On Painting, Furminating, Baking & Microwaving

I'm punishing myself for not finishing and posting pictures of my bathroom semi-makeover. So here you go (most unflattering video ever, but oh wells!)


Bathrooooom from Alyssa Kapral on Vimeo.



On the next note, we recently purchased a FURminator on Ebay; I totally pwned Petco's $50 price tag, by over half. Awesome. Our dog as been in omigosh shed-mod for the past 3 weeks or so, and her regular brush was not cutting it. After watching a few videos on Youtube, we decided it was a must have. Vacuuming the carpet and couch every day is way fun. You know your dog sheds too much when your lint screen in the dryer is HALF DOG HAIR (not even kind of kidding).

This is our rug (on drugs), probably from just a few dog-shedding filled days.

This would be a pile of Husky hair, after just a couple minutes of brushing. Repeat for about 10 more hours and you may or may not be done :)

I have been sucking lately at baking, for reals. I saw this recipe last week, and knew I had to make it...red velvet cake is my favorite. It was SUPER simple, since you can use a box of cake mix ($1 at Target!). They were AMAZING. If you make this I suggest you watch out how much of the cream cheese filling you add, because it's pretty sweet/rich.

Oh...umm...I had to show off the font I made of my handwriting, hah!

Nom nom.

We also bought a new microwave this weekend for Valentine's Day. By "we" I mean Chris, and by "Valentine's Day", I mean it just happened to be Valentines Day when he ordered it ;) It's being delivered tomorrow from Home Depot! w00t for free delivery! I also thought microwaves were going to be like, $100..but apparently the over the range ones are way more expensive. Darn.

I probably should have split this into 4 separate posts...oops!!!

I'm a Loser, Baby

This is pretty lame of me: I fully intended on making a video blog answering 5 questions that Steph asked me. My first excuse is because my boyfriend wouldn't be in it. My second excuse is that I forgot to order the larger SD card for my camera (umm, like 2 months ago) and so the piece of...ya know...card that I have now won't record more than 2-3 minutes. AND, my third excuse, I lent out my camera today, so when I now have time to do this post (tonight!!!) I don't even have the darn thing if I wanted to.

So, instead I will video blog about my BATHROOM when I get my camera back tomorrow, fair trade? Okay, let's do this!

Here are the 5 questions that Steph sent me:


(Okaaay, Chris started reading & answering the questions after I started, so I'm giving you his answers too..hah)

1. Ideal life in ten years: what would your Saturday afternoon consist of?

Me: Haha, well in my wildest dreams...I would be in Hell co-running a bed and breakfast with the devil. Oh wait...I mean I would be taking lavish vacations to different islands on my private jet. (I hope you got that reference :p) . But okay...back in reality, my ideal life would be...we probably had a morning filled with soccer/baseball/whatever crazy sports games with our kids. So we'd be recovering from this morning by going out for pizza, because that's where you go after a sports game right? Or maybe we'd be having a barbecue, and I'd invite all my friends and their kids over. Yeah I think I like that better. Oh and this place would be our newer, larger house with a big backyard ;)

Chris: playing with the kids in the backyard, building a tree fort :)


2) What is your all-time favorite meal to eat? To cook?

Me: This is really hard (that's what she said). I LOVE FOOD! Chris' chicken (see below!) is my favorite to eat. To cook..probably anything really! I love cooking, and baking :) We made a really good meal for V-day last year: I believe it was blue cheese crusted fillets, some oysters with a champagne sauce, and we made molten chocolate cakes AND whipped cream...all from scratch!!!!

Chris: My awesome chicken (chicken breasts stuffed with mozzarella cheese and spinach - and shredded Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top - cooked to crispy goodness!!!). And cheesecake for dessert!


3) What was your favorite cartoon growing up?

Me: My Little Ponies and Carebears! I still want to buy all of the MLP & Carebear stuff whenever I see it in stores :-/

Chris: teenage mutant ninja turtles. i had all of the action figures and I had a ninja turtles backpack, folders for school, movies, Halloween costumes, and...everything!


4) You are sitting in an airport... where are you headed?

Me: Australia! That's the one place that I want to go the most! They have cool animals :) I hope that I can maybe go there on our honeymoon...someday...coughcough.

Chris: Australia mate! Because I want to see Alyssa smile when she sees little kangaroos, wallabies, and dingos, baby!


5) What was the last book you read, and would you recommend it to others?

Me: Ummm...I plead the 5th! I read a LOT when I was younger (Boxcar series, anyone? Goosebumps?!), however, I think after high school/college reading I no longer found it fun to read. I'm still trying to get people to suggest good books to me :)

Chris: I don't read books. Some Harry Potter book??? I read the Internet when I want information!



I hope that wasn't too boring for you guys, haha! If anyone wants me to "interview" them, let me know ;)

Taxes Smaxes

This tax year there is a $7,500 refund (if you chose to take it) for first-time home buyers. There were a few stipulations that I was unsure about. In short, starting in 2010, each tax year we are to pay $500 back towards the "refund" every year for...15 years. Yeah, that's a long time (so the refund is basically an interest free loan from the gov't) . Also, if you sell the house, you are to pay back the entirety of the "loan" the next tax year. So, if we sold the house in 5 years, we'd have to pay like $6,000 (or whatever). Yowzer.

Well, we decided to take it...free money!

Steph posed a great question to me: Whatcha gonna do with all that cash?

To which I thought to myself (while singing Fergie): "Whatcha gonna do with all that cash, all that cash...in yo' stash?"

I obviously could spend this money very, very quickly...on clothing. What Not To Wear style! But...that wouldn't be financially smart of me now would it?

So, what I have done is compiled a list of things that I want to do with this money (honestly, I am not a list person, but when it comes to money...you gotta doooo eeeett!)

• Replace carpeting in the bedrooms
• Replace tile flooring with wood flooring
• Replace the fake cabinetry throughout the house with some good stuff (including bathroom vanities)
  
• Granite counter tops in the kitchen
• Replace kitchen sink
• Make our landscaping more appealing
  
• Buy a new stove and dishwasher
• Replace ugly-arse gold lighting fixtures
• New closet doors & closet shelving
• Annnndd I'd like to use a little to pay off a credit card :D
  

Umm yeah, I'm pretty sure after all of that our money will be long gone! Haha. We don't plan on doing all of that at once, of course :) We are more DIYer type people so we will also save a lot of money on labor. Plusss, when it comes to selling our house someday all of those things are definitely well worth the money (hmmm I think I watch too much HGTV!). I feel very fortunate to not only have purchased a house in this economy, but everything is cheaper right now in regards to home renovations.

What do you think of my list? Trying to be as smart as we can with the money so that we will actually make way more off of it :)


PS...I still owe you a post on our, now, purple bathroom...coming soon I promise!!!!!!!!