Things I like - March

1) The ability to walk

(I wanted a picture on crutches for my scrapbook but we kept forgetting to take it until I was actually done with them...I had been walking in the boot about 2 weeks when we finally took this)

Just over a year ago (March 1st) was my foot surgery.  Since then I've highly valued the ability to walk, and walk carrying things besides crutches.  You don't quite appreciate that until you can't.  Even having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night isn't so bad once you've have to go up and down stairs on crutches just to pee.  You really have to wake up to do that.  Things like shopping and standing in the kitchen to bake or cook are nice, I couldn't do either of those for over a month.  Since I spent most of last March on crutches this March I really appreciate walking normally.

2) Young House Love

 

I just finished reading Young House Love and I am so inspired now.  A young couple (around our age) started blogging their home improvement projects and then wrote a book.  A lot of the ideas I had seen on Pinterest (maybe from their blog) but there were some new ones.  And it was nice to have them organized with easy to read instructions.  I've got quite the list going on little projects I want to do around the house.  It's a lot of painting things.  Hobby Lobby is a dangerous place now.

I really liked their easy to read writing style and love their decorating style!  If I could could just copy and paste their house into mine, I would.  They make it all sound so doable.  I've been reading around their blog and discovered some posts on funding all these projects.  I really like that they advocate simplicity, sticking to a budget, and not buying more than you can pay for (all things we try to do too). 

One other thing I liked is that they talked about having a cohesive theme or color scheme throughout your house.  You may have noticed that, with the exception of our grey kitchen, our whole house is blue & green (our favorite colors).  We've thought about painting other colors but always fall back to blue and green.  Now I am calling that our theme and really, I think our house all does go together.  We have to like it and we do.

If you want ideas on how to remake your house read this.  I have waaay too many ideas now.  I had to return the book soon so it's been added to my ever growing birthday/Christmas list.

3) Dark chocolate

Matt likes pretty much all types of candy (more the sugary ones than chocolatey ones though).  I don't mind them but if I am going to waste calories on candy, I want it to be dark chocolate.  He always buys me some for Christmas and Valentine's Day so this time of year I eat a lot of dark chocolate.  (And by a lot I mean maybe one piece a day.)  The bitterness keeps it from being overly sweet and it usually tastes so rich.  Mmmmmm.  Matt got me some DeBrands for Valentine's Day and I'm very much looking forward to eating them.

4)  The library and ACPL app

We were very frequent library patrons growing up and I even volunteered at Little Turtle for 2-3 years in middle school.  Now that we are just a half a block from Tecumseh our library going is probably even more often.

Above is a picture of my actual library card to this day.  The "b" in my last name was originally backwards because I wasn't very good with those when I was 5...which is about when I got this card.  There are dents in the bottom from using it as a screwdriver on my rifle at a color guard conference in high school.  I could get a new one but I'm pretty attached to this one plus I've had the number memorized for 15+ years.

I do a lot of reading and couldn't (or wouldn't want to) buy all the books I read.  Plus, they take up space and what if you start a bad one?  That's why the library is awesome.  It's kinda crazy it's all free.  We get movies there too periodically but I could live if they took those away.  Not as enjoyable as free books.

ACPL made it even better when they released an app, I think it was late last year.  I've used their website many times on my phone and it never worked real well.  It was possible, but hard.  Now when I walk down there I can pull up my Goodreads app to see what is next on my to-read list, then pull up the ACPL app to see if it's there, and if so, where.  Super handy.  If you go to the library with any frequency you should get the app.  And if you don't utilize your library then you are a little crazy. =)

5) Apple chips

These are our new addiction.  We borrowed a dehydrator from my sister and apple peeler from Matt's parents...a few hours (7...) later we had incredibly delicious apple chips.  Really, they are amazing.  We've already eaten about half the first batch.  You probably know I like making things myself and these are much better than the ones we used to buy at Target (I have fond memories of eating those to stay awake at 3am while driving through Virgina on our way to the Outer Banks).  These are pretty healthy, just a sprinkle of cinnamon/sugar.  Took 5 minutes to peel a bag with the peeler/decorer/slicer and then a quick soak in lemon & orange juice.  Took about 7 hours to dry and we've done 2 batches of apples with kiwis in now.  We like them enough that we made a quick stop at Aldi today to buy two more bags of apples.  They are delicious.  If you can get your hands on a dehydrator then you need to make some. (And HUGE thank you to Denise & my in-laws for sharing!!)