.

It work! But now we can only open the door to the dryer about half way. oh well.

 

OH! Do you remember that nasty dishwasher I showed you yesterday?

I went to Walmart and got a Finish dishwasher cleaner, you just put it in the dish washer and run a load.

I seriously thought it was a waste of $3.95. No way it could clean this nasty thing.

Well when I went to check I was in total AWE!!

It really cleaned it! I was so surprised and happy!!! :)

 

Wow! Wow! Wow!

They look like two different dishwasher!

I highly recommend this stuff!!!

 

Oh also in the midst of all this moving I am still using the chicken from my whole chicken that I made in the crock pot.

I made some really delicious chicken noodle soup using almost all leftovers!

Here is what I used

Shredded chicken

chopped celery, onion and carrots that I used to make my broth 

chicken broth

and spaghetti

(You can use what ever pasta you want but for some reason I wanted to use spaghetti)

 

 

 

  

Half way home!

We got the keys to our new house yesterday!

Today my father-in-law came to help us with some moving.
And he treated us to breakfast at Bob Evans! YUM!
We were able to get a lot done today and I hope to get the rest either throughout the week or on Saturday when more people come help us.
I am soooooooo excited!
I am also super stoked that we got a refrigerator, washing machine and dryer all for about the original price of the fridge! Woo!!
We got it all from Lowe's
Let me just say, the scratch and dent section at Lowe's is the place to go!
They have so many nice appliances that just got a little scratch on them and they are discounted $100s to even $1000s off!
We managed to get $500 off our fridge and on top of that we got a military discount off of everything.

As I mentioned before, we got the keys yesterday and I went to the house to take a car load of stuf in the morning.
I took a tour of the house and noticed a few things I was not to fond of, here is a little picture tour.

Packed and ready to go!

My passenger seat.. I would like to point out the hair spray under the basket, it started spraying while I was driving and I had no clue what was going on until I smelt it and I knew it was my hairspray haha!

 

Living room.

This picture makes it look way smaller than it is.

And we did not notice the dirty carpets before we bought the house.

Thankfully my best friend has a carpet cleaner and she is coming to help me clean them!

 

Random thing behind the front door.

Any ideas what to put here??

 

Kitchen

 

Stairs.. is it just me or does the carpet look kind of pink in this picture??

Another thing we will tackle with the carpet cleaner!

 

 

 

Master Bedroom

 

Master bathroom

 

They left some cleaning supplies.. I thought "oh how kind" until I saw this..

 

Uh gross! Now I know why you left me cleaning supplies! And I know why the bottles were full! Because you never cleaned!

 

Bathroom number two

 

Spare bedroom.

There are two but they look the same so no need to post a picture of both.

 

The dish washer.. EWWWWW!

How could anything get clean in this??

 

hmm....??

Is it nice or weird that they left us their entire spice cabinet??

 

Well that's all for today!

I will try to post more pictures and updates tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On making the switch to organic and the dairy farm

I said that I would talk more about our visit to the dairy farm so here it is!

Jason and I have made a lot of changes in what we eat, mostly after watching the documentary food, inc.
I 100% recommend watching it! It was a very interesting movie and I learned a lot from it.
This blog is where it all started, I came across her blog one night and read just about every post she had about eating healthier and why she had made the switch to organic.
She has a lot of great information and I highly recommend checking it out
We made a switch to eating mostly organic foods.
I did A LOT of research and looked for tips on eating organic while on a budget.
Let me tell you that it IS possible to eat organic on a budget!!
 Start by taking a look at the dirty dozen list, it tells you what produce has the most pesticides in it (you should buy those items organic) and which items have the least amount of pesticides (these are ok to by conventional)
If this is the only change you can afford to make, GREAT! Even one change is better than none!

If you can go one step further pick one or as many of these as your budget will afford and make the switch to organic:
Milk
Eggs
Meat
Other Dairy like cheese and yogurt

We kind of switch those all at once (after we finished off what we already had)
Let me just tell you I used to be an extreme couponer and would get a weeks worth of groceries for  $10 or less.
This was a HUGE adjustment for me!
This should tell you how important I think it is to eat healthy and know what you put in your body!
We now buy organic milk from organic valley, it is from free range cows and they are mostly grass fed.
A half gallon cost about 3.65 but I will pour half of it into another carton and fill them both with water, we get whole milk so when you add the water it is basically 2% but you keep all the good fats and nutrients from whole milk.
Eggs can be bit tricky
this link should help you clarify the difference between free range, cage free, organic etc..
We buy eggs that come from organic free range chickens and pay $3.75-$4 per dozen.

As far as meat goes I mostly buy chicken (either the organic brand at the grocery store or straight from the farm), when I buy it from the store I never pay full price for it!
This is another very helpful tip, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that I go to the grocery store I take a walk by the meat section to see if there is anything marked down, if there is a buy 3-4 of it and freeze it.
I just got some organic chicken marked down to $2.30 for almost two pounds and some all natural (with no antibiotics, additives or hormones) for about $3.
Another tip about meat is just to use less, check out this post where I tell you how much money you can save just by cutting back a little bit.
Also when you do cook with meat just try to make it stretch further! Meat should not be the main course, it should just accompany your other foods.

Any ways more about the dairy farm and the herd share..
There is this huge debate over rather or not raw milk is safe, well my opinion is this
If you feed your cows a bunch of crap and give them poor living conditions they will not produce good healthy milk. PERIOD.
On the other hand if you let your cows graze in the pastures the way they are supposed to and care for them the way they should be cared for then there should be nothing wrong with your milk.
In Ohio it is illegal to buy raw milk, but you are aloud to drink the milk your own cow produces.
When you join a herd share you "own" a portion of the herd and there for can drink the milk it produces.
At Double J farm it cost $50 to join the herd share (the farmer will buy it back if you decide to no longer be a part of it), from there on it is $30 a month and you get 1 gallon of milk a week.
This is a little bit on the expensive side but when it really comes down to it, it is not much more than what we pay for milk now.
The only reason we have not signed up for it yet it because we are moving and it would be a very long drive just to get our milk and we don't even drink a whole gallon a week.
We are still looking into farms that are closer to our new house.
Here are some pictures from our visit to the farm

 

AWW!! Look at the baby!!

 They also offer a goat milk herd share for the same price.

 

Our last weekend in the apartment!

Hello darlings! I hope you had a great weekend.

Friday night I went to my mother-in-laws to maker dinner with her, I sure am going to miss living so close to her!
 

Saturday I got my hair cut! I really needed it and it feels great to get all those dead ends off.
After my hair appointment I went to meet my friend (along with her husband and son) for dinner, we decided to ditch the boys and go shopping.
We went to Target because I wanted to look at their tees they had on sale for $5, I got three and 2 cardigans!

the three on the left are the tees and the two on the right are the cardigans

I can't wait for fall weather so I can start wearing them!
I tried really hard to get a ton of packing done but it is just so overwhelming and I don't know what to pack. We have a lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily need to go in a box, we can just throw it in the car and go, but I feel that I should do something with it.

Did I mention we get the keys tomorrow!?!?
We have until Saturday to move out of the apartment but I am stressing out just a little bit.
I made some chicken and rice with my leftover chicken from my whole chicken that I made last week.
The chicken and rice was really good and it is so easy to make!
My mom used to make it all the time and she would boil chicken until it fell off the bones, then she would use the liquid from the chicken to cook the rice, then you mix in the semi-shredded (I just rip it in pieces, you don't want it to be completely shredded) chicken.
Since my chicken was already cooked I just cooked the rice with my homemade chicken broth then added a little more broth and the chicken piece, I also added a little salt to bring out the flavor.

I hope y'all had a great weekend as well!

 

 

Link up with Sami's Shenanigans

 The Prairie Homestead

and

The Diary of a Real Housewife

 

 

 

Homemade chicken broth and healthy pancakes

I know you were all dying to know how my chicken broth turned out, well it was great!

I was a little concerned because it didn't taste as strong as I thought it should but my sister reassured me that it is not going to taste like the artificially flavored stuff I am used to.

Basically all I did to make it was put all of the bones back in to the crock pot and added some more seasonings, carrots and celery and let it cook on low all night. Super easy!

When it was done I put it into Ziploc bags and put some in the fridge and some in the freezer.

I can't wait to use it to make some homemade chicken noodle soup! yum!

 

Jason helping get all the meat off the bones

 

 

I also wanted to share that I made some healthy pancakes and they were delicious!

Here is the recipe

yum! I love pancakes with peanut butter! What do you like to put on your pancakes?

 

 

 



Gourmet grilled cheese??

The other day I went to a "gourmet grilled cheese" restaurant call tom and chee 

this was the first time I had been there but I had heard so much about it!

When I walked in the layout reminded me of subway, you can order a sandwich off the menu or build your own.

 

I decided to build my own sandwich.

I had cheddar cheese on wheat bread with banana pepper, red sweet peppers, grilled red onions and bacon.

 

It was pretty good but honestly I think I was expecting a little something more, for one there was not much cheese on it (which I thought strange considering it is a grilled cheese)!

Besides that I would say it was pretty good but I probably would not pay to have it again, unless I am getting the donut grilled cheese.

Sounds gross right? Apparently that is their featured product?? Sounds gross but also sounds delicious in a way, so I may have to try it one day!

You can see them on the grill, they were also making the grilled donuts with chocolate and graham cracker.


I enjoyed it this once but wouldn't pay to go again.
Something cool about this place is that they actually started the business downtown by selling sandwiches in a tent. They opened a few restuarants then went on shark tank and got a deal with two of the sharks! Even though I wasn't super impressed with the place it is still cool to see a few hometown guys starting from the bottom and going to the top.

Mama bear to the rescue!

Yesterday I told you about my chicken debacle, well I remembered that my mom has a big crock pot so I asked her if I could barrow it but of course I didn't want drive all the way to her house to get it.

I just can't seem to stop having these problems (or just being lazy and not wanting to waste gas).

I had already planned on going to Newport and would practically pass the school where she teaches on the way there. My momma was kind enough to lug that huge thing into her car so I could pick it up from her at school, isn't she the best?! Thanks mom! You really did save the day!

Now on to my big ole chicken!

I started by tossing some chopped onion, celery, potatoes and baby carrots into the ginormous crock pot.

I sprinkled on some random seasons like garlic, thyme, oregano etc. (basically anything that I thought would be good on chicken)

I added a little chicken broth and a little water to the bottom and turned my crock pot on, so that dinner would be ready when I got home.
Well at least that was the plan, I got home and the chicken was done but the veggies were no where near being done.
I let the veggies cook for about 30 minutes and they still weren't done.
Jason and I were starving by this point so we decided to eat some chicken and wait until the vegetable were ready to eat (mind you we are trying to make this chicken last as long as possible and make several meals out of it, therefore we only ate a very small piece of chicken).
About 30-45 more minutes after the veggies had been boiling on the stove they were finally soft enough to eat, I have no idea why it took them so long!!
My delicious chicken meal didn't go quite as planned but it was still yummy and we have lots of left overs for more yummy recipes!
Oh and I was so anxious to eat I didn't even get a picture of the darn bird!
Bummer!
But as I type this my chicken stock is cooking in the crock pot and (fingers crossed) should be ready in the morning!

 

 

Girl vs. Chicken

Last month I ordered a whole organic free range chicken from the farm that Jason used to work on, yesterday was my day to go pick it up.

I have been looking forward to this day all month!

Call me weird but I have been searching all month for all different kind of recipes and ways to stretch this bird for as many meals as possible.

I found all different kinds of recipes:

chicken pot pie

chicken noodle soup

chicken and rice

chicken tortilla soup

chicken "anything your heart desires"

you get my point..  1 chicken, lots of meals

So I started chopping some vegetable to put at the bottom of my crock pot

get the chicken out

look at the chicken

look at the crock pot

proceed to say oh crap!

my chicken is to big for my crock pot

I then go into panic mode and franticly search the kitchen like a chicken with its head cut off (no pun intended.. ok well maybe a little pun intended) for some kind of solution to just magically pop out of thin air.

I have no solution so I have to put the chicken back in the back and put in the fridge until I can figure some thing out.

There is just one small problem here, you see I cute the bag open and now it can't be closed back in the bag. Great.

I grab a freezer bag and start to jam the chicken into the freezer bag.. this is not pretty.. I was starting to get a little grossed out at how much this thing still looked like a chicken.. stop laughing.. I am used to chicken coming in boneless skinless breast.. not fully attached only missing its organs and head.

I managed to get the bird in the bag but it wouldn't zip.. darn bird! You could have laid off the calories a bit!

I double bagged it since it wouldn't zip and I put it back in the fridge until I can get to my moms and barrow her large crock pot

my poor little chicken

 

Hopefully I will have some lovely chicken recipes shortly following this post.

Cows, houses and fairy dust

Jason had this weekend off so we had quite a full weekend

Before I tell you all about what we did I am so excited to share that...

We are officially home owners!!!

That's right!

 We bought a house!!

We closed on Friday (only 16 days after our original closing date) and we will be moving in at the end of the month! I am so excited!!

 

 

 

Closing on the house!

 

 

 

Friday night we decided to go eat at Koto (a Japanese hibachi restaurant) to celebrate signing our lives away.. I mean buying a house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIRE!! I love this part!

 

nom nom nom get in my belly!

 

 

On Saturday we went to get a tour of a dairy farm.

It is great to see farms that actually care about their animals and the quality of their product, it was a lot of fun looking around the farm, we are considering entering into a herd share to get raw milk.

I will share more about this later on this week.

 

On Sunday we went to a dinner theatre called la comedia. It was a lot of fun!

It is a buffet dinner followed by a show, we saw peter pan.

It was such a fun experience, I highly recommend it!

Here are some pictures from the night

Ready for dinner, yum!

The buffet was on the stage!

Peter Pan!

Cheesecake with "fairy dust"

Some really yummy salad!

Lots of yummy food!

 

 

 

Link up with Sami's Shenanigans

 

 

I am also doing a link up with Life of Meg, she asked

** What hobby or DIY project are you dying to start? **

 

I have a few old pieces of furniture that I have been dying to sand and repaint and make them adorably country chic but I am waiting until we move into the house before I start.

Here is one of the pieces I plan to redo

I found it next to the dumpster and it had some smashed up pills in it but Jason cleaned it out with Clorox wipes and its all good now!