BREAKING NEWS!! WOOHOO!!

March 21, 2011

I told myself I could have chocolate if I blog first. I’ve reached such heights (lows?) of craziness that I have to bribe myself to accomplish things that I truly like to do.

The news here is, we bought a house!

To be precise, they accepted our offer and we are under contract. There are still inspections and appraisals and explanations and signatures and checks. But, for the most part, we are moving toward owning a two level condo across town. It’s not hugely bigger than our current apartment, but we’re looking at close 200 more square feet, a 2^nd bedroom, a small yard area, an attic, and a big ol’ kitchen for yours truly to play in. And the coup de grace? The monthly mortgage payment and condo fees equal less than we were paying in rent when we first moved into the apartment. All in all? HUGO MUNGO UPGRADO!!!

That’s my new language I just made up.

What’s funny about our story is that we were pretty much ready to give up on the whole house thing. We had contacted our real estate agent after we got back from the honeymoon and gotten prequalified, but my credit score only qualified us for a Guaranteed Rural Housing loan. In laymen’s terms, they give you a 100% loan (no down payment) but you have to buy in a rural area. And in Northern Virginia, rural usually means yuppy, McMansion, rich-folk land. And expensive. If you want to live close enough to commute but far enough to be considered country, you are going to pay the price. We tried really hard to find something in our price range but it was just impossible. So we waited for our credit score to go up.

And when we were finally approved for an FHA loan (3% down), there was nothing, NOTHING in our price range that was not in a really bad neighborhood. And we started to get scared of adding more money to our budget, of having to tighten our belts when we had just gotten used to being able to buy our own groceries. Maybe we should just stay where we’re at and appreciate the cheapness.

Then we got the rent letter. Our rent was going up higher than what our stupid apartment is worth. But there was no way we were going to be able to find another apartment for any cheaper. We were so literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, we just needed a place to live! And at this point as long as I have Hubs and Bo and a working bathroom I am a happy girl. Add a roof and we’d be set. Too bad roofs and working bathrooms don’t come for free.

And then it came in my email! A house that was going for SUPER CHEAP and it wasn’t even on the market yet! We’d get first dibs! We were there the next day and it was PERFECT! So we put an offer in and, BAM, we got it the next day!

Literally, on Wednesday I was thinking about living in my car for fiscal reasons and on Friday night toasting to homeownership.

I think I’ve got whiplash from how quickly life took a turn around.

So, now onto the adventure of buying the home. And then!!!

THEN my friends, onto the adventure of seriously decorating my own home! BF is kind of along for the ride on this one… not sure if he knows what he’s gotten himself into… Don’t worry, he’s got a man cave which I am calling his office. Because it’s not an office. And I appreciate juxtaposition.

For now, living in this. And ready for bigger, better things.

 Greetings from the Great Wall of Our Crap! Weather is here, wish it was beautiful... oy.

Wine and Thank You Notes

My inadequate posting about valentine's day was boring. Let us move onto bigger and better things, shall we?

I do really want to write this blog, though you wouldn't be able to tell by my... um 2 posts?


Anyway, I am a LOUDLY outspoken supporter of handwritten notes, thank you notes mostly. If someone took the time to give you a gift of any kind - especially for a big event, ie graduation, wedding, baby showers - you should send them a thank you - and you should take the time to write it with a pen. I do this for birthday gifts as well. Personally, I think the handwritten anything is a lost art. Especially the art of heartfelt thanks.

This is, of course, brought up because I am currently getting ready to send out my wedding thank you notes. I have been working on them for awhile now, and it's no small task.

Our thank you notes came to us very early in the wedding planning process. A family friend (who, consequently was also my dress designer and maker along with contributions from two other lovely ladies, one of whom happens to be my mommy) had some picture frame Christmas cards that she had not used. These cards came in the form a very holiday/religiously ambigious WINTER theme. See crappy cell phone pic below:

As these cards make no mention of any particular holiday and offer the customization of some very awesome professional photographs, they made perfect handmade thank you cards!

Only one drawback:

It's so pretty on the inside! (just like me? question mark on purpose? i'm ron burgundy?) I couldn't write on this! And if I did, I would write around the snowflake... and then... would there be enough room? Dilemma.

So Mama and I came up with a grand scheme (as we are wont to do), and we cut out pieces of a nice light blue paper that I have been writing my thank you notes out on. I think its kind of nice, it feels more natural to write on this very nice paper than to write on a waxy card . And I like to think that people can keep the card as a frame for the pic we're going to send them. It will be nice for our very generous guests to have a picture of us from the wedding they attended -- for free!

I did my thank you notes in a sort of Mad Lib way, unique to the type of gift given, and personalized from there:

For a gift:

Gift giver,

Thank you so very much for _____. (Something about the gift)! So glad to see you at the wedding/We are blessed to have shared our day with you/Something generic about the wedding day. Love US!

For cash, which was deposited by Mom for the honeymoon:

Gift giver,

Thank you so very much for your generous gift! You can be sure that a great time was had in the Happiest Place on Earth (DisneyWorld) thanks to you! (again, something generic about coming to the wedding) Love US!

For a check, which went into our joint savings:

Gift giver,

Thank you so very much for your generous gift! We hope to be shopping for a home very soon! (something generic about the wedding day) Love US!

I tried to not write the exact same thing on every one. I know everyone KNOWS that I have to write a gajillion of these, but I did try to put a personal swing and tried to write sincere. But it is a project and I wanted to make it doable.

We are almost ready to send these babies out, and it feels good. I won't share with you the picture that was selected yet, as I just sent the link to this blog to a thank you note receiver (You know who you are, HI!)

As an aside, I have a handful of these left to write. And as I am writing the notes themselves, I am trying to write at least the names of the recipients even if they are getting their addresses later. And, I am so proud of myself! Even after three glasses of wine, I wrote a perfect cursive Z smoothly with the rest of the name! Dude, seriously, how often do you write a cursive Z? It just came out of me! I don't even know where it was hiding!

Then, in my hurry to post my GLORIOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT on Facebook, I spilled my wine on the envelope.

I am a prompt, if not efficient, fail.

I mean, seriously, what a waste of wine...

Practice in futility

February 12, 2011

My big fat plan to make heart-shaped shortbread cookies and dip them in chocolate was, literally, not supposed to be anything special. I’ve chocolate dipped just about anything for anyone. Besides, shortbread cookies are not particularly hard and recipe involves all of four ingredients. Please, do not follow these instructions. This is how to make a very simple project mind-numbingly and painfully difficult, wasteful, and time consuming. Welcome to my misadventures.

1. Go to mom’s house to get the KitchenAid standing mixer and double boiler that you got was wedding presents. This is an unnecessary step as you have both a hand mixer, food processor, and stainless steel bowls already in your apartment that easily replace both these appliances. (See end of project when you plan to take both the standing mixer and the double boiler back to mom’s house to store because they take up too much room in your already packed apartment.)
2.  Begin setting up standing mixer while doing dishes, making a box of macaroni and cheese, and deciding to make sugar-free chocolates for your husband’s diabetic grandfather.
3.  Read half of first step in shortbread recipe and dump all ingredients into standing mixer.
4.  Empty entire box of “cheddar explosion” macaroni and cheese into face.
5.   Become excited by box of serving utensils that comes in the mail.
6.   Realize that your dough is not coming together and read the rest of the step 1 in shortbread recipe. Note that it has different directions for using a food processor and standing mixer.
7.  Turn standing mixer up higher because speed changes everything. Meanwhile, set up double boiler to make chocolates.
8.  Give up on shortbread and take another stick of butter out of the freezer to make later. Pour dark chocolate into molds and leave on counter.
9. Become sleepy from too much mac and cheese and rootbeer. Lay on couch and watch horror movie involving the guy that played Captain Kirk in the new StarTrek movie.
10.  Hear something from mother-in-law about chocolate chip cookies. Get excited. Pack up chocolates and go to in-laws to see husband’s grandparents.
11.   Come home hours later and start recipe over again, this time creaming butter, sugar, and cornstarch BEFORE dumping in flour. Note that dough is still not coming together.
12. Check recipe and realize you’re only using half the amount of butter called for.
13.  Face palm.
14. Take another stick of butter out of the freezer, cover the unfinished mixture, make a rum and coke, watch Stepbrothers with hubby and watch him fall asleep on the couch.

So… next post will equal what the cookies look like. But as it is already March and this post is from Valentine’s Day, I think I’ve gone ahead and established how this blog is going to go. I think I’ve set the bar low enough for my comfort level.