About Us

Hello! My name is Emily and I am the lady behind this blog.  The hubs and I got married in 2007 and have been together about 13 years and each year feels like its going by faster and faster.
We bought our first house in November 2009 and worked on making each room unique with tons of character.  We try to DIY as much as we could, with the help of friends and family we were able to transform our home from an empty slate to a 1920's home fill with tons of character and a little bit of us!  We are kind of bummed that we did not take pictures of the house before we painted all the rooms, but at that time we were in a time crunch to close on the house and finish things that needed to get done in order to close.  To say the least, those couple months in 2009 prior to closing were very stressful and when we were painting we didn't even know if we would get the house, but thought if we didn't get it the next owners would enjoy the paint colors.

We decided in Spring of 2014 to put our house on the market, not thinking that anyone would fall in love, and someone did.  It was a VERY quick and stressful process but sold our old house and found our new home within a few months!  Since then we've been enjoying living in the burbs and are just taking in all the perfect, imperfections with our new house!

While both holding full time jobs that we both really enjoy, we also enjoy riding our Harley when we can and cruising the open road.  When we aren't riding, DIYing, tring to cook, or working, we love hanging out with our sweet English Springer Spaniel, June Bug.

In 2014 we welcomed our sweet little Mae into our family and have been enjoying her craziness, stinkiness and snuggles ever since!

 

I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Invasive Ductal breast cancer, which is the biggest DIY project the hubs and I have ever taken on, but while it completely took the hubs and I by surprise, since I have no family history, we decided to "nip it in the breast" and go ahead with a double mastectomy, followed by a lymph node dissection, fertility treatments and egg harvesting and 8 rounds of chemotherapy.

We also found out that I carry a genetic disorder called Li Fraumeni Syndrome, which predispositions me to all sorts of cancers, and gives me a 50/50 chance of passing it onto my children.  With that knowledge we had our embryos tested to find out that three of the six carried Li Fraumeni.  With the three embryos we had that didn't carry it, we moved forward and had two implanted in 2015 in hopes that one would take....and they both did.  I had am amazing pregnancy, loved every swollen, stretch mark filled minute of it, but found that my breast cancer had returned when I was 35 weeks pregnant.  Delivering a few days later, waiting and having a PET scan to find out I had some spots in my lungs, lymph nodes and sternum.  Stage IV.  With chemo, lots of doctor appointments and a total hysterectomy I found in December 2016 that my cancer was gone.  Now with surveillance and scans we will work to keep this at bay for a long time.  I want my boys to remember me, to know the weirdness and be embarrassed by me.  We still have a third embryo, so now we are on the hunt for an available uterus to help bring our third little boy into the world.  Any takers?

While the rug was pulled out from under us, we have brushed ourselves off and are regaining control. The hubs and I are using this experience to raise awareness to other young women, older women, middle aged women, and all the men out there! Breast cancer does NOT discriminate.  Feel the tata's and go with your gut. That's what I did and it saved my life...twice.

We have both come so far over the past 13 years, through ups and downs and we think that things can only go up from here.  We LOVE to DIY, get dirty and have fun, so we hope you enjoy our blog!