New House

I haven't blogged much since we've moved to Oregon....  Mostly because I have hated it here from day one.  95% of it was living in that apartment. (I won't go into that, but.. I could write a book. No one would probably want to read it, though.)  The other 80% was, it rains here. ALL the time.  I am a person who usually likes the rain, too.  Not any more...    Anyway, long story short...   We moved into a house.  It was not easy to even find a house here. There are literally NO houses for rent here. If one did come online, people were fighting over it (we showed up to showings where we had to wait to be shown the house, I have never seen such a circus show..)  One house I found through a realtor (it wasn't even online), I called to see if we could look at it. The day we were looking at it, it was online. For $600 more a month than what she quoted me.  We told them we wanted the house, she acted like it was ours, but she just had to show it to another couple, to be fair.  NEVER heard from her again...      (One example of how it has been trying to get a house here..)  I called her? It wasn't even online...    So when this house wasn't being rented within one day of it being online, I thought for sure something must be wrong with it.  (Well, I will tell you what was wrong with it, and you will see..)  For one thing, there were paint cans/buckets piled up outside, and all kinds of stuff in the garage. The yard was overgrown. The outside of the house did not look good. (And they wanted WAY too much money for this house!)  Plus, it is not exactly clean...    But...    After being in that (hellhole) apartment and wanting out SO bad, and; after talking the owners down $150 a month on the rent (even still it is too expensive, but compared to other houses here, not..)  we filled out the application for the lease. And were accepted.   So, this is the kitchen. The cupboards look okay on the outside, but when you open them up, it smells like my cousins old horse barn.  They had an apartment in the barn they rented out to a family, and when it wasn't being rented, we used to have sleepovers out there. It smelled musty..   That's what the cupboards smell like.   (The house had a funny smell too... I don't know if it's because it was sitting empty or what..)  The outside smells like cat pee.  We think it might be because of this bush in the front of the house, which my husband is talking about getting rid of..

The fridge (it did not have one when we looked at the house..)  Fortunately they put one in before we moved in (the day we signed the lease).     

This is my view from my kitchen sink window. I like it. :)

And my husband bought me rooster curtains for the window. :)  

The front of the house.  (This was after they cleaned up the yard-- They also cleaned up the paint cans/buckets and everything in the garage.)  

The property also has a horse barn/stall.   I don't know what we'll do with that. I guess the previous renter/tenant had a donkey.  There are a lot of horses/cows around here.   There is a shed right in this building, but it must have had gas stored in it, it smells really strong. I would be afraid to put anything valuable or furniture in there...   

The dogs love their new (fenced in) backyard.  No more going down (and back up) three flights of stairs to go to the disgusting pet area (no one cleaned up after their dogs) in the apartment, barking at other dogs...    That was a nightmare, just to take the dogs out, there.
We need to work on the yard, my husband got a weed wacker (the grass was about two feet tall)...     This is not the whole backyard, there is a second fence behind this one that goes to the back trees in the picture.  

The dogs, the first night we got here.  Despite all the smells (I do not like smelly or dirty things... Lol), and the work we will have to do; this house did have all the other things I wanted: A fenced in yard for the dogs (huge bonus), NO neighbors (we are backed up to a farm/field, the only neighbors are across the street), three bedrooms, NOT 2 bathrooms, but 1 1/2 bathrooms (the "half" bath is JUST a toilet?..)  And another huge bonus (well; for Eon), it's in the same school district as we were in the apartment. Even though it is the next town over. It is so small it isn't even a town, it's called a "hamlet".  I personally would not care if he had to switch schools, because I hate his school  (another reason I hate it here).  But I know he wouldn't want to change schools again. It is more of a drive, but...     We are out in the "country" (even though there is a lot of traffic on this road).  I think the reason there's so much  traffic is because 1. The elementary school (the only school here) is at the end of this road. 2. A golf club is down the road, and 3. No one wants to turn down the other way to come in (there are two roads you could take) because it is right on a curve and a death trap. So everyone comes down the other way, and past our house...  A little about the house/history: It was a Parish house for a Baptist Priest (what do they call them when they're Baptist, not priests.. Parishioner?) and his family.  It was built in 1960.  (We looked on Zillow.)  I guess the title of my post should be "New Old House." :P  It's not the greatest, but it's Home..  Once we get the yard cleaned up and do a few things around here it will start looking better.

Some baking I have been doing. This was actually in the apartment still.  (I hated that stove, the new one is so much better..)  Some raisin scones with lemon curd.

Last night I made homemade macaroni and cheese. I just made a white sauce and added cheese until it melted. Boiled the macaroni, drained it. Added it to the cheese sauce.  Put in a greased baking bowl. And I added some bread crumb topping. I just melt butter, and tear a piece of bread into the melted butter add spices then stir and put it on top. Baked it for about 25 minutes at 350.

A homemade Chicken pot pie with biscuits on top. Did a veloute sauce with chicken pieces and leftover corn, cooked carrots and onions...  MAde some biscuits and put them on top. Baked until the biscuits were done. Everyone liked it.

Yesterday I also made Chocolate Peanut Butter squares.  I've never made these before, they were yummy.  There's still a half pan I keep waiting for everyone else to eat so I won't. :P  I didn't use the cookies in the recipe (shhh) - it cost over $5 for a box. I got some (generic) chocolate teddy grahams. I would have gotten chocolate graham crackers, but they didn't have any.  

I don't remember the last updated picture of my mitered squares blanket I posted? Hopefully it wasn't this one..   I don't think it was, since my last post was last year.  I have worked on a lot of other things besides this, but haven't taken pictures... Mostly things for the OB Unit.  

I can add "shoe repair" to my resume of Mom things I have done to save money. :P  Eon's tongue came right out of his shoe when I picked him up from school the other day.  (Well he told me about it when I picked him up.)  We almost bought him a new pair (but who can afford it, having just moved again..... These are Van's- we just bought him these at the beginning of the school year or maybe even after.. and they are not cheap!)  I said "Let me look at it, maybe I can fix it... "  I got my sewing needle out, and worked on it after dinner...  I had to use my thimble to push through the leather and it took me almost an hour, but..  Saved about $70.  I don't know how a kid can rip the whole tongue out of his shoe...