Our First House

Our lease at our condo happened to be ending within a week of the end of Scott's deployment. I had been looking at houses for at least a month, maybe two, but at the beginning of April, I went ahead and put in our 30 Day Notice. Now, I definitely wouldn't recommend it, but I was desperate to find our bear of a dog a yard.

I have to say, I got to a point where it was 2 weeks before Scott was set to come home, and I was wanting to get moved the next week, and I just wasn't having much luck find anything. I got super frustrated. But, then the next day, I found 2 great houses that I was ready to apply for. 

The house we ended up getting was going to be available that weekend. Plus, it came with a washer, dryer, and refrigerator. The other house did not. And wasn't going to be available until the end of April. So I applied for this one. And as I was in the middle of sending Scott an email to tell him about these houses...I got a phone call from the Property Manager saying that our application had been approved. It had literally only been thirty minutes. Just like that, we had a house. 

I think I started packing like 3 days before I was supposed to move. And I hired the movers the day before the move. In fact, I was still packing when they got there, and luckily, they had some large boxes for me to put loose items into. 

Scott was due to come home in a week. I still had to work a 40 hour work week, and things have been constantly busy ever since, so almost a month later, the house is still not put together or completely unpacked. And, it'll probably stay empty for a long while, because we definitely do not have the furniture to fill it. 

But I'm going to take you on a tour of our empty house (pre-move) because I know at least mine and Scott's family members want to see it.

The Front Entry Way/Dining Room

The Living Room/Kitchen

Downstairs Bed and Bath

Laundry Room

(Quite possibly my favorite part of the house)

Upstairs Living Room

(Californians call it a "Bonus Room", but whatever)

Upstairs Extra Bedrooms and Bathroom

Master Bed and Bath

And the backyard for our bear

And yes, Gatsby loves his yard! And we love it, too! I'm sure there will be more posts to come as I go thrift store shopping for old, cheap furniture to refurnish and fill the house with. 

What's New with Us

As expected, my posts keep getting fewer and further in between. Can't say that I didn't warn you. 

This one won't be so much about crafts, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief. But here's just a little bit of what's new in our life and some other thoughts. 

Several weeks, maybe even months (I'm really bad with time frames), ago Scott re-enlisted. So that's at least another 4 years with the Marine Corps. And probably 4 more years in California. It was a really hard decision, one that I hope he hasn't already come to regret, but in the long run, I guess we decided that's what was best for us. Scott has since changed units and is now going to be gone once a month for a week or two to be out in the field for training. He is supposed to "deploy" out on a ship next summer. We talked about me going home while he is gone, but it depends on whether or not I have a job by then. Either way, I don't look forward to him being gone for 7 months, but I always knew that that would be my least favorite part of him re-enlisting.

Speaking of me getting a job though. I finally, within a few weeks of each other, got a response from a couple of jobs I had applied for. It's funny how you can go months without hearing anything from anyone and then they come in pairs. They are both jobs in Police Dispatch. I've had to take tests for both, do a 38 page pre-screening packet for one, and interviewed for both. I made it past the interview with one, and just interviewed with the other yesterday, so I should know about that one soon. I'm now working on another 30 page packet for a background investigation that SD County is doing for the job. Should I get through that...I will still have about 4 more steps to go through. So MAYBE I will finally have a job by Christmas or the New Year. Almost a year after I started looking...goodness.

Oh, and seeing as how I probably won't have a job for at least of couple of months, I've considered making and selling thing for people to give as Christmas presents. Could be anything really...something sewn, painted shoes, canvas art, decorated wooden letters...I'm up for trying something new. Just for something to keep me busy really. So if you have an interest, just let me know somehow! 

And while I'm on the subject, because I have had this problem several times already... I'm not making things for people for free. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, but I just can't keep making things for people and keep putting my money into it. Now, if I make something for someone as a gift, or just because I want to...that's my own problem. But, I don't have the money to just make things for everyone who sees something I posted on Facebook. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. 

My oldest brother welcomed his baby boy into the world a few weeks ago, so we have a nephew! Have to say he is quite the doll, but as his aunt, I'm a bit partial! Can't wait to meet the little guy! I will spare you the pictures of the things I have made for him...you can just look at my Facebook. :) haha!

Well, I think that's really all that's new in our life. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Salsa & When Mahm Comes to Town

Goodness! Time has just flown by since my last post! So much to tell!

I've slowed down on my sewing, but I have actually been cooking and baking a lot more than usual. I did, however, make another pair of shoes a while back. These baby shoes have become my favorite that I've made so far. And I absolutely love how this pair turned out! You can find the tutorial here.

Now, back to the cooking thing. A couple of weeks ago I spent what seemed like an entire day in the kitchen. For those of you who know me very well, that in itself is quite the miracle. But, I would definitely say it was worth the effort, because I got to use my stand mixer, try a new recipe, make my favorite salsa, and bake a cake. (The clean up efforts weren't quite so fun.)

                

Now, I consider myself a connoisseur of chips and salsa. Okay, maybe I really don't, but I do believe there are very few people that love chips and salsa as much as I do. And while a lot of Mexican food restaurants have great salsa, I can never find any bottled salsa at the store that tastes good. Too chunky and mild. So, as all of these stories tend to go, I found a recipe on Pinterest for some salsa. The caption on the pin said that it was the best salsa ever...so I decided it was worth a shot. Let me tell you, it may not be the BEST salsa I have ever tasted, but I think it's pretty great. Every time we run out, I make some more. It's so worth the fuss of making it rather than buying some less than mediocre salsa at the store.

You can find the original recipe here, but I could never justify making THAT much salsa at a time, so I modify the recipe.

     Roja Salsa

       Ingredients:

                  6-8 Roma tomatoes 
       1 white onion 
       6-8 Serrano peppers *these peppers are decently hot, so  
      this number depends on your taste. 
       4-6 cloves of garlic
       1 Tbsp salt 
       A few leaves of cilantro *I don't really like cilantro, 
     but the typical recipe calls for about a bundle in 
     comparison to the rest of the ingredients.

       Directions:
       Remove tops from peppers. Halve the tomatoes and onions 
     and lay cut-side up on a cookie sheet along with the 
     peppers and garlic. 
       Roast at 375 until the onions look nice and translucent, 
     tomatoes look soft, and peppers are getting a nice char on 
     them. 
       Let it all cool a bit, then run through the food processor 
     with salt and cilantro. I usually don't put all of the 
     ingredients in at once. I will start off with half of all 
     the ingredients, and then add serrano peppers, garlic, salt, 
     etc and keep doing a taste test until I get what I'm looking 
     for.  (That's why the ingredients aren't perfect numbers.)

But all in all, I really like this salsa and it's pretty simple. In fact, I am probably going to have to make some more once I am done with this post. Just talking about it has my mouth watering.

 

                                             ----------------------------------------------------

On another note, my mom came to visit last week! We had a lot of fun (at least I think so...right, mom? haha.) Well, apart from the fact that she wasn't so much a fan of the traffic and my driving...but hey! that's California! 

The first few days, I mostly took her places that I go to often so that she would have a mental picture of them when I talk about them later. We went to a couple of beaches on Monday. I snapped a few photos of the beach where Scott and I go to surf. 

 

Quite the vacation destination, huh?

When Scott and I first started dating my mom always talked about the San Diego Zoo. So of course we had to visit while she was here. She took a lot of pictures with Scott's camera, but unfortunately, the camera obviously has some problems and all of the pictures came out blurry. (Which reinforces the fact that my next investment should probably be a camera!) I did manage to take a few pictures with my phone. 

 

 

 That's a baby jaguar on the lower left. We spent a lot of our time at their exhibit. They were a lot of fun, acted just like regular kittens. And the zookeeper talked to us for a while and gave us a lot of great information. There were also some baby giraffes, as you can see in the picture. Who doesn't love baby animals!? There was a baby panda there as well, but he was so little that he isn't on exhibit yet, so we didn't get to see him. Over all, we had a good time at the zoo, but our bodies were hurting at the end of the day...and the next day.

Every Thursday they have what's called the Sunset Market in downtown Oceanside. Scott has told me about it, but I hadn't actually made it down there yet. So my mom and I went on Thursday evening. Basically, a lot of vendors set up booths in the middle of the street and sell anything from crafts, clothing, pillows, artwork, and more than anything food. I didn't manage to take a picture of this one. But it was pretty cool to check out.

On Friday, we went whale watching. Unfortunately, we didn't actually see any whales...but we did see a pod of about 60 or so dolphins. Which made the entire trip worth it. They were so fun and there were a lot of babies as well. They looked like little footballs with fins. Once again, we had Scott's camera, and even though I took a lot of video of the dolphins, they are all blurry. But here is a picture of the boat we went on.

Overall, a pretty great week. I always enjoy seeing my Mahm!

A Great Recipe & Something to Sell...Maybe.

Hubby is sound asleep on the living room floor...I swear, that man could sleep anywhere. But I won't hold it against him. He's only slept about 14 hours this week, so I think I'll give him a break.

So, though it's Friday night and we're young, I will blog while he sleeps. 

I think we have a new favorite meal in our house. I found this recipe for Baked Chicken Bacon Ranch Taquitos on Pinterest. And I love me some bacon, chicken, and ranch..especially together. I made it for the second time tonight, and I think it was even better than the first. You can find the recipe here. The only thing I change about the recipe...I leave out onions. But that's just 'cause I don't like onions. I guess I also use massive tortillas and split them in half, but that's more out of laziness than anything. The Taquitos in the link definitely photograph better, but I think mine have to taste just as good. If not, then hers must be AWESOME!

 

In other news, you know how I said in my last blog that I was going to be opening up an Esty shop? Well, turns out there is a lot of paperwork and legalities to the whole thing. Like getting state, county, and city permits. Who knew? I mean, I figured with all the people that have Etsy shops it was some simple thing where they just signed up and then sold stuff...but yeah, not so much. Soooo..I don't think I'll be taking that leap just yet. I'd hate for it to cost me more to start it and deal with taxes than I'll be "making" selling things. But oh well, maybe some other time. 

Because of that though...I'm thinking the boots I made yesterday are up for grabs. For sale, maybe? But I'd probably be willing to give them away. I left the ruffle off the top this time...out of, once again, sheer laziness. They are supposed to be size 0-3 months...so if you or someone you know is about to have a baby this winter, then maybe this is just what they need!

 

I don't know why they look so goofy in the picture. Maybe an actual camera should be my next investment.

But now I need help deciding what to make next...I'm up for suggestions..or even requests if someone needs something! :)

Summer in SoCal

Well, well...I gave my blog a new look. I'm digging it. It's definitely more "me." 

Now that Scott and I have actually been around each other more than just the weekends, I thought I'd do a post about some of the things we've been doing out in sunny California. Yes, we finally started taking advantage of some of the things San Diego has to offer. 

I had never been to Sea World, so you know I wanted to go. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I think wild animals are pretty amazing. The Shamu show had to be my favorite. Who knew these huge whales could break dance and do back flips?!  

I tried to sneak a penguin out in my back pack. No such luck.

Scott, our friend Ben, and I have been going to play baseball/softball here lately. I mean, we can't exactly scrimmage or anything, but it gets us outside and doing something athletic and active. We actually even do some hitting and fielding and stuff. Scott gets pretty serious about pitching. 

The San Diego County Fair was in town for a few weeks, so we had to hit that up as well. Have to say, the fair kinda felt like Texas. What with all the fried foods and livestock. I even got a snow cone. I've been missing those like crazy this summer because, oddly enough, beachy San Diego doesn't have snow cone stands. No pictures for this one. Though I do have some carnival prizes to prove it. Had to give my goldfish away though.

The Astros were in town this week. And since hubby prefers them to the better team in Texas (yes, I am trying to convert him into a Rangers fan) we went and watched them play the Padres. The good thing about the Padres...they aren't exactly a good team...and this=cheap tickets. I can't really complain though, we're going to watch the Rangers play the Angels on Saturday. And hopefully we'll catch a homerun ball out in left field.

 I've slowed down a little bit on my sewing projects. The debate of what to make is always a problem. But I have made a couple of things since my last crafty post. 

I wasn't sure the last harness I made for Bambi was going to stay on her because it just velcros together. She's already slipped out of it once when I tried it on her inside the apartment. And I definitely don't want my little rabbit getting loose at some rest stop on the way back to Texas; I may not ever catch her. (Though I'm sure Scott wouldn't mind.) So I decided I needed to add a parachute clip on the neck to make it stay. And well, for whatever reason, instead of just adding one to her first harness, I made a new one. This time, I couldn't resist adding a little bit of a ruffle. And Bambi decided to be a little model, so I actually got a couple of good pictures of her wearing it. This one seems to do the trick. Though I'm still pretty wary of taking her outside in it.

And this one is poor quality because I couldn't use my flash right in her face. But who can resist a close up? haha

And last week I made another girly onesie set. 

(If you're interested in purchasing a customized set like this, head over to my new craft blog, Facebook page, or email me at ruffledblues@gmail.com)

Apparently, I am on a polka dot kick.


But while we're on the subject of crafts...I have been debating for a while on whether or not I should start making stuff to sell. Of course, I'm no machine so I would only be able to take a few "orders" at a time and then knock them out on a first come first serve basis. But it's all for not if no one would be interested. So if any of you mommies, daddies, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc would be interested in something like this, definitely shoot me a text or a message on Facebook so I will know that there is even any kind of interest. If not, that's okay, I'll just keep making baby things for the babies I will hopefully have in the far future! :) Oh and if you have a small dog that you would need a harness for, I could probably even do that. Maybe even some painted Rangers shoes! Or really, if you see something you want made, but don't want to do yourself, maybe I can do it. I'm up for trying out some new projects!

I'll leave you with a short video of Bambi. She has this habit of taking off with things I'm trying to use. And I find it hilarious. Seriously, she is so much like a puppy. Except with a bouncy butt.

Newsboy hats, a vest, and a bunny

So, as expected, my blog posts are fewer and further in between.

But I finally have a few more projects to show you all.

Since I finally started making some boy onesies and shoes, I decided that there needed to have a third piece just like the girl outfits did. I finally found a newsboy hat tutorial. She explained it really well, but I had to adjust the pattern so that it would fit a baby instead of adult. I was worried about it, but I was SO excited about how it turned out. Now I just need to borrow someone's one year old to model it! :)

Scott really liked the baby hat and just had to have one.

Unfortunately, it didn't fit him right, so I will be making him another one sometime. But, the good news? It fits me! You'd think I did it on purpose. (I didn't.)

Bambi has been trying to trick me into thinking she is a puppy lately. Always chewing on things, running around like a maniac, and now...trying to get into the trash can.

Eventually, she got the cookie dough package out of it and tried to make me chase her for it. I'm telling you, she thinks she's a puppy. Little punk. But she's just so cute!

We're planning on going to Texas in the next few months and Bambi will have to go with us. Contrary to popular belief, rabbits weren't made to live in cages ALL of the time, so she will need some rests from riding in the car to run around outside for a while. Unfortunately, she is NOT a dog and won't come back to you when you call her. (Also, a dog might try to eat her!) So she'll have to have a leash. Yes, you read that right. A rabbit on a leash. It's possible, people! Funny, yes...but possible.

So they sell these so-called rabbit harnesses at the pet stores, but they are like 10 or so dollars. So being the person that I am..I decided it couldn't be too hard to make. Plus, I figured I could make one much cuter and for much cheaper than the ones I have found at the pet stores.  

I found this pattern and tutorial. Of course, it is actually for a dog, so I had to adjust it. But I like the way it turned out.

  

It looks a lot like a vest. But she seems to like it alright. We'll see how it actually works out. But feel free to laugh because it's funny to see a rabbit wearing a harness/vest.

In other news, Scott is off of his 24 on/24 off schedule and will soon be coming home to stay! We. can't. wait. It'll be good to no longer have a long distance relationship. 

That's all for now. 

So long from the West Coast!

Life

In my last post, I mentioned that I would give you all an update on our lives. It's a little later than expected, but it counts, right?

Scott is still stationed in 29 Palms. He's now working 24 hours on and 24 hours off, so we are seeing each other even less than before. But he's supposed to be done June 22nd and then go back to Pendleton, so the end is in sight. We're both ready to just have a somewhat normal married life. Not this long distance nonsense. 

After several months of trying out different churches we finally found one. It's a satellite campus of a church in San Diego. So far, it has been a perfect fit for us. The first Sunday we went after we had decided that the church was for us the pastor's message was about how the church is called to love people. This was only a few days after I posted my blog about the same thing. Pretty awesome how God orchestrates things. We took it as affirmation that the pastor's sermon was about the very thing that has been on our hearts as of late.

Bambi the bunny is a mess. Always climbing into things and chewing on electric cords. But let's face it...she's just so darn cute! Last weekend I went to visit Scott, so Bambi had to come with. (She HATED riding in the car.) This was where she chose to lay down at the hotel.

Of all places, right?

And this is her new place to climb into. The TV stand.

Silly rabbit.

Scott and I have been talking a lot about where we'll be next year. Whether he will re-enlist or get out and go to college. Whether or not I will go back to school or try out some other career path. So, to those of you who pray, we'd appreciate you prayers. We really want to go where God is leading. We're just not sure where that is yet. So please pray for clarity.

As for me, I'm looking for a job, without much success. I've been doing crafts to take up my time so I don't go absolutely crazy sitting around and I'm trying to start taking advantage of the beautiful California weather and beaches while I can. 

We'll be heading back to Texas sometime this summer, so we expect to see all of your bright and shining faces! Not to mention, California doesn't have snow cone stands. So we'll be needing several of those!

Until next time...so long from the West Coast!

More Onesie Sets

So I have this problem.

I've started making onesie sets and now I can't stop! 

My first attempt was successful enough that I wanted to try it again. And again. And again. And I think there are probably more to come. 

I decided that it was time to ditch the ruffles and try something for a baby boy. The problem was, I like colorful and pretty things, aka girly things. So I only had a couple of fabrics that could be used. At least it made my decision easy. (I'm not good with those.)

So I mixed and matched a couple of things I had seen, and this is what I came up with.

I think it's pretty cute, in spite of its lack of ruffles.

I couldn't stay away from the ruffles for long though, so I made another set for one of my friends who has a baby girl on the way. 

I went back to the Mila baby shoes for this one. I think they turned out better than the others I've made. 

And then of course, I decided I just HAD to spoil our little "niece" with a set of her own, too! I LOVE how this one turned out. Probably my favorite so far.

I made a different flower this time. Can't remember where I found this tutorial. But maybe I'll do one of my own sometime. It's pretty simple.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully tomorrow I will post a little update on our life!

So long from the West coast! ;)