New year.. new resolution to post

I've been doing the "couponing" thing for six months now, and I feel comfortable enough with it, that I'm going to resolve myself to only spend $75.00 per week on groceries. After the $100 that we pay the school per month for the kids to eat lunch there, this will put us at $400 per month.

I think this will be doable with the help of the Southern Savers website. Anyway, I'm going to keep track of my spending on this website. Sometimes I'll go over, sometimes I'll go under, but I'd like to keep it to $75 per week for a family of four. I've already accumulated a stockpile of some food, but for the last few months it's been less than $100 per week. I think I can keep it to $75 per week starting Jan 1st.

The grocery list is going to look a little different due to the "stockpile" method that I've started using. I'll try to explain as I go along.

Painting continued - Kitchen

The formal dining area isn't quite done, but all that's left is the upper moulding. I'll try and get some completed pictures once thats done.

Our upright freezer is in so Kurt went ahead and painted the part of the wall that it's going to sit against. Here's the picture of our kitchen colors.

Really long time, no post.

Kurt has some extra time on his hands, so he's taking up painting. For 2 weeks or so, we squabbled about what color choices to make. Kurt finally found a combination we could agree on. We got 3 complimentary colors, two of which are in the formal dining room. Here's a sneak peak of what 2 of them look like.

Yea, yea, I know it's been a while

The house has fallen into maintenance mode lately, and we haven't really done anythign significant. Recent rainfall has pointed out to us that the back yard suffers from some major washout. In an effort to prevent some of it, we've put down some zoyzia(sp)seed down with a seed mat.

Living room

The posts on the website are getting more few and far between as we settle into the house. I'm going to try and get more pictures of rooms in the house as they get set up.

We've fallen into maintenance mode during the week, and only spend some time on the weekends getting stuff in order.

The room looks a little empty here, but once we get some pictures and window dressings, it'll look much more homey.

Kitchen

We're spending most of our time sorting through tons of boxes that were packed up from the old house. Today, I found my high school sweatshirt with names of all the graduates on it. Needless to say, we have some very old stuff.

We were able to locate the majority of kitchen stuff and get it situated. I've included some pictures of the kitchen for the five minutes it was clean today.

Buddy, our beagle, has decided that he's comfortable enough with the surroundings now that he feels the need to explore more. He's now running half way down the street to experience new smells. We picked up a invisible dog fence today to try and keep him contained. It's taking a while install all the wire, but it should be done in the first part of next week.

No major updates today

I forgot to mention that we got the utilities switched over to our name yesterday. Power, Water, and Cable/Internet were hooked up. Unfortunately, the cable phone won't be hooked up until the 10th. Mail forwarding should kick in tomorrow.

I slacked off today, and spent most of the day playing on the computer. We did manage to get another load of junk from the apartment. I think we have 10 or so loads left at the apartment.

The HVAC person did come by in reponse to our complaint about the wall resonanting. Turns out that it's related to the return vent, and the amount of air flow that's going through it. I can't hear it resonating, but it bothers Kurt at night, since the wall with the air return is one of our bedroom walls.

The plumber came by yesterday. As it turns out the hot and cold water lines were switched in the kids bathroom. How you can mess up color coded water pipes is beyond me, but it's fixed now.

A piece of vinyl on the side of the house came loose during some heavy winds the other night. That'll get repaired in the next few days.

Other than that, we're not having any major issues. There's a piece of ripped vinyl in the laundry room.

Things are starting to return to "normal" for now.