The Saturday Six

One.

I confess that I have not tried this recipe, but it does look really scrumptious to me. Air fried pickles? Does that count as dinner? We did make a blooming onion in the air fryer last year and really liked it! This has to be fairly similar, right?

Two. 

This was an interesting post about what the blogger would and would not choose to purchase/do in her home if she had it to do all over again. (It actually inspired yesterday's post about things we have done to our house that I've loved. So far I can't really think of anything we've done that I've hated.) How about you? Any great (or poor) decisions in your home styling?

Three.

If you need some ideas for a spring capsule wardrobe (yes, those really are still a thing!), here's a post with some inspiration for you! (In addition to being ready for spring temps, I'm ready for spring clothes!)

Four.

I'm all for tiny living, but this might even be too tiny for me. (And I'm not sure driving from Alaska to Argentina is for me...)

Five.

This post is a few years old, so I don't know if all the pricing information is still accurate, but I'm sharing it anyway. Ryan and I haven't yet been to the Ark Encounter, but I hope to get there eventually! This post has some tips for getting the most out of a visit!

Six.

I haven't tried this, but it intrigues me SO MUCH. Spend a few hours making freezer meals to carry us through a month? You have my attention! Here is the link to the fascinating story of how the blogger did it, and in the comments, you can find a link to the recipes and plan.

The Best Decisions We Made With Our House

I read a post this week (which is already nestled in the Saturday Six for tomorrow, so I'll link to it there) that inspired this post! The writer recounted the best (and worst) decisions she and her husband made when building their home, and it made me think about some of the decisions we've made with our house!

When Ryan and I were first married, we had grand dreams of one day building our own house. We picked out floor plans and dreamed up all sorts of ideas of making that place absolutely ours. Ultimately, it wasn't meant to be for us. God kept closing all the doors, so we left that dream behind and decided to purchase an already-built home instead.

My mom teased us that we were the only people she knew who bought a move-in ready house and spent a year redoing most of it. She was kidding-not-kidding.

We've been here almost four years now (WHAT?!) and I still love the decisions we made in updating our house to make it our home. We may stay here forever or we may move one day. Either way, we've made our updating choices to impact our life, not our potential resale value.

Here are my top five favorite changes we've made!

1. Opening up the space between the kitchen and living room.

Not everyone loves an open floor plan, but we do. When we first walked through the house back in 2016, the biggest drawback to it (in our opinion) was the wall between the kitchen and the living room. It didn't go all the way to the cathedral ceiling, so it wasn't load-bearing, but it blocked out all kinds of light and the ability to converse easily. Ryan declared on the spot that if we bought this house, that wall was coming down. And it did - within 24 hours of gaining possession of the house.

We love being able to talk between the rooms, and the amount of light that flows through the house now is amazing in comparison to what it had been! Because of the layout of the kitchen, it really is still a separate room from the living space, but it's so much more efficient the way it is.

Bonus good decision: making this change before moving in. I was so eager to move that I asked Ryan if we could wait a year to remodel anything. He convinced me that this was a messy enough renovation that it would be better to do it before we moved in all our stuff. And he was so right. I would have really hated that obstructed year.

2. Finishing off the garage.

One of the compromises we made with this house was forfeiting a dining room. We have an eat-in kitchen, but no dining space. We thought it would be okay, because our old house did have a dining room and we never used it. But our life in this house and city is much different, and we do more entertaining here. Since we can't fit many people in the kitchen, Ryan came up with the idea of finishing our garage to be able to use it as an extension of the house.

We did a floor-finishing treatment (made for garages), had whole thing insulated and drywalled, and finished out the ceiling, too. We painted the walls, and when we need a large space, we just move the cars, clean the floor, and set up our tables. We've hosted parties, holidays, craft nights, and more out there in the garage. With enough advance preparation, we can balance out the temperature pretty well - even in the summer and winter!

3. Adding a stone feature wall.

It was an idea I saw on Pinterest before we moved, and I wasn't sure Ryan would like it. But he did! After he took down the wall between the kitchen and living room, he worked for several weeks to turn that wall into a beautiful stone feature that gives so much personality to the house! He liked it so much that he carried it into the kitchen, too, using the same materials for our backsplash. We get so many compliments on that stone, and I love the texture it brings to the house!

4. Refinishing the cabinets in espresso.

When we moved in, the house had builder grade oak cabinets with really old-fashioned handles and pulls. We did the quick-fix immediately: change the pulls and handles to something more modern. But a couple of years after we moved in, Ryan found a kit for refinishing existing cabinets at a very affordable cost. (The cabinets themselves were in GREAT shape, so it was silly to tear them down.) We chose espresso for the color, since that seemed to fit our coffee personalities so beautifully.

We love those cabinets. They contrast with the floor now, bring more personality to the kitchen, and look a million times better than they did!

5. Adding a sun room.

This was our most recent addition. and we still love it. Our back patio was really not usable as it was...very poorly designed. It was surrounded by a privacy fence, which sounds nice, but the truth was, we couldn't see anything out the back of our house because of the fence. We were able to save up for a sun porch and transform that area into something we can use and enjoy every single day.

We love being able to sit out there in almost any season. (It does get a little toasty on the hottest days and chilly on the coldest, but for the most part, we can use it.) We love feeling like our house is bigger even when the door is closed - just because we can see another room out there beyond the glass. We love being able to sit on the porch even if it's raining or super buggy.

***

So there you have it! Some of our favorite changes and upgrades. How about you! Have you made changes to your house that you are so glad you decided to make?

It's Snow Pretty

Yesterday was one of those delightful teases of spring. Sure, it was cold, but the sun made a full appearance for the entire day, so by the time I got home from work, our sun porch felt all springy. The neighbors were out with their (apparently new) dog, playing games, and it reminded me of just how much I long for spring to arrive...and stay!

With all this promise-of-spring so fresh in my mind, I hesitate to post these snow pictures, because I fear it will invite winter to return. Nevertheless, it really was so pretty, and I want to remember it later! This was just a week ago, and it was one of those absolutely perfect, wet snows. The morning after it fell, the wind stayed calm, so the snow stayed put in all its fluffy beauty.

Even with all the snow, we did have a little hope of spring by the end of that day!

Hello, pleasingly plump robins! It's snow good to see you!

Marion County Tour

This past weekend, while we were celebrating Valentine's Day in Indianapolis, we decided to official mark this county off our tour schedule! (If you're new here, we are in a quest to visit every county in the state and are 1/3 of the way to our goal.)

Despite Marion County's status as the home of our capitol city and consequently home of so much to do, it was actually challenging to come up with our plan, because we have already done so much there!

It all went back to our very first date, when Ryan planned an amazing day in downtown Indianapolis. We did a paddleboat ride on the canal, went to the zoo, and had a picnic in White River State Park.

Then, right before we got married, he took me to my first Colts game - at Lucas Oil Stadium.

We went on a double date to the Melting Pot - back in our first year of marriage, when we often went on double dates with our friends Mike and Angie. (They have since moved to the Pacific Northwest and have made me fall in LOVE with that part of the country...via photos!)

We spent our anniversary in Indianapolis, actually, enjoying a hotel right on Monument Circle (even though our donuts ended up mysteriously eaten from our room), watching the lighting of the tree on the circle, going to a Gaither Christmas concert at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, checking out another Colts game, and touring the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

We went on another double date with Mike and Angie - this time to Fogo de Chao for a proper food coma.

I planned a date for Ryan to see Pentatonix at the Old National Centre. (We stood outside in line for an hour and a half, where I developed actual icicles on my eyelashes.)

Ryan planned a surprise date with a downtown city scavenger hunt!

We did an escape room (with a bunch of other people we didn't know) and had a blast!

We had a fancy date night at the Eagle's Nest, a rotating restaurant downtown.

We went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra - and the Christmas lights downtown - and had dinner at Scotty's Brewhouse.

We celebrated Ryan's 39th birthday with lunch at Giordano's and coffee at a downtown coffee shop. (And a failed attempt to tour Lucas Oil Stadium.)

We walked with our friend Pat in the kidney walk two summers ago.

On a very rainy day, we had coffee at Porter Books and Bread, near Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park.

And on our way home from an anniversary trip, we did a Christmas tour of Garfield Park Conservatory.

So as you can see, we've done quite a few things in Marion County, but we hadn't officially marked it off the list.

 I learned that the county was created almost 200 years ago and was named for Francis Marion, a Brigadier General from South Carolina. The county grew rapidly in population a few years later when the state capital was moved there from Corydon in southern Indiana. It is the largest county in the state!

As you saw a couple of days ago, our official county tour was a two day stay, inspired by Ryan's amazing Valentine's Day surprise getaway!

We stayed in a super cute Airbnb on the 10th floor of an apartment building overlooking the canal with a breathtaking view of the skyline. Everything about that place was vacation perfection, let me tell you.

We ate dinner at Burgerhaus - which was right in the same building where we stayed.

And we got coffee at Quills - which was a cute coffee shop ALSO right in the building.

So all that was Valentine's night.

The next morning we got up to the most AMAZING sunrise right there over the skyline. Indy, you sure are pretty.

We got all packed up so we could check out by ten (boo...the one bad thing about the Airbnb...super early checkout) and headed back to Quills for more coffee and a muffin...

AND!!!!!!

Guess who happened to be passing through the city on the way to visit family? Our dear Mark and Lynnette and their new baby! Because I was fighting germs, I didn't hold the baby (which very nearly caused me to keel over right there on the spot) but OH my she is cute as a button and has grown so much since we met her in November!

We spent about an hour together before they had to get on their way, and we moved on with our county tour, but what a fun blessing this was!

Our next stop was to walk the canal, which wasn't new for us, but it was new for us to walk it in the winter. It was just as beautiful, ice and all!

It was also bright and we didn't have our sunglasses on us.

We found the paddleboats we rode on our first date!

And we got a picture with "our hotel." On our first date, we did a picture with this hotel in the background, and when we started planning our wedding, we decided we wanted to stay in that hotel o our wedding night. Of course, getting married in Florida sort of put a wrench in that plan. Ha! We've still never stayed there, but we still take pictures with it any chance we get!

We also found our Airbnb building! In this first photo, I'm pretty sure we were the third balcony from the left on the top floor.

We ate lunch at a Chick-fil-A in the mall...

And headed home via IKEA (which is actually in another county, so I won't feature it here).

This was such a fun date. I loved it!! Thanks, Marion County, for giving us so many years of fun memories!