Home Is Wherever You Are, But...I Still Have "Must-Haves"

Tonight I'm dreaming a little bit. We didn't get the house we put on offer on, which is fine, but now we are back at square one. We are obviously still looking at houses and my hubby is taking a little trip to house hunt in person in a few weeks. We both know our wants and needs and I need to trust my hubby to pick a house for our family without me seeing it in person. He knows what I like and what I want in a house, but let's face it...we don't have the budget for my dream home. Even if we did, we move in a few years anyways. It is so hard!!

Here is my wishlist (realistic)
1. 3-4 bedrooms.
2. 2-3 bathrooms. One in the master is a must.
3. Backyard. Big enough for our firepit, the kids to play, and hopefully a trampoline.
4. Close to shopping. "Close" meaning within 20-30 minutes, 10-15 would be AMAZING!
5. Good neighborhood/schools.

Those are my top 5 realistic "must-haves". I think they are pretty reasonable.

The fun part is "wants" in a house. Here are my unrealistic, dream home wants.

1. Fireplace.
2. Open concept.

Picture from Pinterest

3. Kitchen with a booth. Yes, a booth. I'm obsessed with this idea.

Picture from Pinterest

4. Master bathroom with a huge bathtub and separate shower.

Picture from Pinterest

5. Front porch with swing and a door with a fun color. Don't ask me why. I just love a fun door. Red, yellow, bright blue. I want it. 

Picture from Pinterest

Ok, so my wants aren't going to happen. Especially the pictures I pulled from Pinterest. My hubby is more of a "I want a fixer-upper" house kind of guy. Good because maybe I can get a fun colored door! Good because we can personalize the house to our style...to an extent of course. Bad because it takes time. And energy. And fixing up a house with a hubby who will do 90% of the "fixing up" while working a full-time job with two little kids will be very difficult. I'm pretty sure my husband has more confidence than I do.

Now we just need a house! Easier said than done, but we will get one. We will have to, you know, because we need shelter. Keep your fingers crossed we find a house we can make our "home"!

What are your top needs and wants in a house?

I 'had" a dream...of donuts.

And I failed. Well, at least failed at the presentation portion.

Wait, I should start out by saying, Happy MLK, Jr. Day! I don't work at the moment so I can't say thanks for giving me an extra day. But I'm sure those who get the day off thank you very much, kind sir.

My dream was to make Valentine's Day mini donuts. I heart mini anything.

I had it all pictured in my head. Cute hearts and flowers with red and pink sprinkles. And they were going to be donuts...delish, right?

They were pretty good and easy...but my dream of them looking cute for a Valentine's day treat: not so much. Good thing I made them a couple weeks in advance. Phew!

I made the donuts out of a can of biscuits and fried them in vegetable oil. Not healthy at all.

Once the biscuits were out on a cookie sheet, I flattened them out to use my cute cookie cutters. They looked cute at the beginning...

I started to fry them in the veggie oil and the biscuits started to expand. The shapes disappeared quickly.

It only takes a couple seconds to fry them up (about 20 flipping with a metal spatula)
*DO NOT use a plastic slotted spoon or spatula. Did that first and melted it. Another fail! :(

Placed on a paper towel and baking cooling rack

The shapes didn't turn out the way I planned, so I though maybe, just MAYBE I could salvage the V-day look with the icing. I wanted to use white chocolate so the sprinkles would look brighter on white. I used this recipe for the icing and white chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet.

UGH!! It did not come out white. Why is WHITE chocolate not white!? It was more of a clear-ish color. I rolled my donut odd-shaped, ball whatevers I had in the icing. Then I added the sprinkles. My hot pink and red sprinkles looked exactly the same color. COME ON! Really!? I can't even get a good color combo.

At this point I didn't even want to taste them. I did anyway because how can a fried biscuit covered in a white chocolate icing taste bad. FINALLY! At least they tasted good. Next time I will definitely go with a standard donut shape and no sprinkles. If I was doing this for V-day, I would do a fun packaging instead.

My dream of heart and flower mini donuts didn't work out, but they did taste good. That's the most important thing, right? It's been less than 24 hours and they are gone. I guess it wasn't all bad.

Hope everyone has a wonderful MLK, Jr. Day!