Couponing deal

So I haven't blogged about a coupon deal for a while. I am still getting PLENTY of items for super cheap with coupons/deals. But I have been so busy with the kitchen to want to write about any of them. Here is my purchase from last night at Albertsons...

9- boxes of Pringles Stix

2- bags chocolate chex mix (yummy chocolate mix but the preztles kinda ruin it)

6- 4 packs of sparkling juicy juice (surprisingly still 70% juice. The apple flavor kinda tastes like red bull)

1- dozen eggs (the only thing I really needed from the store)

5- kids colgate toothpaste (I donate it to the homeless shelter)

3- 3 packs of ivory soap

4- container pringles

All this for $6.23. Plus I got a $2 survey to use on my next shopping trip.

These are things I normally wouldn't get or need but since they were pretty much free they are great things to have around or donate.

5 weeks in

So it has now been 5 weeks. We are VERY close to being done. I am not going to show pictures until the Kitchen is complete. But, it is coming along. Lets just say our fridge is officially in the cave. The baseboards are in and painted. Thanks to craigslist we upgraded our apartment sized appliances with a normal sized stove and dishwasher. Oh I LOVE craigslist! I buy so many things off there now and sell plenty too. There are still things to do in the kitchen but the thing to do now is go to bed.
Peace and love everyone

Feeling itchy

Exactly a week ago Simon and Malu went to play at Kristi's house with Diesel. When Rillz and I went to pick them up Malu had raised hair bumps all over her back and a couple on her head. My instinct was immediatly to take her to the 24 hour vet on our way home. It was midnight and we new it would be spendier than if it were with her normal vet. We decided to forgo the vet and go home. Malu still seemed her normal self and wasn't itching or anything. We put both of them to bed and hoped for the best (which would be Malu still alive and well in the morning). The next morning they were gone. We figured she rolled in a bee farm or something goofy like that. Well tonight I left the dogs outside for maybe 2 hours and once again Malu has those bumps on her back. I started researching the internet for answers. "Boxer has raised bumps on her back". Plenty forums popped up. It is most likely hives or allergies. I am thinking maybe mosquitos because it seems to be darker at night when she gets these bumps. I don't know but I guess its not uncommon for boxer dogs to get these problems. Crazy dog.


Notice the bumps on her back? Tonights isn't as bad as last week.




Harder to notice in this picture. You can see the patch of 4 bumps down by her booty.

Those just look gross. Makes me itchy just looking at her.

Of course Simon wanted his picture taken too. He is getting quite hairy and needs to visit the doggie barber. Not sure if he can even see through his bangs anymore.
I love my dogs but choose not to freak out about things like this.

Wipe on, wipe off

Today is Monday and Rillz, me, Jeff, and Ren happen to have work off all together. Well, Ren is currently not working but Jeff and I never had Mondays off previous to today. So they all offered their time and labor to grout the kitchen. It was quite a learning experience. I had a good time and with all the help it took about 3 hours. Kristi came along too with the boys. Everyone was just laughing and smiling! The grout is complete and looks AMAZING! I am just so happy with it. Rillz and I still have to put tile around the kitchen for the baseboard area. Then we will seal the floor and put our appliances in. Woohoo.

The master grouter...

The "I am so bad at this" grouter

The "cool, this smoothes itself out" grouter

The "God didn't build me strong enough to do hard labor" grouter. Haha.

All four of us working in our areas

oooohhhh. I love the tile!

I can't wait until the kitchen is complete
Everyone worked so hard today and of course Rillz and I are very appreciative.

Wowza

So I didn't write a new post all week. Last week I had to go to Oregon for work. While I was gone Rillz worked and worked and worked really hard on laying the tile on the floor. Ren had helped too. I got back from Oregon and it looked great. The only thing left to lay were the triangle pieces around the perimeter. So Sunday morning I woke up and had planned to measure and cut all those triangle pieces. I had cut 4 pieces and than... oh crap... the blade on the saw wasn't spinning and the motor smelled of smoke. So I didn't touch it. Rillz got home and tried to see what was wrong with it. No luck. So we call the owner of the saw (Jeff of course) and he said to take it back to his house so he can look at it. Come to find out... I broke it. Jeff said the motor was bound to go and could have broken on anyone. Ok but dang it... why did it brake on me and make me look like the bad guy. I told Jeff he probably put me on his "do not let borrow" list. Haha. He let us borrow "big bertha". It's an old tile saw that weighs a million pounds and built much better than the one I broke. Rillz stayed up until 5 a.m. to finish laying ALL the floor tiles! He is so great! I am NOT built that way. I was so tired by 1 a.m. and retired shortly after.

Rillz and Ren working on the floor

This is the tile saw that quit on me... aka the saw I broke

This is "Big Bertha". I would NOT even touch this one. I made Rillz do the rest of the cutting

"Big Bertha" is noisy too.

3 weeks and counting

The remodel has officially been in progress for 3 weeks. Work is still going on but just a little slower. We basically only have the floor left and some touch up on paint.

Here is the cabinets all painted and the top ones hung back up. Goodbye forever red... I won't miss you.

The living room/kitchen wall and modeling painted by Rillz. He did an awesome job and looks so great!

The cave painted except for the cubby holes.

Yes, those are the only cabinets I have in my kithen. But, it's never been a problem because I have a HUGE pantry space down the hall. I haven't put the bottom cabinets on yet because they are in the way when dealing with the floor.

Jeff came over yesterday morning to teach me how to lay and cut tile. Rillz and I are planning to work hard on the floor tonight and tomorrow. The kitchen is really coming along and I am excited!

Our first laid tiles!


Holy cow tile is a lot of work. I won't be quitted my day job for tiling any time soon.

Jeff cutting tile.

The tile saw. I have to admit that I was FREAKED out to have to learn how to cut tile... but after cutting the first couple pieces I started to enjoy it.

I moved the fridge the other day (which is in our living room) and left scratch marks in our hard wood floors... oops.

God is really testing us today

So, Rillz and I both happen to have REALLY bad days. Rillz couldn't fix his sprinkler system at the rental house nor find any parts to fix it and it was SUPER hot outside and there was the renters dog jumping on his back/head every time he bent down to try and figure out the sprinkler head problem. My day was just terrible at work too, I don't even want to go into further detail but I felt so stressed at one point that I almost just started crying. Then we planned on leveling our kitchen floor tonight and calmed ourselves down enough to get started. We planned on a really long night to just get it done. I started trying to figure out where the level spots were and ran into problems. Our previous quicklevel spots are cracking. FRUSTRATING. We call Jeff and he advised us not to do anything else with the floor tonight. So now I am back into having a bad day. And to top it off they are now jackhammering Overland road (which is two houses down) from 9 p.m. until 5 A.M. It is now 10 p.m. and the construction crew is hard at work making a crap load of noise right before I settle down for bed. God is really punishing me or testing me today. I haven't figured out which one yet. Oh when is this day going to end...

Eating out

Since our kitchen is torn apart we really can't prepare meals besides cereal, sandwiches, and cup a noodles, we have eaten out A LOT! To much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. Last night had to be the worst. Rillz wanted Hawaiian food. We were getting bored of burger, fries, and shake type things. We went to CK BBQ in Boise. IT WAS TERRIBLE. The costumer service was NOT there. The guy was rude and made us feel like we were inconveniencing him. And the food was just gross. I got the Loco Moco and the hamburger patty was way over done and the egg wasn't even over easy. The macaroni salad was unedible. The only good thing was the rice. I will NEVER give them service again. Not just because the food was terrible but because the service and that guy was SO RUDE.

Even the box was nicer then the guy. It told us to have a nice day!
CK BBQ food. It actually looks better than it was.

On a good note, Rillz and I were really wanting a home cooked meal. We decided to BBQ! Rillz grilled bbq chicken and squash from the garden. We had a nice spinach salad (thanks Kristi) and watermelon (thanks mom). It was a much needed dinner. The dogs enjoyed us outside and got to eat some watermelon... and maybe a marshmellow accidentally fell on the ground :)

Home cooked dinner!!

Yummy! I love colorful food.

Then, we made smores on the rest of the hot flames.

Puppy treats. Malu is a picky eater.

Simon eats anything and everything!

Day 14 of remodel

It has been 2 weeks now since we started our remodel. Today I got to paint! I started by priming everything. The trim, the fridge "cave", and the cabinet drawers. When that was complete I painted the cabinets the color I picked out for them. It is called Lyndhurst Castle sand. Kind of a greenish gray. It will be interesting to see what the color looks like when the tile gets installed.




Good bye cabinets. The red never looked as good as I had wanted it. So I am glad to see it go.
All primed and waiting to be painted.
This is the new paint color. The pictures don't show the true color.

Ignore what is inside all the cabinets. Totally messy cupboards.

Definitely hard to tell what the real color is.

Next, paint the trim and the cave and all other touch up areas!