Working on a Bucket List

Recently, Tricia asked me what I had in my bucket list. I had always thought of a bucket list as something old people do, but if I wait until I am old how will I get it all done. Unfortunately, I am so practical it has been hard for me to think of items to put on my list so I decided to make it an In-Progress Bucket List. Feel free to make suggestions.

1. Go skydiving
2. Rescue a Dog- DONE!
3. Become a Temple Worker- DONE!
4. Go to France and speak French
5. Learn a third language
6. Visit the Mediterranean
7. Learn to Sew (More than just pajamas)
8. Be in a live studio audience on a TV show
9. Find a really cool antique like on Pickers
10. Volunteer at an animal shelter
11. Run in a 5K. I know this is so wimpy, but I hate running so getting motivated enough to do this would be a huge deal for me.
12. Eat vegetables I grew myself
13. Maintain a flower garden so I can have fresh flowers in my house
14. Have kids

Good Golly Mr. Rolly!

We finally got a dog. I am so excited! He is so much work, but we love him. We actually didn't plan on Rolly though. I knew I wanted to rescue and I was not so much interested in puppy training. We had our sights set on a 2 year old poodle mix named Taz. So Saturday we took a nearly 2 hour trip to go meet Taz. He was being fostered on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Once we got there another dog (a beagle mix) kept following us all around. The foster mom brought out and he was very timid. She said she could tell he had been abused by his previous own and he was lacking confidence. We decided to take him away from all the other dogs to see how he liked us. However, the beagle mix continued to follow us. Eventually the other dog left and I sat down with Taz. Little did I know the beagle mix was sneaking up behind me. They started growling at each other and I went to stand up to break up their fight and Taz bit me. I'm sure he didn't do this on purpose and he was just trying to keep me from the other dog.

We didn't have a lot of requirements for a dog, but we did not want an aggressive one. We don't feel we are equipped to help rehabilitate an aggressive dog and we didn't want to risk it being around our neices and the Wiebers.  So the foster worker asked if we wanted a puppy. She had Pomeranian mixes that had just come in the night before. 6 were gone, but there were 2 boys left. I instantly loved Rolly's attitude. His brother was running around like crazy while he sat there lazily. We played with him for a minute and we decided to get him. It was pretty shocking since we had mulled over Taz for so long, but Rolly was so sweet.

So here we are puppy training. Not so much fun, but Rolly is a good boy (so far). I hope he stays that way. We are following the Dog Whisperer's method and it seems to be going pretty well. Rolly can come and sit already.

Some of you may be wondering about his name. It's pronounced Rawl-Lee. It's short for my maiden name, Rolston. Here are some pics. It is exceedingly difficult to get a puppy to sit still for a picture so they aren't so great.

Our To Do List for the House...

1. Paint all trim
2. Replace all doors
3. Power Wash Deck
4. New Front Door
5. Buy Grill
6. Buy Patio Furniture
7. Redo Master Bath
8. Redo guest path
9. Paint Utility Room Floor
10. Put up Shelves in Utility Room
11. Put in a Murphy Bed in Basement
12. Rip Out Paneling in basement
13. Replace carpet in basement
14. Replace dining room ceiling fan- DONE!
15. Put ceiling fans in bedroom
16. Put new furniture in guest room

and more...

House

So, as most of you have heard we bought a house last month. We are loving it! We have done so much work. Sadly the only before pictures are on John's phone so I don't have those, but I will upload later. I do have some photos from today. The house is a bit messy, but you get the general idea.

It is a 2 bedroom 2.5 bath townhouse with a finished basement. It has an awesome new kitchen and new deck. It's on the small side, but just right for us. We love the neighborhood. It's super quiet and safe so far. Our neighbors are awesome a mowed out lawn for us when we first moved in since we don't have a mower yet.

I feel the need to publish a list of all we did because it makes me feel validated. Ha-ha!

1. New Carpet (Which is awesome and soft!)
2. Painted all of the celings (Tracy and Grandpa Hagedorn came and helped with most of it!)
3. Painted the entire first floor
4. Painted upstairs hallway and both bedrooms
5. Changed light fixtures
6. Painted banisters
7. Painted trim on stairs
8. Currently working on trim in entire house
9. Re-did the closets- This was our biggest project. Lucky Ed came out and did 99% of the work. The closets were pretty weird and the door opening went floor to ceiling and had old metal doors. 2 of the closets didn't have doors. Ed framed them out and drywalled them so we could put up normal sized bifold doors. We also hung new rods in them. I never thought closets would make me so happy. I want to hug them! Thanks Ed!
10. Ripped out the shelving in the utility room
11. Scrubbed basement floor with bleach (twice) because it spelled like cat pee :-(
12. Ripped out drywall in utility room
13. Ripped out a portion of the carpet downstairs that was soiled by cats
14. Filled in drywall holes throughout the house and redid drywall in corner of living room
15. Took down all vents and attic door and re-painted white
16. Took down medicine cabinet in powder room and put up a new mirror
17. Primed master bathroom
18. Ripped out flowers in front yard and discovered a stump which we have to remove :-(
19. Removed bedroom doors and we plan on replacing them but we haven't gotten to it yet. Don't worry the bathrooms still have doors
20. Put a strip of caulking along the baseboards to make the horseshoe molding look more modern.
21. Put caulking around bottoms of windows to make it look better
22. Bought new bedroom furniture. I achieved my dream of owning a sleigh bed!