Daisypath Wedding tickers

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Reminiscing

Remember, that one time, before home buying and renovating and moving took over my life?  When I was talking about a wedding, and planning one on a small budget, and we discussed things like dresses and colors and stuff?  Yeah, me too.  That was awesome. 

So, as a nod to the good old days and an attempt to do something wedding related, I'm going dress shopping today. 

And do you remember that one time, when I was all "I'm pretty set on not wearing white...."  for all those practical reasons, like I have a kid and stuff?  Well, the dress I found that I really, really, really, like is white.  Of course. So, consider the crow eaten.  I expect this isn't the first time I'm going to make a statement that will have to be retracted later....

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Paul, Art, You Were Mistaken

I have found a flaw with your logic, Simon and Garfunkel.  See, in the lyrics to "I Am a Rock" you claim you have "built walls/ A fortress deep and mighty."  By yourself? Really?  How'd that work out for you?  See, 'cause we're only switching out lighting fixtures and taking down cabinet doors, and we can't even do that by ourselves.  You must have had a second pair of hands.....

Last Friday we signed the papers and got the keys to our BRAND NEW HOUSE! (thank you Rod Roddy!) and immediately went over to start scoping it out.  (By "we", I'm referring to myself, Future Mr.  Husband, his parents and his mom's best friend, R. She inspected our house for us, and is an amazing jack of all trades, and a really awesome person.) Once there, we started holding up paint chips, unloading tools, making lists, and figuring out the quickest route to Home Depot.  One of the first things on the list were screen clips.  Why, you ask?  Because within 30 minutes of being in the house, our offspring pushed a screen out and went ass over teakettle out the window.  He's okay-just a bump and scratch on the head. I think it took about 5 years off my life, though.  And can I just tell you how incredibly grateful I was in that moment that we bought a one story house?

Anyway, we got to work immediately. Cupboard doors came off, primer started going on, counter tops were removed, ceiling fans came down.  If it were not for the incredible generosity of of the Future In Laws giving of their time, I'd probably still be standing in the living room in a daze, wondering where to begin.  Thanks to their divide-and-conquer attitude, the kitchen is well under way, a bright, shiny new ceiling fan is in the living room, and almost all of the light fixtures have been replaced. 

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Simon and Garfunkel. Besides, y'all are singing the song together.....duh. 

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Inventory

It won't be officialofficial until we close on Friday, but we're getting our house. The air conditioning issue has been resolved.  I've started packing. The give-away pile is growing. I bought two light fixtures today (thank you craigslist)  and Future Mr. Husband picked up a truckload of flooring yesterday.

I feel like I should be more excited, but it all feels very surreal at this point.  I think once Friday rolls around and the in laws are here and we have the keys in our hot little hands it will sink in and I'll start to get excited.  Right now what I'm mainly feeling is overwhelmed.

You see, I hate moving.  I really, really, hate moving.  I blame it on being a Capricorn. When I was a young and single gal, moving was a choice I made begrudgingly. It usually had to do with rent being raised beyond what I could afford.  And so, I'd carry home (yes, carry. I lived and worked downtown and didn't have a car for years)  boxes from work or the liquor store every day for about two weeks. I'd pack them up, bribe some friends who had cars with a promise of beer and pizza, and spend the better part of a Saturday shoving bookshelves into a Volkswagen.  Sunday I would unpack as much as possible and it was back to work on Monday; a little disoriented but not much worse for the wear. Within a week I had the place feeling like home again.

Each consecutive move since my young and single days has gotten more complicated.  To prepare for my move to Austin, I moved from a one bedroom to a more affordable studio apartment (in the same building, at least) where I stayed for a month. Then I moved everything into storage and moved myself onto my friend's couch for a month. Then she and I moved everything from storage into a U Haul, plus all her stuff, plus our combined sewing studio, across the country and into a house we shared in Austin.  After a year there, I got pregnant, she got married and we both moved out of that house. 

My  next move, of course, involved combining my household with Babydaddy's household, which means twice as much stuff.  We had barely started unpacking our things in that rental house, we were told it was about to be sold and we had to get the heck out.  So six weeks after moving in, we moved out and into the house where we are now. 

Over the two and half years that we've been living in our current home, we've managed to acquire a few things. For example:

a person
all the junk that person needs to keep him safe/fed/happy/busy

It's really quite staggering. In two years we've managed to fill an entire bedroom with furniture, a closet floor to ceiling with stuff he outgrew but we might need if and when we have another baby, and every available space that remains with his accouterments; bibs, bowls, spoons, sippy cups, potty chairs, yard toys, trikes and wheely things, toys, toys and toys upon toys.

We have exactly three weeks from this posting to get packed and moved.  While I'm here packing, tossing, organizing and sorting, the Future Husband will be working at his job during the day, and going to the new house after work to help his dad install floors, paint cabinets and do other things with tools.  I am more than happy to take over the responsibility of packing the house to free him up to work on the new house.  Me and tools don't get along so well. But like I said, it's a little overwhelming. Not only do I have an entire house to pack and organize, I have reading for school to do over spring break, regular life type-stuff, like laundry and meals to think about, and then there's that kid that follows me around and wants things.  So, a lot going on.

Right now the focus is to try to stay calm, do as much as I can without getting frantic and crazy about it, and remember to feed the toddler.  Wish me luck.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

In Like a Lamb

Well, it wasn't exactly the fireworks and popping champagne corks that I had anticipated, but it looks like we're getting the house.  The issue with the air conditioner hasn't been totally resolved.  What we do have at this point, is a contract that says the owner will fix it before we close.   If, for some reason, the air conditioner can't be fixed and has to be replaced instead, we can still back out of the contract at that point without penalty.

I'm really hoping that doesn't happen. Especially since I've started packing. 

As far as wedding plans go, I'm feeling optimistic for late June.  We had originally ruled it out because the house we thought we were going to buy needed quite a bit of work.  At that time, we felt like June would really be pushing it and August was more reasonable. This house needs a lot less to make it livable (Let me rephrase that. The house is completely livable, if you like living in the 80's. I do not.  So it needs some updating.)

I would like to be clear that I said "I" am feeling optimistic for late June. Future Husband, apparently, isn't quite there yet.  When I delicately mentioned the possibility of maybe thinking about having the wedding in June, I got some sort of grumble about "stress" and "time" and I think I heard something about "nervous breakdown" as he exited the room. 

Here are my reasons for being so pushy about a June wedding:

1. I really want to get married in June.
2. Texas is really f-ing hot in August. I want our guests to be comfortable, not miserable. 
3. My BFF is a teacher in another city and August would be a hard time for her to travel, since she goes back to work mid-month.
4. Future Husband's cousin is getting married end of July.  Since a good bit of our guest lists will overlap, I want to give people time to recoup before traveling again.
5. I really want to get married in June.  I tried to be okay with another month, but there's just something about June....
6. I'm really ready to be married already!
7. The sooner we get married, the sooner we can take a honeymoon.  This last year has been pretty busy and stressful.  We could use a vacation.
8. June is a lovely month to be married.....

Besides, don't all weddings have at least one good nervous breakdown? 

Monday, March 1, 2010

Short but Sweet

We are thisclose to having our final answer on the house.  We had it inspected on Friday and everything looks great except for the air conditioner.  The seller will arrange to have it looked at today to determine if it is something that can be repaired, or if the entire unit needs replacing.  Repairing, he will work with us.  Replacing, not so much.  We're hopeful that it's an easy fix.

If all goes well, we move forward with closing on March 12.