Our House and Its Updates

In October 2014 my husband and I bought our first house. I didn't expect to be able to do that ever. We both have pretty low income (he's a school teacher and I'm a grocery store clerk + writer). But at this point, amazingly, the mortgage was lower than our apartment rent. Plus the rent went up every year and the mortgage will only go down!

So, anyway, we looked at 11 houses in three days and on the fourth day made an offer on a great deal. The house was built in 1963 and was being sold by the original owner. It has a lovely big yard with a fence for our dog and it's surprisingly big while looking cute on the outside.

The only issue for us was updating the decor. It came very 70s-style.

Before we moved in my parents and I ripped up the carpet throughout (luckily there were beautiful hardwood floors underneath). A friend and I also painted my office yellow and the master bedroom light blue.  Finally, I painted over the gold-specked laminate to make the counter top in the kitchen look like marble.

Mine did not turn out quite this lovely :-/ Still, to me anything is better than gold-specked laminate.

So I'm going to post a few "before" photos (from the real estate webpage) and I'll do individual posts about changes in each room and my inspiration photos and ideas from Pinterest, etc.

Plans:
Kitchen:

• paint walls
• paint cabinets white or cream

Dining Room:

• cranberry area rug
• yellow curtains
• paint same as kitchen and living room

Living Room:

• Already got an area rug to help make the space cozier. Taking the carpet out made the space far too cold and big.
• new sofa for the side of the rug
• paint a sage green
• paint white or cream on fireplace wood paneling

Bedroom:

• area rug

Main Bathroom:

• replace bathtub with a big whirlpool type (my husband LOVES baths and I want to give him a luxurious tub he can actually fit in).
• add chandelier over bathtub
• add fabric shower curtain
• switch out blue sinks for white

Nursery:
This will be a guest room until we have a baby but I am going to decorate it completely as a nursery to help me feel really ready to succeed in my infertility journey. We have my husband's childhood bed to put in there but very little else.

I plan to do a window seat with storage by putting three IKEA bookshelves around one window. I want to put a reading nook in the closet

Game Room:

• Paint wood paneling cream colored
• slip cover for sofa in beige
• already switched out the checkered carpet tiles for beige ones, put in a game table, a bookcase of games, and a video game area

What is FLO Living and Can It Cure PCOS?

Welcome! I'm Carolyn and I created this blog mainly to document my meal plans as I rework my diet to the principles found in the book WomanCode by Alisa Vitti.

WomanCode was recommended to me by a friend because we both have PCOS (polycystic overaian syndrome), a leading cause of infertility. While she was able to quickly conceive naturally and recently gave birth to a lovely girl, my husband and I have been trying to conceive for two years without luck.

PCOS has caused my cycles to be very unpredictable and at this point I may not be ovulating at all. The author of the book also has PCOS but got the symptoms under control and a regular cycle back by eating to support the endocrine system.

At first I was reluctant to buy the book but then I realized that I was looking at having to spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments, so why not spend $10 first and give this diet a try?

Besides, it also helps regulate blood sugar and PCOS has links to diabetes. I'm dangerously close to pre-diabetes at this point and getting my blood sugar levels under control is important no matter what else is going on in my life.

Ms. Vitti calls her method FLO Living and has a website and a consultation service as well as the book.

She teaches us how to not only get our nutrition on track but also how we can support our body with different types of foods and nutrients at different points in our cycle to keep our hormones balanced.

I will be creating meal plans for myself each week based on where I am in my cycle and what foods Ms. Vitti recommends. I'll post pictures, recipes, and results for each meal.

Along with that I will also have posts about home improvement, DIY, and suburban homesteading. We just bought our house five months ago so we're just starting out on all these things but homesteading has been my dream since long before I knew the word for it!