Those Corwins » Stress Monster

When I have nothing to blog about, I blog about the dogs

Steph — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:19:20 +0000

subtitle: I spend more on the dogs than my husband
sub-subtitle: the post that Morgan will skip over because it talks about pets

I adore etsy to no end. I love the idea of supporting individuals instead of companies, and most often, the items on there are so adorable. Really it’s impossible not to find something you love and that’s exactly what you are looking for.

The other weekend I was looking for some replacement dog tags since Maisie had managed to lose hers. And I found these adorable tags from Urban Puppy. I fell in love, but knew we had a problem: Brodie is a boy. And no boy of mine was going to be walking around with a heart on his tag. He’s a man’s man. So I messaged the seller asking if she could do a more “boyish” tag for Brodie. And she did. And they are awesome:

Two custom dog tags from Urban Puppy

A picture of Maisie. Just because LOOK HOW CUTE!

And Brodie too!

This is only a small portion of the insane shopping I’ve been doing lately to cope with my angst over busy season. I’m thinking it’s time for some form of intervention, otherwise I might as well buy my own franchise of Pier 1, Bath and Body Works, and maybe even a Fry’s while I’m at it. But if anyone needs some Nectarine Mint hand soap, I think I have about three in our guest bathroom. Don’t judge. They smell like heaven.

And we’re home

Steph — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:46:53 +0000

It’s not home until there are some puppy kisses

We moved. Our lives were packed in boxes and moving in between two houses starting Wednesday of last week until this morning. (yes drawn out and painful).

And I’m TIRED. But we’re in our new home. Enjoying the ability to stretch out and getting used to all this space we now have to breathe.

One hundred thousand thanks to my mom, sister, and brother who came up for Thanksgiving this weekend, but got roped into cleaning the old house and moving a few straggling items. And all the help that came from Cale’s family in the heavy lifting and car swapping. Seriously who would think it took all that just to move out of a tiny little cottage?! Yikes.

So tell me, how was your Thanksgiving?

P.S. I don’t miss the old house so much after scrubbing behind the washing machine.

Commencing Anxiety, Stress, and Wine Consumption

Steph — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:10:21 +0000

There is one thing I’ve dreamed about for a while now. And that is space. More space. To breathe. To leave my shoes on the floor without the guarantee that I will trip on them. To be able to do a cartwheel through the living room should I have the desire (or the ability). Don’t get me wrong. I adore our little one bedroom cottage. So much so that I will most definitely take a ridiculous amount of pictures of it before we leave, lay down on the carpet, and cry an eensy bit. I’ll miss the teal tile in the kitchen (no joke there, I kind of adore it. I even mentioned that when we own our own house, I want to install some. Cale may or may not have thought I had gone insane). I’ll miss the picket fence. I’ll miss our little gravel road, the big tree in the backyard, my front garden, the brick patio we laid ourselves, and the cozy little rooms.

But in the dream of more space, I started browsing Craiglist for two bedroom houses to rent. I had no expectations of finding anything. Clearly it was a far reaching dream: two bedrooms, a big backyard, a detached house, in Sunol, with lots of trees and nature, all for only a little bit more than our already ridiculously-amazingly-low rent for the Bay Area. Who was I kidding? Impossible.

Apparently not. There it was. Two bedroom, overlooking Cale’s favorite golf course. Of course the rent was quite a bit higher than what we wanted to pay, but with utilities included, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least look at it. Horrible horrible idea. We both fell in love. Cale’s eyes went so wide looking at all the space. You would have thought it was a mansion. I liked it a lot, but wasn’t sure how I felt about the added cost. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that the added expense really wasn’t worth it. So we put it out of our minds (as much as we could).

Then a couple weeks ago, I left for training. And waiting for me when I landed was an email from the landlord saying they were going to lower the rent, and since they were really keen on us, wanted to know if we would be interested. What a wonderful distraction when I’m all the way in Arizona! Cale was a trooper fielding all my questions, videotaping a detailed tour of the house so I could envision how we could make it work and ironing out all the details. You would think that I was on board right off the back, but I really wavered. We have had such a wonderful experience with our current landlords and cottage. What if it wasn’t as good? Do we want to spend the extra money? But over the week, I became convinced. We both canceled our gym memberships to offset the additional rent. When I got back home, we met the landlords at the house again, and finalized all the details.

So over Thanksgiving, instead of stuffing ourselves and taking a nap, I’ll be busy painting and Cale will be moving our things to the new house. To say that my stress levels at the moment are high, is a drastic understatement.

goodbye our little gravel road

sidenote: If you have our current address, we will be keeping our Post Office Box, so there will be no changes there.