One Year Married

Today Mike and I celebrate our first anniversary. Hooray for us! Year one of life partnering.

 Since we're saving up our pennies for a home, tuition, and flying back to Michigan, we decided to party indoors rather than spending a week out of town. I was in charge of last night's surprise date, and served up an heirloom tomato salad, potato tikis, and smoked trout.  (The trout ended up being just grilled, since I didn't let the wood chips get smokey on the grill.  They were still delicious with their beady little eyes!)

The cake that I'd planned on making remained unmade, the long-saved wine from our dating days was fizzy, and I filled - FILLED! - the kitchen with dishes.  Altogether, it was a wonderful, wonderful evening.  It felt like a love holiday.

Tonight Mike is hosting a surprise date.  He's picked me up for work, and now has whisked me off to the bedroom with some snacks while he finishes up dinner.



He's a dreamy one.  I can' t believe it's been a year already!  And yes, Love, we still can call ourselves Newleyweds.  We've got at least two more years for that.


Update:
Mike D. - having just made me a delicious recreation of our steak and lobster honeymoon dinner - is now finishing up the frosting on a German Chocolate Cake.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the good life.

News! And news!

This morning I woke up to this:
Google had release a street view of Antarctica.  I was enchanted.  A few years ago I had heard a story on NPR about a woman who had lived at the McMurdo station cleaning the scientists' rooms.  The whole story was so dreamy and surreal, and I wanted to go to there.  While in New Zealand a couple of years later, I met an American guy who had just returned from six months there with $10k in the bank, and I REALLY wanted to go to there.  Alas - it didn't happen.  (But it still could.)

And then there was this guy! He saw the Northern Lights, in my part of the world! The world is full of miracles (like magnets).



Also, it's just a few days till our wedding anniversary.  The first one!  I'm going to make a mini version of our wedding cake.  We should probably have some other plans, but with school and Monday night celebrating, we might keep it kind of tame.

ALSO!  We now have a realtor, and are pre-approved for a home loan.  The house hunting begins in earnest this weekend!  La la la.

Grinchy

Our landlord is such a slacker!  We went through four refrigerators in our first six months of renting because he kept buying mostly-broken used ones, and recently he's refusing to put tar paper on the steps, even though both Mike and I have fallen down them.  (Like, actually fallen down them, not just stumbled a little.)

Today he's over going through the crap he keeps in storage in our basement, and his kids are picking all of our raspberries.  I feel so Grinch-like.  I WAS going to make a pie today.  Now, however, I'm going to read my accounting text while thinking bitter thoughts toward the landlord and his general attitude of negligence.

In other news, we met with a real estate agent today.  He's really great!  Mike still needs to have a few questions addressed before going forward with him, but I have a really good feeling.  This is so exciting.  And tomorrow I meet with a lender!  We're scrambling today, hunting down old W-2s and student loan statements.  This all feels so grown up!  I swear, every day we become more adult-ish.

The shortcuts

It's been hot this week.  I pulled out one of my only summer skirts and found that most of the hem had come undone - not enough to just ignore (did that!), and the awkward length made me not want to undo the hem completely.

AND SO!  Out came the stapler.  To date, I've used a stapler in place of actual sewing with:
*Curtains
*Dress pants
*....that's pretty much it.  I'm sure I used it for half-way crafts through my years child care and community college.

I thought that one or two would pull it together, but I ended up needing ten.  Maybe more?  In the end, it would have been faster to just pull my sewing machine out of the closet and be done with it. 


{{{{{{{Mike comes home tomorrow}}}}}}}
Yes.

BrokenHouseHeart (HeartBrokenHouse?)

There's one home listed that I've been drooling over for about a month now.  Since it didn't sell within the first week, as so many of them are this season, I had thought maybe it was hidden, or undesirable, and would just hang out until we got everything ready to actually SEE it.

Alas, as of this morning it's listed as sale pending.  Frak.  Double triple gaaaah!

This is when I end up typing things into Google like, "how to deal with disappointment when house hunting", and get mediocre-but-somehow-helpful advice.  Frown, grimace.

Getting over it.  Remembering that there are other houses out there that will be lovely and cozy and available, and we'll be the overwhelmed homeowners.  To the future!

Home Alone

Mike is gone this week with the middle schoolers on their week long camp.  It's so weird to come back to an empty house, and wake up to an empty bed.  I'm sleeping with the hockey stick next to me, just in case.

While he's gone, I've been working feverishly to contact real estate agents and lenders, getting quotes and information so that we can be ready to explore once he's back in town.  I've been dreaming about houses consistently for the last two weeks.  Fingers crossed that we'll make wise choices with all of the things that are in motion.  Yay!  Aaaa!  (Also, eeeee!)

And now, I'm off to try and sleep in my sad, sad bed.  I get it, now, what Double En was saying about becoming so accustomed to one's partner.  I used to sleep alone every night, no problem.  For years!  (Nearly 30!)  Now, I'm half-way to being a wreck in the morning.  Soothe yourself, paranoid brain.  G'dnight!