New Phones

We had two exciting things happen this week:  We're still buying our house (our appraisal came through for our lender), and we got our new phones (which I'll talk about in a bit)!

We got homeowners insurance figured out.  Elissa spent a lot of time researching plans and service and we finally settled on a plan that seems right for us.  She also spent a lot of time looking at different electric plans, and as it turns out, we get a discounted price because of our insurance company, so that was awesome.

Our phones are exciting.  We've mentioned doing beta with Republic Wireless before -- they finally got through their line to us.  We get a 30-day trial period with their Motorola Defy XT phone, which in my understanding is pretty middle-of-the line but reliable.  We've played around with them a little today and they look promising, and if/when we decide we're keeping them, we'll make sure we tell everyone our new phone numbers.  Or, if you send one of us a message, we'll tell you our number there (maybe I'm paranoid but don't like posting things like that on a blog).  Elissa says she's not very good at typing on her phone, so it might take a while to get a response.


Today Elissa made strawberry jam and muffins (but unfortunately the muffins didn't require jam).  The muffins were really good, but since they didn't need jam, I haven't had an excuse to sample her jam yet.  Maybe I'll have toast for breakfast...just to try it.  In any case, homemade jam is always tasty.

Hope you enjoyed our post!

Life Has So Many Details

Another week has passed and we barely noticed it.  This last week we've been working out a lot of the details about our (future) house:

First, Elissa did a whole bunch of research into what plan we should use for electricity (for those who aren't familiar with the concept, some parts of Austin -- and I'm sure other places -- have what they call deregulated utilities, which basically means that a bunch of companies are "competing" for your business; this sounds good until you realize that in general you're paying more for the utilities than other people).  We haven't figure out which option to go with yet, but she's narrowed the choices down a lot.

We also had a home inspection on Monday.  The sellers had some potential buyers back out after having an inspection done, so the sellers had decided to fix just about everything that had shown up in that inspection, so ours turned out pretty well.  There are some things that need repair (some garage door issues, the roof needs a little attention, some broken seals on windows) so we're asking for some money at closing to fix those things up.

I guess really the first thing Elissa did was start looking at insurance.  We've picked an insurance company and just got a bunch of paperwork in the mail to get everything started with them.  Side note -- I don't know how anyone manages their money or any major decisions without Elissa ;) .

Aside from the house, we didn't do a whole lot.  Friday night we picked up Elissa's (resized) ring from the jeweler, so she can wear it again.  It was doubly exciting because obviously they cleaned it all up so it was just as shiny as ever.  After that we headed to volleyball.  Elissa played volleyball with us this last week (she volunteered to play because we would have had to forfeit if she didn't) and we had a lot of fun.  The other team didn't show up but there were supposed to be 2 games going on at the same time and there was only one other team there, so we played them for fun and both got a 'win' on our schedules.

Being (a little) Brave

So, we know you have all been waiting in suspense to hear about our newest house escapades, and we are happy to say that we have a signed contract on the house we really liked! I'm glad we were brave enough to actually do some negotiating to get a price on this house so that we could  actually afford. Hopefully things go well in the inspection on Monday. We have already seen an inspection that was done on the house in July, so hopefully there aren't any huge surprises.  Here is a bonus picture so you know how cool the house is on the inside.

As you might know, I found this cute pattern online for a new temple bag earlier this summer. (http://sewfabulouslypink.blogspot.com/2012/02/temple-garment-bag-tutorial.html)
I finally got up the courage and bought fabric and to get started. I'll admit, I started in the clearance and remnants section at JoAnn's to help me make my decision because I really had no idea what kinds of fabric I wanted. Plus, I didn't want to pay twice as much money for bad fabric!  I ended up getting a really good deal on the white fabric because it was in the remnant pile AND the bolt it came from was 50% off too. (For all of you who don't know, you get 50% of fabrics current price when it is in the remnant pile.) This meant I got the fabric for 25% of the original price! It happened to be meant for "home decor" but I used it anyway because I thought it would be cute. Then, I found the gingham fabric in the clearance section for between $4-$6.

So, this week after running through a whole spool of thread and having to get a new one yesterday, I finally got my project finished! It hangs out at about 6 feet tall and folds up (ending up about a quarter of the size) I will admit, it is much cuter in person because it was dark outside once I wanted to take pictures. I teased Daniel that I need to find a couple to invite to drive down to the temple with just so someone can see how cool my bag is. Daniel assured me that that was a good idea except for the prideful showing off thing. As usual, he was right. Though they aren't excellent, these pictures should give you an idea of how cute this bag is! (So I don't sound TOO proud, the bag certainly isn't perfect, but I'm glad that it at least turned out usable and cute.)

Third House a Charm?

It's been a good week at the Larsen apartment.  We started it off by looking at a few houses, which had dropped in list price recently.  We thought we were really going to like the first house we saw, but it just wasn't quite right.  (I couldn't put my finger on it, and I felt bad saying I simply didn't like the house).  We had several more houses to look at that evening, but as soon as we saw the next house, we called the rest off.  It was pretty much everything we've been looking for in a house.  We both agree that this house is better than (ok, Elissa says mostly the same as) the first house.  The rest of the week, we were distracted by putting in an offer, then getting a counter offer, and once again countering their counter offer.  We've put off the blog post, in hopes that we could deliver awesome news that we had (yet another) a signed house contract.  Well, we decided it was time for the post to be made, either way.

Elissa had a lot of activities going on this week, which meant that I got to spend a lot of time on the piano and Wii while she hung out at things like 'Congratulations-we-missed-a-baby-shower-so-we're-doing-it-late' party, book club, and Women's Conference.  We also got to go to a game night with two other couples in the ward.  We played an interesting game called "telestrations", which was described as "a mix between telephone and pictionary."  We thought it was a lot of fun, and the best part was that the "MVPs" were the ones with the worst drawing skills, because it made the game more entertaining.  The only sad part of the week, was that I missed volleyball because it was at the same time as the other party (if only volleyball had been at the same as Elissa's stuff).

One last bit of exciting news Elissa wanted to share -- she bought her first and second pairs of shoes since we were married (somehow she kept getting people to buy them for her).  I also got a pair of much-needed shoes.

Homemaker Skills

This week was a pretty standard week. Daniel was busy trying to meet work goals during the day. He is working on putting together a testing plan for the product he is working on. It is a super secret project with super secret components that I'm not allowed to give specifics on. All you need to know is that Daniel has been working hard on it, and that it is pretty cool. (Well, pretty cool for engineers :P )

On Thursday we decided it was high time that we get our groceries for the week -- especially since we usually shop for groceries on Wednesday. Sprouts, the mostly produce store, was having a good sale on lots of items, but some of those items were only on sale Thursday-Saturday. We ended up getting 2 pineapples (for Daniel and the love of Psych, of course), 4 pounds of beef, and 2 pounds of cheese. (Along with a few other things, of course.)

As for me, the other day I saw a post that said, "What if Pinterest was made by men to re-domesticate women?" Then, I saw a pin on Pinterest with a "how to" on building your food storage at $5 dollars a week, but it wasn't exactly what I needed. It didn't really include any kind of meat, and the only protein was from beans. So I've added chili, canned tuna, canned chicken, and freezing beef to the list. To that end, we  froze the 4 pounds of beef and one and a half of the pounds of cheese for our food storage. I'm trying to do better at getting something for food storage every week while I'm at the grocery store.

This morning, I finally pulled out my sewing machine and had Daniel help me figure out the directions on how to thread the machine because I found a cute project I want to do, a new temple bag. Of course, I found that on Pinterest too! So in response to the the first pin I say, "Who cares about that! Pinterest tells me how to do all this cool stuff!"

The Couple Who Cried House

We know you've all heard it a thousand times...once upon a time there was a couple, and one time they ran around announcing "we're buying a house!".  All their friends and family got so excited for them and wanted to see, but the next week they told everyone there was no house to buy after all.  Then a few days later they started announcing again, "we're buying a house!"  This time a few of their friends and family wanted details, but after a week they broke the news that there was no house after all.  Well, the third time they announced "we're buying a house," no one believed them...

Okay, so it's a strange adaptation but it fits pretty well.  We found out the house we wanted to buy had an owner who took worse care of their house than most renters do their apartments.  In the end it was clear that they had taken a great thing and ruined it by not taking basic care of it.  We'll let you know when we think we've found the house, and maybe some of you will even believe us that we plan to buy it.

That has been our main focus this last week, but on an unrelated note, I wanted to post pictures of the cards we did last week so I can show off my handiwork (can you tell the fake cards?):

Memorial Day weekend

This week wasn't a super busy week, but Daniel and I did go on some adventures for the memorial day weekend. First we decided to try and find a board game store here in Austin. We like games, but we haven't really gone shopping for any since we moved here. We found a new game store that was pretty cool. We ended up buying some blank playing cards so that we could make up spares for our games that we have. Daniel spent most of Monday figuring out how to print on name tag labels to put on the blank cards. He did a really great job.

Then we want to Central Market. (A huge grocery store closer to downtown Austin.) Daniel had never been, and I had only been once. I thought it would be a fun adventure to go and see it with Daniel. They have all sorts of cool things, and if I ever needed some strange ingredient, I would go there to try and find it. It was a fun adventure for Daniel and me.

Monday we decided that it was high time that we try out Amy's Ice Creams. It is a cool little Austin ice cream place which is pretty well known around here. We got ice cream, and then we went to get fries at Five Guys which just happens to be right next door to the ice cream shop. It was a good time. It reminded us that sometimes it is more fun to go on dates with your spouse than on dates before you were married.