Two Lovely Years Behind Us

It seems like just a couple months ago I was writing a post about our first anniversary, and here we are (a year later, yes) celebrating number two! We are so thankful and blessed to have one another. I know marriage would not be the blessing it is for us if God was not behind it, and I thank Him every day for bringing us together.

Two dozen roses for two wonderful years! :) I think I am spoiled! 

We received an anniversary card the other day that said, "Adventure Awaits..." Though all of life seems to be one big adventure, they were writing about our hopeful transition to parenthood in a few months. We hope and pray that the challenges and "adventures" of raising a little one will be a blessing to our marriage as well.

This year together has been a special one. Our first year was spent getting to know each other, and the second saw us through new experiences that brought us closer to one another and to the Lord.

3 days...

1 year...

2 years!

I went up to Muscatine yesterday to meet Matt for lunch. We picked up subs from a sub shop next to work that he always raves about, and then had a picnic by the river another block away. The rest of the day about spiraled out of control as I got groceries, barely made it back in time to pick up Matt's three siblings at school (ok, so I was a couple minutes late), and brought them along with me to piano lessons until 6:15. Matt was kind enough to have supper ready when we all got home (some wife I am for an anniversary, huh?), and then after supper and homework it was pretty much time for everyone to head to bed! The kids will be staying here on weekdays until his Mom & Dad get home next Tuesday night. Perhaps the awaiting adventure was closer than they were thinking!

Looking forward to many more blessed years with a wonderful friend and husband! God is so good!

Project Days

September was a month of several projects...and progress continues! A few of the most recent accomplishments include:

1. Applesauce! I got 36 quarts of applesauce made from the apples on one of our trees outside. I didn't think I would be able to do so much with what we had out back, but it ended up making ample!

This was the first batch. I ended up canning the other 24 quarts because I ran out of freezer containers. 

2. Craft time. I needed something to hang on one of our walls in the living room, so we combined Goodwill with Pinterest to come up with this! The Amazing Grace was sitting in a closet downstairs, previously from Hobby Lobby with no place to go. The rest involved a fallen-apart hymn book, some mod podge, a few decorative flowers, and a frame from a second-hand store. And a decent amount of helpful input from Matt! Fortunately, I have him to be the creative eye in this house.

3. Tim and Laurie's house...I went over with Matt's mom and sister a couple weeks ago to help clean up Laurie's house after their renovations. This was the first time I had seen the house since they started working on it, and it is completely different from before...talk about a project! They have been hard at work for several months. Along with some other additions, they poured a basement and moved the house back from the road to sit on top of it.

4. A Room Painted! Yep, the bedroom across the hall from us finally got a new coat of paint, thanks to some help from Josie! The John Deere yellow-and-green room is now a calm gray...and I LOVE it!! Or maybe I just didn't realize how much that yellow and green was bothering me until I saw the room in gray. 

I don't really have much of a before picture, but perhaps this can give an idea. Green on bottom, yellow on top. 

After: So much calmer! Still needs some furniture...and I'm hoping to make some valances soon! 

This room is only the second in the house that has been painted since the last people lived here! Two reasons: 1. The other walls looked fine to me anyway; and 2. I really don't like to paint.

5. Windows are (were) ALL CLEAN. I spent a week deep-cleaning all of the windows and doors in the house (something I have never done before, and may not get around to doing for at least another twenty years). The day after I finished, ladybug season came upon us and now there are bugs all over the windows. I'm sure it will be better once they go away.

Who ever knew there was a beautiful view of a pond out that window?! 

Ok, so I don't mean that I just cleaned the glass in case that was the impression. I do intend to do that before 2035. Or so I say...

Next up on my list is to continue deep-cleaning and organizing the house. This week I am getting started on the kitchen!

6. LEGOS! Matt left me at his parents' house one evening so he and his dad could go work on the thermostats at church. I spent most of the evening playing with Legos and ended up creating this piece of artwork. The office desk was complete with a computer, speakers, books, a trashcan, a pencil cup, a lunch box, a swivel chair, a water bottle, a file cabinet, and of course, a plant and a small fish tank. When there was nothing else to add, I finally called Matt and he came home. 

This photo made it to Mel's Monday Memo, so I figured I should probably share it. 

It is so much fun to keep checking things off my list!! What accomplishment one can achieve with a lot of extra time! :)

Birthday Bonfire

The Massner family came over a couple weeks ago to celebrate Mom's birthday, and we celebrated in the classic autumn way: with a weiner roast! Perhaps it wasn't the "classic" way to pamper your mother for her birthday, but it worked out and we had some good family time around the fire!

 

Matt used the event to get some wood split for the winter by having the boys try out their hand with the maul. Jonathan informed me that they wouldn't be doing my chores because folding laundry doesn't make them feel manly.

Later, I figured I would try out the long-forgotten challenge of bobbing for apples. 

When it started getting a little darker, I deviated from the usual s'mores and we cooked apples over the fire with extra toppings inside.

Happy Birthday, Mom! 

What a wonderful time of year to spend in the great outdoors! I love fall! :)

A Better Closet

We found another project to keep Matt busy for a few days. The closet in the future baby room didn't really have much for shelving, so he designed and installed his own! It will be so nice to have the extra closet organization.

We started with a small amount of research and a trip to Menards for supplies. These are his carefully drawn up plans. 

I forgot to get a "before" picture of the closet, but there used to be one shelf all the way across at the very top with a hanging rod underneath it. I pretty much just piled up my junk at the bottom and kept a few boxes stowed away at the top. 

This is midway through Matt's work with the frame put together. 

He attached the frame partway up the wall... 

And then added the rest of the pieces, with holes and pegs for adjustable shelving! 

The end product! One side is shelves, and the other side has two clothes hanging rods, on top and bottom, with another shelf in between. 

...and then I moved the baby stuff we've accumulated to the closet to clean up the bedroom a bit for now. The closet looks like a disorganized mess, but Matt said I had to post a picture of the closet with stuff in it! I don't have any clothes hanging yet since I didn't feel like digging them out. 

Whether or not you can tell from the pictures, the closet looks so nice now and the shelves will be much more convenient for keeping it organized! It is great to have my very own handyman who loves these kinds of projects!

The next step for this room will be a paint job. Woohoo!!

Grapes, Cribs, and a Week Off Work

What a change it has been to be done with my daily job at Federal Mogul and have my mornings to spend working around the home! 

It is surprising that no matter how busy I keep myself at home, I still haven't run out of things to do! Several tasks would not necessarily have gotten done if I was working every morning. For example, I actually made a menu for the entire week before going grocery shopping on Monday and Matt has been getting supper every night! I also made my own rolls for church serving, picked the rest of the grapes on our vine, and made them into more grape juice and syrup. There are so many other projects I'm hoping to dive into soon! Oh, and the house is clean right now...but I don't expect it to last long.

My first batch of grapes (above) made 10 quarts of concentrate! The second batch made about 6 quarts of concentrate, along with several pints of grape syrup. 

My parents gave us the crib that we kids used, so Matt got it all set up the night we got home. This addition led to me picking out a bedding set and finding paint colors for the room, which means painting will be my next project! The future baby room has been used as an office since we arrived, so we moved several pieces of furniture to other places in the home to make baby space. 

Perhaps we are a little ahead of the game...but maybe if we get these tasks accomplished, we will be able to make time for the more dreaded projects. Plus, I hear this second-trimester energy spurt doesn't last forever! 

I mentioned in one of my last posts that I planned to start being a substitute teacher's aide at the school, and that has begun too (so, I am not 100% off work!). I have worked two days, last Wednesday and yesterday. I will probably try to do at least one day a week, and maybe if I get caught up around home I will add another day. It is going well and I am enjoying the new atmosphere! It is so interesting to see elementary school from an adult perspective. :)

Back in the Loop You Are

Apparently, I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping the blog up to date lately. Well, more than just lately. In fact, we hadn't really written anything about our lives since February, except about the ducks and Matt's studies.

I wrote a few blog posts to catch everyone up. Either scroll down to see the new posts, or click on the links below.

He Passed!

Springtime!

Congrats, Graduates!

Another Year Older

Connecticut & Beyond

Fourth of July

Firecracker Set to Explode

Tennessee Times

Meanwhile...Life Around the Home

You may want to spread out your reading, as there are no guarantees that you'll be seeing more posts in the very near future! :) 'Tis always my goal to keep more on top of it, though!

Meanwhile...Life Around the Home

What else is new? Not a whole lot, just the ordinary wildlife and work around the home. We found a turtle with eggs buried in our yard. We've also had a couple more litters of ducks hatch, though every time the ducks end up dying off once by one. Matt decided an animal must be getting them. Our latest litter showed up a couple weeks ago and we are down to one baby duck. 

In bigger pond news, we had the biggest catch in our pond since the beginning of the Schulz residence! A 12.5 pound catfish, caught by a Minnesotan fisherman who came over with his cousins.

Matt decided the wildflowers growing in our yard were too pretty to mow over (he wanted me to point out that he HAS since mowed them).

The Steiner boys came over and helped bale our pasture.

We finally replaced our microwave two months after the old one died.

Matt restained the deck and docks.

Canning season is upon us, but I have been lacking energy and motivation on account of pregnancy. Fortunately, we have enough to get us by for another year. Plus, there is a reason grocery stores exist. Since Matt loves peaches almost as much as he loves his wife, I had to try to keep my higher ranking by doing enough peaches for him this year. I got peaches in Kalona for canning after our peach trees didn't produce enough to put up, and managed to get twenty-four quarts of peaches, a few quarts of juice, and a few half-pints of peach honey canned last Friday. Perhaps I will try to do some applesauce later if I can work up the motivation. Our berries are also producing now, and the grapes should be ready for juice in a couple more weeks! As far as the garden goes... I pretty much haven't even looked at it since the beginning of June and have given up for this year. Sorry. 

These are all of the peaches we got from our own peach tree this year...probably a total of about fifty. 

Other random everyday happenings this summer included several weddings: Erika & Cameron, Risa & Jaydon, and Brigette & Brian; several dinners and events: Sunday school picnic, mystery supper, potluck, showers, singings, meetings, and birthday celebrations.

Oh, BIG NEWS: I only have one more week left of work at Federal Mogul/Champion! I am done at the end of the month, and am so excited to see how life proceeds afterward with more flexibility. I do have a position as a substitute para-educator at the Mediapolis School, so I can sub at the school to fill up a couple days a week if I'm not keeping busy at home. And, of course, maybe the work around the house will actually get caught up for once and maybe Matt will start getting supper on a regular basis again! We're going to see how it works to be a stay-at-home wife...and soon, hopefully a stay-at-home mom!