Yesterday after work Dave and I did nothing but this…..all day/night long.  (it was heaven)

No joke! I got home from work around 4:00 and we layed on the couch watching TV and movies all night long.  We did do a little work maybe 30 minutes worth, but we were so tired we couldn't move (literally).  Dave's back was killing him and my foot and back were killing me. We still have SO MUCH work to do, but we HAD to take a day to rest..it was necessary.

We both feel much better today! I actually slept through my alarm and Dave's and didn't make it to work until nearly 9am! I feel like a new woman! Rested, relaxed, pain free (minus my stupid foot) and ready to go!  We are going to be closing on the house today! FINALLY!  Then we will go home to a house that is actually ours! We plan on hacking a bunch of stuff off our list tonight!

At your request, here are some pictures of the inside of the house.
I really don't have very many "clean moved in pics" of the house. It's still a mess, but here are some for now…..(excuse the disaster zones!)

We don't have a kitchen table yet, which will go in the area between the kitchen and Great room (obviously)…we can't find one we like….any suggestions?

Both the chair and the couch are going to go upstairs in the bonus room, we still have to find some furniture for the front room, Dave does not like that leather couch. But for now they will have to stay there until we get someone really strong without back problems to move them. That huge open book shelf was something we bought at an auction six months ago. It retailed for $10k and we got it for $400! We LOVE IT!

Dave in the process of hurting his back… (Master Bedroom)…No pics of the bathroom yet, oops.

Guest Bedroom

Computer/Office

I'm posting this pic of our closet to show the hard work my cute PREGNANT sister did! Yup, my sister is PREGO! I wasn't able to tell anyone until NOW! I am so excited for her!  She is my little sister and always beats me to the chase at everything! Married 6 months before me and now a baby! ha ha!! I seriously couldn't be happier for her. I'm not ready to have a baby quite yet, so this is PERFECT! I feel like it is happening to me! It almost feels like I am pregnant, it is seriously that exciting for me!  She is so awesome and is going to be the best mom ever!! I can't wait for everything that is to come! I am SO HAPPY FOR HER! She is due around the first of June! I can't wait to have another baby in the family!! So SO HAPPY! Yay Jac!! Here is just a taste of what she did for us this weekend…pregnant and all!!

Great Room/Living Room (my favorite place in the house)

Ok, I'm sure that is enough pictures for now. I'll post more once we get everything up, decorated and in place.

Thanks for all of your excitement and encouragement throughout this entire process!  We have had so much fun moving in and making it our own. We have a long way to go, but are just happy to be there!! 

Little turtle had a rough night her first night there. She was really scared. She is used to being in a 500 sqft area and I think all the space and openness scared her. She sat outside our door and meowed constantly for 4 hours. At 3am I finally brought her in the room and let her sleep with us. She got under the covers and went right to sleep. We were trying to be strong and teach her that she can't sleep in our room, but after 4 hours, no sleep and constant meowing we gave in. I actually feel bad for her because I think she is scared. She didn't leave our room the entire day until we got home from work. She was asleep under the covers in the exact same place we left her! haha! Poor little kitty! I'm sure she will get used it it, but for now, it is just a bit overwhelming!

We don't have internet yet, so I can't check my personal email.  If you have a question or need to email me in the next few days email me at natalie.k.shaw@l-3com.com. This is my work email, I will respond quicker that way!

Tonight I am starting day 3 of Widdle My Middle. I'm sure I could have worked in a 10 minute workout over the weekend while we were moving, but I just didn't have it in me.  Who cares if i'm a few days behind….Its doing it that matters!!

We STILL have not gone shopping, NO TIME. But lucky for us my parents brought us over groceries on Saturday! Enough to last us until I make it to the store. I read through all of your comments again and added so many new items to my grocery list I am pumped!! I know a few of you pointed me in the direction of some great granola and granola bar recipes…I can't find them. Will you send me the link or leave a comment with your favorite? I want to start making some bars asap. Dave eats a nutri grain bar everyday and I want to replace them with something healthy and natural!! Thanks for ALL OF YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT! YOU=THE BEST!

Happiest day ever!! Our realtor just called and said that the owners don't care if we go ahead and move EVERYTHING in this weekend!! YYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!! I can't believe it! I am SO SO SO SO SO a million times SO happy!  The owners are so wonderful and so sweet to let this happen! I want to give them a big giant hug!

Yay…so now our weekend has TOTALLY CHANGED!  Today after work we will move in the little things and then tomorrow we will go at it and be moved in by the end of the day! HOLY MOLY I feel like I just won a million dollars!  Don't you love it when you plan for the worst and then the BEST happens!

Gotta go lovies….lots to do!!

QA:
Want to come over to my house (so fun to say) and have a celebration!!????

PS….I don't know why I picked a train sound for the subject of this post

PSS…Don't forget to enter in to the GIVE AWAY for a super cute Sweet Time Watch and some make up. There are only two 1/2 days left!

PSSS…Just so ya know, I know I make a lot of grammatical errors in my posts. I use spell check and try to re-read what I write to try to catch them, but sometimes most of the time it just doesn't happen. Honestly it probably won't ever change! Thanks for putting up w/me
-kisses

Thanks for all your suggestions for modified workouts! I was able to get a great work out in yesterday! I had a lot of  fun doing it too! I was able to get the things done I needed to and also get in a good workout! I actually sore today from it! OH YA!

 Ya know what I wrote yesterday about Dave? Well, I wanted to do something special for him but had no time , so before I left work, I wrote a really short poem and then stopped by the gas station and bought him a Coke Cherry Zero and his favorite treat. It made me happy to be able to do something/anything a little special for him, even if the poem was REALLY CHEEZY!

ON THE MOVE WORKOUT

-Walking Lunges
(anytime I want to get from one side of the house to the other, I did lunges to get there) I had to modify the lunge when my hurt foot was in the back, so each lunge was done a lot slower than usual, I think this added extra burn!

-One legged Push Ups
(I dropped and did 20 1 legged push ups 3x..1 legged because of my foot)

-Shoulder Raises
(I had to lift a few boxes and in the process I did 3 sets of 15 shoulder raises (box down and box up)

-Abs
(I did 3 sets of 45 sit ups) Dave was done taking pictures of me by this point, so I don't have any of me doing abs..but I'm sure you can imagine!

What a great/fun way to get in a workout. I felt so great afterwards. I was glad I did something active, my mind needed it! I got my heart rate up quite a bit when doing the lunges and push ups. The exercises I chose did not hurt my foot and were fun to do! Since we have so many things going on this week, workouts like this that I can incorporate into the projects we need to get done are PERFECT!! 

I did most of my workout while dave was putting together this baby:

Before

During

After

I'm such a nerd and TOTALLY forgot to take an after picture. Dangit! I'll take one another day!! Oops!!

After my workout I went through the house and prepped it for movers! Since we just got the carpets cleaned we wanted to try and keep them that way (clean)!

After we finished at the house, we went home, ate dinner, got in our jammies, cuddled and watched TV. I waited all day just for that!  Today we have more work to do. We have to clean out our storage shed! BLAH!  But I'm gonna put on my happy face and chug through…there is an end in mind!!  We might find out today if we are moving this weekend or not!  MY FINGERS ARE STILL CROSSED FROM LAST WEEK!!

QA:
Do you like to decorate?  If so…will you come to my house and help me dec0rate?
What is your favorite thing (decoration wise) in your home?  Please share (and send pictures or examples)

Hi with a heart over the I means Hi and I luv you! I slept in this morning until 6:50am! That is really great considering I usually get up around 5:00am.  It felt so good, I needed it BIG TIME!! Last night Dave, my Mom, Dad and I spent over 4 hours cleaning the new house.  I didn't think it was going to take anywhere near that long, but oh baby there is a lot to do! We got SO MUCH done, but still have a quite a bit left!  It was so fun to be in the empty house and try to imagine us and our things living there.  We were supposed to close on Thursday or Friday of this week…but it seems like there is always something that comes up with the stupid mortgage company, it might not be until next week now…(tears).  I'm crossing my fingers and praying super hard that we can close on Friday. I already have EVERYTHING lined up for moving on Saturday, so if i have to change it all I might will start crying.

Off subject
Do you ever have days where you realize just how much you love your husband or significant other? Every other day you love them, but some days you just really really really love and appreciate them? In a way you never have before? I'm having one of those days. When I felt Dave next to me this morning I felt warm, comfortable and safe.  When I hugged him goodbye before he left for work, I felt extremely thankful for his hard work and his daily dedication to work so hard for me and our little family. When he emailed me this morning happy as ever with excitement in his words, I felt thankful for his positive attitude and his sweetness.  When I stop and think about him today, I feel happy, safe and excited to see him this afternoon.  I just really really love him today.  I think more than ever I ever have before.  

On a less happy note, my foot is still hurting! I'm so bugged at it!  Saturday we went to the doctor and they took some blood work to test me for Gout.  The blood work came back yesterday and I definitely don't have gout…THANK GOODNESS, however now I am left super confused because I did nothing to hurt it, and it seriously hurts.  Weird thing is there have been two days where I have woken up and the pain was all but gone, then by the middle/end of the day it is hurting again full force! I just can't figure it out. If it keeps going like this all week, I'm going to go get an x-ray.  The doctor gave me a walking cast type thing that helps with the pain when I walk and allows me to not injure the rest of my body by limping, but it does not take away the pain.  I'm starting to get a bit frustrated as it is putting a HUGE kink in my exercise routine.  I feel like I've been the biggest slacker not able to do any cardio, but in the same breath I can't help it. I want to full on work out, but its not possible! I don't want to let it get me down so I'm trying to stay positive and focus on keeping as active as possible!

Yesterdays 4 hours of cleaning was a workout and I needed it! I wasn't sweating too much as it was only 50-60 degrees in the house, but after about 15 minutes my sweat shirt came off and I stayed warm the entire time!  My arms were killing me! We were scrubbing so hard over and over! My upper body is actually sore!  Cleaning is a great way to burn some calories, especially if you do it for hours on end!!

Today we are headed back over to the house to do some more cleaning! Dave is going to put together a few things we got this weekend and I am going to finish the cleaning. We have a bug guy coming to spray the house and kill all th spiders. I hope to never see a spider in that house…EVER! (good news is I didn't run in to any bugs yesterday while cleaning!)

I am going to incorporate a workout into my cleaning today if my foot will allow. I stopped typing just now and wrote out a workout for this afternoon and am excited to give it a try.   I'll take some pictures and share the workout with you tomorrow!!

I've found it frustrating when things out of your control get in the way and make it hard to accomplish the things you desire.  Instead of letting those feelings of frustration overwhelm me, I'm going to stick it to my foot pain and do as much as possible to stay active. It's important for me to remember that I don't have to be gasping for air and sweating my bum off in order to be doing something good for my body each day.  I think that sometimes our bodies need a little change anyhow. Maybe my foot is telling my brain that it does not want high impact right now….who knows? Maybe it's tired of me working it so hard! Either way I plan on making the best out of my situation by trying new things and  staying positive through this experience!

In other news…if you haven't already, check out the PFM give away and make sure to get your name entered in..you don't want to miss out on these items, they are just TOO CUTE!  Don't for get check out my sissys site and leave her a comment…you all made her feel so great yesterday with your sweet comments! Keep em coming!!!

QA:
What do you do to stay active when you don't feel good or have an injury that limits what you can do?  IDEAS Please!!!

We FINALLY heard back from the bank! YIPPEE! We were expecting the offer to come through this week, but we couldn't be sure until we got the papers in hand! I can not tell you how excited we are!  We should be closing by the 19th of November at the VERY Latest!!  All we have to do is get the Appraisal and then close! We have already got the loan in motion and are pre-approved, so things should move quickly!! 

We moved to Utah in hopes of finding a home over 1 year ago. We figured we would live with my parents for 1-3 months and then find a place of our own.  We were so exited to be in the market to buy a home since all we heard was that it is a buyers market. We honestly thought we would find what we were looking for in the blink of an eye. Turns out we are a bit pickier than we thought and that there were not SO MANY amazing deals out there waiting for us.  We looked at hundereds of houses…Literaly HUNDREDS and could not find anything we liked for the right price!  We finally decided to build a house (4 months ago), but after we were into the planning process about a month, we realized that we were going to be spending 60k more than we wanted.  We talked and prayed about it and decided it was not the right thing to do. 

So there we were 10 months into the house hunting process, back at square one.  The very day we backed out of building the house, we came across a short sale that was not even listed on the market. It was a fluke that I found out about through talking to an agent about a different listing. We went and saw the house that very day and fell in love. Not only did we love the house and the location, but the price was perfect! We would be getting it for a screaming good deal and move in with instant equity. Since it was a short sale we had to wait for the bank to approve our offer price.  We were told it would only take 3 weeks…so patiently we waited.  Yesterday was the 2 1/2  month mark! ha 3 weeks my bum!  Oh well..all that is behind us now! We could not be more excited to get into our own house. For so many reasons!  Here are a few pictures if you missed them when I posted them a while back. (looking at these is teasing me because I want to move in and live there so bad!) ha ha!!

Back yard

I hope you don't mind me sharing. I am just so excited now that it is official!! Moving to Utah has not been the easiest transition, but once everything falls into place, it will all be worth it!  It definitely pays to be patient! We can not wait to start this new chapter of our life!