Strawberry Pie

Today our church had it's first "Summer Round Up". There was a chili cook-off and a pie contest. I was excited to have an excuse to make a pie, so I decided to make one.

I have a recipe from a friend (Janna) for a Blueberry Cream Pie. It's absolutely fantastic. Last year we used the recipe to make a blueberry pie and also tried it as a peach pie.

Now that strawberries are perfect in Michigan, I decided to try out the recipe with strawberries.

Last night I baked a pie crust. It was the prettiest one I've every made (which doesn't take much)! Wasn't perfect, but was waaay better than pie crusts I've done before.

Well, the church thing was tonight, so during my lunch break I went to the Farmer's Market, got some Visser Farms freshly picked strawberries, booked it home, ate a quick lunch and then prepared my pie filling. It didn't really have time to cool completely, but I finished it, filled the pie and booked it back to work.

Once I got done with work and booked it back home. I didn't have time to put the topping on the pie, so I gathered up what I needed and headed to church.

Once at church I topped the pie and added some little mint leaves for decoration to make it pretty. The mint leaves freaked a few people out since they made it into their slices of pie... Oh well.

Anyway, long story short, the pies were being judged. I didn't really expect much because our church BREEDS pie makers. I swear. They are all amazing in the kitchen, especially in the pie arena of food-dom.

Well... Apparently the judges were craving some fresh fruit, because they (and a lot of other people) loved my pie!

It was great hearing all of their compliments. Chris is excellent in the kitchen, but I tend to be a little bit more...still learning. I think I fit well into the baking, whereas Chris fits well into the cooking. A nice complement of each other. Anyway, I'm used to Chris getting compliments for what he makes, so it was really exciting for me to have made something that everyone seemed to love so much.

So thanks, North Holland church members!

I didn't have my camera with me, so these are from my cell phone:

Hiatus

Okay, okay, it's been far too long since I posted ANYTHING.

Pretty much about the time we were moving into our new house, my work hours got crazy for a few weeks. Then I got back to normal at work for a short period and then this past month has been largely overwhelming. Most days I would feel like people didn't realize that I was only one person, but I've made it through most of my list! Now my position is transitioning and hopefully in the next few weeks I can ease into a better groove.

The one unfortunate thing about my job is I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer (the entire day), so when I get home and the weather is nice, it's hard to sit down in front of my computer some more. I'd say that's pretty healthy to want to be outside, but I know y'all miss me. All two of you.

I have yet to take real pictures of the house (we finally have it pretty well furnished, now it just comes down to getting stuff on the walls, moving the piano in and maybe a few side tables and file cabinets here and there), but hope to soon.

In other news, the garden is planted, our back porch is always rotating with new potted plants (Chris brings them home from his parents greenhouse for clients, so they sit on our porch until he installs them), we have a lawn mower so I can be more pro-active about mowing, we've met the neighbors on three sides of the house (need to do a grill out to meet the rest, I think), um... Yeah. Basically we've been keeping busy!

I will do my best to actually get some pictures up here soon. The camera memory card I'm sure is filling up anyway, so I'll have to empty it here!

Closing Next Week!

The family who currently owns our new home found a house and have set a closing date with us!

Next week Thursday (the 25th) we'll be signing mounds of paper and making the first of many payments. The current homeowners will most likely be out by Saturday and then the moving begins!

We don't really have much to pack, because most of our stuff is in boxes other than the stuff we use everyday. So...not sure if moving will go smoothly or will be chaos. It doesn't matter...we're excited to move in!

Back to Savings

Since we currently live with my folks, I've kept my Savings Angel account, but most often just give my mom money to help pay for groceries and she does the coupon thing.

However, since Chris and I will soon be moving, we are trying to take advantage of some sales before we move in so that our pantries are not completely bare.

So today we went shopping! Got a few basics... drugs for the medicine cabinet (those can get expensive, so we stocked up on some good deals!), oatmeal for lots of breakfasts, kleenex, womanly products, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc.

Looking at my receipts, I think we did a good job. I had a little bit of a hard time figuring out my totals with the Rite Aid receipt - they don't break it down with the instore savings like everyone else does. But, here's my best calculations on what we did:

SPENT: $107.89
SAVED: $86.68


Good job us!

House Status

So we settled on a price last week. We had the home inspector come in on Tuesday and check out the house for us. He had actually inspected the house 9 years ago when it was a foreclosed home and the current couple who lives there bought it.

He was very impressed by the house and explained to us how blessed we are to be getting this home as our first house, not only because of the quality but also a good neighborhood. To our benefit, the current owner is in construction, so all of the fixer-uppers that he did were done on a very high-quality professional level. Great for us!

Everything looked great except for very low levels carbon monoxide. Our inspector said you'll start getting a headache at 30 parts per million and the highest this was getting was 6. However, he recommended we have the furnace inspected. So Chris is meeting with a furnace inspector at the house tomorrow to just check things out and see what we're looking at. Meanwhile I'll be at the dentist - hopefully no cavities.

After we're both done with our respective appointments we'll head to the bank and start sorting out that whole mortgage loan thing. Definitely don't look forward to signing up for such a loan, but I take comfort in the fact that we have no car debt, no credit cards, and the only loans we have are student loans. Plus, with the help of the tax return we'll receive for buying a house, we should hopefully be able to pay off the student loans within a couple more years! I know, that seems like a long time, but that's waaaay better than the proposed finish date that the loan holders give. Once the student loans are paid off, we'll be able to add more to the emergency fund (you Dave Ramsey followers know what I'm talking about) and push harder on paying down the mortgage.

Speaking of Dave Ramsey, Chris won tickets to go see Dave Ramsey tomorrow night in Grand Rapids! So... we're excited to check out that live event. Should be a good motivation to kick in that gazelle intensity again. Don't get me wrong, we budget very well, but it's always good to re-motivate to push a little harder.

Then Friday when I get home from work, Chris, my mom and I will all hop in the car and head to Findlay, Ohio to meet up with my dad. We'll check out the office he's been working in and...well...that'll be about it because I won't get home until after 5 and it takes a few hours to get there. Then Saturday morning all four of us will pile into a car and make the long trip to Pennsylvania. We'll stay with my Aunt Sandy (I'll get some good herbal recipes from her while I'm there) and then Sunday meet up with the rest of the East Coasters of the family for a celebration of my grandma's 78th birthday. I'm excited to see the relatives - we couldn't make it out to the last wedding because I was standing up in one here in town. We don't see that side of the family that often. Then Monday morning we'll load back into the car and make the trip home!

So the other day I went to the library and loaded up on some books and DVDs for the long drive (did y'all realize it's free rentals at the library for DVDs? Just FYI in case you didn't know... Good money saving entertainment!). My podcast I listen to (PotterCast, for those of you that are crazy Harry Potter fans - hey, podcasts are a nice way to pass time when you're working on a long project) was talking about Avatar, the Last Airbender, so I checked out the 3 seasons they had at the library. It's funny, 'cause when I was in LA for a semester, I actually interviewed at Nickelodeon to work on this show as an intern. Unfortunately I didn't get the gig, but I ended up at Film Roman, which was still interesting, just not in the area I was actually looking to study.

Anyway...I think that sums up the current status of my life.

I'm excited to get out of the basement and into a house. Once Chris and I have the keys to the place, I'll invite y'all over. But you might have to take your own chairs, 'cause we have almost no furniture. Living with my parents for over a year, Chris and I got rid of our old used couches. At the house we'll have two rooms that need couches. We do have a dining room table and a bed. And we definitely have a pretty well stocked kitchen (at least in regards to pots, pans, utensils and spices). Food... well... I need to get back into the Savings Angel thing and start stocking up on stuff so we don't have completely barren pantries when we move.

If you've made it this far into the post, I congratulate you for reading so much.