That's right... I'm talking about some before and "after" photos that show some of the great progress we've made. And some that show just how lazy we really are and why our house is just not quite in "having our first housewarming party" shape. Some of these photos are just plain embarrassing and almost make me want to get up off my butt and start cleaning up the remainder of the messes that loom in my house. The key word, of course, is almost.

So, friends, here are some photos of where we were before the move and where we are as of about 5 minutes ago. Please, no judging. OK, maybe a little.

Here is the living room the morning of the move. Carpets are cleaned. Sun is shining through the windows. So serene...

This next photo is sort of a cheater photo. This was not actually taken on move in day. In fact, this was before the walls were even painted. But it is still a before...

The lilacs are from my mom. I love lilacs. Good thing since we have a 10' high lilac bush in our tree line.

And here is the rest of our kitchen.

The range works great. And this kitchen has a TON more storage than our last house. Let's just say I am in love. Since we got the gas line put in I have cooked as much as possible. In fact, there is home made granola baking in the oven in this photo. And it's de-lish. I shared that recipe here in my second post. I still owe you the recipe for buffalo chicken mac & cheese. And tonight I made skillet veggie lasagna. I should probably share that one with you, too. 

That is where Stella eats her dinner every night. Love her food dish. It was a wedding gift from Erik's sister and her husband. They made it. I know. Super awesome. Stella loves it almost as much as I do. Oh, and she eats her food from the side and drinks her water from the front. She is very special.

Yes, the light fixture is still ugly. Yes, the china cabinet needs a new coat of stain/poly. Yes, the textured glass needs some serious updating.

The other amazing thing about this room is that this is where we eat dinner just about every night. In Indiana we only used this table about 4 times. Once was for our anniversary dinner. I couldn't even tell you what the other 3 were for.

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Judge away.

But before you do, I will leave you with this image of our (mostly) finished upstairs hall bathroom.

Dinner tonight consisted of something that my husband's family calls Scrambled Pancakes. It's very easy to make and its deep fried. Two qualities that create a great Tuesday night dinner if you ask me.

To make it mix together in a batter bowl (or whatever bowl you'd like to use):

1 c. flour

2 eggs

1 t. salt

Milk (enough to make the batter about the same consistency as pancake batter)

Then, heat some oil on the stove top over medium-high heat and pour all of the batter in at once. Let it cook until the underside gets to be golden brown. Then, with 2 spatulas, flip the whole deep fried gob of batter (very technical term) over and begin cutting through it with the spatulas to break it up. Continue to let it cook until golden brown. Once done, scoop out onto a paper towel covered plate.

My husband's family eats this topped with applesauce. I've also tried it with syrup. And tonight we had some fresh blueberries and raspberries along with it and some pan-fried yukon gold potatoes. Some of us (i.e. Erik) decided to top it with the applesauce AND the fruit. I looked at him like he had a third eye when he did this.

Erik's family ate this as a dinner when he was growing up. But I think of it as more of a breakfast, hence the fruit, potatoes and glass of orange juice I had with mine. And I would've fried up some bacon if I would've been thinking of it. But sadly, I forgot we even had any. Sad, I know.

What do you think? Would you consider deep fried dough topped with applesauce as more of a breakfast eat or a dinner treat? Try it and let me know. Oh, and beware, when you mix the batter you will think you need a double recipe or more, but I warn you that this makes a full skillet of deep fried deliciousness.

I would've taken a picture of them to share with you. But sadly, we ate them all. You will have to rely on the Google to share a picture with you instead.

The move in was a success! And we've had internet for right at a week now but I've been neglecting my blog for other things. Like unpacking. And tractor shopping. And unpacking. And cleaning. And walking the dog. And unpacking. And going to Goodwill to find a festive 4th of July shirt for Erik which we will most definitely be cutting the sleeves off of to make it even more festive. And then more unpacking.

Needless to say, it's been slightly busy and very hectic around the old homestead since move in day. Though I for one have not been as productive as I would've liked over these past 2 weeks. Still, we've gotten a lot accomplished. And a lot of that is thanks to my wonderful family for coming to help us out on those first couple of days after the move.

Oh, and remember how I wished I had gas a couple of weeks back? Well now I do thanks to a couple of plumbers and some piping being run through the basement. Along with that we have a new water heater, furnace and a working stove. I even made a huge mess of the kitchen tonight while making buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese. And yes, it is as awesome as it sounds. I will post the recipe this week in order to be nice and share.

We also successfully purchased a new lawn tractor (or garden tractor - I don't know the difference between the two yet). Well, mostly successfully. We got it on Friday, just in time for the rain and cold weather to come back. And then we realized yesterday that the deck on said tractor is not the size we ordered and paid for. So now we get to call back our friends at the John Deere dealer and politely demand that they bring out the correct size so that we can mow the amazon jungle that is our lawn. Complete with a lovely field of dandelions. Believe me, our neighbors must be more than impressed with us thus far.

Pictures and more updates are to come soon. And if I can figure out how to rotate a video that I took on move in day then I'll share that soon as well.

Until then, stay classy San Diego!

And that's exactly what I'll be doing in about 36 hours.

Well, actually, I'll be watching men from the moving company haul all of our stuff that's been sitting in storage for the last month into our just about move-in ready house!

We've been busy little bees for the last few weeks, which is why I've been a really bad blogger as of late and have not shared many progress pictures with you. My plan tomorrow is to take a TON (yes 2000 pounds worth) of photos to share all of the progress that has been made as of late with you, my hopefully still loyal readers.

It's been pretty exciting at the soon to be casa de Brandstaetter. We've been doing really fun projects like installing toilets, shower heads and bathroom hardware.

My husband became a miter saw/base moulding expert this past weekend while installing all of the base and toe kick moulding in the family room.

Our carpets and windowsills are squeaky clean as are our family room, sun room and kitchen floors. Our pantry is wiped down, our icky downstairs half bath is clean and all of the tools that have been living in random rooms in our house have been compiled and are ready for their trek back to my parent's and brother's houses now that all of our stuff will be here on Friday!

Stella's dog run has been hung between a post on the front porch and a huge pine tree in the front lawn. Hopefully they can both hold up in the event that she sees a deer or some other "new friend" in the near future. I can envision our front porch coming down and Stella running through the subdivision dragging a post behind her. She's been known to drag things from her collar in the past...

Yes, that is a heat register cover hanging from Stella's collar. She is very special. Very, very special.

So, anyway, movers will be coming around 8:00 on Friday morning and we could not be more excited! We are so excited, in fact, that we will be throwing bags of drywall we ripped down in our basement into a dumpster tomorrow night in preparation for Friday's move. We'll just call it a little warm-up exercise for the unpacking we'll be doing all weekend.

Be jealous. Or, if you don't want to be jealous, you can always come over and sling some lawn bags full of drywall into a dumpster. I would never want you guys to feel left out from all the fun having. So come one, come all. Or just one? Anyone?

I wish I had gas. Natural Gas, to be exact. And no, not the kind of "natural" gas you get when you eat a lot of beans.

I'm talking about the kind that WE Energies needs to come out and install in our house so that I can start making pancakes and bacon on this bad boy...

(I really need to work on my photography skills apparently. Nice bucket, vacuum hose and blue tape, eh?)

And then, after I'm done making pancakes on our beautiful new gas range, I can wash my syrupy dishes using this...

And put any leftover pancakes (not that there will be any) into this...

(We have the fridge, but the picture I took of that is even more awful than the range. Picture big, bright glare shining back at you)

So, as you can see this past weekend we officially became the proud owners of our new appliances. And installed our new faucet. Which I ordered from Amazon at a much better price than the big orange store had to offer.

We also got the upstairs hallway painted by Joe's Professional Painting Services, LLC (AKA, my dad. Thanks, dad!).

And put in new light fixtures in the laundry room, back hallway and upstairs hallway. Well "I" didn't put them in. That would be the handy work of my awesome husband.

And cleaned out our disgusting basement, of which we have zero before and during pictures.

For a full visual, picture this on the walls:

And no, it is not wood. It is 1970s fake wood embossed paneling. With mold crawling up behind sections of it because of past water issues. Ick.

And then we had a pile that looked similar to this on our floor for about a week:

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating slightly, but it was pretty bad. That coupled with the mouse poop from the mice that were clearly living in our basement ceiling. Disgusting.

Have I mentioned yet how grateful I am for our friends Tom & Zach who came to help Erik demo the basement? Well, I am. Extremely grateful. Because of them I did not have mouse poop fall into my face.

But I did get to help clean it up.

And now our basement looks like this:

I know its not glamorous or anything but it is in much better shape than when we first got into the house. And it no longer smells like must, mold and mouse poop.

Plus, the demo has allowed much easier access for a plumber to come run the gas into the necessary areas of the house in (fingers crossed) a few weeks. Making it even more feasible for us to actually move into the house that we are putting all of this love and sweat into.

And then we can regain ownership of our dog who, I'm convinced, now believes that my parents are her new mom & dad. Partly because we are at work all day and at the house on the weekends. And partly because she's just a brat. She's lucky she's so cute.

Anyone else have any exciting stories like cleaning up a mouse poop filled basement from their weekend? Or a dog that no longer loves them? Or a strong desire to have gas?