Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A present, some shopping and a thing or two.

Chow retouched

Mr. Ambry's mom was up to visit Sunday and brought me some farmer's market treats.

zucchini two ways (chow and bread and butter)

So far I've tried the zucchini chow, but I'm not opening the other one until I finish the first one. They're huge!

Also, I did a little Etsy shopping the other week.
'Cause, you know. Smart people buy breakable objects right before they pack up and move...

Boysenberry Preserve

Crabapple Jelly

Grape Preserve

Mint Flavored Apple Jelly

But how could I resist those sweet little old jelly jars? I plan to store buttons in them and display them on my craft area shelf as soon as I set up my new craft area. :)

Um, I also bought this thing:

front of antique slicer

back of antique slicer

Totally scary but somehow irresistible. In fact, one of my Flickr friends said it best in her comment on the photo itself: "Oh my scary goodness." I concur.

And then there was the other week when I was flipping out and hating everything I touched and I redesigned some labels for the eighty thousandth time.
I like them okay I guess. Definitely more than the last ones.

new labels yet again

And another thing.

gardener's soaps

Garden-themed soap sets!

gardener's gift set

Each basket contains one bar of each of the following soaps: Fresh Cucumber, Herb Garden, Tomato Garden, and Veggie. Available here!

The only new thing is that they dropped off our PODS thing today! So far I took out seven storage totes. Shamefully, two of them are filled with yarn, three (so far) with fabric, one with art supplies and one with kitchen decorations.

And having said that, I must get back to work. :(

Sunday, November 8, 2009

I'm a Winner!

Winner! Winner!
I was lucky enough to win some goodies on two different blogs recently and I wanted to share the excitement.

First thing I received was one of four laundry soap samples from Carrie at Under The Willow.

free sample from Carrie!
I used this one within an hour of opening the package and I am so, so excited about this product! My clothing came out of the washer smelling fresh and lovely, but not too heavily scented. The best part was that everything looked and felt so light and CLEAN! I mean, no big surprise when you stop to think that these clothes had just been washed in actual soap for the first time in their lives; as opposed to the usual "detergent" (most definitely nothing like soap). Having been freed of all that unnecessary gunk, they felt lighter and softer and smelled so clean!!! I don't use fabric softener or dryer sheets for our clothes (dryer balls ♥ ♥ ♥), so when I pulled them out of the dryer, they smelled just like Carrie's laundry soap. Yum!

And then I got three more samples today! Look how sweet they are all wrapped up in this washcloth:
Carrie's samples came wrapped like this

And here they are!
more samples from Carrie!!!
They smell fantastic and I can't wait to use them all! Thanks a million Carrie! Your product is superb and I will most definitely be placing an order after we move. :)

And for the next big win, I was lucky enough to receive three bars of Birch Bark Soap from Sherrie!

The package arrived yesterday while we were out, ya know, buying our house (!!!) and I opened it the second we got in the door.

Birch Bark soaps!!!

Even though they were below freezing on the porch, they still had a faint, lovely smell about them. And as they warmed up to room temperature they just smelled better and better. I spent a great deal of time with the Orange Vanilla bar (the one without a wrapper) smashed firmly against my face.

Seriously Sherrie. They are phenomenal (as always)!

And big thanks to everybody for the warm, wonderful comments about our house. I love knowing that you all are sharing our excitement with us! ♥

Friday, November 6, 2009

This is it!!!

So today we went down to the Reading area to look at more houses. There was one in particular that we have been interested in since it went on the market about a week ago. It was even nicer in person and we were pretty in love with it. Nicely painted, immaculately clean, lovely, fenced-in yard, quiet street, great schools -- you get the idea. :)

We saw five other properties, had dinner at one of our old favorite restaurants from when we used to live in that area and popped over to the realtor's office to make an offer on the place we loved. As we were driving over there though, our realtor told us to be prepared for the worst as it turned out somebody else had made an offer earlier today on the same property.

We got a call when we were about halfway home that our mortgage company had faxed over our official pre-approval letter and our realtor and her partner had immediately run across the street to the seller's agent's office and put our offer in. Keep in mind that this was like 8:00 in the evening...

We got home around 9:30 and ten minutes later our agent called to tell us that our offer had been accepted! I am definitely still in shock, but I am so, SO relieved and happy!!! We settle on December 11th and I will be kicking things into high gear in anticipation of the big move! I can't wait to be down there, but I am dreading the packing and unpacking...

Anyway. I didn't take pictures of my own, so I stole these from the email of the listing we got from our realtor a few days ago.

Front of the house.

Same front, different angle. :)

Living room.

More living room.

Kitchen!

Kitchen!

Um, kitchen!

Dining room.

Coat closet and stairs in living room.

Stairs.

Reading nook. :)

Brick patio in back yard.

So that's that I guess, barring some major disaster during our walk-through. I really can't believe this is actually happening!

If I am strangely absent from here for a little while, it is because I am busy jamming things into boxes. :)