Time to Move Again

We’re packing up again! Next time I have to pack we’ll be moving in to our new house.  It is still on track to be done by April 1st!

This time we’re moving from this:


 Emerald Isle, NC

To this:

Newport, RI

Not too shabby.  We're really looking forward to exploring New England.  Only down side is we’re going to be living in a hotel for 10 weeks! I need to start packing and sorting through what goes with us and what stays behind.  I have a feeling my suitcase will look like this before I’m done:

Next time I’ll be posting from freezing cold Newport!

One Line a Day

This year is a new beginning for R and I.  We’re moving into our first home, R might be deploying, and hopefully we’ll be starting a family.

I thought this was the perfect year to start the One Line a Day Journal.  I have seen this pop up on several blogs throughout the last year.  I thought it was a neat concept.  You write one line (actually 5 lines, more like one sentence) a day for 5 years.  The journal allows you to look back on the previous years to see what you were doing on a specific date. 

Today’s Entry:  “Enjoying R’s 4 day weekend.  Today we’re finishing Dexter Season 1 and packing for
R.I.” 



I’m looking forward to 2015 when I can look back on the last five years!

Look Out Budget Here I Come

Thanks to my husband I have a new obsession.

Mint.com. It’s addicting.

I can track every purchase and know what my husband ate for lunch before he even tells me. 

To be honest, we’ve never had a budget.  We’re both fairly frugal and we both appreciate saving money, as well as spending it when we would like.  With that being said, we have our first real mortgage coming up in a few months.  I’m not concerned about the payment (thank you USMC for the housing allowance) but I would like to decorate the home as nicely as possible. This is where mint.com comes in. 

I can now track everything with the click of a finger and find ways to save more money so that I can then spend it on the house. For instance, I can click on Chick-fil-a on my budget and see exactly how much money we have spent there in the past few months (very scary).  I hope that mint.com helps us save money in 2011, but we’ll still make room in the budget to enjoy life too.



Mint.com budget.  It automatically generates or you can create your own.



The transaction summary shows you a nice chart of where your money goes.



It even allows you to track all of your investments.  Hopefully ours show lots of green in 2011!


Happy Savings!
C.E.S.

*Note these are simply images found from google not our budget*

New Year, New House, New Goals

 
We had a wonderful Christmas holiday visiting with our friends and family in Ohio.  We're back and I'm a little slow going at blogging because, let's be honest, our house hasn't started yet.  I get really excited with ideas and then remember that I have to put them all on hold for another 90+ days.  However, I stumbled upon Nester's Home Goals Party and decided I'd finally join my first party.  Here are my home goals for 2011. 


1. Unpack all those awful boxes  (I’m pretty sure we will have more than this).  My goal is to have all boxes unpacked within 30 days of moving in. 
 


2. Decorate Downstairs living space.  We’re looking for a rug, new furniture, curtains, and cute things to decorate our bookshelves.  Trying to do all of this pottery barn style on a commissary budget .

 Picture of model home


3. Find the perfect quilt for our bedroom.  I love this one from pottery barn, and I even have a pottery barn gift card.  My problem is I’m against paying $20+ for shipping and they don’t sell it in stores anymore. 

(Pottery Barn Hanna Quilt)


4. We’re going to have to do major landscaping.
Turning this:

Into this:

Image from www.jonkardesign.com
We’ve never owned our own dirt. We’re pretty excited to do our own yard landscaping and maintenance.  My years of Southern Living subscriptions might finally come to use.


5. Buy my hubby his precious grill.  He’s been waiting for his Primo smoker grill since October when he got his promotion.  It was one thing he wanted bad that I thought he deserved.  He’s been waiting patiently for months.  Luckily his dad has one so he still gets to experience it when we visit Ohio.



6.   Paint every room possible.  Apartment living for 4.5 years we’ve never been able to do this.  R needs to watch out as I’ve drooled over every color in the Martha Stewart collection.




I think that’s a pretty good start to my 2010 home goals.  Of course, I want it all done by July 2nd when we throw ourselves a housewarming party with all of our friends and family!

Neighborhood Christmas Party

This weekend we went to our new neighborhood Christmas Party.  It was so nice of them to invite us even though our house isn’t started yet.  We’re excited that our neighbors are so nice.  They even offered to take pictures for us while we’re in Rhode Island.  We can’t wait until this Spring when we can really get to know them.  Since it’s so close to a Marine Corps base lots of our neighbors will also be experiencing possible deployments this next year.  It’s comforting to know I’ll have people watching out for me while R is away. 

Newly Nesting

I've been a blog reader for quite some time now, but I never felt I had much to share.  While my husband and I have been married for more than 4 years we're Newly Nesting as we are officially in contract to build our first home.  We're busy trying to get to know our new town in North Carolina and picking out items for our new house!  R and I aren't quite done moving yet as we'll be spending 10 weeks this winter in Rhode Island for one last school before he can officially start his career as a Judge Advocate for the USMC.  Welcome to our blog!

 Our New House.  Our house will be Yellow with Dark Gray Shutters (and no funky bermuda shutter)

Hubby and I in front of our lot!