february birthdays.

i know, i know. it's already march and i'm just now posting about some february birthdays. it's been pretty busy around here...

anyway. so way back at the beginning of the month we celebrated austin's 26th birthday.

i stopped by the cupcake kitchen to grab us some delish birthday desserts.

italian creme cupcake for austin and a red velvet one for me. yum.

and then austin opened his present from me. i got him a subscription to this old house magazine.

and yes, i realize we are just like old people. oh well.

then we met up with austin's family at biba's restaurant for some dinner. and by dinner, i mean garlic. because i think that's about all i ate. and it was awesome.

then later on in the month we celebrated steve's birthday.

and yes, this is a typical heard family photo...

pinterest inspired.

you do know what pinterest is, right? {careful: you might get sucked in.}

so a while ago i found this pretty little idea on pinterest, originally from here.

and since our bed now has a big window right behind it, i needed something to cover the window, but regular old curtains weren't going to cut it. and i happened to have some really long white curtains from the guest room in the old house...

so i reused them to create this:

how fun is that?

and pretty long curtains for the second window, as well.

i also found inspiration for my nightstand on pinterest, originally from here.

a few trips to goodwill and now i have this:

the middle one is my favorite one. i'm considering painting the other two in some neutral shades, since they are the hard plastic kind of suitcase and i figure paint would stick to them pretty well. i also need to actually secure them all together somehow since i have a sneaky little cat who likes to climb on anything and everything he can, as evidenced here, before we moved. can you find him in this picture?

yeah. that's him on top of the cabinets. silly cat.

anyway. those are a few of the pinterest inspired things that have been going on around here. we've been working hard the last month, working on turning this house into a cozy little home.

and just for fun, a few sneak peeks of some other house-related happenings.

and our nice little neighbors, bryan and kara {or maybe brian and cara?} baked us some yummy welcome to the neighborhood cupcakes. how sweet is that?

and now i had better get to work. these shelves aren't going to build themselves!

filling in the blanks.

real quickly, i just wanted to share the few pictures i have failed to provide in the last few posts i've written.

when i first shared our new house, i managed to forget the entire outside of the house. so here ya go.

here's the front of the house from the street. check out that awesome tree. i can't wait for it to be filled with leaves and be pretty. to the left of the house, you can see the fenced in part of the yard that miss juliet gets to run and play in. eventually, the plan would be to fence in the entire back yard for pups {yes, pups with an S} to enjoy.

i also wouldn't mind the front yard fenced in all pretty, too. maybe my timmy is just itching to build someone another fence. :)

here's the view coming around the driveway toward the side. i like our little lamp post to light the way when we come home and it's dark.

and this is further to the side of the house. two car garage? check! best thing ever not having to scrape ice off the car in the morning at 7 am when i leave for school!

and even further around the house, you get to the back yard. there's a little concrete pad area that will be perfect for a patio area with a little sprucing up. and there are doors leading out from the basement right to the patio area, which is nice. none of this area is fenced in, so that needs to be changed. also, you can see the little drop-off where the tree line starts, but our property actually extends quite far down that hill. if it were up to me, i would clear some of those trees just to give a little bit more yard down there, but not too many trees since they're good for privacy.

so that's the outside of our house. in that same first post, i also failed to get you pictures of our master bathroom. so i don't have "before" pictures, but i can share what it looks like right now. warning: it's a mess.

we need a new light fixture, some sort of cabinet under the sink and actual wall shelving, rather than the flimsy metal shelf thing i've got going right now. and probably a new medicine cabinet of sorts.

this bathroom was recently given a few updates. some good, some bad. the good? the accent tile around the shower, which conveniently coordinates with our bathroom decor we already had.

the bad? the accent tile around the light switch and the outlet that is janky and crooked. and just bad.

oh, well. that will be a pretty easy fix whenever we decide to do so.

a few days ago when i shared some quick faucet updates we worked on, i didn't get a picture of our new shiny chrome faucet in the hall bathroom once the sink was all installed back together, so here's that.

much, much better, yes?

so there. filling in the blanks for you. and yes, i still failed to fill in all of them, because i have yet to get pictures of the basement area. let's just pretend i'm trying to build suspense or something. so be patient.

quick fix{es}.

like i said before, our little highland house needs a few updates here and there, including new faucets on both bathrooms sinks and the kitchen sink. not only were the existing ones outdated, they all seemed so itty-bitty that you could barely fit your hands {or dishes, in the kitchen} under the running water without banging your knuckles all on the sink. ouch.

so here's the old hall bathroom sink.

and the ugly grimy faucet. yuck.

and let me tell you, this was not the slightest bit easy to replace. first, we had to remove the whole sink basin from the vanity.

and then we had to beat the crap out of it gently remove old fittings.

we also had to install shut-off valves, because whatever genius put the sink in didn't feel the need to include those before. but then we found a really, really big problem. the pipe we need to connect to was so corroded there was nothing left to connect to.

this crud-filled hole is supposed to be a hollow pipe through which hot water flows.

and this was the pipe that connected to the old supply lines. ew.

clearly, a big problem. we had no other choice than to call in reinforcements. that is, we called a plumber. thank goodness for the home warranty, right?

so after a few hiccups, we finally got this lovely delta faucet installed.

and i somehow failed to get a picture of the sink once it was re-installed in to the vanity. but you can see how shiny and pretty she is. and much taller so you don't have to beat your knuckles all up just trying to wash your hands.

and although i also failed to get a before picture of our master bathroom faucet, it was the exact same as the hall bath faucet. and just as grimy and nasty. maybe more.

but here's the new faucet and all new plumbing underneath {the old plumbing was leaky, of course}.

we picked up this little beauty at lowe's with a housewarming gift card we were given by some friends.

{side note, we are very quickly getting very familiar with lowe's. like employees-recognize-us-because-we-go-there-twice-a-day familiar.}

and the last faucet we replaced was the kitchen sink. the old:

and the pretty new faucet. hooray!

and it has a little pull-out sprayer thingy. technical words here, i know.

so there. some quick fixes we've done to the house so far. even though, due to complications, it really wasn't all that quick.

p.s.- ten points for you if you found hello kitty hidden in this post. she was a temporary little helper that i still need to remove at some point...

the highland project.

whoa man. big news here, people. i hope none of you were too attached to our little house we've been renting for the last year-and-a-half...

it's cute {little}, and it functioned {mostly}, but it wasn't ours. but now...

we've got a HOUSE OF OUR OWN! hip, hip, HOORAY!

most of you probably know that we've been looking to buy a house for quite a while now, but things finally came together and we are all moved in at our new place!

here are some quick pictures of the place i snapped as fast as i could before the movers started filling the house up.

front door and entry way.

kitchen. needs. some. work.

office. with paneling. and a chandelier {i think it was used as a dining room before?}. but oh, the paneling.

big living room. and big window. and shiny floors.

hallway.

hall bath. with aqua tub and sink. and i actually love them.

guest bedroom.

master bedroom.

notice how juliet was checking out the house as i was taking all these pictures. makes me laugh.

and somehow i failed to get pictures of our master bath or the entire basement. or the outside of the house. so, be patient.

and obviously the house doesn't look like this anymore. it's filled to the brim with all my crap belongings. but it's not pretty, just yet. not even close, really. but at least there's furniture. but i will try my best to update you all on our progress with the house. it's going to take some work, but that's one of the reasons austin and i liked this house so much. because it's not perfect and it's not cookie-cutter. there's things we need to update {hello, kitchen} and there's things we want to create {like finishing a den area in the basement}. all of the things we'll do to this house will make it ours. and it will be perfect. someday.

and ps, "the highland project" is what i've titled our work-in-progress home, because i'm cheesy like that.

also, listen up, friends and family.

come. visit. me. please. now. today. please.

we have a spare bedroom and a daybed in the office. and a big squishy couch. and i expect you to come stay with me soon. juliet misses you all.

nothing interesting.

i've got nothing interesting to write currently. except maybe that, as you could probably guess from my lack of posting, i am back in school for the semester. back to the same old same old: study, stress, test, and repeat. except we've started clinical rotations this semester. one day a week i'm at a nursing home/rehab facility in the pt department.

anyway. so i wanted to quickly give an update on how my goal setting and accomplishing went for the month of january. so here we go.

personal.
-get off my butt and start running again! i'm going to aim for at least two runs per week.
well, i started off great. and even ran more than two times per week. but then, i stopped. so i'm going to say i half accomplished this. just because i don't really want to write that i failed.

-keep up with creating our family yearbook, month by month.
done. but mainly because we didn't do anything in january to photograph. so, sure.

-make one {and only one!} crafty thing, perhaps something i find on pinterest?
yeah notsomuch. i attempted one crafty thing, but it didn't turn out. as in, started step one and instantly scrapped the whole idea. meh. but to be fair, there's some crazy things happening around our house right now, so it's probably better that i didn't try to make something for the house {hopefully more on this craziness later}.

home.
-put laundry away as soon as it's folded. it's really not that hard. i just hate doing it.
heck yeah i did. and i even got austin to do the same.

-stick to our newly created budget. eek.
a little pass. a little fail. we did really well with our weekly grocery budget, only went a little over on our "out to eat" budget, but keeping up with the entire budget was a little screwy, so i can't say we got it all right. again, some craziness happening.

-try at least two new recipes for dinner.
i already shared that we made {and i couldn't stop eating} baklava earlier this month. but that's not really "dinner." at least it shouldn't be. but we also made some broccoli and ricotta cannelloni. so i'm going to count that as two. i'm thinking we made something else new, but i honestly can't remember what it was. so just take my word for it.

so there you have it. nothing interesting, but information about my goals. if i get real inspired today or tomorrow i will come up with some february goals. no guarantees, though. so don't hold your breath.