Bedroom Makeover

 This was our first day in our home- believe it or not, this was after a few hours of work- 

You can see the bed frame was already set up and made.  This was where almost all of our stuff had originally gotten put until we got here.  That corner was all the miscellaneous stuff that didn't have a place until my sweet husband built me a closet. 

 It kind of got worse before it got better- as we were cleaning out some of the other rooms, stuff got dumped in here.  Enter wood, totes, junk, etc...

 After moving that mountain of a pile and frustrating behind the scenes labor, my husband and I stayed up until like 2 AM on labor day assembling the closet.  It was grueling, and I think I wasn't really much help after midnight, (It was also the day I had painted the living room, so I started out pretty tired!) but Peter was determined to finish it.  I'm so glad he did! It fits our stuff perfectly, and has room to grow.  Laundry hampers on the bottom, totes and boxes, Christmas decorations, sewing machines, and everything else fit in our new "closet."

  

Then a couple days later I painted and hung up some decorations.  

It was so nice to have it in order!  :-)

Here it is finished:

 I love how the bedframe turned out- It came from my Grandpa and Grandma, and it started out like gold metal with rose colored flower balls. Welcome black spray paint and decoupaged damask wrapping paper, and you get this!  I think the total remake cost less than $5.

 

Celebrating a month of marriage :-) and another great week

It seems like time is flying by!  Last Monday we celebrated our first month of marriage.  In some ways it feels like we've been together forever because it is so normal and so wonderful, but in other ways it feels like my wedding was just a few days ago. 

I babysat over 30 kids on Monday in Manhattan with a big group of other babysitters, but I got home in enough time to take a little nap (30 kids are exhausting!) and get ready to go back into Manhattan with my date.  We had a groupon that we bought months ago but had never used, so we decided to go there before our groupon expired.  So for $20, we enjoyed salad, bread, 2 entrees, tea and cappuccino, and 2 desserts!  It was a great little place, and made a perfect *one month* anniversary for us.  :-)

  Tuesday I babysat again, so that was pretty uneventful as far as writing details about it, although it was certainly not uneventful while I was there!

 
  Wednesday I caught up on all my work at home- cleaning, laundry, organizing, and marketing for my photography business. Then mid-afternoon we left for the (dreaded) DMV where I stood in line for 3 hours, but Praise the Lord was successful in getting my driver's license.  My license got stolen when I was in Texas so it was little tricky to get my name changed without my old license, but I knew I needed to work on it because I need it to fly back home for a wedding next month.  Anyway, we were SO hungry when we got home, so I skipped my good meal plan and we got some Chinese that lives dangerously close to us.  And its really really good. 

My laundry system :-) It will be really fun in the Winter time!

On Thursday my friend, Laura, came and visited.  She had been visiting her family on Long Island so it was kind of on her way back to Chicago for her to come see me.  It was a great time- on Thursday I was babysitting so we just stayed in Astoria and made a really good dinner- Grilled Cheeseburger Wraps (which I forgot to grill :P) and BLT salad which was SO yummy and I got "stuck" with eating the leftovers for days.  Yum!

   Friday we went to Manhattan together, and braved navigated the subways all by ourselves.  It was fun.  She is headed to the Philippines next month, so she picked up some souvenirs and I got my first fast food since I have been married- and sadly it is even better than I remembered!  I also got a cute little brown hat, but we were down to our last pennies, so we asked and re-asked the guy to take 7.25 instead of 10.  He finally said yes just to get rid of us.  I think as we stood there counting pennies he realized that really was all we had.  We headed home, but then I realized Laura had never seen the statue of liberty, so we headed back to where we had just come from and farther to the Staten Island Ferry.  It is such a nice ride, and it's one of the only things you'll find in the city that is free.  We got home to Astoria just in time to meet her brothers to head back to Rochester.  Laura drove my car, "Hoda" back to Rochester where my family will be keeping and loving her now.  It's a relief to not have to worry about parking here, but it was sad to see her go.  Friday night brought an apple-themed family fun night at church. Hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and apple crisp.  I gorged.  To bury the sadness of seeing Hoda leave...or maybe that was just an excuse, but the food was SO good.  It was the perfect junk-food day!

Saturday was the first day of Fall, so after visitation I was in the baking mood.  I cooked all day while I watched a photography seminar on lighting. I made chicken terryaki, rice,corn, and green smoothies for Saturday's dinner, apple craisin muffins with cheese cream filling and crumb topping for Peter for snack, 2 loaves of complicated honey oatmeal wheat bread, (It was the neediest bread I have ever made, and it was still pretty dense to me, so I am not convinced it was worth the 4+ hours it took,) peanut butter pie and cut up veggies for our company on Sunday, and made a huge batch of refried beans. :-) I was pretty tired by the end of the day.  I did get a chance to go play the piano for a little while at night, and then Peter took me for a little snack at this frozen yogurt place we found right around the corner.  Anyone that comes to visit me will certainly go to this place.  It is SO yummy!!!

Sunday was such a great day. We had church in the morning, a birthday party with SUCH GOOD Greek food for lunch, a quick nap, making dinner, evening church service where my husband preached to the teens a great message on how easily God could replace us, and also introduced a new system and booklet of journal-ing their devotions each day to make sure they are getting meaningful applications every day. I am looking forward to implementing it in my own life.  Then we had friends from church over and a few neighbors who we are praying to receive salvation over for mexican night.  I always forget to take pictures of the spread and our guests, but we had a great time.  Carolina and Dave brought decorations to help it feel more authentic, so we had a pinata burro and pretty flowers and confetti.   It is so good to get to know my new church family and make friends.  I am really enjoying it.  :-)

Busy week!

I feel like this was my first official week in the city, seen as this was the first week that I was settled in and was starting some side jobs.  

Sunday we had our first big group of company.  It was so fun!  We had 10 total- including a missionary, our guest speaker for the ladies conference, a neighbor that is not saved (yet!), and several people from church.  I wish I had taken a picture- but I was busy feeding everyone after church.  We turned the island sideways and everyone built their own fajitas.  I also made a 5-layer dip, rice, and dark chocolate brownies- which there were way too many leftovers of. Notice the past tense. ;-)

Monday started my first official training class near Central Park.  It also marked the first time I navigated subways into Manhattan alone. Peter gave me great directions, and the class went really well.  :-)  It was so nice to get to see 2 of the puppies I trained when they were babies.  

It is a beautiful park- FULL of dogs, so I have my eye on going back to hand out a 

lot of flyers when I am there every week. 

Tuesday I started with my babysitting job- every other Tuesday I get to watch this cute little chatter-box.  She is almost 2, but seems very ahead- she puts whole sentences together already!

 

Peter got to go to Princeton with a dear friend of his- so they were gone all day, but when they got home I had chicken cordon blue waiting for them, along with grilled eggplant, zucchini, and peppers, and incredibly sticky (?) oven roasted sweet potatoes.  I'm wondering if it's because they were in the oven so long or if I accidentally doubled the honey when I was not paying attention.

 

Wednesday I got to do my first photo shoot in the city.  A newborn! A gorgeous newborn that was not very sleepy at all, but we still got some beautiful shots.  :-)

To see the whole sneak peek, check out my photography blog at:

http://kisimmipixsa.blogspot.com/

Thursday was cleaning, editing, updating, meal planning, grocery shopping, and church.

I really enjoying meal planning- it's fun to know what new recipes are coming this week.  We've stumbled across some real favorites, for sure!  For any of the recipes, just follow me on pinterest, on my board "favorite recipes."

 I also tried out green smoothies for the first time.  I woulda killed the blender on my first try if Jenna hadn't answered her phone.  Thankfully she did, and she gave me directions.  All you need is fruit, (which I get in the "scratch and dent" section for 29 cents a pound!) spinach, agave nectar, water, and ice.  They tasted great- and for me to think a spinach drink is great, you KNOW it has to be good.  My husband loved them, too, and illustrated this by drinking his and most of mine. :-)

Speaking of my husband- he has always been very faithful about getting me flowers.  Every time we saw each other when we were courting he got me some- either a bouquet or single stem. 

It's so sweet.  These are the leftovers from the red roses he got me last week.  I like how they look in these water bottles we got at our fancy hotel on our honeymoon.

 

Friday was a little bit of a crazy day. I am trying to sell my car.  Before I get a parking ticket or someone scratches my bumper as they try to squeeze their car into a tiny parking spot.  Well, we have gone 2 places now but still aren't getting what we hoped for it, so Lord willing this week we will get some direction on that.  

We also went to Jamaica Center as I am in the long process of changing my name.  They know how to make it quite the ordeal, good thing I love my new last name!! :-)  Thankfully Peter got a half-day so he could accompany me, as I can only imagine how lost I would have gotten following all those directions!

One day this week my husband and I were talking and he asked me what I have learned the most in our 4 weeks of marriage.  I told him I think it has got to be the faithfulness of it all- you can't just sporadically cook a meal and then drop off the face of the earth.  At one meal, you're thinking about the next meal.  One dish load means you're making room for the next dish load.  It is such a fulfilling and wonderful thing to be a wife, but I am also learning about the amount of faithfulness and diligence it requires.  Peter was encouraging enough to remind me that as busy as I feel now, this is probably the least busy I will ever be for the rest of my life. (If the Lord blesses us with children.)  I was thinking, "Wow, that's not very encouraging! I'm already exhausted!!"  

I am happy to be busy, here, though...there's no place I'd rather be than 

home sweet together with my love.

<3

Kitchen remodel

   I knew when I said "I do" that I would start spending a lot more time in the kitchen, and I wasn't wrong!  I am really enjoying cooking and baking in our cozy kitchen.  Now doing the dishes is a different story....just kidding...they're not too bad, I just can't believe how fast they multiply!  When I am doing the dishes I try to remember and pray for whoever gave us each thing that I am washing.  It makes it go by faster, and it keeps me really thankful for all the blessings we received.
   Anyway, when I arrived this particular room was really crowded, mostly full of all my boxes and furniture, plus a room mate had a hard time getting to his stuff, so that was all still there as well.  I saved the kitchen for last because I knew it would take me the longest.  Thankfully, I had a lot of help- you should have seen my husband scrubbing the floor!  My Mom helped with the walls, my brother set up our island, and my brother in law helped hammer and screw and various other projects.

 (I said it was bad!)

Here it is a little cleaner, but still unfinished:

 This night, I had my first company, after only being here for 3 days, but I got to entertain my Mom and brother.  It was also our first official meal at our house because up until this point the kitchen was buried. Hello good Chinese place right around the corner!

And then...here it is all finished.  I was going to say how it is now, but to be honest it's not quite as clean as this at the moment.  Those multplying dirty dishes have something to do with that.

:-)

Our NYC reception

      When we got home from our honeymoon, my new in-laws had planned a second wedding reception for us for those that couldn't join us up in Rochester.  It was a wonderful evening.  Dad M preached a similar but more expanded message of what he had preached at our wedding.  Then he and Mom played a saxaphone/piano duet of Day by Day that is a family tradition for them at weddings.  They wrote the arrangement and also played it on our wedding day at our dinner reception.  At the end of the service, we watched a slide show of our wedding.  Our amazing photographer edited over 100 pictures to get to him just *one week* after the wedding, and I know she was really busy that week.  Anyway, it was a beautiful slide show put together really nicely- with cool sound effects and all.  

After that we went downstairs where they had decorated really pretty in our wedding colors.  They served sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, chips, coffee, lemonade, cupcakes, and we got to cut a mini wedding cake that my sister in law made for us.  

We watched the slideshow that was played after our wedding- of Peter and I growing up, and when we first met, and then us together.  

To end the night we played a NYC version of the game we played at our wedding with black and white shoes.  You raise a white shoe if the bride is more likely to do whatever the question was, or a black shoe if the groom is.  These questions were a lot harder than our original ones, but we answered pretty similar.  :-)

It was a wonderful night, and I am so thankful we were able to have this NYC reception. 

The church has welcomed me with open arms and I am really enjoying getting to know everyone.

It's so nice that no matter where you are if you are with other Christians, 

you can find so much that you have in common.  (Not to say I don't miss my church like crazy!)

Living Room

I really wish I had gotten a before before pic. How it was set up when my husband lived here with his 2 roommates. There were 2 full walls of bookshelves, 2 couches, and tons of other stuff.  They kept it pretty neat, but it was still really in need of a woman's touch.  Anyway, I didn't find any of those pictures, so this before is how it looked after we worked on it a couple hours the first night we got home from our honeymoon.

  Also it is after Peter spent hours and hours sorting through his book collection and helping his brother build the beautiful shelves that hold his collection now. 

We had things basically set up for a few days to get things ready for my mom and brother to come visit, but here it is the morning that I started painting it!

And...here it is after!

I love how the color came out! :-)