glass thieves.

So here's the story of the engagement, for those interested. We'll be "caught up" on the life of me after this one, so I can move on to the current joys of home ownership and weddin's. Excited, aren't you?

Back story:
Sometime in late September, while relaxing after work one day on the couch, V suddenly turned to me and says, "You need to ask for two days off in November, and I'm not telling you why... So don't ask." My response: "Um, ok...". I have never been so self-controlled in all of my life.

Fast forward a month to the end of October, the day after our house warming get together... I had labeled this in my mind as the "day to start pestering V about what is going on, but not letting him realize that I have been obsessing over where we were going with everyone that would listen". I tried the casual talk approach about what I need to pack, what time are we leaving, etc. Didn't work... "Not telling you anything, don't ask."

The day after Halloween weekend, Nov. 2nd (yes, four days before we were to leave), I finally was allowed one detail of the trip while we were grocery shopping... We needed to make a stop at the health and beauty section to get flight-approved travel bottles. Wait... What? We were flying somewhere?! There goes my guess of an awesome weekend in Chicago... 

Four days of nagging, guessing, begging and fretting over my impending death by plane crash later, we sat in our favorite Mexican place eating lunch on the way to the airport, and he finally made the big reveal... We were going to San Francisco! Well, actually flying into San Fran to stay for one night, then heading to Napa Valley for the remainder of the long weekend.

The Big Incident:
Our flight arrived late Friday night, we picked up our rental car (2010 Mustang) and checked into our amazing hotel. We made our first trip to the ocean that night and enjoyed a sushi dinner. The next morning we were wide awake at 5am, so we decided to head out early to do some sightseeing, then begin making our way to Napa. San Francisco was ridiculously awesome, and the drive to Napa was stunning! We spent some time settling in to our hotel, or "inn", before heading out to a couple wineries we planned on visiting before coming back to get ready for dinner.

During that excursion, the second winery we happened to stop at was Domaine Chandon, with its amazing location and beautiful gardens. We managed to work our way to the bar to try out the "Extra Dry Riche", and took our glasses to walk around the property. We found a little spot on a rocky ledge overlooking the pond, and we sat down to enjoy our wine... V started getting really nervous, which in turn made me nervous, because I was pretty sure what was about to go down. I think I actually tried to talk about the weather. He cut me off with telling me that he "had a question to ask me". After fumbling around trying to retrieve his wallet from his pocket, and subsequently the ring from the wallet, he got on one knee and asked me to marry him. After bumbling and crying and supposedly saying yes (I couldn't remember actually doing so, so I had to confirm later), we finished our Extra Dry Riche over talking about how weird it was to be engaged...

Then we smuggled our "engagement" glasses and hightailed it out of there.

slopes of blue.

I've been super busy outside of work lately, so I've clearly been slacking on the blog posts. But alas, I have returned. With burning calves and thighs.

Yes, that's right. We did a weekday ski session at one of the "trash hills" of lower Michigan. After some struggle with improperly fitting boots and some tears shed at my overreaction to rope tows, I managed to suck it up and get some better rental boots... (Wides, nonetheless. While "wide" shoe sizes certainly don't correspond to the width of your ass, I still felt like a cow for needing them. Moo.)

Wait, tow ropes? Yes. Unfortunately, trash heaps in Michigan generally don't have a lot of options on runs and lifts... There are a handful of slow lifts that take you to mostly black diamonds, with some blues and greens sprinkled in, and the rest of the green hills were accessible by tow rope only. And I can only do green. Yeah, I know. But give me a break... This was my third time skiing ever. And I am kind of a baby.

So yeah, this was only the second time I've attempted a tow rope in my life. Both times I ended up with my skis sickeningly twisted, me flopping around like an idiot and the tow rope halting. Never. Again.

The unfortunate part is that I can do chair lifts, no biggie. (I mastered that daunting task on the last ski trip Up North a few weekends ago. Before that, I was consistently taking out two grown men trying to assist my jelly legs down the tiny decline. "Just hold our poles" technique does NOT work.) But only one lift went to a "blue" hill.

So after the freak out and boot change, we moved to the chair lift, easy peasy... Until I got to the actual hill top, looking down. I freaked out a little bit, CONVINCED it was steeper than the last (and only) blue run I had done at Boyne. V in turn laughed at me, and insisted it was fine, "same thing". Well after doing a 90 degree pizza slice down the run a few times, I was dead. Nerves frayed, thighs burning. Now I'm walking around like an idiot because I can't fully flex my legs...

Come to find out the next day, I double-checked the trail map. It was a blue hill. My first blue hill, without my knowledge or consent. Did V know? Probably, but he refused to comment...

So I've been betrayed. Betrayed and sore, but happy. :)

Oh, and as soon as this wedding business is out of my hair (and bank accounts), I'll be purchasing these BA skis... Can't wait!

love.

So what's everyone plans for Valentine's Day? An elaborate date night at an expensive restaurant? A quiet night in with a home-cooked meal and a movie? Nothing because Valentine's Day is ridiculous?

We generally straddle all three of those options depending on the year, but for VDay 2010, V and I are going to head to our favorite little local sushi joint. We'll probably go on Saturday night, maybe avoid some of the VDay crowd... Splurge on a Saporro Reserve and a glass of wine, maybe some green tea ice cream... Perhaps catch a flick. Generally just a laid back affair. Partly because we don't get into the hoopla, and partly because we are just plain broke between the wedding and house... Ha.

Whatever you decide to do, have a great VDay with your love. Or just a fantastic weekend.

the hunt is on (part two).

I realized today that perhaps I didn't make myself clear last post... I'm catching ya'll up on the crazy happenings from the past year and a half (ya know, a house, some left hand bling) so we can get to the good stuffs... Like picking out paint colors, sofas, cooktops and looking at pretty rooms as inspiration... And looking at bridesmaids dresses, table decorations, wedding shoes, and figuring out what flavor of cake to get.

Why? Because, well, that's my life right now...

Ok, so back to houses... When we really got rolling full steam on the house hunt (after making the "lists" and getting a real estate agent) the fun began! This part was super fun, while also being stressful and sometimes discouraging. Looking back now, V and I had a grand old time mapping out routes, peeking in windows, looking in houses that made us scratch our heads, and eventually, getting that nervous excitement when we knew it was "The One"...

Here are some of the top runners for your house hunting viewing pleasure:

Sidenote: All of our "potentials" had nicknames... I'm a nickname-y kind of gal, I'm not ashamed. Although admittedly, I was embarrassed for all of 2 seconds when V had accidentally forwarded along the list of houses we wanted to view, complete with my weirdo nicknames...


"Red Door". This was the one that got away. Found him just when we first started looking (sans realtor), and by the time we had a realtor, he was already scooped up. The moment I saw this house I envisioned hot summer days and running down the long driveway to get to the lake. V tinkering in the garage while I worked in the art studio above (that had a sweet spiral staircase!)... Sigh, but it wasn't meant to be.


"Hinchey". This non-landscaped puppy was on 20-acres in prime country territory... Right up my alley! However, even though it was technically "in our desired location" the back road trek ended up taking almost an hour to get to my work... Dealbreaker.


"Weird House". This house was weird, plain and simple. Cute enough little brick house from the outside, but the back opens up to a 3 story split level that overlooks a crazy neighbor with "relics" all over his property... The layout was weird. The neighbor was weird. The old british sports car shell in the back 10 was weird. The musty basement smell was weird.

Nick also barfed behind the second detached garage (not shown, to the left) because he was so hungover from his birthday the night before. That was weird, too.


"Oil Pit". This was a rustic little guy that had beautiful touches on the inside (Hello, double wall oven...). The location of this one wasn't ideal, nor was the shady dealings. Whenever I see this house, I can only think of the pure joy in V's voice as he screamed from the backyard, "IT HAS AN OIL PIT IN THE GARAGE!".


"Teahen". This was almost our house. We were in starry-eyed love with this one. I know, I know. It's unusual. We love unusual. I think the exterior has what could be classified as salmon-colored accents... But it was in a perfect location (near "Red Door"), butted up to state land, had a certain retro-charm on the inside, and had nature trails close-by. Sigh.

A roof leak took this one off the market, and when we found "our" house, we just had to jump on it... Couldn't wait for this guy to come back on the market after repair.


So yeah, that leads us to our home (please excuse the crappy online photo I snagged. I have yet to take a good pic of the exterior). I remember gasping when I saw the photo of it... Cedar, cool architectural lines, on a little lake, country setting but still close to town, and just a smidge over our budget. It was "out of our preferred area", because it seemed to far north (but later realized due to a majority of expressway driving, it was only 25 minutes from work).

The first time we saw it, we had that giddy energy... We walked in to see a beautiful view of the lake from the great room. Cathedral ceilings with a huge fireplace, a cute little loft and skylights for natural light. A huge (outdated) kitchen, a first floor master and laundry. A wide-open floor plan with 2 1/2 baths and 3 bedrooms. A huge basement. We went home that night without saying too much to each other about it... I think we were nervous to admit our own love for the house and be turned down by the other. I just couldn't get the house out of my mind, so I called V the next day at work at said, "You know, I really loved that house last night"... V replied with "So did I. Let's call Brent to schedule another look, but I think it's the one".

That "one more look" turned into an offer, which turned into a struggle with the bank (housie was a foreclosure), many tears, and many stresses, but in the end we finally had a place to call our own...

And it had a three car garage.

hello, again + the hunt is on (part one).

I didn't give up yet!

In light of all my new changes this past year (that I shared last blog post), we're going to take an adventure back in time to late Winter/early Spring of 2009... To talk house hunting!

[Sprinkly, chime-like noise]

V and I started discussing moving back in together sometime last winter. By February, we were totally on board with the idea of buying a house together... I've always loved looking at house listings and floor plans and plotting my future home, so this whole thing was going to be right up my alley!

Of course, when we first started out in Feb/March, we were just casually "looking"... So we began with a few preliminary steps:

• Identifying the towns/counties/areas our ideal house would be located. This was modified a little bit down the road when our realtor became involved. As first time home-buyers, we didn't think about school districts, city growth, and taxes right out of the gate, so our realtor really helped us to think about a bigger picture.

• Make a list of "must haves", "preferreds" and "absolutely nots" (with the idea that sometimes a little give and take is necessary)... My "must haves" included things like acreage and a full basement. My "preferreds" were first floor laundry, two stories, three bedrooms and at least 2 baths. My "absolutely nots" were no cookie cutter houses, no city, and no sub-divisions.

V's only "must have"? At LEAST a three car garage...

• Lastly, set a budget. This was a hard prospect for me to overcome... When we first decided to start "looking", I had immediately logged onto some random real estate listings dot com, and were looking at (and falling in love with) houses that were 2-3 times our budget... Unknowingly. My advice? Don't. Even. Look. Not at all. Not until you know what your range is, at least. ...Maybe this should have been step one...

So that's how we got started. We did most of the grunt work on our own in the beginning... Searching real estate listings tirelessly, narrowing them down based on our criteria, then taking weekend drives to "potentials" and peeking in windows... The even further kerned down list was then sent along to our agent, and he would hook us up with a tour and subsequently be able to suggest similar houses that hadn't quite hit the internets yet. (This was fun. A real stressful kind of fun. But fun, nonetheless. That said, I don't recommend our rouge methods. If you have a real estate agent, use 'em... I'm just too controlling and ridiculous to do so.)

The following few weeks were a lot of trudging through "well, maybe's", "no's" and "absolutely not's" until we found "The One". We saw, and smelled, some doozies from all ends of the spectrum... Unidentifiable poop covered balconies, anyone?

[Warping back to present time]

So how did we choose our house? Did we get that feeling that everyone always talks about, but can never describe, and you think you'll never feel it? Spoiler: Yeah, we had it... And it was glorious.

Stay tuned for part two...

wait... where'd 2009 go?

So it sure has been awhile, eh? October 31st, 2008, to February 10th, 2010. Yowza! Almost a year and a half... What can I say? I got lazy. Life got in the way (a lot of life, in fact... more on that later). Regardless, I'm back with a renewed sense of purpose for writing my nonsensical ramblings... Great news for you, right?

Welp, it's the "storm of the century" down in the D area, and per usual, I'm fully unimpressed. They ramp up the storms down here, and we end up with only 2" and a mob scene at Meijer. Ugh. Although this time, to their credit, it actually snowed about 8-10". This could perhaps be the most we've gotten at one time all winter... Guess who'll be shoveling the driveway tonight when she gets home? This lady.

Wait? Did I say driveway? As in a driveway... To a home... That maintenance doesn't take care of for me? Because I no longer live in an apartment? Why yes, that's correct! Enter major life change #1: V and I bought a house. Say hello, housie:



First order of business? Changing the old house numbers to snazzy new modern ones!



So yep, we are proud homeowners. Broke, overworked (and yeah, underpaid), sore, spackle-dust-everywhere, DIY, home-improvin', know-the-local-Home-Depot-and-Lowe's-like-the-back-of-our-hands homeowners! Both the house hunting (and subsequent purchasing) and the home improving have been a heck of an adventure... But more on that later.

Ok... Major life change #2: V and I are now engaged, and planning a weddin'. V and I have been together for 5 years now (with a short intermission... amusing to read at the start of the blog when we started "dating" again)... Again, more on that in future blog posties. The purpose now is just for me to give some lame excuses on why I was MIA. bah.

Oh, and in case you were wondering... Hello ring (handmade by a local jeweler and designed by V for me... fancy!):



When did I start becoming a grown-up...?

ok, bonus post...

okay, so i have one more bonus pic... i can't help myself.
this is my amazing cat, chewie, leaping in the air to get his favorite toy - a milk ring.

please note the exquisite form, claws spread, and height... he's about 5 feet in the air. it's blurry, and no back flip like normal, but still damn good.

enjoy.