Attack of the Mini-Posts

Brandon has informed me that I have been seriously slacking in the blogging department. It’s not for lack of blog topics because we have had tons of stuff going on – it’s more about finding the time to sit down and type it all out!

Since I have lots to share and I don’t want to overload everyone with multiple “new post” notifications, I am putting together a few of the posts I’ve been meaning to write … all in one, super fun summary. Enjoy!

Love to Love Valentine’s Day

Unlike my oh-so-romantic husband who thinks Valentine’s Day is a made-up holiday, I love celebrating the ones I love with fun crafts and candy!

This year I continued my owl-themed holidays with my favorite wide-eyed birds on some seriously sweet cards and bags. I started by clearing out the Valentine’s Day aisle at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

I situated myself on the couch with a craft assembly line in front of me and some of my favorite shows on the TV and set to making multiple pink, red and white owl Valentines.

These cute owls bags (from my sister) made for the perfect package for my Valentine’s Day goodies. I put a special V-Day mini Fruit by the Foot in each of the bags as well for a sweet little treat.

Brandon and I kept it simple with a bottle of wine and some quality couch time catching up on our latest TV obsession: “Smallville.” I hope you and yours had a great Valentine’s Day, too!

Race, Love, Wish 2012

Every year, Chi Omega at UCF holds a 5K (Race, Love, Wish) to benefit the sorority’s national philanthropy, Make-A-Wish. Last year a very little Millie had to stay on the sidelines with some sorority girls (who didn’t seem to mind) while Lina and I made our way through the race.

This year, Lina and I are both advisors at UCF, so we were more than happy to support our girls, our sorority and of course, the fabulous Make-A-Wish foundation.

Lina and I kept up a steady walk this year while Millie and Brandon on the other hand ran the entire race! Here they are crossing the finish line.

Out of more than 500 participants, Lina and I took our time and crossed the finish line at 399 and 400. Brandon jogged his way to 219 and we like to say that Millie came in at 218 1/2!

We had a great day and I was so proud of Millie (and Brandon for that matter!) for running the whole thing. I wish I had that kind of endurance!

No. 1 Fan of the No. 1 Fan

We’ve been lucky in that we’ve had a number of Orlando Magic hookups over the past few years and have got to go to a ton of games both in the old Amway Arena and the new, amazing Amway Center.

This past weekend my mom took me to a game courtesy of her work. The day of the game, we found out we had been upgraded to even better seats and dinner in the Mercedes Benz Lounge.

After enjoying our free dinner and drinks, we headed to our seats – fifth row behind the visitor’s bench. It was definitely the closest I’ve ever been to the court during one of the games!

Of course, I wore my Stuff hat and my new “I ♥ Stuff” shirt because I am Stuff’s No. 1 fan (I even dressed up as Stuff for Halloween this year!) and I got some love from the man (err, sort of) himself!

We had so much fun at the game – especially since the Magic pulled out a win at the end – and because I know she reads my blog, I have to give a shout out and THANK YOU to my mom! ♥ you!

Movin’ On Up

We’ve had so much going on the past few weeks, but probably the most exciting thing (for us anyway) is that we put an offer on a house! Yep, BrandAnna has taken the plunge. Like I said in my House Hunting post, I’ve been looking for a while to get the feel of our neighborhood so when something that fit our criteria popped up, we didn’t waste any time before we jumped on it.

It’s a short sale, so unfortunately it could take several months before we’re in our new home and there is always the chance that it could fall through later on, which would be super sad since we really love it. I’ll be posting more updates as the process progresses but here is a look at the front of the house in the mean time.

We’re very excited and I hope to share more news on the house sooner rather than later. For now, we are waiting – and saving – until we hear back from the bank. And although I can’t wait to move … I am dreading packing up all the junk we’ve collected throughout our current house over the past three years. It’ll all be worth it though!

On the Hunt

As if things aren’t crazy enough for us already this year with job changes, extracurricular activities, travel plans and more, Brandon and I added another (huge) activity to our days: house hunting. That’s right, BrandAnna is finally ready to make the move and dive into home ownership!

We’ve been living in our tiny 2/1 in College Park for just a bit more than three years and while we have loved the charm and location of our little place we are ready for something new – something that will be “ours.” We decided we still want to stay in College Park, which is part of the challenge because the area is known for being over-priced and chock full of really old houses that need a lot of extra work.

So far we have looked at a couple houses and are still working toward finding the perfect one for us. While we continue to look, I wanted to share some of the ways I’ve been staying organized and getting inspired for our new house!

I am a list maker. It’s one of the things I have learned to love about myself, I seriously make a list for just about everything. A couple of years ago I found a fabulous holiday shopping Excel template through Microsoft Office online and it started to make me wonder … what other fun templates can I find on the Internet? Well, it turns out they have a myriad of new-home-related Excel sheets in their gallery for everything from house cleaning checklists to refinancing calculators. I found a nifty mortgage payment estimator worksheet that has helped us create a budget and get a good idea of what we can expect for monthly payments. After we plugged in our numbers, we used it to create a price range for our house hunting efforts and when we met with our mortgage broker to iron out all the details, he let us know that we were right on track with a realistic budget.

After we had our budget in place, it was time to start looking for houses! I had heard a lot about Zillow.com and Realtor.com, and while I still use both of those a lot as far as researching houses, a friend from work (and fellow house hunter) told me about MyFloridaHomesMLS.com. A lot of times, other sites aren’t updated as much, but this one always has a better showing of what’s out there as well as more details and pictures. You can enter in your specifics as far as price range, number of beds/baths, square feet, etc. and then the site will come up with an accurate list of available homes as well as information on the type of sale (traditional, short sale, bank-owned) which is sometimes hard to find out right away on the other sites. For us, this website has been a huge help – I started looking in our area early in order to get a feel of the real estate activity in College Park.

When I was planning our wedding, The Knot was my go-to place to find anything and everything bridal-related. Now that we have been married for a few years, the next step as far as The Knot is concerned was moving over to The Nest. I’ve been browsing around this site for a couple of years and can always count on it for useful tips on a bunch of different things like party hosting, exercising, decorating and of course, buying a house! The thing I like so much about The Nest is that it has a lot of articles as well as questions and answers concerning all sorts of different home-buying experiences. When you first start out looking for a house there are so many different factors that you never even thought about, but The Nest articles explain everything in simple terms and even provides downloadable checklists and forms to help you get started and stay organized.

I hope to have a house update sooner rather than later, but in the mean time I am enjoying my research and planning for our potential new home!

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Blog Report: Young House Love (YoungHouseLove.com)

Another place I’ve found a lot of new-home ideas has been the blog Young House Love. The couple that runs this blog is truly an inspiration. They are the type of people that see the potential in a home and work hard to make it their own.

Brandon and I are looking for something that we can mold into the perfect space for us. We aren’t worried about having to do some work (although we aren’t looking to do a complete overhaul) and getting rid of some of our old stuff in order to make our new home everything we want.

This blog is a huge help because it has a ton of photos and even videos that the couple created to help you get through any renovation or design project you may tackle. And I love their projects gallery which is set up by category so it’s easy to find the things you are looking for – or just browse.