Jaclyn Kurkimilis

You Know You Love Instagram Updates

jaclyn — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:07:22 +0000

Since I rambled so much in my last post about things that were happening I figured I should actually update about them! My last update before the one about Bruce was on March 31st so I’ll try my best to recap what has happened since then, because it’s a lot! These aren’t exactly in order, but this is the way it makes the most sense!

After my last post school started winding down fast. I couldn’t believe my first year of teaching was almost over! Everyone told me after FCAT that the year would fly by and they weren’t kidding. After FCAT the rest of the year seemed like a blur of packing up my room, preparing my kiddos for 7th grade, and ending the year with Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies. Is it sad that I love those books and movies as much as my kids?

I’m sure you guys already know what huge Bruce Campbell fans we are (I mean hello… we named our dog after him!) but as we were packing and going crazy over moving, the new Evil Dead movie came out! Of course we had to wear matching Army of Darkness shirts! I absolutely loved the movie. I also became obsessed with Jane Levy because of it and marathoned both seasons of Suburgatory (twice!). Then before we knew it, it was moving day! We signed all of the paperwork and received the keys to our new home. It was an insanely hectic day that would never have happened if it weren’t for my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and Steven’s friend Will. They were life savers.

Right after we moved Marty got sick again :( He has really bad allergies and when he has a flare-up the smallest agitation turns it into an infection. The only good thing that came out of it is that now he’s on an allergy medicine that he has to take for the rest of his life, but will hopefully stop these scary infections!! I also subscribed to a magazine for the first time in YEARS! I picked up a copy after we moved because we don’t have cable anymore (we never really watched it because we watch everything online) and I missed HGTV. I read the entire thing cover to cover and decided it was worth the $15 to subscribe. I’ve gotten so many awesome ideas for our house!

The new freedom of summer opened up some room to try new things! I joined a Pathfinder group (which is very similar to D&D) on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I’ve never played a table-top RPG before but I knew I’d love it. I’ve done online RPing before and it was one of my favorite things ever. I’m so into our game and I can’t wait for Thursday! (we’re not playing tonight :(). I also bought a ukulele! It was a really cheap one on Amazon but I upgraded the strings on it based on the recommendations of the reviews. I love it so much! I already learned the Adventure Time theme (kind of…) and I’ve put way more effort into it in the two weeks I’ve had it than the years I’ve owned guitars. Whoops!

Slowly but surely the house is coming together! I have to keep reminding myself that it’s ok if it doesn’t happen overnight. We still have lots of boxes but the only reason they’re still packed up is that we have no where to put it! Our house has plenty of space but these are things that need to be displayed and we haven’t bought any shelves yet. I’m trying to rectify that today! We still need to paint our bedroom, get some dining furniture for the formal dining room (we only have small stuff for the eat-in kitchen area), and start hanging photos. I never feel like I’m at home until I have photos on the wall.

I had been wanting to change my hair for awhile but I wanted to wait until school ended. Three days after the last day of school I finally got my hair ombre’d! My stylist did an awesome job and I LOVE my hair! I’ve gotten so many compliments on it and I’m definitely going to keep it up for awhile :) The other picture is just of some amazing socks I got at the dollar store hahaha I was way too excited to have shark socks.

And last but not least, I bought the boys matching tags a few days before Bruce arrived. We were so excited to have him join the family! I won’t lie, it hasn’t all been fun but it’s been over a week now and we’re all adjusting nicely. I hate change and I always get major anxiety every time my routine has to adjust. I constantly ask myself “why did I do this?” “did we really need a new dog??” But everytime I look at his little face or I see him and Marty playing, I instantly melt and know that life wouldn’t be the same without him. I also have to remind myself that he won’t be a puppy forever. So even though I’m looking forward to him being more independent (like Marty) so we can leave the house more without worrying, I’m enjoying his puppy stage. The very last picture is of my Paleo Shepard’s Pie. I made cauliflower “mashed potatoes” for the first time ever just so I could make this. It turned out awesome. The leftovers didn’t last more than a day in our house. We’ve been trying Paleo for awhile now and I’m really liking it. I’m not super strict though because I eat a little too much fruit. But I’m sticking to lean meats, fruits and veggies. How can that be bad?

Bruce Boomstick Kurkimilis

jaclyn — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:15:22 +0000

I’M ALIVE! I SWEAR! You guys… SO MUCH HAS BEEN HAPPENING. I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll give a quick rundown because this post isn’t really about what’s been up, I have an instagram post in the works for that (I’m sorry). ANYWAY here:

Offer accepted on house, moved in May 6th

School ended May 23rd

Became a lazy bum

Started playing a weekly role playing game with my husband and his friends called “Pathfinder”, if you’ve ever heard of Dungeons and Dragons… it’s basically that. I’d explain more but like I said ANOTHER POST. But oh man do I love going every week so much.

Have been playing entirely too much World of Warcraft

GOT A PUPPY!!!

That last one was the most important item because that’s what this post is about! Meet Bruce Boomstick Kurkimilis, named after Bruce Campbell of course! One of the reasons we couldn’t wait to finally get into our own home (besides wanting a huge backyard for Marty) was because we really wanted another dog. Marty is the most loveable energetic little dog and sometimes we really felt bad that he had no one to play with all day. I mean yeah we took him for walks, played with him, bought him toys, etc. but that wasn’t always enough for him. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been around bostons but they have a TON of energy. So as luck would have it, right around the time we put in an offer for our house I found out about a little of boxer puppies that were due any day. That would mean that they would be ready to go home by the time we were in our new home! We had been talking about getting a boxer anyway because we wanted a bigger dog, but we love the look of bostons so much. This seemed like the perfect compromise. Fast foward 8 weeks and our boy is home! The two of them are already becoming best friends and they wear each other out so fast! It’s amazing. In fact they’re both napping under my computer while I type this. Here are a few more photos of our little guy. There aren’t many of Marty because he was just not feeling the camera today hahaha.

bruce follows marty EVERYWHERE

Our First Home (Almost!)

jaclyn — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:37:37 +0000

About a week ago our offer was accepted on this gorgeous house! It was built in 1989, it’s over 2200 square feet, and it sits on a half acre lot so the back yard is HUGE. It’s 3 bedrooms plus an office, so basically 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a formal living/dining room area, family room, the kitchen has two bars plus an area for a small kitchen table, wood laminate throughout, granite countertops, and a gigantic Florida room.

On Thursday we went to the inspection (which only found a few minor problems which we’re working on) but while we were there I just had to take some pictures of the place. Please note that none of the furniture in the pictures are ours. The family who is selling the house has a few things still there. If all goes well our closing date is currently set for May 8th. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Here is the view from behind the front door. You can see how much space is there. This is just one of the living rooms but we’re going to use it as a formal dining room.

This is the view from the opposite side of the room, this is the view you’d get coming out of the master bedroom or the office area.

My beautiful kitchen!!! Look at allllllll of that counter space!

Here you can see our realtor and my mother-in-law standing in our little breakfast nook area. Oh and those huge doors to the right are half of our built in pantry.

Here is the family room which is where we’ll probably be spending most of our time. I want to put up tons of shelves for all of our toys and get more frames for all of our convention prints!

This is the Florida room! It’s a bit different than a regular lanai because it’s carpeted and all of the screens have sliders over them so you can close them off and keep your patio nice and dry!

The master bedroom, which I cannot wait to paint!!!! The rest of the house isn’t something that I’ll die if I don’t change right away… but this room I cannot handle. I already know it will be Moonshine by Benjamin Moore, Thanks Young House Love!!!

Master bathroom with our built in closet. Through that door is our shower and jacuzzi tub!

Guest bathroom

Second and Third bedrooms, both of which have walk-in closets!

The garage, aka Steven’s Protomen workshop area.

The view of our house from the backyard and a view of the backyard. I love how many trees there are! The fence is hard to see because it’s sooooo far back there! And no one lives behind us, it’s just woods. I love it! We’re also on a dead end street which is awesome.

And last but not least our garage with extended driveway. It’s extra space for a boat or RV but it’s nice for us since we have an extra car with Brittany living with us.

Welp, that’s it for now! I can’t wait to share photos after we’re in it and settled with our own stuff!!

Womp, Womp

jaclyn — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:31:12 +0000

So how many ways can I say I suck for not posting? I love this website and don’t worry, it’s not going to die. I’ve even gotten a few new followers recently and I feel terrible that this site is so boring!!! Here is what I’ve been up to lately and what you have to look forward too soon, I promise!

1. It’s testing season! FCAT is only a few weeks away and we’ve been crazy busy at school preparing our kiddos. The good news is that 29 of my 53 intensive reading students (students that read below grade level) are projected to move up to on level readers next year! That’s over 50% of my kids! And almost 100% are projected to make gains, this is hugeeee!

2. Steven and I are still house hunting! The problem in our area is that lots of houses are listed below $100,000. That might sound awesome but that means tons of investors come in with cash and swoop them up! Our offers have been turned down left and right, but we’re steadily moving ahead. We go looking with our realtor every weekend.

3. We’re buying a horse! For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been riding basically my whole life. I started when I was around 5 and had my own horse from 11 to 18. I don’t mean just trail-riding and hanging out with my buddies either (though that stuff is awesome too!) I was heavily into Egyptian Arabians and that show circut for awhile and then I moved on to Saddleseat Equitation and I had a beautiful Saddlebred for a few years. Steven and I have been crunching numbers and have found out that it’s very affordable for me to be able to add this love back into my life. So now besides looking for a house, I’m also searching for the perfect horse and the perfect stable to keep him at.

As for the picture, we went to Megacon last weekend as Finn and Jake. We also had burritos at our favorite place, Gringos Locos, and our poor baby, Marty, is sick! He has allergies which got infected and basically his face almost fell off. Well not really, but he’s on three different meds and broke out in hives! The cone didn’t last long, but look how sad he was with it on!

Anyway, that’s what’s been up with me. But with testing season in school also means it’s almost the end of the year! School is over in just 10 short weeks and after that I’ll be home alllllll summer! With a new house and a new horse to take tons of pictures of :) I hope you guys stick around until then because I sure love writing on this thing.

Sorry for the long winded post!!

Nature in Our Neighborhood.

jaclyn — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:12:34 +0000

Brittany and I went for a little walk around our apartment complex and we ended up seeing some of the animals that live around here. Unfortunately the gator and the turtles were in hiding, but we still saw a few and some of my favorite little purple flowers.

Also sorry for the lack of updates. We’re currently house hunting and with that and work things have been crazy! But I updated my site a little and I wanted to check in. I can’t wait to share photos once we decide on a house. It will be weird leaving our apartment, but I’m so ready!

My Very Own Font!!!

jaclyn — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:42:00 +0000

Hey guys!! I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas! I got exactly what I wanted. Ok, so all I really wanted was to spend Christmas with family because that’s a luxury I didn’t have for a few years, but my husband went ahead and spoiled me anyway with a brand new Asus Vivotab rt tablet! It has a quadcore processor and is just so fantastic. Ever since I saw Elsie over at A Beautiful Mess use her ipad to make her own font I’ve been wanting to try it SO bad! Thankfully the app she used also made a version for my windows based tablet. I had SO much fun making my font and honestly I want to go invest in a stylus now so I can make even more fonts. I’m hoping Brittany will make one too because I’ve loved her handwriting since 9th grade! Anyway here is my font:

And if for some weird reason you want to download it here it is! The app stores them for you and there are thousands of fonts in there! I love it because handwriting fonts are my favorite. I think the company should put out an app for the iphone too because so many people would use it!

Gringos Locos

jaclyn — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:15:36 +0000

I need to interrupt the wedding posts for just a second to share some photos of our favorite burrito place in Downtown Orlando. If you’re from any place other than Cape Coral, Florida you’re probably saying “seriously?” in a really judge-y tone right now. But in good old Cape Coral there aren’t too many local places that are all that wonderful. I mean sure we have Jimbo’s… but you can only be in the mood for one of their 50 burgers so many times. Our wonderful friend, Ian, introduced us to Gringos Locos over the summer when we were up there for Nerdapalooza. We have since become addicted and go out of our way to find excuses to eat there now. Mind you, Orlando is over 3 hours away from where we live hahaha.

So last weekend when my friends and I were planning to go to the Marina and the Diamonds concert, my husband was more than happy to drive us since the show was less than a 2 minute walk from Gringos Locos. Sadly my camera wasn’t allowed in the venue so I couldn’t get any photos of the amazing Marina, but I did snap some of this amazing burrito piece of heaven so we could remember our oh so fantastic burritos. The next time you’re anywhere near Orlando, go visit Gringos Locos. Everything there is so good!

First Anniversary Weekend {Wedding Party}

jaclyn — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:08:27 +0000

Ok so I really suck at posting and my title doesn’t even make sense anymore BUT I can still post wedding pictures right? The next set I’m sharing are pictures of our wedding party. I knew there was no way we’d end up taking normal photos but I love the shots we have so much more. They really express the personalities of us and our friends. Once again, it was hard choosing just a handful of pictures but I think I managed to get some of my absolute favorites.

The lady to my immediate right is my friend Robin. We’ve been friends since high school and while she wasn’t technically in the wedding party we had to include her in the photos. She flew all the way from Oregon to be at my wedding and brought amazing Harry Potter cookies for everyone. She’s basically amazing!

If you’re asking yourself what the heck we’re doing in this photo… you don’t live in Florida! It was December and still 85 degrees so we were doing the “armpit dance” to save our dresses hahahahah.

It wasn’t just us ladies who couldn’t take things seriously though…

They clean up nice though!

This was as close to formal as we got, much to the dismay of parents!

Hopefully my next post will be sooner since starting tomorrow I’m officially on winter break!!

First Anniversary Weekend {Details and Getting Ready}

jaclyn — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 13:17:12 +0000

So Monday marks the first anniversary since our December 17th wedding last year. I realized I’ve never shared any of our photos on my site, or anywhere really! I posted a link to my amazing photographer’s blog on my facebook, but that was about it. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED my wedding. And I even shared tons of pictures of our Disney/Universal Studios honeymoon. The thing is… as much as I loved our wedding, I didn’t want to be THAT bride. Through the whole planning period I was scared of over-sharing because I usually find it really annoying when people can’t stop talking about their wedding. I know it’s mean because they are REALLY happy, but not everyone is as excited as you for your wedding. Even though it’s redundant I feel the need to point out that this is just my opinion. I learned in high school that you don’t need to ever say “in my opinion” because obviously you’re the one saying it. But the internet has proven many times that it doesn’t remember any rules of English so I’m just throwing that out there.

ANYWAY since it’s been almost a year I wanted to share some of my favorites. There are so many that it was really hard choosing but I’m breaking it down some. In this post I’m sharing some from when we were getting ready. I’ll share more tomorrow and on Monday since tonight I’m going to see Marina and The Diamonds with my friends!!

Everyone was OBSESSED with my shoes! I have a million pictures I love of them but I’ll keep it down to one for now.

I would like to point out that Steven was ready in 2 seconds and annoyed that we rushed him into getting ready so he sat and played his DS for a few hours hahahhah

All right I’ve got to go get ready for the concert! I hope everyone has an awesome weekend :) All photos are credited to Christine at A Million Sighs.

Last Christmas {Cape Coral Pet Photographer}

jaclyn — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 18:17:48 +0000

The title of this post is slightly misleading since I just took these pictures about two hours ago but it’s the name of my favorite Christmas song. So there you go. Anyway today the family got together to take Christmas pictures and of course we couldn’t resist taking some of the dogs. You all know Marty, but the other guy in these photos is Steven’s parent’s dog, Rigby. As in Eleanor Rigby, because Steven’s dad loves The Beatles. Rigby is Marty’s best friend, aka the only dog in the world Marty has known long enough to get along with. He’s also the total opposite of Marty, but they’re pals anyway.

I suppose I’ll share photos of us humans soon, but the dogs were just so cute on their own. I’m off to finish up the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and some Christmas decorating.