Fabulous Influenster Nation

So I've taken some time away from the blog.  I'm sure you've noticed how uncharacteristically quiet I've been!  First it was working on the house, then it was becoming absorbed in my career, then it was pregnancy, then having a newborn in the house, now it's having a toddler AND becoming re-absorbed into my career.  Basically life.  Anyway, in 2015, I'd like to have a goal to blog a couple of times a month.  After all, that's why this blog was created!

One of the best things that has emerged recently is my involvement with Influenster. This website tracks your online footprint via social media involvement and surveys of your lifestyle and preference to present its members with opportunities to test and sample products and provide strategic feedback.  Sometimes these product testing opportunities allow members of Influenster Nation to share the experience with their various social media trees.

Anyone who knows me, knows I love shouting from the rooftops when I find a great new product. I love things that solve a problem for me or make my life easier.  I also love a little pampering and luxury sprinkled into my otherwise-mundane life.  Their little packages of love, which they call a "VoxBox," include things like sample products or coupons for them (generally things that are breakable [thus wouldn't hold up well via shipping] or perishable), accessories that would help you enjoy the sample product even more, and sometimes even coupons to pass along to friends. It's so much fun to receive their occasional VoxBoxes and to provide honest, constructive feedback. Other members of Influenster have the benefit of seeing reviews, as well as the companies that sponsored the samples.

Overall Influenster has recharged my social media batteries and made me realize how much I enjoy being active in the world of social media. Thus, my renewed interest in the blog!  See you more -- much more! -- in 2015!

To check out the Inflluenster fun, visit www.influenster.com.

Update: Landscaping, 3 Months Later...

With all of the work we did on the house during our first four months of home ownership, we took a little bit of a break.  We both spent the better part of April and May recharging our batteries, sleeping, and paying attention to Charlie!  (The poor pooch had been nearly forgotten for a little while!  But he was an amazing boy and never took it personally.)

During our recharge time, Darrell planted some St. Augustine plugs into the lawn, repaired broken irrigation system heads, fixed our broken garage door opener, attempted to fix the leaky patio cover (work in progress, not fixed -- yet!), and took care of other miscellaneous house needs.

Part of our attention has been focused on establishing the landscaping.  That was accomplished through the full-scale repair of our irrigation system and dutiful watering of the plants.  When we bought the house, we knew we had an irrigation system in the ground, but knew it wasn't working properly.  Apparently none of the electric had ever been hooked up.  The system feeds off a well (fabulous, no water bill!), so the pump was working, but whoever installed it had wired the electric for it (and only it) straight off the breaker -- bad news.  And we learned that none of the zones were hooked up to electric.  Our fabulous handyman, Jerry, wired these guys up and realized that the pump, because it was working so hard to push the system that wasn't even connected electrically,  had nearly burned out.  We installed a new irrigation pump, and Jerry got the system started for the first time since the pipes were layed in the ground! From there, Darrell replaced sprinkler heads as needed, and boy--the plants are loving the water!  Look how much everything has grown in the first 3 months...

Here are some 3 month Before and After photos:

 Day of Planting                                                         3 Months Later

Note: From this angle it doesn't look totally different  -- but look at how lush the lawn is! It was practically bare dirt on the Day of Planting!

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Day of Planting                                                         3 Months Later

Note:  Here you can see the Cypress and Camellias look considerably more full!

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Day of Planting                                                         3 Months Later

Note:  Look at the African Irises in the front along the sidewalk, and the GRASS!  Wild how much these have grown in such a short period of time!

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  Day of Planting                                                         3 Months Later

Note:  Here is the big shocker... Look how big the Fire Bushes in the middle have gotten.  We're actually a tad concerned that we may have over planted with these. We had no idea how big these would get and relied on the nursery's staffer to point us in the right direction. We'll give it a few more months, but we may have to relocate these if they continue to grow much more!

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Look at all of the lovely light green new growth!  We're such proud plant parents!  Not only did we not kill them, they're growing big and strong!

We're super proud that our hard work is paying off so far!  Let me know if you have any tips for us!

Green Beauty

This weekend we decided to put our tax refund to good use and start the odious task of re-landscaping the front yard!  You may recall, we spent time cleaning up the front yard at the end of January.  Now we had to go a step further and address the lack of trees and shrubs, as well as the lack of a lawn.

Darrell and I broke down the task into three parts:
1) Landscape Plants and Beds
2) Lawn
3) Irrigation System

Upon receipt of expert advice from one of my coworkers (he's a landscape architect, so I deem him an expert!), we decided to focus our efforts this weekend on the Landscape Plants and Beds.  My coworker was kind enough to draw us a landscape plan for our front yard, complete with various options for each of the plants within the overall scheme.

Friday morning, Darrell and I made our way to the amazing Lukas Nursery in Oviedo to select our plants.  Donnie at Lukas drove us around on his golf cart that was rigged up with a trailer for our plants.  He offered us helpful information about all of our selections, and also offered us alternative plants that he thought would give us better results.  Donnie also threw in some free potting soil and gave us a recommendation for fertilizer.  He made it painless for us newbie landscapers.  He was knowledgeable, provided amazing customer service, and was a real character!! They turned the Moody family into customers for life.

We opted to have our plants, potting soil, and mulch delivered to our house the next morning (Saturday) for the very affordable $50 fee. (Worth every penny, even for us penny-pinchers!)  Here is a picture of our deliveries:

What are all of those plants, you ask?  Here's the run-down:
5 Boxwoods (under the bay window)
4 Camellias (3 in front of the brick wall and 1 by the front porch)
6 African Irises (in front of the walkway)
2 Italian Cypress (anchoring each end of the brick wall)
3 Firebush shrubs (in the peninsula)
14 Blue Rug Junipers (framing the rest of the landscaping)
and...
1 Tabebuia tree (Lavender Trumpet, at the end of the peninsula)
We also used 7 bags of potting soil and 28 bags of pine bark mulch.

Step 1:  Clear Out the Beds (Saturday)

 Removal of weird grassy plants:

Raking all beds and clearing the sugar sand dirt of all organic stuff:

Here's the pile of organic matter removed from the bed areas:

Cleared beds:

Cleared peninsula area:

We caused so much upheaval in our front yard's ecosystem, Mr. Snail was trying to escape by climbing up the wall of the house!

Step 2: Lay Out Plants (Saturday)

Next, we placed all of the plants in their planned locations and made adjustments as necessary:

Step 3:  Planting (Saturday)

We planted the African Irises first:

And then it was all in!  

Step 4:  Landscape Edging & Mulch (Sunday)

This took us all day on Sunday.  Most of it was installing the edging.  We ended up going with the cheaper plastic edging, with plans to upgrade someday to stone.  For now it'll delineate our beds and make maintenance a lot easier.  Plus, we now have definition of where sod will go and can better calculate how much sod to order. 

Halfway through mulching our newly edged beds!

Completed landscape beds!

Completed peninsula!

Look at our new tree!

Darrell's hard-earned and horribly painful blisters:

Admiring our beautiful home and hard work:

A Lovely Moody House:

First, let me say that I now know why people hire people to landscape their yards.  It's hard work.  Back-breaking, intense, sweaty, annoying, frustrating labor.  One major lesson -- you can never have too much mulch.  We learned this by taking three trips to the nursery to restock.  Thank goodness for the two bonus bags of free mulch they threw in on our third trip -- obviously they could smell a newbie and mercifully helped me avoid a fourth visit!

In the end, we're in love with the results, though.  It looks fantastic, and our home is starting to shape up!  We even had three different neighbors come over on Sunday to compliment our hard work on the house, which felt like a big high-five from The Pines.

Next up:  Irrigation

And, Later:  Sod

Stay tuned!

Making the Outside Shine like the Inside

This weekend, Darrell and I decided to finally attack the front of the house and the yard!   It has been looking very shabby, and not only were we embarrassed by its appearance, we also felt bad that the neighbors had to look at it like this.  When we purchased the house, it was apparent that there had been large bushes or trees in front of the house at some point, although they had all been cut down to the ground.  Out of the stumps, unsightly sprouts were growing:

Close up view of the raggedy yard:

One of these old stumps with its new sprouts:

To take care of this, Darrell first took the weed eater to the stumps and cut down the big sprouts so that he could assess how to move forward with the yard.  Then he mowed the front yard, which cut down the weeds within the lawn, and he took the blower to the leaves, twigs, and dirt (lots of dirt, since its been so dry lately) to clear the drive and front porch so we could proceed with the next tasks.

Of course, Darrell couldn't allow the stumps to remain in the ground, as they'd be in the way of future landscape plantings... so what did he do?  He ripped them from the ground with this bare hands.  Well, his two hands and a gimpy shovel that we swiped from Vassar Street:

That was just the first two bushes... bare hands.... unbelievable. But he didn't stop there, he kept going. (While I took pictures. I know, I'm a giver.)  There were 6 huge stumps that got the D-rail treatment... Including this guy:

The final pile of roots and stumps:

We then tackled cleaning out the gutters and eliminating the little trees growing in the corner:

Darrell got on the ladder and dug out all of the leaves, dirt, and asphalt from the roof shingles.  Clearly it had been a LONG time since anyone had cleaned these things out.  He also carefully removed the gutter plants...

Look, it even stood straight up!  Honestly it's a lot bigger than it looked in the gutter.  Sooooo, let's take a vote...Should we plant them in front of the house?  Yes? No?  Hahahahaha.... just kidding. That ball went straight into the yard waste pile!

Since the gutters were cleaned out, we then moved into pressure washing the house, soffits, and gutters.  I used a long-handled scrubber with soapy solution (I just used Dawn dish soap and water) to wash the dirt off.  Darrell came behind me and rinsed/blasted the dirt to get a sparkly clean finish:

Here is an example of the dirty soffits and gutters:

And here is the same area, cleaned:

When we were finished, the whole house looked it had gotten a fresh coat of white paint under the eaves!  A little cleaning was all the doctor ordered and boy, does it look pretty.  One more thing this house needed that only took a little elbow grease and some TLC.  It makes me feel good that we can do this for the house!

And just when you think, "my goodness, how did they get all of this done in one day?!?" ... we also spread Weed & Feed across the front yard and watered it in:

So that was our Sunday!  The front of the house and the lawn got the TLC it has been longing for, and Darrell and I have sore muscles in places we didn't know existed!  Darrell was whooped, as was Charlie... it was exhausting for Charlie to support us from inside the house! Rough life for a Dachshund.  Thankfully he and Darrell can sympathize with each other:

And for me, tomorrow's going to be rough.  But when I hobble out to my car in the morning, I'll look at that pristine white ceiling of the front porch and remember why it was all worth it!  I'm starting to love this house....

Lesson 1: Homeowners' Insurance is a Racket.

Today we learned a basic lesson of home ownership: Homeowners' Insurance is a Racket.

We were contacted last Thursday by our insurance agent, Tina.  Apparently the photos taken by our Homeowners' Insurance company right after our closing revealed some issues with the condition of our plumbing... see text:

There is damage or unprofessional repairs to the vanity and plumbing under the kitchen sink, a bathroom sink and the area below the washer/dryer hook up.  Underwriting will need the evidence of repairs to continue the coverage.  Please contact the insured and forward the evidence to underwriting within 10 business days for review.

The bottom line is that if we don't fix these issues within the 10 day period, we will get dropped from our coverage.  DROPPED?!?   You, too, will be annoyed/horrified by that possibility when you see how silly these issues are...

The photos  provided by the insurance company:

Jack & Jill Bathroom:

Old (now removed) Kitchen Sink and Plumbing:

Master Bathroom Sink:

Garage/Laundry Hookups:

Okay, first of all... I believe that having a blog is all about honesty and showing things for what they are -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Well these count as the Ugly!  Okay, so the Kitchen sink setup was non-functional, and the photo of the Jack & Jill bath makes it look like there are no water valves going to the sink -- it's just that they're on the side now after the re-plumbing job and their photo doesn't show the new valves.  In the garage, apparently the issue was the lack of drywall over the job... I fail to see how that impacts the plumbing quality.  The Master Bathroom sink's issue is the foam insulation.  Now, I'm about as prissy as they come, but the plumbing is functional and totally sealed up, so who cares about the foam?  It's under the cabinet and you can't even see it.  Bottom line, this foreclosure special was a handyman's project investment home for many years.  There may or may not be permits for this stuff, but the home inspector (who was highly recommended as the best in the region) said it was all in great condition, so I put my feelings on permitting aside.

Upon discussion of these situations with our insurance agent, apparently the real issue is the "professionalism" of the work/repairs.  Seriously.  Kitchen sink is a no-brainer, since we had the entire system replaced two weeks ago.  The laundry area is a no-brainer, too, since it just needs drywall.  The Jack & Jill bath just needs caps over the old valve spots and a new photo showing that there are valves attached, no problem!  But we still couldn't figure out what the heck to do to fix the Master Bathroom, so I asked Tina how she suggested we fix the foam issue.  Of course she said we need to dig it all out and replace it with fresh drywall.  In fact, she told us that there could be no foam showing whatsoever under any bathroom sink.  For a house built in '68 and replumbed within the past 10 years, that's a slightly unreasonable request in my opinion.

Anyway, we paid our contractor $270 to do all of these little projects.  It was a requirement for these items to be "professionally repaired" and provide an invoice showing the work, as well as new pictures showing the new condition.  UGH.  Racket!  All over foam and drywall, which has basically nothing to do with the condition of the home's plumbing!

So here are the after shots that we'll be sending to the insurance company:

Jack & Jill Bathroom:

Master Bathroom:

New Kitchen 1:

New Kitchen 2:

Garage/Laundry Area:

So, that's it.  We paid the money, we got some drywall, and we saved our insurance coverage... for now.

Tying up some loose ends!

After the kitchen cabinets went in on Thursday and Friday last week, we had to wait 48 more hours to get our handyman out to the house to install the sink, garbage disposal, faucet, dishwasher and microwave over the range.  But when we did, we realized we had a gem!

Sink:  Swanstone - Composite, single basin, 33" x 22" and 10" deep, color: Tahiti Ivory; Purchased at HomeDepot.com

Faucet: Moen - Harlon model, single-hole/no mount plate, color: Spot Resist stainless steel

Purchased at Lowe's (with our 10% moving discount!)

And our new garbage disposal:

Garbage Disposal:  InSinkErator Evolution Essential, 3/4 HP.

And let's not forget our reinstalled dishwasher and microwave:

So we finally have a functioning kitchen! Well, with one tiny exception.  The range (see photo above) is nothing fancy, but it isn't bad and it appears to be fully functional, as all of the heating elements work great, the timer and dials are all working, etc.  Unfortunately, the oven is missing its oven racks.... Who would want those? So we can't use the oven until we get something to place a dish/pan on!  It appears that we'll have to order a rack from some online parts warehouse, but I'm open to other ideas of where I might pick one up!

On top of these completions, we have also been busy improving things on the home decor front!  We installed new 2 1/2" blinds on the front bay window:

First, please ignore the messy living room.  We're still in move-in mode, so that's going to be my excuse for now!  Also, this picture doesn't do the wall color in the living room justice, presumably because I took this picture at night, so the white blinds look a little washed out with the wall color... there is a nice contrast, I assure you!

We also unrolled the frieze rug that we bought for the family room:

View from the front door:

View from the kitchen:

The giant, obnoxious scratches in the bamboo hardwood floors is actually completely covered by the new rug!  *Happy Dance*

 Oohhhh, ahhhhhh:

Closer view from the front entry hallway... still plenty of room for the future barstools to slide in and out from the bar without running into the rug:

Tonight we also decided to hang a pair of paintings in the living room, as our first touches of decor:

So, decorating this house absolutely terrifies me.  I just don't feel like I have a good eye and it takes me forever to put things together.  I don't know, I guess it just wasn't a gift I was given... so I just do the best I can. In any case, there is a LOT of decorating that needs to be done.  I need money and someone else's keen eye... Any takers? lol  Didn't think so! 

 That's it for tonight.  I'm all decorated out!  I need to sleep now and refresh myself for work tomorrow (guaranteed to be a crazy day).