You say couch. We say potato.

Couch!

Potato!
Now everyone wave yo hands!
Couch!
Potato!

Oh...you don't know that one? Pity.

Well..here it is...the post you've all been waiting for. ...I'm sure.

Noah and our executive desk. It's a mess...because Noah is paying bills.
Eew.

Perhaps I should explain why we have an executive desk. Since we're not executives.
Or desks.

See...one sunny but couchless day I was searching the kingdom of craigslist for a couch.

But not just any couch.

A couch that would not scream "I'm a retired Floridian senior citizen!"

Though the task was destined to be near impossible...
I was determined to find a comfortable resting place for my bottom.

After weeks of searching...and weeks of sore bottoms and empty living spaces
...my diligence was finally rewarded and my quest over.


Aaah....couch. And sofa. Aaaaaah.

But there's more to the story....just keep reading.


Here's Noah playing Wii...we bought a small monitor to play on...22". Huge difference from dad's. yaaaah buddies. But...it works well for the wii.

...in the picture he's playing "air hockey"
...but NOW I'm watching him race a cow.
Yes...you read that right. A Cow.

A closer look at the couch. It's difficult to determine the color. Originally I had thought it to be a blue grey...however it's actually a chocolate brown. Which suits me juuuust fine.

The Guitar. The Sofa. The Sock Monkey.
It just doesn't get much better.
Aaaand our bookshelves.
I love our bookshelves. Mostly because there's room for MORE books.
bwaha.
-------------------------------------------------

The rest of the story...

So...I happened to look on craigslist one Saturday morning before Noah and I went out and lo' and behold... (what does 'Lo' mean anyhow?)
There it was...a new post. Entire room for sale.

The guy listed his year old couch, sofa, accent chair, two endtables, coffee table, two lamps, rug, and executive desk for sale.
Original price paid? 3600.00
Asking? 250.00

maaaybe I believe him.

So I call. And believe it or not....I was the first to call about the furniture. So we rushed over there. Literally...cuz..i was the one driving. And later, the guy told us his phone started ringing nonstop after he got off with us.

Well...we bought is obviously. Because we didn't have a couch or sofa...OR lamps. And since he was throwing in all that other stuff too? UH SHYA!

The set was less than a year old and its while its not perfect...its pretty close to new.

We're not using the rug, accent chair, or coffee table...the rug doesn't match and smells kinda gross. The accent chair is just plain ugly. And we like the coffee table we already had better.

But hey..I'd say it was definitely worth it.

And now you know... the rest of the story.

I'm Jeni Lancaster. Good day.

The Moon of Bee Jam

Ah yes...after weeks of waiting you find yourselves
reading the much anticipated blog post by yours truly.

Ok...lets just be honest. You and I both know you're really only looking at the pictures I post.

And with two gorgeous people like ourselves, I really can't blame you.


So since you're thinking I'm totally full of myself..I'll have you know I'm nursing a very sore throat and resizing each of these pictures individually. Just for you. So there.



This would be the hotel we stayed at on our honeymoon in St. Augustine.


Ok...I lied. We didn't stay there. It USED to be a hotel for all the rich and famous. It's now a college.




Actually, THIS is where we ended up staying. Beautiful, huh?

Yah I just lied again.

This would be a hotel turned museum. Built by the same guy as the hotel/college above.

We actually stayed at a very quaint bed and breakfast in the historical district. SO much better than a hotel.





This would be a cannon at the the Castillo de San Marcos. The Castillo is actually the oldest fort in the United States. St. Augustine, being the oldest city in the United States. Apparently there's a huge ol' stink between the St. Augustine people and the Jamestown people....about who's oldest and blahblahblah and how Jamestown is a pile of sticks compared to St. Augustine. Not that I would know...since I've never been to Jamestown. But the people in St. Augustine were pretty awesome...so I'm going to side with them.











This is the only problem we faced....you could NEVER ever count on the stores to be open. So if you want something..you better buy it when you see it cuz they might not open for the rest of your five day visit.

I saw this sign in one of the store windows and it basically says it all.


St. Augustine lighthouse. A very popular attraction and worth seeing once. We actually went inside of it..and I started to lose my bearings inside....there are 219 steps to the observation tower, which is about the height of a 14-story building or the bridge of a destroyer.

I survived however...looked out at the top...went onto the observation deck...and promptly returned down the stairs to safe ground.

































If you ever get a chance to...research lighthouse keepers and their duties. This was amazing for me. We tried to lift a pail of oil that they had to carry up the steps every few hours....no way.

















The second fort in St. Augustine and our favorite. Fort Matanzas. You had to take a ferry to get to it and it was free. F-R-E-E There are few things in St. Augustine that are free so this was a real treat. Plus...the people taking care of the fort were reeaaallly friendly and even fired an old cannon for us.













One of the reenactors there at Fort Matanzas.

You gotta admit...there's a crazy similarity.

Noah and I at the beach. Atlantic Ocean beach...ooooh yah.

Aaaand last but not least...our last stop on the honeymoon was a surprise. I didn't know what we were doing until we were inside the building. A Brandon Heath concert. Only a couple rows away.

Furniture

Last night we acquired a coffee table. And it's pretty awesome. (if i do say so myself) It's a mexican style storage table. It reminds me a lot of John and Laura's. Except we don't have cool end tables to match . p

I think we did pretty good on prices and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get our money back out of anything should we decide to resell once we move.

We bought the coffee table for $50 and it really IS in fantastic condition. It lifts up on both sides for a LOT of storage space.



It looks a tad jumbled right now...but we just bought these bookcases last week and I'm only now getting things organized. This is pretty much the only wall they can go on since the other two walls have long windows. The bookcases are really nice. A TON better than ones you find at walmart. They're very. very. heavy. I know because I dragged them across the room and into place. In Noah's defense...he was sleeping like a normal person is SUPPOSED to do at 1:30 in the morning. I, however, could not sleep and ended up reorganizing the living room and mopping the kitchen floor. We splurged and bought these for $100.


This is the other side of that photo....that blanket covered object is Sis. Pat's futon. We have yet to find a couch we like. Most couches down here are either leather or a really hideous floridian floral pattern. No thank you. It's the last thing we need really so I'm sure we'll find one soon. That recliner there is a faux leather that Harry and Stephanie gave us. Noah and I like it since we can both take a nap in it between services. You'll notice the sock monkey on the "couch." That's from Joe and its pretty much my favorite thing ever. You see, I've always wanted a sock monkey...and now that I'm 22 and newly married...I finally have one. We actually have two end tables, but I put one in the pantry. The room in here is just two small for two end tables. We paid $25 for the combo.
We bought this matching dining table and hutch off craigslist as well. Actually, everything we've bought has been off craigslist. We reupholstered the chairs with fabric we bought at JoAnne's. Which, by the way...that shopping trip was an adventure.

Me to Noah: Do you like THIS fabric?
Noah: No.
Me: What about this one?
Noah: No fabric that hideous should be seen by innocent eyes such as mine.

I exaggerate of course...but it was pretty bad.


Anyhow...we bought this combo for $300 which I thought was a pretty fantastic deal. It took me a day to go clean it and go over it with liquid gold...but it looks good now. The hutch has really come in handy...we put it in the kitchen and it gives me a lot of extra drawers and shelf space. The amazing thing is it really fits perfectly in that small kitchen. You'd think it would make it smaller in there but it's the perfect size in width, height, and length. I loves it.

The last room really is our bedroom and it's hard to take a full picture of it because...

A. It's really really small
B. We don't have a ceiling height light.

However...I took a picture anyway. We juuuust got the decorative pillows yesterday which explains why I haven't taken the tags off. It's actually kind of funny, but the pillows take up most of the bed.

Noah and I both like to sleep with two feather pillows so...there are 4 of those. We also have two huge pillows at the headboard. And two shams. And then the 2 in front.

Noah's pretty sure I'm insane.

I told him, "Don't fight it."

Eat, think, and be merry.

Well...there are a few good things to note.

1. Noah and I are not starving.
2. We haven't been rushed to the ER to have our stomach pumped.

I have, so far, made: white bread, wheat bread (and ground my own wheat flour), manicotti, spaghetti, fajitas, Cajun chicken pasta, lemon chicken pasta, Fettuccine Alfredo, pecan tassies, and 7-layer bars. We've also grilled a few steaks.

I haven't noticed either of us gaining any NOTICEABLE weight yet. Ha...

I made an Enchilada casserole that I snuck into the trash can (hey, I needed the pan!). Noah "said" he liked it, but we both know it was terrible. I'm just the stronger one to be able to just 'let it go'. (he picked out the recipe -the stubborn thing)

SO....all in all I'm doing ok. Now comes the hard part...making meals that aren't going to turn us into huge tubs of lard...and making them on a budget.

We went to a meat market with Noah's mom, Pat. Half of it is now in our freezer, half in hers. They cut and freezer-wrapped everything we bought for free... (minus the chicken breasts...we separated those ourselves) The sirloin they cut gave us 28 steaks, the filet mignon we bought gave us about 16. We had the filet mignon last night with our fettucini and it was SOOO good. We're planning on getting that again for sure since it was only $20 for all 16 cuts.

I made these 7-layer bars that are amaaaazing. I've been using a lot of recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and this website. http://annies-eats.com/

So...all in all, we're not starving or dying of food poisoning...a definite good thing. I'll try posting pics of what we've done to the house so far...on the next post.