Kitchen Renovation

Since we have had so many projects going on in our new home, I thought I'd write about a few of them.  This was the first big project we tackled.... (Joe and family mainly--but I provided a lot of additional prego support!)

As you can see we started out with some very lovely wall paper, curtains and an array of flooring types for one room.  The eating area of our kitchen was industrial carpeting where the rest was vinyl.  We figured with little nugget on the way, the carpet/flooring needed to go!  So we took on our first ever tiling project with a lot of help from the dads :)

We also stripped quite a bit of wallpaper along the way!  It was vinyl, so the actual wallpaper came off easily...the glue was another story!!  We scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed!!

We also decided to forgo the lovely window treatments seen below.  This is my dad helping out :o)

Mom pitched in as well for some wallpaper stripping fun!!

We finally got the wallpaper down (glue was still another story) and floor laid.  Here is just before we grouted the floor.

This is just after the grout was done and we painted our walls a new lovely sea foam green.  I love it.  We used Clark and Kensington paints through out our new house so far.  It got amazing reviews on consumer reports and went on very easily!  Very reasonable too!!  We decided to take off all the lovely brass hardware that was in the middle of the cupboards and filled in the holes.  The previous owner was a painter so he saved paint to match every surface of the house, so luckily we had the exact color we needed to touch up our cupboards.  Thanks to my Uncle, we also installed new lighting in almost every room of the house.  Really updated things!!

Here is our kitchen "nook" area.  We hung this industrial pendent light we got at Home Depot and got some new curtains a la Target :o)  I still am looking for some new chairs for this room--these chairs actually go with a different table, but they serve the purpose for now.  I would like to get thrifted chairs and paint them all a fun color to liven up the space.  Can't wait to hit up some flea markets this summer for that!!

We finally added some nice new silver knobs to our doors, but I don't have a picture of that quite yet.  But its finally all coming together!!  Onto many more projects!!

Whirlwind Year!!

So I realize I am not great about updating my blog...but I think I will try to start this up again!  I have so many things going on that would be lovely to blog about...and yet I do not make the time.  So here it goes.

I was recently talking to my dearest friend about the craziness of my life over this past year and was amazed with all that has happened...therefore I will do a little recap.

One year ago, I just got back from Arizona on a "spring break trip" with my parents and their foreign exchange student--Minsu.  We had a great time.  At that time, Joe was student teaching in Stillman Valley, coaching baseball, and we were living in an apartment.

This is me and my parents in Sedona

Shortly after returning home, Joe and I decided we would move into a friend's home that they had decided to rent out.  We were so excited!  More space of our own and a fenced in yard for Elsie!!  We moved the end of April and week we moved, Joe was also offered two teaching jobs.  Joe accepted his first teaching job at Rockford Christian teaching HS Science.  The Lord provides and were were so grateful!!

Our charming little rental house on James Ave....swoon

We enjoyed summer in our new house, spent lots of great time with friends, went to Lake Geneva, etc. It was a great summer.  Joe played softball with friends and we even had a garden in our back yard.  I officially am great at growing zucchini!  School started for Joe in August and he is a great teacher!  Things got off to a great start.  Then we added some more excitement to our lives!

We are having a new addition to our home... expecting a baby May 25!!

So this got us really thinking about the future and start saving $$!!  Time to figure out where we want to live more long term.  So save we did. 

Then Joe's sister got married in December up in Michigan...we had a great time at the wedding...and I still fit into my bridesmaids dress (had to order a bigger size!)

When we got back from Michigan we had our 20 week ultrasound....

We are having a girl!

So we decided to start looking for a house.  This was next on our agenda.  So one weekend in January, we went with my parents and looked at 7 houses in one day...and fell in love with one particular house.  We put an offer in on the house the following day and it was accepted a few days later {after quite a stressful week!} Praise the Lord!!

The new Mullikin Home

We just closed on our new house on March 1st and have already done so many projects in our new house.  We painted 6 rooms and the hallways and put tile flooring in our kitchen and various other projects along the way.  This weekend I have a baby shower and Joe's family is coming to stay with us.  Its hard to believe in just a year so much has happened!  We are feeling very blessed and excited to welcome our new bundle of joy into this world!! 

Although it has been a crazy whirlwind of a year, it has made me so grateful for all I have.  We have so many wonderful friends and family that have supported us and cheered us on this past year through all these new adventures!!  Life is truly an adventure and I'm so grateful to share this adventure with my best friend, Joe. 

Stinky dog!!

So now that we are in this new lovely house with a yard, Elsie is loving life to the max! She wants to be outside pretty much all the time, and when she is inside she is sleeping because of all the action she has and outside. She runs in big circles in her new fancy fenced in yard and sniffs every square inch of the place. Her favorite outdoor activity of course is finding the stinkiest little spots in the yard and rolling over and over again in them. She starts out by sniffing... Then she will paw at it a little then roll on her back and wiggle wiggle wiggle. Tonight was her fourth bath in a week and a half!!! We are running out of dog shampoo and I think she may have some dry skin soon. So tomorrow my lovely husbands mission is to find some doggy wipes or spritzes we can use in between baths.

Here is Elsie after tonight's bath. She was a little chilly!

crazy ikea trip and failed dinner

So today Joe and I decided to take a little trip to Ikea after work... since living in our new home, I have decided to get a few new things to make the place feel more like our own.  We have had this chair from Ikea for almost three years (since we got married), and it has seen better days!! So we got a lovely new cover for it in red, and now its good as new!! Hurray.  We also got some new window treatments... all in all, I believe I was much more enthused about the trip than the hubby was...but he sucked it up and still drove me there and back... I am grateful.

Oh we also got a new bed skirt...I had a little mishap with our last one before moving.  I decided I would be a good little cleaner and wash my bedskirt before we moved so by the time we got to the new place I could just throw on my nice clean skirt... well despite what the directions on the bedskirt said... after placing it in the dryer, the polyester in the platform portion of the skirt melted thus rendering the bed skirt useless!  Wah wah... So now we have a new one and it is 100% cotton!  Woo hoo!!

We also got these little lovelies for our windows.. hurray and hurray!  Now to get it all put together!!

After Ikea I came home and decided to make this orange chicken stuff that we had picked up at the grocery store.  Its one of those things that you like stir fry and add sauce, make your rice and you're good to go... or so I thought.  I spent 40 minutes... yes you read that right...just trying to make my stinkin' rice!! I finally gave up on regular rice and used "boil in the bag" rice...  craziness...and then the food ended up being kinda bland...so we added siracha sauce.... all in all it was an epic fail!!  My rice ended up looking much more like oatmeal or grits...oh well.  Next time I cook I'm sure it will be MUCH better :o) Live and learn... I think I need a rice cooker!  What a day!

Yay. Moving progress

Here is day too of the move! We are making progress! My family and joes parents have been so helpful with all the cleaning and unpacking. And the amazing Jessi was like cleaning super woman today and I am so grateful!!!!

Moving day

We are moving tomorrow! So excited! So much room to entertain and for Elsie to run around!

Below is the house and the cute little mural I sadly painted over... Sorry Luke Uran!

Our move is almost here!

Only 10.05 days until we move into this lovely abode and I cannot wait... if you couldn't tell by my countdown!  We have been living in limbo as I have been packing since we found out we moved and I think it is starting to take a toll on my health ha ha.  My sleeping is so out of wack, and I'm starting to believe that it is due to this "unsettled-ness" in our current apartment.  Our dog, Elsie, is confused by all of the boxes as well and isn't sleeping through the night... maybe I'm stressing her out!  I just have something built in me to have things organized and in its place...and currently things are far from that!  I have a baby gift for a friend, but just realized all of my wrapping paper is already at our new place in a box!! 

In my garage, I currently have lots and lots of boxes, 2 bikes, tools of various sorts, and our "new to us" washer and dryer.  I'm getting to the point where I can't pack much more until right before we move...but we're getting there!  I had to repaint all of our walls in the apartment white before we moved out, so I finally finished that this last weekend.  Joe commented he thinks our apartment might echo a little more than it used to with nothing on the walls.  Crazy.

We are feeling so blessed to have the opportunity to rent this cute little place from our friends this coming year!  It will be a perfect transition out of our apartment and give our little poochie, Elsie, a little more room to stretcher legs in her very own fenced in back yard to boot!!

One Thousand Gifts

I realize I have not blogged in quite a while, so I think I will take a swing at it again.  I want to share a book with everyone that I would highly recommend.  Jessi and I have been reading it, and I feel like it has been relatively life changing.  It is called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  It is a wonderful read.  I love the way Ann writes the whole book.  It is about living a life of thanksgiving--she challenges the reader to start a journal as she did and start a list of "gifts" that God has given us that we may not see in our everyday life.  The goal is to start looking for the little things in life that we can be grateful for--from the smell of freshly cut grass, to a great conversation with a friend...things that may otherwise go on unnoticed.

She quotes John Piper and states that moving the ink across the page opens up the eyes, that he may not understand how it sheds light, focuses its lens, but he only knows, "There are eyes in pencils and pens. " There is something about writing down what we are truly grateful for that makes us appreciate it more--Ann states its like "unwrapping God's gifts" to us.

Jessi and I have been keeping little "gratitude journals" or journals of all of the things we have been given as gifts.  We were discussing how easy it is to find little gifts in days off work, or days that are beautiful out, but becomes a little more challenging at work, in the midst of stress of every day life.  That has been my challenge...to look for gifts in these times as well.

Yesterday I was able to go to Chicago with my hubby and meet up with Jessi and Luke Uran to go to the Need to Breathe concert and out for dinner.  It was so wonderful to spend time with great friends and enjoy wonderful music!!  Lots of gifts were received!!  I am so grateful...

Today I am leaving for Arizona with my parents and their foreign exchange student, Minsu, and am looking forward to a week of seeing God's little gifts in my life.  Its amazing when you start looking for the things we can be thankful for, it really does change your whole outlook on life!!

stresses of life

So life has taken a little crazy turn as of late!!

First of all, Joe has been having stomach issues since this past July, and has lost about 35 lbs due to it. The last couple weeks he has not really been able to eat at all, and finally got in to both a primary care doctor and a gastro doctor. The gastro doctor put him on a liquid only diet, so he has just been drinking ensure. He had a CT scan yesterday and will have an endoscopy on Tuesday in Rockford, with a follow up appointment with the gastro on Thursday. So we are very anxious to get some answers. Its been really hard having him not feel good and not being able to eat. we are very anxious to having him feel back to normal soon!! Prayers are appreciated!!

Second... Joe is being trasnfered to ATI in Rockford, which is very exciting for us because we'd love to be closer to my parents and I would also have to travel a little less for my job as well since I'm based out of Rochelle and see patients in Rockford. So now we're trying to figure out how we can get out of the apt we are currently in. Joe is to start in Rockford the beginning of December, but to break our lease it would cost $3000 or we can find someone to sub-let it. So that is what we are trying to do. We will see. It is sure hard to just be patient tho and trust that God will carry us through this. I hate not knowing what is going on. We don't want to find a place up there until we know that we have someone to live here...so if you know of anyone looking for an apt. in Aurora, let us know!!! Its such a nice apt, we really love it, I just wish I could move it to Rockford with us!!

Other than that I am loving my job and we are having lots of fun with Elsie. She has a little cone on now cause she had surgery and keeps trying to lick her stitches. I feel so bad for her ha ha. But she has been a great companion for us!! Good stress reliever when we are stressed out!! Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!

my new job so far :o)

So I am loving my new job at Unity Hospice. I feel like I"m still getting into the swing of things, but since I am working with my friend Brittany, its wonderful to work along side her and kinda pick up things as I go. I was working at both Unity and the Coach Outlet, but finally had to quit at Coach. It was just too much to do both. So my last day was Monday at Coach and I'm so relieved to just be working one job now.

Tomorrow Elsie is having surgery (she has to be spayed) so I'm hoping that goes well and this weekend we're going to Rockford for the weekend to be with mom and dad. Our friends Dan and Kristin just got married in Florida and are having their reception in Rockford this weekend as well so we will be going to that :o)

Joe has been not feeling so great lately, so we're hoping we can get him feeling better very soon. Why does it have to be so difficult to get into a doctor!? Right now we are both in limbo with primary care doctors, what a pain!!

new job!

I got a new job! I will be working at Unity Hospice which is based out of Rochelle, IL, as a full time social worker. I am so excited to start!! This kinda fell into my lap because I had applied to this place (Unity Hospice) back in June and they wanted to interview me the week I was on my honeymoon and I said I could after I was back. Well by the time I was back they had hired someone and it turned out to be a good friend of mine from Grad school!! So now there is someone part time retiring and they are replacing her with someone full time cause the caseload is so big, so my friend emailed me right away and asked if I'd be interested and the people already knew who I was because of calling me before. So I interviews and they hired me on the spot which was great. I will be starting on Oct 13th and will have half of the district as my case load and my friend Brittany will have the other half. I will be traveling a lot but be able to meet with families in their homes and at nursing homes. It will be great! I can't wait to start. God is good :o)

Elsie

Joe and I have his sister, Carrie, and her boyfriend, Keith, here for the weekend and we've had a great time so far. We even got a new puppy!! Her name is Elsie and she is a little daschund puppy. We are in love :o)

busy and blessed!

Its been a while so I figured I'm due for an update. Life has been a little insane lately and today I finally have a day to catch up! I have been juggling working at both Marianjoy Hospital as a Registry Case Manager and also picked up a part time job at Coach Outlet as well, so I have been very busy between the two!! Joe is enjoying his job, and has gotten involved at Harvest Bible Chapel which has been great. My schedule has been funny though lately, so I feel I haven't been able to spend as much time with Joe as I wish I could!

This weekend I have Saturday off (HURRAY!!) and Joe's sister, Carrie, is coming to visit with her boyfriend for the weekend! I am really looking forward to having her here and just having some "fun time" together!

I have also started training for a 10K run in November. I am pretty excited about it. Running has been really therapeutic for me! I love it. I am up to 5 miles and tomorrow I am running 6 miles. It seems to be getting easier which is a really good thing :o)

We also recently joined a "Newly Married Couples" small group through Harvest and are really enjoying getting to fellowship with others our age! Its been such a blessing to have friends who can relate to exactly what we're going through and the stress of "just starting out." Its been a huge blessing to Joe and me. We have our small group tonight...I can't wait.

Well that about sums up life for us right now. Joe has been wonderful to help me balance the jobs and helping out around the apartment, I definitely have a wonderful husband! I am blessed :o)

best hubby ever

So I have the best husband ever... I haven't been sleeping well lately, so I decided to take a nap after church. Joe called me and woke me up from my nap (I didn't even know he wasn't in our apt) and said that he went to get groceries and needed my help bringing them in if I could come downstairs and help him. So I went out to his car, and SURPRISE! he got me a new Schwinn bike! I love it. I had an amazing bike in college and it was stolen, so now I finally have a bike again to ride. We took a couple of bike rides today and are looking forward to finding some new bike paths to ride on :o)

Mom and Dad came to town yesterday and went to the outlet malls with us, for dinner and to church. It was great to see them. Its so nice that they are close enough to buzz in for the evening :o) Its been a good weekend.

Now if only I could sleep, work will come early tomorrow morning!!

the job front and life in general

So i guess i haven't posted on here for a while. Life has been good, just busy as always! I was in my wonderful friend Becca's wedding on my birthday, August 8th, and then this past weekend Joe and I went to starved rock to go hiking for the day and my parents ended up meeting up with us. It was great.

On the job front:

Joe just started his new job about a week and a half ago at ATI physical therapy and is loving it. I'm so happy. He is planning on going back to school for physical therapy and will start applying for schools shortly. On my end, work at Marianjoy Hospital is great, I love it, although its an on call job and I have been wishing I had more hours. Time will tell, I'm just grateful I have something at this point, and am trying to remind myself of how fortunate we are to have jobs at all right now...

John is back at school now and my parents are back to life without children at home. John's girlfriend Kelsey will be going to school in the same town as John, and just moved to school today. Lots of changes! Mom just started inservice for her year and Dad is busy as always at work. :o)

Joe and I have also been looking at other churches in the area. We have LOVED our home church, Springbrook, but are hoping to meet more Christian friends our age. The last 2 weeks we have gone to Harvest Bible in Naperville and have loved it. It is a totally small world. I have run into so many friends from Rockford that are now attending the church and living in the area. Its been great. Fun to catch up with old friends. God knows where is best for us :o)

I'm Employed!!

This week has been a good week!  Tuesday I had a phone interview with Marionjoy Rehab Hospital in Wheaton, IL and then was asked to come in for another interview today, Thursday, for a Case Management position there.  Today I went in for the interview and they hired me on the spot.  It went so well.  They are trying to speed up the hiring process, so I will be starting on this coming Tuesday already!  It is an on-call position, so I will be getting paid hourly, but it is EXCELLENT pay, so I'm happy, and they said I will have lots of hours!  So that is not a concern at all.  Also, it is a great way to get my foot in the door for a full time, salaried position at the hospital.  I can't wait to start :o) 

Thank you for all your prayers :o) 

This weekend Joe and I will be heading back to Rockford for our friends Becky and Ben's wedding.  I am a bridesmaid in the wedding and am excited to celebrate with my friends.  Never a dull moment this summer!  Weddings galore!

This coming week Joe and I are also babysitting for 3 wonderful kids of our close friends.  Always something going :o) 

The picture above is from last weekend.  Becky and I went to visit Cherith who lives downtown now for some quality girl time :o)  Becky (in the middle) is my friend who is getting married this weekend!

Have a great weekend!

Job search & 4th of July festivities

Still no job... looking for a job is not a fun thing to do in this economy.  Hopefully one will turn up soon.  For now its been lots of applying, handing out resumes, and keeping the apartment clean.  I feel like the second there is any dirty laundry I'm doing another load, just to keep myself busy.  I think that is a definite sign I need a job :o)  So I'd appreciate any prayers for that!  

This last weekend we went to see fireworks in Chicago with our friends Bill and Coty which was a lot of fun, and this coming weekend I'm going to Rockford on Friday for a friends Bachelorette party, Joe has a wedding in Michigan on Saturday, and I'm going to Chicago for some girl time with Cherith and Becky.  Never a dull moment :o)  

Happy 4th...just an update

This week has been a little discouraging.  Looking for a job has not been so much fun, and I'm missing friends from Rockford and my family.  Hopefully I'll feel more at home around here soon.  Joe and I are going downtown tomorrow for fireworks with friends though which will be fun and then heading back to Rockford on Saturday to be with my family :o)

In other news, our wedding pictures are up on Ryan Timm's site. 

You can see them by going to: http://www.ryantimmphotography.com/index2.php

Click on Clients in the lower left hand corner

Enter password: JL061309

Enjoy your 4th of July weekend!!

Life as a Wife

The honeymoon is over...it is back to reality.  We had a wonderful wedding though and it was great to see family and friends.  We had a fun time in Jamaica as well.  Now we're back home and trying to get used to "married life."  It has been kinda a challenging start to marriage since I've been busy looking for a job and Joe is hoping to go back to school at the end of the summer.. I know it will come together, its just hard to have patience.  :o)  

This last weekend we went to our first friends wedding as a married couple, it was kinda fun.  It was a strange feeling to be beyond the wedding planning point and to be enjoying someone else's.  :o) 

Pictures are not posted on the photographers website yet from our wedding, but he does have pictures posted on his blog.  They turned out amazing.  I can't wait to see the rest of them!! 

Well I'm off to do laundry and clean.  Always something to do.