Three Years Ago Today...

Three years ago today I met the man I'm going to marry. I met the man that has become my partner, my best friend, and my better half. When I look back at that evening we met, I did not realize that meal would change my life. You see, I had just tried a bison burger for the first time and it was really good. REALLY GOOD. I had no idea of the benefits of such a lean meant and...oh, shoot, this was supposed to be about something else... But seriously, I remember feeling so excited and so at ease the first time we met and that strange yet comforting feeling has never left. I am truly blessed I get to marry someone who makes me laugh, who supports me, and who frustrates and challenges me every day. We might have had ups and downs, a few headaches and heartaches, but I would not trade away any of those moments. I so look forward to making a lifetime of memories of us.

Tax Day Riddle

So what happens when the world’s most procrastinating person moves in with the world's latest person?  FILING EXTENSIONS!

Meet the Wedding Party - Part I

Mike and I are truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and somehow we were able to convince these great folks to stand by us on our special day. We are very excited to have this important piece of the puzzle in place and could not imagine doing any of this without them.

And here they are!

The Ladies:
(From Leslie)

Lauren M.- Maid of Honor - Laur and I have been friends literally since birth. We grew up across the street from one another and have remained the best of friends. She has showed me what “through thick and thin” means, standing by my side through the good times and the not so good times. They say you know who your best friend is because you can be doing anything or nothing and always be having a good time. Well, we have been friends, neighbors, classmates and roommates and somehow through all these years I can not think of a single time when we were truly bored when together. I do not have a single memory that does not involve her in some way and just like I could not imagine catching fireflies with anyone else, I could not imagine anyone else standing next to me come wedding day.

Lauren S. - Bridesmaid - Wirz (as I still insist on calling her despite her new last name) is actually the one responsible for this entire thing. She is the one that introduced/set-up me and Mike in the first place. Not only am I eternally grateful for introducing me to my future husband, I am equally grateful she is such an amazing friend. I am also very lucky to have her expertise in all this wedding stuff as she married her best friend and all around great guy (see part 2) last May. I was fortunate enough to be in their wedding and am looking forward to her being in ours. My move to this area and wedding planning would definitely not have run so smoothly as they have without her (and her wonderful family’s) help.

Susan T.- Bridesmaid - Susan is Mike’s older sister. The two of them were very close growing up and I am so happy she has welcomed me so warmly into their family. Susan is a talented jewelry maker and in fact, made the beautiful, unique ring that Mike proposed with. I am beyond excited at the thought of having her as a sister-in-law and hope to get to know her better (and maybe squeezing out an embarrassing story or two about Michael's childhood!) She has been so incredibly supportive through everything and I am looking forward to having her as part of our bridal party.

Laura T. - Bridesmaid - Laura is Mike’s younger sister. Not only do I love the fact that I am gaining another sister-in-law, but I love the fact we share a passion for horses. We may bore everyone else at the dinner table with talk of barns and foals and riding, but I am really enjoying having yet another person to chat horses with. It has been fun spending time with her and I am looking forward to getting to know her even better. Despite the fact that she is a Ravens fan and I am Redskins fan, I am excited to be part of her family and thrilled she agreed to be in our wedding.


Check back later to meet the fine gents taking part in our special day!

Dress Shopping 101

I have begun what is becoming the endless task of dress shopping. I quickly got a crash course in all things bridal attire and now know terms like rouching and pick ups and bodice. Who knew there were so many choices out there. Ok, so yes, we all knew there were tons of different styles and fabrics and details (and prices), but seeing them up close and personal is just down right daunting. There are so, so many out there, how are you to find the one?! You can’t exactly approach it like you would when finding the right guy. You can’t take it home with you, spend time with it, get a feel of it and then see if it annoys you after a little one on one time. No, instead it is like speed dating. You jump into it in front of strangers to see if it looks shiny and nice while trying to imagine taking it home to meet everyone You ask whatever questions you can think of to see if you guys will mesh, make a mental note and then move onto the next, and next, and next. And then sometimes it is like speed dating with an audience. Not only are you trying to decide if it is your style, your friends and family are there looking at you quizzically trying to decide if they like it while trying to get a hint of how you really feel about it so they don’t say the wrong thing. The bride can’t look too excited coming out for that first look because she is fearing that maybe she has horrible taste and thinks she looks like a princess when she actually looks like a lumpy marshmallow. The onlookers can’t make any snap judgments because what if the bride really likes those lace appliqués that they think look like grandma’s couch cover. The whole process is tricky and unsettling. In fact, its making me re-think the Jimmy Buffet theme of shorts and flip-flops.

Supervision

You may have noticed that our cat Maserati appears in most of our pictures.  He loves to be around us every minute we are home and follows us from room to room, making sure we are never too far away.  I try to get him to stay away from the dust and fumes, but this rarely works unless I lock him downstairs.  Instead, he prefers to sit or lay right outside of whichever room we are working in and supervise our every move.  I would think he would be scared or skiddish with all of the noise we make hammering or drilling or banging on whatever piece of metal is not cooperating at the time, but he rarely lifts his head at even the loudest noise.  We joke that he is our union supervisor as he keeps an eye on us, occasionally roams through the room to check things out and sometimes even meows to tell us what he thinks.

See what I mean…

 

 

I'm glad someone around here is making sure we are doing everything right!

I even have a hard time blogging without Maz wanting to put his two cents in.

 And as we all know, supervising is especially tiring.  Here Maserati is recovering after a long day of hard work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Paint on the Walls

It finally, finally happened- we painted the walls!  Yes, we painted the walls the actual color.  Last night we got the first coat on and tonight, we did the second coat.  As with most things, it takes us a while, but I must say we are awesome painters.  We have our method down pat and we ended up with some pretty great walls.  Pretty great yellow walls that is.  Yes, Lightweight Beige turned out to be a bit more yellow and a bit brighter than we expected.  However, once we get our cabinets in and the dark countertop, I think it will look very good. 

Getting the painting accomplished this week was not an easy feat.  With doing the ceiling and the trim in addition to the actual painting, we were up every single night until at least 1am.  Mike actually referred to it as “hell week” and made me promise we wouldn’t have another one (which I’m optimistically taking as- we won’t have another one this month). While we did get more done this week than during any other week in a long time, the late nights meant the mornings came too soon.  Both of us being late to work more times than not, something Mike’s boss minded more than mine.  Oops.   In my opinion, it was worth it.  I only wish Mike’s boss saw it that way too!

 

I can't seem to get a great picture of the new walls since we have a mountain of cabinet boxes in the middle of the room.  I'll try again after we move things around, so check back for better pictures later! 

More Kitchen Updates

I believe this is like the 16th update we have done about the kitchen, but seeing that it has been consuming our lives, it seems appropriate. See here and here and here for a reminder of the previous states of the kitchen renovation process. So, as I’m sitting here literally waiting for paint to dry, here is the latest…

Most recently we have been preparing to paint in preparation for the cabinets to be installed. Seems simple enough. That is it seems simple enough until you consider all of the steps to get there. Before the walls could be painted, we had to spackle, sand and prime the existing walls. Since we are changing the flooring, the door trim was going to end up too short, so new trim had to be cut, installed and painted. Mike figured since we are painting everything anyway, why not paint the ceiling too.  The door between the kitchen and garage was not aligned right, so that had to be adjusted before the trim was painting to prevent any knicks. Really? All this so we can change the walls from lime green to a different (normal) color?!

As is becoming the norm for us, things were not as cut and dry as it should have been (pun intended). Our motto became “measure eight times, cut four” as we installed the new trim. We finally got everything right, assembled the door trim and raised it up in glory to nail in.  We ended up doing this at about 10:30pm on a Sunday night and surely anyone who happened to be outside passing by the house probably thought we were insane as the loud hammering echoed from the bare kitchen to the dark night. In an attempt to make up for lost time, Mike stayed up even later (3am) to fill and sand the nail holes and I woke up early (5:30am) to sand and prime. Both seemed like good ideas Sunday evening, but less so halfway through the work day on Monday when we felt like the only good idea was a nap.

And then there was the ceiling. The ceiling in the kitchen is angled and goes from a standard 8 feet up to approximately 10 feet high. At first glance, this is great as it opens up the kitchen and makes it feel larger than it is. I really like it, BUT I always had that feeling it would be a pain to paint (so I crossed my fingers we wouldn’t actually do it, no luck on that one). However, being the liberal, progressive woman I am, I pretty much figured Mike would do it and it would be a pain for him while the only pain I would endure would be his (valid) complaints about the crick in his neck from looking up. However, being the liberal, progressive man Mike is, he let me take care most of the rolling while he edged. Goody. One thing about me though is that I have a disdain for ladders due to my lack of grace and will go to great measures to avoid using anything higher than the first step of a step stool. Reaching the peak of the ceiling was either going to require me constantly jumping most definitely to result in a polka dot pattern, growing taller or getting over my fear. I chose the former and we now have a splotchy ceiling. Kidding. I chose to graduate to the second step of the step stool and even to the third rung of the ladder, albeit very briefly. There were no major panic attacks and I only had one emergency dismount after losing my balance, a resounding success in my opinion. Oh, and the ceiling turned out successful too.

According to the schedule (yes that schedule) we should be painting by then end of the week!


And here is a preview of the cabinets actually in the kitchen.  They are the upper cabinets and they are upside down, but you get the idea!  Progress is progress and we are on our way!