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My key ring pretty much sums up my life… Spin classes at LA Fitness, books at the Carnegie Library and lots of purchases at Giant Eagle mainly buying these puppies… We buy our Home Depot gift cards at Giant Eagle to get the fuel perks. It’s sometime annoying to make the extra stop instead of going to Home Depot right away, but it’s all worth it at this moment… My gas bill hasn’t been this…

If you’re from Pittsburgh, you totally know what I’m talking about. For those of you who are foreigners 🙂 the Pittsburgh toilet is a very strange phenomenon of a free standing toilet in the BASEMENT with no walls or doors to speak of. To be honest with you, I think Pittsburgh toilets are weird and gross. And then, a few days ago while working on the house, I needed to go to the bathroom. You’ll…

It rained like a dickens in Pittsburgh last weekend and our roof couldn’t handle it. Mark made me hold that bucket there for four hours. What a guy! 😉 As the rain continued, we grabbed more plastic buckets from the basement. Our roof leaks in 3 places in the back bedroom. I’m not happy about it, but at least we know where the holes are and we can fix them before we spray foam insulation….

We knew it was only a matter of time… My husband, Mark, works LONG days…putting time in at the house and managing several professional projects. He’s burning the candle at both ends and he got tripped up… …by that little hole. While working LATE one night, Mark stepped through the hole, fell and ripped up part of his arm. There’s nothing a little Neosporin can’t fix and before I could blink, my man of steel…

Our first injury… Our first leak… Our first look at the new bedroom wall and door… Our first peak into our neighbor’s house… Our 1st Race for the Cure celebrating my Aunt Trudy & her friend, Kathi!! **FOLLOW ILOVE2SWEAT! Just click the “+ Follow” button at the top of the page & put in your email address…some of you might see the FOLLOW button on the BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER of the site.

Everybody knows that neighbors can make or break you. We got lucky (my mom would say blessed) to have absolutely terrific neighbors who are kind, helpful and friendly. Many of them grew up in Lawrenceville and a few of them are young families that just moved in. Our neighbors have made us sandwiches while we work… They’ve helped us TRY to move some huge appliances into the house (more on that later)… They’ve passed a…

We certainly don’t…at least for now. You currently can see directly into our basement because the old stairs used to be right here. We tore them down and built new ones in a different spot. (That post HERE) The old stairs held up one of the walls in our front upstairs bedroom, so now we need to add 2 support beams to the ceiling joist in its place. To do that, Mark cut open part…

I’ve never considered myself “high maintenance.” My sister can attest that I’d rather go makeup free. As a kid, I was a TOTAL tomboy who couldn’t be bothered with makeup or hair dryers. That has since changed because HD television can be very unkind…who would have ever thought PRIMER, TONER and BRONZER would be part of my vocabulary?! While I really love getting all grungy and dirty with this home improvement project, I’m craving some…

A lot of weekends, I get to emcee different events. Last Saturday, my sister and I both got to emcee an awesome memorial run/walk for Trooper Kenton Iwaniec… That’s us with Kenton’s mom, the most WONDERFUL lady. These events can last 6-7 hours, so Mark is often working at the house by himself. One day in a 6-hour span, he built 3 temporary walls on his own… For the basement wall, he used the old…

Only your family will help you move 5 times in the last 4 years. (And I find if you feed them & buy them beer, it makes the day go more smoothly) My cousin Rob (who is freakishly strong) helped Mark and my dad take our furniture out of our Lawrenceville loft… And move it into my parents’ garage (thanks Mom for parking your car outside!). Rob let us borrow his truck & my Aunt…