Misc Archives - Page 10 of 12 - The Blue Door & More

Life Lately

Posted on August 30, 2017August 7, 2019 by Leah

I had high hopes to show you my decorated cubicle this week but life just got a little too busy. What can you do?

Anyway, this past Sunday was my companies annual golf outing. It was a cloudy day but the weather was actually nice. We won our annual second place (someday maybe we’ll beat Josh ??). After contributing a few of drives, I somehow managed to pop one on the hole for women’s shortest drive. It then hit the golf cart path and bounce backwards, securing my award. ? I now have won women’s longest and women’s shortest both once in my life. I hope to continue on the longest from now on. ?

Last Friday my mom had foot surgery so I headed up to my parent’s house Monday after work. I’m working from their home all week (seriously, best company ever) and helping her out. I basically have run ice upstairs to her every hour. My FitBit is liking all those steps but I sort of miss my one level house! Not as much as I am missing Landon though. ?

It’s kind of weird staying in my childhood bedroom by myself and it just being me and my parents at night. Landon you are missed! He has inservice for school this week so I made the trip solo.

I’ve been spending the entire month of August meal planning and trying to add variety into our life. I would love to order another box from Green Chef but we have done so much stocking up on groceries the past few weeks. It feels silly to order a box when we have a freezer full, ya know? Anyway, I meal plan most weeks but tucker out by Thursday night. I’m hoping to break that habit and carry-on through the entire week this year!

It’s funny to think the school year still feels like a fresh start. I guess married to a teacher does that as an adult. I no longer am the only one to set an alarm in the morning. (Sorry Landon, tee times don’t count as work!) I am looking forward to having more structure in our daily life. ? I’ve been trying get a cleaning schedule down but so far it’s been a nightmare. Hoping to change that come Tuesday!

For Labor Day weekend, I plan to enjoy it like a 3-day weekend should be enjoyed: doing nothing! Hope you all have a great holiday weekend! ??

FitBit Tips, Tricks, & Money

Posted on August 23, 2017August 7, 2019 by Leah

Is it just me or does nearly everyone have some sort of activity tracker these days? About a year ago, I won a FitBit Alta. It was really exciting since I had toyed with the idea of purchasing one myself. My place of employment has a walking program/competition every summer. We break out into teams of 6 and see which team has the most steps at the end of 12 weeks. The first two years, I used those old school pedometers that are about $10. I’ve had my FitBit for almost a full year and it was so nice to have that log my steps for me instead of trying to remember!

Since this was my third summer partaking in the program, and the past year I have seen my steps every day all year round, I have picked up some tricks to getting that 10k step goal. I also have found a way to get paid for my steps and other fitness tracking! Keep reading to find out how.

FitBit tips

How to get more steps in during the day

Park far away – I like to park in the last row at work because a) I get more steps when I get there and when I leave and b) no one parks by me so my car never gets dings. Same goes for the grocery store, mall, etc. ?

March in place – While you are brushing your teeth, waiting for the microwave, waiting at the printer, listening to a conference call… 30 seconds of marching here or there adds up quickly! ??

Switch wrists – Often my FitBit doesn’t register steps if they are slow or my left arm isn’t swinging like crazy. I once spent 45 minutes vacuuming AND mopping my house and when I was done working up a sweat, the thing went off saying I hadn’t gotten all my steps in for the hour. Now when I vacuum or mop, I switch it to my right wrist to count that work!

Pace – Similar to marching but better if you have more than 30 seconds. For example, if I have to go switch out the laundry, I’ll take a lap around our house, down our front hall, and back before entering the laundry room. Circling the living room makes my husband nervous but I get my steps in. And Landon has gotten used to it now. ?

Take a moving break – Every day I get two 15 minute breaks at work. And every day I walk during them. You know the feeling of eye strain so you take a break from looking at your computer? And then you stare at your phone? Yeah, I leave the phone and go walk up and down the flight of stairs. It takes about a minute or two but it helps refresh my mind way more than my phone would! ??

FitBit tips

Don’t sit down! – Sometimes I find I have 5 or 10 minutes to spare before we have to leave, or someone picks me up. I’ll use that time to get steps in. Maybe I’ll walk around the house tidying things up (cleaning bonus!). There have been many Sunday mornings before church that I head down to our treadmill and walk in my Sunday’s best. I get about 100 steps per minute so I consider that a win!

Dance it out – On weekends I like to meal prep so I don’t have to cook so much during the week. I’ll put music on and dance while something is boiling or baking. It makes the work fun and goes by quickly plus counts as a mini workout. ??

All these little hacks give me between 5k-7k steps in every day that I wouldn’t get if I didn’t try for them. That’s a lot!

How my FitBit makes me money

I signed up at the end of last year with Achievemint. It syncs many different activity trackers, health apps, even Twitter, and you get points for syncing. Once you reach 10,000 points, they pay you $10 via Paypal or Venmo. It may take months to reach that but it’s absolutely no work to you after you sign up. You even get points for sleep! They are paying you to sleep and if that isn’t awesome, I don’t know what is.

I have had Map My Run synced previously (but I only track roller blading through that app, ironically) and recently added My Fitness Pal to the mix. Yesterday I was an overachiever and rollerbladed and golfed.? You can sign up here to start making money with your activity trackers and apps too.

Fitbit tips — All the points I got yesterday! ??

Pantry Makeover

Posted on August 16, 2017August 7, 2019 by Leah

pantry close up

The pantry. Where 5% of its residents are used and rotated on a regular basis and the other 95% sit there only to expire or get pulled out a few times a year for use. At least that’s how I view my pantry. Correction: used to view it.

Two years ago we were in the final stretch on completing the building of our house. We (okay, Landon) general contracted it ourselves. For the most part, we had two handymen doing all the framing and finishing touches on the inside. Those finishing touches included closets with shelves and/or rods. Our floor plan had a corner pantry and since it was obvious it was a pantry, we said go put shelves in. And that is what they did.

Pantry before — Nice deep shelves, but not much access to most of the surface area.

Now, when two middle aged men are putting shelves in a pantry for a twenty-something first time homeowner, the idea of shelves can differ. I was up to my eyeballs in work and wedding stuff so it never occurred to me to explain more. We got shelves though. And they were deep, like 2 feet deep! In most cases, the deeper the shelf, the more surface area, therefore it can hold more. In a tight little pantry with corner shelves, that is a myth. You see, most things couldn’t be reached behind other things. The easy to grab space was like lakeshore property, minimal and with high demand.

Because of this, most food things went into a different cabinet. The pantry was left to small kitchen appliances, serving ware, and the tall or bulky food (like cereal and tortilla chips). It wasn’t that bad until we somehow made it a medicine cabinet. And then I decided I want to use those smaller appliances more regularly. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to take out some vitamins, pain meds, 3 boxes of cereal, a big bag of coffee, and a canister of oatmeal just to get to our griddle so I can make a bunch of pancakes in one shot. And forget about my Kitchen Aid mixer accessories. If I can’t reach the juicer, we don’t need freshly squeezed juice, no matter how easy it really is to make! ??

I’m not sure when I reached my breaking point, but I did. And so the pantry makeover ideas were pinned and researched like crazy. I didn’t want to spend a lot so we opted to cut the shelves we had to make them shallower. I also only wanted them all on one wall with more of them spaced out better than previously. This way, I could actually step inside and have everything easily within reach. We also have a step stool to reach the higher shelves, but they won’t house daily things.

I was really good at drawing straight lines on the old shelves because Landon cut them perfectly with a circular saw. (We thought about getting a table saw but decided the cost wasn’t worth it for the few projects we have in mind.) We bought a couple extra shelves and left the bottom two 16 inches deep while the rest are only 12. Using the wood we had kept the supply cost down a lot. We then went to Menards and bought the two tracks for the wall and all the shelf brackets that attach to it. Sadly, our Menards didn’t have the right length tracks in white but the gray didn’t end up looking that odd – it is a pantry after all.

The most time consuming part of this project was patching the holes from taking the old shelf supports down. And then realizing we were out of paint to cover them.? We were about to drive an hour to Sherwin Williams to get the same paint that was used but luckily the extra ceiling paint at Landon’s parents’ matched well enough. They were only a golf cart ride away!

I actually have one more shelf to put up and got another set of the glass canisters to help organize things too. I currently have all my baking supplies and spices in our upper cabinets but want to rearrange those and keep them in the pantry instead. Since I’m just getting used to reaching things (I still am pleasantly surprised when I open the door), I find every few days I’m changing where things are kept. I would like to get more baskets to corral various food items but haven’t found any I love. I also have plans to line the shelves with something sassy to give the space some pizzaz. ?

Overall, this was a really easy makeover. While the permanent shelf placement is still underway, it has made life so much easier! I can’t wait to redo other closets and shelves in our house now! (Sorry for making you cringe Landon! ?)

Unity Braid

Posted on July 12, 2017August 7, 2019 by Leah

It’s a wedding tradition to have some sort of unity ritual within one’s wedding ceremony. I think candles are the most common, followed by sand. I have seen a tree planted by my matron of honor at her wedding on their farm. And my parents attended a wedding that used glass that was later blown into a unity sculpture (this sounds so cool!). For our wedding, we made a unity braid. Landon and I truly believe God brought us together and He is equal in our marriage so it made sense that our unity ritual involved God’s knot.

Unity braid and rings — Our braid with our rings ?

I also like that it is something that can hang in our house as a reminder and a symbol of our wedding and marriage. Sometime last year I put up blue painters tape on the wall just outside our bedroom door. It was temporarily representing the space our unity braid would someday hang along with a few wedding pictures and bible verse. As much as the blue tape grew on me, it definitely became a weird conversation starter every time someone came over!

blue tape where unity braid goes — Blue tape wall art…

About a month ago I finally took the plunge to see how much a shadow box frame would cost to be custom made in the measurements I had taped on our wall. $140 was a bit high but I hadn’t really thought about what was a realistic budget. That same day I got the quote at Hobby Lobby, I found a shadow box (in almost identical dimensions no less!) in their aisle with all the other display boxes and frames. It also happened to be 50% off. So I bought it for all of $15. Score! After finding that piece, I had three matching frames already on hand waiting to be used and my wall was set to be completed in no time.

Unity Braid Background

Traditionally, a unity braid uses cords of three colors; gold, purple, and white. Gold stands for God, purple for the groom, and white for the bride. Our wedding colors were navy blue and white so I swapped the purple for navy. Our pastor read the following verses as Landon held the hoop and I braided the chords.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

unity braid ceremony — Us braiding during our ceremony

I love that we have this little wall space outside our bedroom to hang our unity braid. It’s a beautiful daily reminder of our special day and the vow we made to each other and to God.

Mid-Year Resolutions

Posted on July 5, 2017August 7, 2019 by Leah

Mid-year resolutions

I’ve never been good at following the norm. In fact, I refused to see Avatar when it came out because everyone seemed too obsessed with it. I often like to take the road less travelled, walk the other side of the tracks, question trends (I get it from my grandfather as well as his sense of direction). Sometime way back in high school, I decided New Years Resolutions were just too mainstream. Really, what I dislike about them is the same reason everyone else does: they are hard to maintain. I decided then that I would make resolutions on my birthday because my year in life made more sense than a calendar year.

Well, I’m about to break my old rule (I really wouldn’t call it a rule) and come up with something new: Mid-Year Resolutions. Why limit yourself to the new year, new month, new age, tomorrow, Monday, etc, etc, to start something new? Now is as good of time as any.

With all that said, I am making a goal list for the rest of the year. Most of these are projects around our house, which is why I’m sharing the list here. I figured it would hold me more accountable to finish them before December 31st if I can link it to this list! So without further ado…

The list:

Decorate my cubicle at work. My old desk had basically zero space and now I’ve switched departments and have more wall space and surface area than I know what to do with. Well I do know I want to do something with it!
Get our unity braid on the wall. We have a little wall outside our bedroom door that I have had plans to hang our unity braid from our wedding on with a few photos and the verse for it. I finally have the right sized shadow box for the braid so I need to get the rest of the pieces in order!

Fix our pantry. The shelves are just all wrong and lately I want to cry every time I have to open that beautiful hickory door and see the ugly inside.
Make some pillow covers for our couch. Because I can sew and pillow covers are easy and I’ve had the fabric for nearly a year…
Make my own makeup. Eyeliner, mascara, concealer, eyeshadow, face powder… I make my own makeup remover so why not?
Speaking of makeup, I really need to find nail polish that doesn’t make my finger nails freak out. I wouldn’t say I’m allergic but it’s not pretty and I miss having colored nails. ??
Try those meal service kits. You know, those companies that send you a box with a recipe and all the ingredients to make it. (Read my Green Chef review here.)
Speaking of food now, I want to find a beans and rice recipe that is good. No, we are not eating beans and rice for money reasons. I recently learned a little about the Blue Zones of the world and want to start adopting their habits. Even Landon is on board!

Back to décor stuff, signs for our house. I have two I want to make, one above our front door and one for our guest room. (Don’t hold it against me if the guest room doesn’t meet the year end deadline!)
Draw up some plans for our Amish friend to build our laundry room bench. And then of course, have bench installed. Also, redo laundry room shelves. (Yeesh, I have shelf issues?)
Make my vision for our Christmas mantle a reality since we finally have one! I have ideas for stocking holders and last year I bought fabric to make stockings (because I didn’t see any I loved) but we didn’t get the mantle up until after Christmas so really I should make the stockings now – like Christmas in July or maybe it will keep me cool while the heat index climbs to over 90 this week. ☀️❄️

Well that’s all for now. I have so many other ideas I feel the list for our house is never-ending (but I love that?) and many of those are more in the distant future.

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Vacation Planning – the week before

Posted on June 14, 2017August 7, 2019 by Leah

Maybe it’s because I married into a family of teachers, but it seems like summer is a popular time for vacations. Next week we are heading way up north (practically Canada ?) with my parents and are renting a cabin for a week. In just over a year, this will be our 3rd week-long vacation and in this time I’ve learned a few things about vacation planning to make life easier that I thought I’d share with you.

I once heard that planning a vacation is half the fun as going on it and I would totally agree! Typically, I start planning things wayyy far in advance but really the brunt of it needs to happen the week before. I also have heard most people feel they need a vacation after coming back from one. This is my list on how to cope better with that feeling!

Food

On Sunday I sat down and meal planned with a little more vigor than normal. I wanted to make sure I made the right amount of meals and that all leftovers would be consumed before we leave. This way the day or two you are busy packing, you don’t have to worry about cooking (since you have leftovers) and you won’t have to throw anything out. Speaking of…

Clean out your fridge! Our trash pickup is every other week and it just so happens to fall the day before we leave. I am going through it making sure nothing was forgotten and could get pretty rotten while we are gone.

Place anything that could go bad in the freezer. Bread is the number one staple that comes to mind.

Lastly, think about what your week will be like when you get back. Will you have time to cook? Or, more importantly, will you want to cook when you get back? In March we were gone every single weekend. It was easy for us to stop at our local food co-op on our way home and grab an already cooked rotisserie chicken and some lettuce. It was great because we had enough to last a few meals before we got groceries and it’s actually much more affordable (not to mention healthier) than fast food.

Money

Most people probably hit the ATM before they leave, which is great. But have you thought about bills that may come due while you are gone? I have issues with letting up control so I don’t like to go the auto-pay route. I have a list of our regularly monthly bills and their due dates so I don’t have to worry about missing the email statement. We have some that need to be paid while we are gone or right when we get back so I will be paying those tonight and checking them off my list!

Cleaning

If you’re like us, you like your house clean but some weeks you have better things to do (like nothing ?). Whenever we decide to tackle that clutter, I always walk in the door the next day after work and feel a sense of calm I didn’t know I was missing. It’s glorious! Why should vacation be any different?

I don’t know what your cleaning life is like, but when we clean it typically falls on a weekend or the earliest is Thursday or Friday. That’s all fine and dandy most of the time. Except when you are leaving Friday and will be gone for 11 days. Some prep work must be done! Sure, it takes more planning but you already are saving time with reheating leftovers, right? And the feeling of coming home to a clean house is amazing! I’m not saying you need to clean like the Queen is coming (I will vacuum our hard floors but I am NOT steam mopping), but just take time to pick up a little clutter here and there.

Laundry

You come home to a clean house, might as well come home to clean linens! A day or two before, wash your sheets. Bonus points if you can put fresh ones on before you leave! Also do the same for towels – bath towels, hand towels, kitchen towels, etc, etc. There’s always laundry from vacation so why not get all the other stuff out of the way beforehand?

Another note on laundry, a week before you go start thinking about what everyone needs to pack. Set a certain day as the last day for anything to be washed that will get packed. Today was that day for us. This means if Landon wants a certain pair of cargo shorts packed, he should not wear them tomorrow. ?

Other little tips:

Roll your clothes – it seriously takes up less space. Packing cubes help even more!
Unplug electronics. TVs, toasters, coffee makers…
Speaking of coffee makers, throw out the grounds and give the carafe a wash.
Turn your air up so it runs less often to save energy.
Turn your ice maker off and if you have a dispenser in your refrigerator door, lock it.
Close blinds/curtains in rooms that face south – it will help keep the house cooler so the air runs even less.
Ask a neighbor to collect your mail so it doesn’t build up.
Lastly, relax! It’s suppose to be vacation after all! ?

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