weekend recap {florida, via instagram}

it’s been a good one so far. ’nuff sad.

hope you’ve enjoyed yours!

{justine}

wheatgrass {a tutorial}

i grew some wheatgrass. because it’s pretty. and you can too! it’s supercalafragalistic easy.

buy some hard red wheat berries. after a tip, i found mine at whole foods in their bulk section. i bought about a pound, and had lots left over.

soak the amount of seeds you think you’ll need (for this project i estimated about a cup, and ended up using only about 1/2 of that) overnight (or for two days because you didn’t have time the next day, like me).

put a layer of rocks on the bottom of your container for drainage.

fill your container with soil almost to the top. i used a mix of regular soil and miracle-gro seed starting soil, with the miracle-gro filling the top half. slightly wet the soil.

cover the top of the soil with the seeds.

cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil. lightly water.

several times  a day (about three) mist with water. in a few days you should start to see sprouts. then watch the grass grow like crazy from there.

{day 3}

{day 7}

{day 13}

every couple days give the grass a haircut for a nice, trim look.

{day 13, post haircut}

fresh, colorful, easy, cheap. just how i like it.

(and don’t you just die over the pots? ikea!)

{justine}

p.s. i am off to florida tomorrow! and then i move! so i’ll probably by mia for the next week, i know you’ll miss me (but maybe i’ll find time to share a couple pics here and there).

my goal for vacation is to be completely relaxed and stressed free,  not thinking about work or moving. and not gaining back the 6.5 pounds i’ve lost — that’s right, i am only .5 lbs away from my vacation goal weight! maybe when i weigh in tomorrow i will have officially reached it…we’ll see. either way i’m happy at my progress.

have a good memorial day weekend!

weekend recap {cardboard jungle}

the last weekend between me and the beach is over! it was a busy, productive one. lots and lots of packing, patching holes and getting a window fixed. it wasn’t all work and no play though, we did find time to enjoy a delicious al fresco dinner saturday night at an italian restaurant a short walk away (and i proceeded to leave my amazing leftovers at the restaurant. devastation).

this is the most boring weekend recap…sorry. i did take photos though to show the state of my home:

{the downside of gallery walls? patching the holes.}

{our ghetto window until wednesday}

{the lids are packed}

{heaven help me}

{hold me. i’m frightened. such a chaotic mess with a whole lotta crap.}

despite all those boxes, i still feel like there’s so. much. to. do. i’m not enjoying the cardboard jungle we’re living in and will be so glad when our move is over. and maybe then i’ll have more exciting things to share, huh?

did you have a much more exciting weekend than i? please share so i can live vicariously through you…

{justine}

the news

life has been pretty crazy lately. i don’t handle crazy well. crazy life = stressed, emotional, tired, bitchy justine. but so far i’m not divorced and my dog still loves me. so there’s that.

as you may know (if you’ve been reading), we put our condo on the market in january. as you may also know (if you are alive), the real estate market sucks for selling. in the four months our home has been on the market, we’ve had three showings, zero offers and zero feedback. which surprised/disappointed us, because, obviously, we think our home kicks ass (what homeowner doesn’t?).

we were hoping to buy a single family home to fix up. since last august, we’ve been scouring the mls for a house to buy. we looked at countless houses and found three we wanted to buy, two of which we put offers on, and zero that went any further due to our selling contingency.

we were constantly asking ourselves “how long will it take to sell our place? how much money will we lose?” we weren’t willing to wait forever but we weren’t willing to take a large loss as we technically didn’t have to sell. so we were stuck. we could of course always stay in our place, but we have been here, in a one bedroom, for four years and are in need of more space. especially since ryan works at home and we would like our family to be more comfortable when they visit.

our other option was renting our place out. after debating back and forth we decided to list our condo for rent on craigslist to see what happened. what happened was within three hours we had three viewings scheduled and even more emails to answer. over the next few days we had about seven couples/individuals come to see our place. after sending out applications, we decided on one couple to take care of our baby move in.

problem? we had a couple who needed to sign a lease on our place so they knew they had a place to live in three weeks and we had no place to live ourselves. we hadn’t found a house we wanted to buy, and further, we weren’t sure we would be living downtown for five more years (like our original plan) so it didn’t really make sense to buy still. so began the obsessive, frantic search for an apartment to rent and the most stressful time of my life (in recent memory). i haven’t rented since college, and ever in chicago, so i had no idea what was out there. um, ew. the majority of places available for rent are not updated and dirty. and the majority of nice decent places do not accept dogs.

i thought we were never going to find an acceptable apartment. i obsessively checked craigslist every couple hours to see if new places popped up. i googled every variation of ‘apartments for rent in chicago’ and went through every site listed to try to find more options. didn’t the real estate market suck? surely there were other homeowners who took good care of their place (you know, cleaned it) and needed to rent it out. but i never found them.

in the end we did find an apartment through my obsessive craigslist stalking. it’s nowhere near perfect and i had a hard time pulling the trigger, hoping for something closer to perfect, but there wasn’t, at least in the limited time we had to look. pros: good location, new kitchen and appliances, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, dining room, a basement for storage and a patio. cons: the extreme lack of kitchen cabinets and counter space, small bedrooms (typical of older chicago buildings), longer walk to the el than we would like, bathrooms that are…questionable (we’ll see how they clean up) and no grass/mulch  in the outdoor space for beck. and neither of us can remember if there’s hardwoods or carpet in the bedrooms (hoping for hardwoods).

so i guess all that was a long way of saying the news is we’re moving. in t-minus 12 days. exactly one day after we get back from a six day vacation. we have to be 98% packed ive days from now so that when we get off the plane from florida we can pack the remaining 2% and clean away four years of dust and dirt (not like we don’t clean, but, you know, a deep clean. under the couch clean). then start moving at 7am as the renters are moving into our condo at 10am.

to sum it up, we put our place on craigslist, found renters and found a place to live, all in a week.  and had/have a total of less than a month to pack up and move, with family visiting and a vacation in the mix (and not to mention being crazy at work). so i’m a crazy lady. but it will be worth it. double the space, and i. get. to. decorate!

tgif and have a great weekend! can you guess my plans? they involve lots of cardboard and packing tape…

{justine}

p.s. it is bittersweet to leave our first place. i remember how crazy it was to become homeowners (at the ages of 22 and 23 no less), it was such an adventure. it where we brought beck home to. where we returned to after getting married. our first tiling job. the great neighbors. and man, i’m going to miss our washer and dryer (our first purchase after our wedding. it was a glorious day to get rid of the dryer that randomly ruined clothes). but, i. get. to. decorate! (and have more blog posts!)