The Debt Monster

Alright Friends, it has been over a year since I gave an update on how our loan payoff is going. We have been working on paying off our loans for just over a year now, and I am happy to say things are going well! We got a HUGE bump in out ability to pay off loans--I mean, really, it was nothing short of a miracle.

As stated in previous posts, David applied for loan repayment through WA State as well as through a National program. Last summer we found out we did not get either. To say we were bummed was understatement. However, in February, David got a strange phone call. He was told that someone in the WA State loan repayment program to backed out and that he was next on the waiting list to receive the award, and would he like it? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me?! First of all--YES we will take the award. Secondly, who backs out almost 1 year into the game?!

I'll save the details of us wondering if this was a scam, would we really be getting it, and how long it took to get it all figured out. The end result is that David was awarded a loan repayment of $70,000, give in quarterly, payments spread out over two years. With the money we have received from loan repayment so far, as well as our pushing as much money as we can into the loans, we have managed to pay off almost $100,000 in 1 year. When we started we were just over  $309k, now we are looking at just over $212k in debt. Still a lot, but what a big difference! Plus, next month we are due for another loan repayment payment to come in, which means we will be almost under $200k!!! And we are on track to be out of debt almost a year before our goal of our 10 year anniversary!

Hey, progress is progress. If you don't celebrate the little stuff, you won't appreciate it as much. I hope you are all doing well!

Gold Temple Cards

One of the things I make for my shop, which I am super excited about and absolutely love, are gold temple greeting cards. Here is my Portland Temple greeting card.

Are you looking for a beautiful LDS Wedding card to accompany a gift, as as a thank you for your wedding? This Gold Portland Temple Card, in this faux gold style, in a classic design of the Portland Temple, perfect for any LDS wedding or special event! Since it is blank inside, you can say exactly what you want to say!

This listing is for a single, or a set, of handmade blank greeting cards. Cards are A2 sized--4x5 inches

The card is made of thick, white card stock and each card comes with its own envelope.

The temple is cut out of gold colored adhesive vinyl, and adhered to the card.

I am working on more temple designs, but I am open to custom orders as well! Don't forget to check out my shop:  therubyswan.etsy.com

Have a wonderful day!

The Ruby Swan Shop

Hello blogging world!

Over the past 6 weeks or so, I have been working really hard on my new venture--an Etsy shop called The Ruby Swan!This is a whole new world for me, and I have been loving it. I have already learned so much about how to make an Etsy store successful. Since my store is still new, things are moving slowly. But I have high hopes for its success.

The Ruby Swan was born because I have loved being able to decorate, personalize and beautify our home. I love the ability I have to create as well. I wanted to combine these two ideas and provide unique, beautiful wall art, focusing LDS Temples and LDS Quotes, and cards for lds homes, families, and members in general. I am very passionate about the importance the temple plays in the LDS church, as well as in my own home. We have been encouraged to have a temple in every room. My shop supports that encouragement, and provides a slightly different take on the temple picture idea. The majority of my designs feature a temple that is cut out of a white-on-white design cotton fabric. This makes the art work more unique and adds some dimension to the wall art.

I have had so much fun designing the products I have in my shop already, and I look forward to designing more! As a preview, here are some photos of my work.

Be sure to visit my store therubyswan.etsy.com.

If you send me a message, letting me know you saw this blog post, I will give you a discount to use on an item in my shop!

Have a wonderful day!

Master Bedroom Closet Makeover!

Yesterday, David and I finished the makeover on our Master Bedroom closet!! We are so excited about it and love it so much. It took much longer than we expected, but that is the way it always goes, isn't it. This was our first real DIY Home Improvement/Remodel project. We learned a lot, and actually had a lot of fun! Now David says he  is thinking of other projects to try our hands at. :)

Since the point of this post is pictures, let's get to them! This is what our closet looked like when we moved in (technically what it looked like when we cleared it out for this project, but you know, technicalities):

 View From Doorway/entrance to closet

 View Looking to the Right from Entrance

View looking at left side of closet.

Okay, so let me tell you about this closet. When we moved in, it looked like heaven. I mean, look at it! After years of apartments with terrible/inadequate closet space, this looked and felt amazing!!!! Walk-In! Tons of space! A double hanging bar! This was the solution to so many years of "just dealing with it". We started filling it right up!

This is the closet a year later:

So, the closet doesn't look like a total wreck. I tried several methods to make better use of the space, organize, rearrange, etc. But we were noticing some issues. David's clothes were on the top rack and they would hanger longer than the lower shelf and bar, so I was always fighting them to get to my clothes. The upper bar was just placed too low. Along with that, there was a lot of wasted space above the upper shelf. Most storage solutions suggest a foot of space between top shelf and ceiling. There was over 2 feet between our shelf and ceiling and the space just went un-utilized! Then there is the weird shape of the closet. If you look where the towel is hanging, that little segment is actually duct work for out A/C/Furnace. But the nook that it created to the right of it was difficult to get into and, again, wasted space.

We just knew that our closet was not living up to its full potential (and I realized that what I want for the Master Bedroom would require a more functional closet--more on that in another post). So we started measuring, planning, researching, etc. After several drafts we finally came up with a plan that we felt would maximize the space available in the closet and give us what we need and want. Let me tell you, I was a bit obsessive about looking for ideas and researching. I went online to websites where you can "design your dream closet" to get ideas. But, our closet is odd shaped. It doesn't fit the model for a "Walk-In Closet" for a lot of the online custom design closet system websites. It isn't deep enough and has the odd nook. So we had to do some playing around to get good ideas for what we wanted. But, like I said we finally figured it out. Then we started tearing out the old stuff.

Little Tan-Man wanted to help too!

Holy cow! Tearing out these old shelves was not a piece of cake. The 1x4's that supported the shelves were attached to the wall with 3 inch nails! My first attempts to take off the supports were only damaging my walls! Thanks goodness for YouTube and blogs for how to go about the whole process better. Like I said, we learned a lot! But, we got it all out. We actually found a kit, for the closet, we liked at Lowe's, though we did modify it a bit to fit our design plans. The was the Estate by rsi closet system, for those curious.

Here is the after:

We raised the top closet shelf to be at about 15 inches from the ceiling. We turned the odd nook by the duct work into our long hanging section, with room below for the laundry basket. We used pieces from the old shelves and bar to make this section. We have 2 sets of double hanging bars, that actually have enough space between them. The section on the far right is all done with the kit's instructions. The section on the left (directly in front of you as you walk in), we had to improvise a bit since the bars wouldn't be going into the wall. So we used rod-hanging shelf brackets to make that section work. Then the kits with drawers and more shelves, of course.

Here is the closet today, with all our clothes:

We love it! Seriously! We just want to go in and stare at it, ALL THE TIME! We are so happy with how it turned out, and exactly as we were hoping! Yay!!!

Check back for our master bedroom makeover (once we get that finished)!

Surgery, Back in November

For those curious as to the story that led up to this photo:

If you don't want to read about women's health stuff, then stop reading. :) I am doing this more for my benefit/record keeping than anything else, really.

So after I had Tanner, I decided to get a Mirena. It all went well and I loved it!!! So, when the time came to decide if I wanted one after Charlotte, I figured why not? It worked well before!

Well... there were some issues the day I got it placed. It was fine, but it hurt this time, when it didn't after Tanner. Not just that, but for the rest of the day I was in serious pain--it felt like I was in labor. I was curled up in a ball just miserable in so much pain. I took some meds and the pain eased up. But for the next few days I would continue to have sporadic pain/cramping that wasn't normal. I decided to give it a week and see if it let up. It didn't. So I decided it was going to come out.

I went into the doctor to get it removed. It should have been an easy appointment. It was no big deal when I got the last one out. Well, about that. The Dr couldn't find the strings the pull it out. So she was using the grasper tool blindly trying to find the strings. Let's just say I was super not comfortable, It hurt, a lot. After some time they decided to take an ultrasound to see where it was. They could see it on the ultrasound. So she said I could stay and she could continue digging around to try and find it, or I could come back the next day for a more in depth extraction method (I'll spare all the details). Since I was already in so much pain, I opted for the more in depth version that would include pain killers.

Well the rest of the day I was super crampy/ in pain from all the digging around she did. I called my Mom to come and help because I just couldn't handle things. She is so wonderful and dropped everything and came to help. Which, turned into an extra huge blessing.

That night I was laying on our recliner, holding Charlotte, and I noticed my right side start to hurt. It felt like a massive side-ache that went from my hip all the way up my rib cage. And it got worse. As the boys were headed to bed, I stood up, walked a few steps and immediately felt like I was going to pass out. I had the sense to get Charlotte safely on the ground before I did, and then I just lay there myself. I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick so I tried to get to the bathroom, but couldn't walk. So I started crawling, very slowly. It was at this point that David realized something was very wrong.

I eventually made it to the bathroom, and just lay on the floor shivering and feeling awful. After some time, David called our friend Nathan Gilbert and gave me a Priesthood Blessing. They then helped me to the bed.

I spent the night unable to take a deep breath because my muscles in my torso would spasm painfully if I did. It was a long night. And still, I couldn't walk for hours. I had to crawl to get anywhere.

Keep in mind Charlotte was not even 2 months old at this time. So my Mom was there to help with her and feed her a bottle, etc.

The next day I went in to the Dr for the more in depth procedure, which also turned out to be unsuccessful. They couldn't find the Mirena anywhere. So they sent me for an X-Ray at the hospital. The X-Ray showed it was turned sideways and at the top of my uterine area, but they couldn't tell if it was inside or outside the uterus. So I had to schedule a Ultrasound at the hospital.

After a couple days of waiting I finally got the Ultrasound and it confirmed what I had feared--the dumb thing had moved itself outside of my uterus and surgery was going to be required to get it out. The Dr said I could let it hang out there, it won't do any harm and people walk around with things like that all the time. However, it was still causing me pain so I wanted it out. We are pretty sure that the whole experience of almost fainting, etc was my body going into shock when the Mirena punctured through my utuerus.

I had the surgery on November 12. They found the place where it had punctured through my uterus. It had moved even lower so rather than just 3 small incisions, like lathroscopic surgery is supposed to be, I have an additional 3 inch scar at the base of my abdomen. It was supposed to be a 1 hour in and out and done surgery--it took over 2 hours. Poor David was a wreck.

But, blessing in disguise. They found, and were able to remove, a mass on one of my ovaries. Turns out it was a Fibroma--only about 4% of ovarian cysts are fibromas and they usually occur in women 40-50. So I was beating all kinds of statistics with this whole experience.

But I am recovered now and grateful for a good Dr, a supportive husband and Mom who once again came to take care of us while I was recovering from surgery.

Charlotte's Room

I am so excited about this post!!! I have been dreaming/envisioning/planning/working on my baby girl's room for 9 months and it is FINALLY ready!!

Now, I have to tell you, there are some days where I dream that my blog is one of those awesome DIY-Mommy blogs that thousands of people follow. Then I realize I don't want to spend my life doing projects, writing blog posts, etc. It just isn't for me. So I content myself with doing a couple DIY-Mommy blogger-esque posts. This is one of those. :)

The majority of this room is stuff I did/made or stuff I already had on hand. I am super proud of it!

Okay... if there was any doubt about what theme Little Lottie's Room would be, I have made it glaringly obvious upon first entry.

Oh yeah! Framed pointe shoes on that weird wall! Those were my favorite pair of pointe shoes while I was dancing.

I made the ruffle curtains! I used the idea from here, though I did actually sew them when she did not.

Closer view of the rocking chair/reading area. That ballerina doll on the chair was made by my sister! The afghan my grandmother made for me when I was a little girl. And the stuff on the shelves I had. Though I did get some Fairy Tale board books off Pick Your Plum, which I love! Oh! And I am such a newbie with DIY home improvement stuff, but I totally put those shelves up by myself! We are thinking we might get some longer shelves that go all the way to the wall, but that is for another day. Today I am on an "I DID IT!" high. :)

Porcelain Ballerina from my youth, stuffed animal from my parents. :)

I made the tutu crib skirt! Totally my own design/plan.

Oh! And I did the canvasses. A little paint, a little Silhouette Cameo action for the ballerinas and the C and some tulle on the tutus.

The Wall gallery just needs a wooden word above the picture of Charlotte (top left-sh). And the pointe shoe light switch I already had from growing up.

And, yes, if you noticed, I totally used pictures of myself, from my dancing days, to decorate my baby's room. :)

So that's it! I absolutely love it!

Bass Halloween 2015

I feel like we did Halloween right this year. We carved pumpkins the Monday before (awesome FHE activity), decorated our mantel piece and dressed up as a family. We had a blast! Here are some pictures!

 Yeah, this face totally describes Eli's thoughts about touching the insides of the pumpkins. :)

 Our Star Wars Family at the Trunk or Treat

 Leia and R2D2! 

Cutest R2D2 baby ever!

 Han Solo and Yoda!

 Darth Vader

All of the costumes were made by me, but the low stress version--altering what we have or making simple pieces. :) Happy Halloween!