Carrie Schneider

It’s my favorite time of the year! The sun is beginning to have mercy on Austin and it’s bearable enough to sit on the porch. Along with the fall season comes my favorite seasonal scent/flavor: pumpkin.

Our friends, the Lowes, recently opened a shop in Austin that sells handmade goods (etsy type stuff). If you are in the Austin area, you should go check it out! Anyway, I bought a pumpkin pound cake soy candle from their store and it smells amazing. You should go buy one.

Also, I made pumpkin spiced lattes in the crock pot this morning! Thanks to this awesome recipe. Andy doesn’t like pumpkin, so I drank both servings.

And we bought a pumpkin for the front porch. I’m hoping it survives the wrath of bored neighborhood teenagers.

The Schneiders are still alive! A few things have happened in the last couple of months including..

We bought our first house! You can check out our house renovations at eastsidebungalow.com.

We are sorting through all of our belongings from college/childhood that were conveniently stored in the garage at our last place. Our current place doesn’t have a garage, so it’s forcing us to downsize!

We started becoming actively involved with Salina Street Church.

I left my job with the state and began a temp nanny job (which just ended). Now begins the process of exploring future employment possibilities.

I started training for a marathon with the Tough Cookies running group! Definitely a diverse group of women and I’m looking forward to making new running friends.

I haven’t been very impressed with the seeds that we chose to plant this year. Most of the seedlings (bell peppers, lavender, okra, mixed greens, sweet pea, marigolds) did not grow. The zinnias, however, have grown and they are beautiful!!!!!

It looks like we have a lot of researching to do before next spring! I think this book has some neat ideas.

Some of our plants are about to bloom! Pretty exciting…

Zinnia

Honeysuckle

Pumpkin

Our cilantro started blooming, which supposedly means that soon we will be unable to enjoy the cilantro leaves. But eventually the blooms produce coriander seeds! I always wondered what plant coriander came from.

Cilantro

Today Andy & I are celebrating our one year anniversary! We are planning to go to one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate.

It has been an interesting year for us, as I have been on a night schedule and Andy has been on a day schedule. We have had many challenges, as it has been hard to interact when one of us is very tired and the other one is wide awake. But we are very thankful to be married and to have learned so much this past year!

Also, our kitties have turned one year old as well!

Lilly Loves Being Held!

We have had to put Lucy on a diet, because the vet says she is getting to tubby. Did you know that cat food bags put a higher recommended serving than what cats actually need?

Lucy & The Death Grip Teeth

Lilly

The garden has been growing! But most of the plants have not produced food yet. Our blackberry plant has been very fruitful!

Brazos Valley Blackberries

Andy has been working hard at his new job at Spiceworks! We are so glad that he is enjoying working there. I went to my first Spiceworks staff party and it was a lot of fun!

Sleepy Andy

Lately I have enjoyed looking for bargain deals on old furniture and fabric at goodwill, salvation army, and craigslist. There are plenty of unattractive couches and chairs out there!

We found some really cool wooden chairs from the 1930′s on craigslist. I’m hoping to recover the seats.

Lucy likes the vinyl

I have been browsing apartment therapy for house decorating ideas. I LOVED how this person transformed this hideous piece of furniture into an awesome modern sofa. The finished product is so beautiful it makes my mouth water. I was not able to find the exact same style, but I found a sofa that had potential. And it was only $25!

Tufted Velvet

Too bad I didn’t realize how expensive reupholstery costs!!! One company in town quoted me close to $3,000! Are you kidding me?? Those outlandish quotes make me want to learn how to do it myself.. but I’m not sure if this couch would not be a project for an amateur. I did find one place in town, Spruce, that has semi-reasonable pricing and a super cute website.

Our plants are still alive. The blog has died down in the last few weeks due to lots of projects around the house, work, etc. While I haven’t been blogging, some seedlings have emerged! Also, Andy has been teaching me how to use his professional cameras. Here are some pictures I have taken…

Resisting temptation..

Right after this picture, some sprouts were attacked.

Tomato sprouts

Brussel sprouts or mustard greens?

Bell pepper plant

Crepe myrtle is beginning to bloom!

Poppies!

Lilly

Bird Watching

Lucy

That is all for now!

I’m super pumped about our little garden! Neither of us have ever grown vegetables on our own.. And I have killed almost every plant/shrub I have tried to grow in the past. With the help of several gardening blogs, I’m hoping that this time the plants will thrive.

We picked out several vegetable plants and flowers, as well as some seeds. We shall see what survives the Schneider brown thumbs!

We also purchased several different bags of soil and compost. The Scotts garden soil looks to be the most nutrient dense. We have also started composting (yaaay Austin rebates), so we should have some great compost for our garden in the next few months.

The previous tenants built a pretty good sized garden box in the yard. First we lined it with some plastic, because the wood was treated. We made a few slits in the bottom and added rocks.

Then we (Andy) dumped in some dirt.

Then we added a layer of compost.

Then we realized we should probably just mix the soil and the compost with a shovel. And then we added our plants.

Somehow I bought brussel sprouts instead of mustard greens. Guess I’ll have to look for some brussel sprout recipes!

We love bell peppers, but they are so dang expensive at the store. Hope this one grows!

We also just learned that mint takes over gardens, so tomorrow the mint will be separated into its own container.

These bright flowers were planted in the front of the house. Andy made the awesome rock border.

And finally, some of our seedlings. I was reading online that it is best to prune all strawberries the first year of its life. Hopefully that means it will produce lots of strawberries later on.

We are planning on tilling the soil and planting some seeds in the next few weeks. To be continued..

We were lucky to find our house back in September and plan on living here for several years unless our jobs take us to different cities. My favorite part about the house is the stained concrete flooring because it is colorful and very easy to clean. I finally got around to taking several pictures to share with friends who have not yet seen the place.

A view from the front. We live on the back part of a duplex, so we have a little extra privacy. The crepe myrtle tree is beautiful when it’s in bloom.

Here’s our deck, where we enjoy cooking on our little old smokey grill. Andy & I recently put some Christmas lights around the deck… I love having an excuse to have Christmas lights up all year.

Here’s the dining area, where all the eating happens. Actually.. we eat on the couch a lot, but we hope to be a proper family some day.

And the living room, where the living happens? As you can see in the background, my parents gave me their piano as a birthday present. I LOVE playing on it! I hope to teach piano lessons in the near future. Also in the background: cat shelves. Andy has put up several shelves for the cats to climb on. Lilly sleeps on the top shelf almost every day.

And the bedroom. We recently switched the bedroom and office, so the office is under construction. We are planning on finishing it up this weekend, so pictures will be posted soon.

Out of towners, please come visit us soon, so you can get a real live tour!

The child part of me wanted to do something fun for vday but the adult part of me said that it’s overrated. Valentine’s Day has never been that great for me. One year a boyfriend got me a rubber snake from the dollar store.

I did decide to make some “fancy” quesadillas for dinner…

- 2 bell peppers (diced/sautéed)

- 1/2 onion (diced/sautéed)

- 2 tomatoes (diced)

- 2 cups black beans

- 1 handful spinach (chopped)

- garlic powder/cayenne pepper/salt/pepper to taste

- tortillas/cheeeeeeese

These were delicious! And I consider them semi-healthy since they have beans and spinach…

Special thanks to Dazzle Junction (dot com) for the awesome Valentine’s Puppies gif (photo) at the top. Click for sparkles.