Fitness in my 30's

Last night I lay in bed thinking deep thoughts...

How much do I weigh??

Seriously. I haven't weighed myself in what feels like years. I literally got out of bed at 9:30 PM and walked to the kids' bathroom to weigh myself. The numbers were not what I wanted to see, but they weren't the worst I've seen.

So, I've re-committed myself to losing those same 20-25 pounds I lost seven years ago in March 2012.

2011                       2012

I have been exercising steadily for the past 2 years, with some minor breaks for depression and life. I wanted to lose weight by exercising and not watching what I eat. Spoiler alert: it doesn't work that way in your 30's. In your 30's, weight just doesn't fall off your body unless you have some serious medical issues.

Also, you know what doesn't work as well in your 30's? Your body. You can hurt yourself by doing the most simple things. I have injured myself doing stupid things, like my hip kept popping out of joint, I got tennis elbow from working in the yard, and I injured my rotator cuff by trying to get more steps on my Fitbit by doing arm circles instead of steps. Yes, I did try to cheat my FitBit step counter, and I paid for it dearly.

When I lost weight in 2012, I gradually built up my exercise routine and gradually I lost 25 pounds. I didn't eat super healthy, but I also didn't eat super unhealthy. The weight just came off. It felt easy, other than the TurboFire workouts I was doing.

I have been doing the same TurboFire workouts (in the morning--I never thought I could do that!) since August 20th 2018. That is over 7 months of kicking, punching, jumping, and super sweating at 5:30 AM. I thought if I just did hard-core cardio every day, I would just lose weight without trying. HAH. I actually gained 7 pounds over 7 months. Super cool. I wish I had these amazing before and after pictures from doing TurboFire workouts again, but no such luck..

Obviously, I was doing something wrong. I knew in my heart I was eating too many desserts and sweets, but I didn't want to change. My sister introduced me to this super easy caramel popcorn recipe, and I've made it way too many times. I also made these super delicious gooey butter bars during the Seattle Snowpocalypse in February, and I swear I gained 5 pounds over those 5 days. I also bought this amazing Cookie cookbook, and I unfortunately have made wayyyy too many recipes from it.

Graham and I have both committed to eating less treats, me baking less desserts (the dang double oven tempts me to bake more!), and to trying to make fruit-based desserts more (like roasted pears or peaches). He is committing to working out more frequently, and now that I've finished TurboFire for the third time, I'm moving on to online RIPPED workouts and my barre videos.

And, I'm back to weighing myself weekly to keep me accountable. I kept trying to ignore the fact that my pants were slightly tighter than they were... Sigh.

I'm back to where I started 7 years ago--trying to lose 20 pounds. At least this time I'm not starting from scratch. Luckily I have good support, a set routine, and a dedicated workout room to keep me going.

I don't have any recent full body pictures within the past 4 months, so this is it. 😂😂

Master Bedroom Update

Well, this is quite the detour from my normal blog posts.. We have been working on small projects around the house, like parts of the garden, steps up to our yard from the road, and some minor interior projects.. but you SHOULD see our double barn doors from Artisan Hardware. They are beautiful and function to separate the master bedroom from the exercise room.

Things I wish I would have known before building a semi-custom home

So, I did a lot of reading online before deciding to build a home. I looked at blogs, I read home website and magazines, but now that I'm done building... I don't feel like I was adequately informed, and I was naive enough to think we were ready.

Newsflash: we were NOT ready to build a home. Here's what I wish we knew (or did)..

Save Money

1) Save more money. Don't just think you have just enough for the down payment and monthly loan payments. You need more money for unexpected items along the way. If you can, budget in more money in the contingency fund section for your construction loan. Don't ask how much to save--just keep saving until you think you have too much money.

Price Increases

2) There will be price increases even if you're using a general contractor or a well-known on-your-lot builder. The price of lumber increased, there are tariffs on some foreign home building products that recently increased, and sometimes your builder may charge you a fee if your home isn't ready to build within a certain time frame (check your contract carefully prior to signing!).

Nothing is Cheap

3) Everything is expensive and will add up. We decided to get some crawl space vent covers for our home, which were over $75 each! We paid someone to build our stairs, and while the lumber wasn't too expensive, labor is not cheap. A $3 bag of mulch sounds cheap, but it's NOT when you have to buy over 100 bags.

Landscaping

4) Put money in your budget for landscaping. If you're lucky, maybe you don't have to do a thing to your dirt prior to moving in. But, if you're like us, you may have to do SOMETHING and cover all disturbed soils, so we HAD to hydroseed, we HAD to mulch, and we HAD to put bark on our sloped hill.

Make Compromises

5) Cut costs where you can if your budget goes over. We had to get rid of our concrete driveway pad and walkways. We now just have gravel, pavers, and rocks, which isn't my ideal in our PNW wet winters. We bought cheaper floor tile for our laundry room and the kids' bathroom. We bought and installed our own utility sink. We went with chrome bathroom and kitchen fixtures because the upgrade cost was ridiculous for brushed nickel. If we want to upgrade faucets later on, we can replace them easily.

Be Realistic

6) Be realistic about your abilities for DIY projects. We initially were going to get vinyl flooring in the laundry room, and put in tile ourselves later. Tile installation is not too tough right? But when we carefully considered our plans, that would mean we would have to rip out the flooring, remove our mudroom shelves along with the utility sink, and take out the washer and dryer. Was that realistic for us with 2 kids and 2 full-time jobs? No way. We found some cheap but nice-looking tile at Home Depot and nixed the vinyl.

DIY

7) DIY when/if you can. We did our own dining room nook cabinets, tile backsplash, and butcher block countertop. Ask for help if you need it. My husband struggled with installing cabinets by himself and some ended up a tiny bit crooked. A neighbor helped us cut our countertop down to size. My father-in-law helped my husband install the pantry shelves. Watch YouTube videos if you're really unsure of yourself, but like I said.. be realistic about your skills.

Mistakes

8) Errors will be made--by you, your builder, the tradesmen, the county, the draftsmen, etc. Everybody is human and you cannot expect perfection. However, the most important thing to know is to catch the mistakes early. Ask questions. Verify the dimensions, the angles, the plans. Don't be afraid to confront someone and demand mistakes to be corrected. It's much easier to get things fixed before it gets too far. Look closely at everything done in your house. We realized after we moved in that our tile guy installed our master bathroom's tile floor with two different grout colors.

Estimates

9) Get things in writing, whether it's the work to be performed or the estimated price. Sometimes a contractor will increase the price after the job has been started. This happened to us, and our guy nearly doubled our tile installation cost after the first day in our master bathroom. (He said it was because we were using specialty limestone tile, but really--double the cost??) We also wanted a specialty subway tile design in our kitchen and master bathroom. We thought it would be cheaper to get subway tile and get a cool design rather than buying fancy geometric or mosaic tile... but it wasn't. Because we didn't know we would receive a significant upgrade cost for installation of a subway tile design prior to choosing it, we went over our tile budget.

Builder

10) Research your builder. Contact others who have built with them (I've received at least 10 e-mails from people looking to build that have found my blog). Find other people on social media to see their experiences. Meet with them multiple times prior to signing a contract. Ask them questions about their timelines. Ask them about their standard features. Ask them about their subcontractors. See if they will provide resources from satisfied customers. We have neighbors that have built with other similar builders and ALL of them had major issues. My husband has a co-worker that was building a house with a solo General Contractor who could not get subcontractors to work for him because everyone has been so busy. This co-worker's house is still under construction... 2 years later.

Details

11) Really get into the details of the build. Find out what is your builder's preferences for insulation, HVAC, plumbing, foundation type, cabinet materials, etc. Ask your builder before you do or buy anything. We knew nothing about a ductless heat pump HVAC system. And yet, I bought an Ecobee thermostat so I could make our home a smart home with heating/cooling and save on energy costs. Little did I know, our house doesn't even have a thermostat. Yes--that's right--no ordinary wall thermostat. The temperature is monitored by the heat pump and a remote, but no--you can't just see the house's temperature on the wall. We expected something totally different than what we got. Research your materials--are you buying something that requires specialty maintenance or installation (like limestone tile)? Make informed decisions.

Expectations

12) Lastly, adjust your expectations, then re-adjust them again. Your house will take more time to build than they tell you. Take their timeline and add 2-3 more months. Your house will cost more money than they tell you. Take your budget and add $10-20K. There will be delays, mistakes, and this will be the most incredibly stress-filled time of your life. It's exciting, yes, but OMGoodness the stress was unbearable. My husband and I both agree that if we had to do it all over again, we would totally do it. It is awesome to have this amazing house exactly where want to live. However, we keep saying, if only we had known this or that.. so we both recommend building your own home as long  you review this list and change your expectations of how your build will go.

And to answer all of your question, YES, we would build with Lexar of Tacoma again knowing all that we do now. We just wouldn't expect our semi-custom home to be done in eight months during a building boom in the Seattle/Tacoma, Washington area. To all of you potential home builders out there, good luck and best wishes for your future build!

After Move-In Update

Well, it's been a month since our official move-in date, and I have to say.. I freaking love our house. It was worth all of the pain and stress we have been through. So, to all of you building out there.. it will be over, and it will be worth it.

Things I love most about the new house:

• The location. Yeah, we could've bought a similar size house in a neighborhood for a bit more than we paid for the house... BUT we would be looking into our neighbors' houses every time we looked outside. Now, I see grass, trees, and the Puget Sound out the doors and windows. Plus, we have neighborhood friends with kids of similar ages! My kid can ride his bike down the dirt road to a friend's house. My kids can play outside without worry. We even had a small neighborly bonfire and s'mores last week.
• The private master bedroom. It's tucked into the back corner, and I have to keep my door open to hear the kids at night.
• The kitchen cabinets. Oh my goodness. There is so much storage that the cabinets look almost bare in some instances. I can put pots and pans in separate cabinets, and Tupperware lids and containers on separate shelves. It's magical.
• Space. So much space. We don't have to squish behind another person behind the dining room table anymore. We had 5 additional adults and 3 children over at our house and we still had plenty of room. However, I find I misplace things all the time because now I have too much space.
• The closet. Again, I have more space and organization possibilities than I've ever had. I have my shirts and cardigans organized by sleeve length, shoes by heel height, and even exercise clothes have their own drawers. 
• The heat pump. The summer heat in the Pacific Northwest is only unbearable for a few weeks, but man.. I love having air conditioning at home.
• The feeling of being HOME. We have moved 7 times since we have been married (almost 9-10 times if you include when we were dating). We thought we were settled into our first house, but no, I got the crazy idea of building a new house. Despite the craziness, we have been involved with this house from the get-go, and it instantly felt like home. We still have a ton of projects waiting to be done, stuff waiting to be bought, and family/friends to invite over... but we are finally HOME.

Oh, and the crazy thing is, my husband has to travel for work, so he was only able to enjoy the house for 10 days before being shipped off. However, he is working so much overtime that it's helping us pay off the extra expenses for the new house.

Next up... and possibly one of the last home building blogs I'll do before I move on back to real life... Things I wish I would've known before building a home.

We are IN!

Although it felt like it would never be done, we are DONE (mostly).

Our inspection was delayed until July 31st due to some technicalities with the electrician, the appliances, doorbell, kick plate heaters, etc... But, we passed the final county inspection after the inspector spent maybe 10 minutes at the house. Crazy and kind of anti-climactic after 12+ months of stress.

We also had our home re-appraised to get rid of PMI on our mortgage.. And this is why we built and didn't buy... We have over $100K in equity in our home just starting out. It's crazy! The one thing that sucks about it is that the rates are slightly higher than when we started.. and over 0.5% higher than when we bought our first home in 2015.

Anyways, there are still some to-do items for Lexar, such as the missing doors, fixing the drywall dings and scratches on the wall, and some transition pieces between the floor and cabinets. There are a few painting touch-ups needed, but we can do that. Oh, and we are missing our 6 USB outlets. Anyways, they aren't urgent things, so we are moving in this weekend.

We had a major "what do we do??" moment last week during our move when our moving truck that we planned to rent all week couldn't even hold all of our furniture and boxes. So, we made 2 trips with the truck, our friends and church friends packed up some of our stuff in their trucks, and we moved it all into the garage. The major moving mistake of booking a small truck saved us money and time.

Anyways, I'll post more pictures when we are done.. But we did book a cleaning service that specializes in post-construction cleaning, and they did an amazing job. There was not a speck of dust left, and they cleaned the windows inside and out! Thank you Victory Cleaning Services in Yelm, WA!

Here are some finished house pictures until I start taking some new ones with my nice camera and in a furnished house..

All lit up at night. We definitely need some walkway lighting because it's quite dark in the middle front of the house.

My favorite thing: my painted navy blue door.

Our accent tile wall on our kitchen island. We still need to adjust those globe pendants down a bit.

Our rain wall stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. Paint is Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray with silver metallic acrylic paint on top.

My baby: round wood mirrors with patterned subway tile wall.