Tag: homeowner

Creating Healthy Habits

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After graduating from college in 2016 I really struggled with creating healthy, sustainable habits. Once I entered my full time job it was even harder to balance work, life, and my health. Recently I’ve been focusing more on some of the small things that I can do to create daily habits to make my life easier and more enjoyable.

Here are some of the things I’ve been putting in place

  • Loading the dishwasher as I go. Instead of waiting to do the dishes when the sink gets full I’ve been rinsing off and loading the dishwasher as I go and running it at night once it’s full. This has been much easier than spending a few minutes every couple of days loading it and being annoyed that I have to take the time to do it. It’s a super simple change but it’s made a big difference!
  • Doing a load of laundry a day (if needed). I used to do all of our laundry in one day over the weekend. Now I’ve been trying to do a load of laundry every day and folding it right away. I’ve found that I don’t always need to do laundry but splitting it up makes it easy to deal with.
  • Setting a step goal and sticking to it. Having a desk job makes it so hard to get in a healthy number of steps a day especially on the days when I work from home. I’ve been working hard to set a step goal and work towards it. If I’m working from home I try to walk on the treadmill during my lunch so I don’t have to try to get in all of my steps after work.
  • Going to bed by 10 pm. Having a nighttime routine has been one of my favorite things that I’ve incorporated in 2021. I feel much better when I go to bed at a decent time every night so I can make sure I’m getting in enough sleep. This also helps me to wake up earlier the next morning!
  • Taking breaks away from my computer. I am the worst at taking a lunch when I’m working from home. It got to the point where Brett was bringing me lunch most days because I couldn’t even spend a few minutes to make it on my own. Now I try to take at least 30 minutes away from my computer for a lunch break and a few minutes every hour for normal breaks.
  • Reading at least one chapter of a book per day. I love reading but tend to spend long periods scrolling through my phone instead of reading. I’m trying to put my phone down and read instead of scrolling through TikTok.
  • Doing a 15 minute house re-set every night. I like to spend 15 minutes before I go to bed folding blankets, wiping down counters and tables, putting things away, and just getting my house in order. Then I can wake up to a clean house and go about my day.

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear and one of the things that I took away from it was starting small and trying to improve by 1% daily instead of rushing to 100% improvement. This feels more sustainable to me and will hopefully help me create some lasting healthy habits.

One another note, I’ve really been missing blogging and feel like I might be getting back into a better place to start writing more. Hopefully I’ll be back soon!

Photo by Lala Azizli on Unsplash

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2020 Spring Cleaning List

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spring cleaning list

I shared my spring cleaning list for 2019 and really enjoyed having it to reference this year. 2020 is a bit different since I’ve been home basically 24/7 for the past 2 months so my house has been a bit more organized than it normally is. I still have some deep cleaning and organizing to do though!

It’s been raining pretty much non-stop in Michigan which means our water table is super high. We have a partially finished basement and have never really had any issues with flooding. This week, however, we started to get a puddle of water on the finished side of our basement. It’s leaking up through the cement and into the carpet. There’s not a ton we can do about the situation other than to try and keep it dry. We will most likely need new carpet though! I will just have to live with the fact that my basement won’t be clean and tidy this spring.

Here is my 2020 spring cleaning list. Let me know what’s on your list to tackle this year!

  1. Move furniture and clean the floors
  2. Clean and organize the fridge and freezer (house and garage)
  3. Dust the blinds and wash the curtains
  4. Organize the basement “pantry”
  5. Deep clean the laundry room
  6. Clean out and re-organize the storage room
  7. Dust the shelves in the dining room and re-decorate
  8. Mount the TV in the living room and clean out the TV stand
  9. Take out winter clothes from our closets and add in spring clothes
  10. Deep clean the mudroom and put away winter boots and shoes
  11. Finish painting the rest of the furniture
  12. Clean out dressers and donate/sell clothes
  13. Power-wash the outdoor furniture and patio areas
  14. Dust the walls and ceilings

It’s Memorial Day on Monday which means we have a 3 day weekend! I’m hoping to cross off a few of the items on my list this weekend since we can’t go to the lake like we usually do for Memorial Day.

What are your plans for the weekend?

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

May According to my iPhone

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May was a super busy month for me! It wasn’t very memorable and slightly boring though. Mostly work, family time, dog walks, and time at the lake. Here’s a quick recap of what my life looked like in May.

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Let’s start with the world’s happiest dog, Oscar! We celebrated his first gotcha day in May. This means that one year ago we adopted Oscar from the animal shelter and brought his home to join our family. You can read his full adoption story here. It was really important to both Brett and I that we rescue a dog and give them a good life after a not so great start. I think we have succeeded so far!

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May was dreary and rainy for the most part but we still had some good times at the lake! I’m ready for summer!

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May was the last week of my work’s walking challenge. Brett, Oscar, and I walked pretty much every day around are neighborhood. My boys are so cute! ❤

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It was beautiful a beautiful spring in Michigan (when it wasn’t raining)! I love seeing everything come to life after a long winter.

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Oscar isn’t a fan of swimming but he loves sitting on the dock! We enjoyed our first real lake day on Memorial Day!

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My grandparent’s got a new boat this year and we took it on it’s maiden voyage on Memorial Day! Such a fun day with family!

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Here’s a quick look at our upstairs guest bedroom. I never fully decorated it when we moved in so I’m finally getting around to making it feel like a welcoming part of our home. Here’s a before and hopefully I’ll have an after soon! It’s a huge space because it’s a converted attic so it’s the length of our house. The old owners used it as their master bedroom.

Did you do anything fun in May? What are you looking forward to in June?

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Summer 2019 Bucketlist

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summer 2019 bucketlist

June is here which means it’s practically summertime in Michigan! Summer is always so busy for us so I like to make a list of things that I want to get done. Pretty much every weekend in the summer we are at an airshow so my free time is super limited. Creating a bucketlist helps me to actually enjoy my summer!

  • Watch fireworks
  • Have a bonfire and roast s’mores
  • Go hiking
  • Host a cookout
  • Learn how to mow the lawn
  • Plant flowers
  • Paint our dressers
  • Go kayaking
  • Spend as much time at the lake as possible
  • Try to teach Oscar to swim
  • Go for boat rides
  • Spend a day doing nothing but reading
  • Go to the beach
  • Eat dinner outside every night for a week
  • Plan a small wedding anniversary trip
  • Airshows, airshows, airshows

What are your plans for this summer?

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

IKEA Haul – January 2019

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IKEA Haul Jan 2019

One of my greatest loves in this world is IKEA. You can ask my eighth grade best friend and she’d tell you of my great love story with IKEA. I think my love of home-ware comes from years of playing The Sims. I didn’t care much for playing with the Sims themselves but I did love building and decorating their homes. Was anyone else obsessed with The Sims when they were younger? Or now?

One of my favorite parts of being a homeowner is decorating our house. I love finding my personal style and adding touches of our personalities throughout our home. IKEA has made it easy to furnish our home on a budget. One day when we have more time and money I’m sure we will re-decorate but for now I’m really happy with how our house is turning out.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity of introducing two of our guys friends to the wonders of IKEA. So please picture me with three guys traveling two hours to IKEA to shop for home décor. 3 out of the 4 of us loved IKEA. Brett still hates shopping.

This is probably my smallest IKEA haul ever but my mom, sister, and I were just there a few months ago so I stocked up then. This time I mainly focused on home organization to help me get our house back in order after the holidays. We have a built in floor to ceiling cabinet in our bathroom that was in desperate need of re-organizing.

What I Bought

  • FEJKA artificial plant – This was in the 75% off winter clearance section and was a last minute purchase. I had seen it throughout the store but wasn’t quite sure if I needed it. Our bedroom has pops of purple throughout so I think this will look really good on a nightstand or dresser. Plus it will look good all winter, not just Christmas.
  • DRÖNA box – I bought two of these for the shelves in my closet. They work great for storing t-shirts, pajamas, swimsuits, etc. We also have one of these boxes in our basement for video games, in our dining room for dog and cat necessities, and another one for out of season decor.
  • SKUBB box set of 6 – These are my absolute favorite IKEA product and this trip they were on sale for only $1.99! I bought two sets and have already used them in the drawers in our bathroom to store makeup, nail polish, hair products, and various other bathroom products. I have at least 4 other sets of these boxes organizing our dressers, pantry, and closets.
  • SKUBB storage case – We don’t have a traditional linen closet so we have been storing our extra bedding in our upstairs bedroom’s closet. I bought two of these storage cases to use under the bed in our master bedroom to store our extra bedding and Brett’s out of season clothing. I’ve already set one up and I’m loving it so far!
  • DOKUMENT letter tray – I bought this in white on sale for $5.99 to organize our bills and other important papers on our desk. I wanted something simple to organize our mail into since I HATE paper.
  • GREJIG shoe rack – I saw this in the closet section and knew that it would be perfect to organize bathroom products. I set it up on Sunday and it works perfectly to make everything more accessible in our bathroom cabinet.
  • KOPPLA 6 way adapter plug – I always like to have an extra one of these on hand because you never know when you’ll need it. We have very few outlets in our 1941 house so we have to be creative with how we use them.
  • LURVIG pet waste bags – I buy a package of these every time we go to IKEA. I attach the below bag container to Oscar’s leash for walks and all of our other adventures together.
  • LURVIG pet waste bag dispenser – I already have one of these on Oscar’s leash to store the pet waste bags but it’s starting to tear so I wanted to have a backup for when it does.
  • UPPHETTA french press – I don’t drink coffee but Brett does and he’s wanted a french press for awhile. I highly doubt he will use this on a daily basis but it will be nice for lazy Sunday brunches when we have extra time to enjoy our morning.
  • HEAT trivet – I think this is the third pack of these that we’ve bought in the past few years. I love these to protect our counters and dining room table from hot dishes of food. We’ve entertained a lot since buying our house so it’s nice to have a stash of these for dinner parties.

Like I said before, this is our smallest IKEA haul to date but we got several great items to help organize and simplify our home. Let me know if you have any tips for keeping your house organized! I’m currently reading Marie Kondo’s Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up and am hoping to put some of her tips into use.

Have you been to IKEA? What’s your favorite IKEA product?

Thanks for reading!

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