Another late update

I keep meaning to update this darn thing, but I usually remember when I'm at work; not the best place for blogging.

So, what's happened since August? House buying!!

We are currently under contract for our first house! We close on January 20th, and I'm freaking out. We both are. We started saving up when we got married, thanks to some good chunks of change as wedding presents, and have been diligently saving a good 15% - 20% of our paychecks ever since. It was hard at times (less clothes buying & going out, no trip at all) but it was been worth it. Around early November we decided that we had saved enough (we went with an FHA loan, which means only 3.5% of the home price down + closing costs) and I started researching online. We got pre-approved for a mortgage, and began the fun process of actually going IN the houses. We spent AGES driving around College Station & Bryan before this point, picking out neighborhoods and areas that we really liked. The top picks for us were Castlegate in CS, Copperfield in Bryan, and a nice area around a big park in CS. The realtor (Sherry Perry, she's great!) started us in Castlegate looking at some great choices, and the house we picked ended up being the second one we looked at. At first, it didn't overwhelm us, but the price on it was great, and it had room for improvement/building equity. The more we thought about it, the more we liked it, and we decided to place an offer, which after some negotiation, was accepted! The sellers were very reasonable, and ended up agreeing to pay our closing costs, which was a huge burden lifted off of our backs.

It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with just over 1500 square feet on a cul-de-sac. It has a great long driveway with lots of trees on the (nearly quarter-acre!!) lot and a big covered porch in the back. We are SO excited. I can't even describe the level of nervousness and freaking-out that is going on. We started packing this week since we were both of from work, and have about 50% or so of the house packed. My to-do list is huge, but we are plodding through it. At this point, I just want to MOVE. I want it NOW! hehe!

I'm also, honestly, terrified of having a mortgage that is twice what we are paying for rent. I know we can handle it, but it makes me wonder how we will afford daycare when we have a baby, or how we buy a new car or go on a trip. I'm sure it will calm down, and it will be easier than I think, but honestly, I wanted to have a baby next year, and I don't know how we are going to afford one. But...these are good problems to have. I just...want to get them figured out? Daycare is what, 500$ a month or so? Plus extra health insurance and diapers/etc? Eeks. I wish we could afford for me to stay home with our kids, but that just isn't an option, and as Matt has pointed out, I would go crazy with nowhere to go all day. I'm not built to stay home. I'm jealous of those who are. I hope I do as good a job as those moms I know who are staying home, or as good as my mom did.

I'll admit it, I've got the baby-crack bad. Good thing I have a sensible husband that will make me buy a baby-friendly car (btw, yuck. I want a sports car. not baby-friendly. haha!!) and have furniture in the house before we go down that road. :p


Ok, in less baby-centric news, the new (not so new job now) job is still going very well. I enjoy my colleagues and the work I'm doing. It keeps me very busy, which tends to keep me less depressed. Always a good thing! It looks like there might be some changes in my department in the next few months, and I'm very interested to see what happens. Matt is doing great in his new position as Assistant Art Director, and is getting the manager thing down.

My sisters are up here at A&M now, which has been really awesome. It was strange at first, because I haven't been in the same city as them in about 6 years, but we are getting used to it, and it's nice to have family up here. They both had really rough semesters school-wise. They are perfectionists like me, and worked their butts off at their schoolwork. I'm really proud of them, but I hope next semester they can relax more. Mom is doing much better, in my opinion. Even though she isn't super fond of her current work situation, I'm really proud of her for getting out there back into the workforce. I haven't seen much of Dad lately, but he should be coming down to help us move.

Oh, right, and the holidays! This year Matt & I stayed at the Marriott in Sugar Land, which was SO MUCH FUN because I remember sneaking into that hotel to use the bathroom in high school, and it just gave me the biggest kick to be a paying guest there now! It was horrible weather the whole time, but we walked around Town Center anyways, and enjoyed seeing how HUGE the area has gotten. Xmas at my Mom's was good this year, everyone is really happy for us and we had a really nice time.

Next time, I'll try to put up some better pics of the house...here's a teaser one for now ...

Work is slow today

I remember in middle school/high school when updating my xanga/blog was OMGSOIMPORTANT. I suppose it took the place of a diary, of which I still have a few locked away somewhere in a memento box. I've noticed that as I've gotten older, and have things that are actually important, I write less. Maybe because I have less time?

Speaking of time, I have slowed down my book-reading significantly since starting to work full time. All I want to do when I come home is veg on the couch with the hubs..and then I get annoyed that I'm not finishing books as fast as I used to :p

So, being married...is really no different than before, except now we have a joint checking and savings account, which is really no different than before either. I have noticed that we take things much more seriously, in regards to saving, buying a home, having a baby, etc.

So far, we are about 1/3 of the way to our savings goal, which is about 9k. We figure with an FHA mortgage, plus closing costs, this is about all we should need if we buy a house in the 150-175k range (the only good thing about living in B/CS is very nice houses are very affordable). We think we will have enough next summer to start talking to a realtor, which is very exciting :). I can't wait to have my own backyard and my own house with no other people's houses touching it! :D The thought of having to pay for anything that breaks, however, is a bit terrifying. I think that we've thought it through, though, and hopefully anything that comes up we should be able to take care of.

As for a baby, well, we decided (and I don't really mind putting stuff like this on a blog since NO ONE reads it :p) that next summer, after we buy a house, we can start trying :D Hooray! I've already started saving up my vacation/sick time so when the time comes, I don't have to worry about being without my paycheck for a month or two, and we are hopefully planning it so that I will have the summer to recuperate/get used to baby before work gets completely crazy again in the fall. However, some health problems I have been having might cause all this planning to go down the tubes, so we'll see how it goes.

Finally, my job. Is awesome.

Wedding & Honeymoon

I can't seem to remember to update this thing regularly. Lack of time lately, I suppose. Just for posterity's sake, I'll update the world on what's been going on...

We got married! I can't believe I haven't written about it yet. We left for Vegas on April 18th, and got married at the Excalibur wedding chapel on April 19th at noon-ish. It was great! It was relatively stress-free and easy. Matt really enjoyed his first plane ride, and kept his forehead glued to the window looking at everything :). I planned everything as much as I could from home, so things went pretty smoothly. The hotel room was great, it was a huge suite with a gigantic marble bathroom and hot tub (which we LOVED using after a long day of walking) and a nice view of the Hooter's hotel (ok, that was the only bad part, but at night, the sunset was amazing, and the mountains were beautiful to look at!). We stayed at the MGM Grand, and really enjoyed it. It was an absolutely huge hotel, with dozens of restaurants and shops, and a huge, smoky casino area that of course you had to walk through to get anywhere. We didn't do much gambling, but I did play some slots, and we played a hand of blackjack. The slot machines were much more complicated than was necessary - why can't i just put a quarter in and pull the lever?? What's with all the buttons? Heh. Matt was disappointed that we couldn't find him a "real" poker game to sit in, but he had a great time anyways.

As for the actual ceremony...it was both super short and took forever at the same time :p. We actually got there too early, so we sat outside the chapel to have a soda before we went in, and I'm sure we looked amusing in our wedding gear. We were able to go in ahead of time and take some pictures, but my camera didn't cooperate well, and the pics didn't turn out as well as I'd like. The pastor dude was kind of funny, like a game show announcer. The whole time he was performing the ceremony, I kept trying not to giggle. Funny enough, everyone who watched the ceremony on the internet thought he was amaaaaa-zing. I suppose if you weren't there he came off a little less um, pompous? Hehe. Anyways, it was over before I knew it, and there! Poof! Married! We had to take some pro pics after, which turned out AWFUL (!!!!), but then we were free to enjoy our honeymoon! It felt very surreal to be married. I think I just kep looking at him and giggling, and calling him my husband. It still feels unreal sometimes, even two months later.

Anyways, we tried to do WAY too much in the time we had, so every night we were exhausted, but we really did enjoy ourselves. We both loved how the Paris casino looked, and had a good time going up their replica Eiffel Tower. Matt had the biggest and best burger of his life at Hash House a Go-Go, and we had the strongest and most expensive drinks of our life at the MGM Casino. The NYNY Casino was great to hang out in and had less expensive grub, and the Bellagio had some beautiful gardens right in the middle, and of course an awesome fountain show! We brought home all sorts of souvenirs, and about 400 pics on my camera (heh). Oh! We also decided that Vegas is not a kid-friendly place, no matter what the tourism department says lol. There were cars that drove by plastered with pictures of strippers, and panhandlers that would hand out pamphlets of um, questionable places to visit. And Fremont St reminded me of Bourbon St, all sorts of strippers dancing on tables, beer carts everywhere, and just general trashiness. That was probably my least favorite area that we went to, by FAR.

Overall, I'm really thrilled we got married the way we did. At times in the month immediately following the wedding, I would have pangs of jealousy that my newly-engaged friens would have such a bigger bash than I, but now that things have calmed down, I've realized that had we tried to do a "real" wedding, we would still be in the planning phase, with no idea when we would actually be wedded! We managed to get married without any debt, and our out of pocket expenses were probably around 1500$. My dad helped out with the hotel, food, and air miles, and I think his portion ran about 1000$ or so. So, really, not a bad deal for a wedding & honeymoon!

Oh, and we had a party! It was held at J&V's house, and we invited about 30 people, of which maybe 20-25 showed up? We had Fuddrucker's cater, which was delicious, and put out some snacks, had some beers, and a really great cupcake tower and mini cake made by VeLisa! It was nice to see Matt's family again, although I was disappointed that only my immediate family could come, and that many of my friends were unable to make it. It felt a little lopsided. My dad made a sweet toast that I can't really remember, and then we put Matt's dad on the spot for a toast, which was nice as well. Got some great presents, and a big chunk of cash that went straight to the house fund, and that was it! Wedding, honeymoon, and ceremony complete!

This was much longer than I expected, so I'll post another one with the rest of our lives' updates later...

Update

I didn't realize it had been this long since I've updated. All sorts of stuff going on! I found an great job working at Evans Library! Full-time! With benefits and everything! Yay! I'm hoping that it won't be the same experience I had with the last full time position I took. I think though, that being a library position, the people will be much more like me. Hopefully. I just dislike drama and negativity, which is all that the courthouse was. I start on March 21st, and they are being very welcoming, and very understanding about my upcoming wedding/need to take off. I'm very excited, and it'll be great to finally have something to do in the afternoons other than clean.

In wedding news, we had a lot LOT of back and forth and rescheduling and changing before settling on our current plans. We decided to have the wedding ceremony in Las Vegas (which my family isn't thrilled about) and have a reception/party two weekends after we come back, with burgers, drinks, cupcakes, etc. I think it'll be fun :) I'm very excited to be getting married, but also nervous. I get anxious easily, and the thought of being someone's wife is intimidating. I'm sure it'll be fine, as we have a great relationship and tend to work things out quickly. I guess coming from two generations of divorce I feel wary, but I know I am not my parents (or grandparents, or aunt) and that I can make good decisions regarding our relationship. I just wish I could tame the anxiety. It has skyrocketed since we got engaged, and I'm just hoping that after the wedding it'll chill the hell out.

The funny thing is, the closer we get to the wedding, the more "baby pangs" I'm getting. It's very unsettling, to be honest. I've never really wanted kids. I don't know if I'm cut out to be a mother, and I'm not sure if this is a world I want to bring a child into. But lately, damn do I want a baby. I don't know why!! Every time I see baby pictures on facebook, or watch baby shows on television, I start thinking about us having one, and how we would raise him/her and etc. I've even looked up parenting tips, and the pros/cons of cloth diapers! What the hell is wrong with me?! ::deep breath::

I think this is a normal, biological reaction in response to the upcoming wedding. I think that for my body marriage = stability, and Matt = stable provider/father. I really do realize that I can't have kids right now. No, it would not be horrible if it happened in the next couple of years, and I'm sure we would be thrilled and would make it work. But...I have things to do. I want to drink snobby beers and stay up late playing video games. I want to be able to go where I want without a diaper bag weighing me down, and I want to travel! I think that I want to wait at least 4 years. Logically, 4 years from now we should have bought a house, we should have more income, and I should (WILL) have travelled to Europe by then. I also will only be 27/28 which is still young enough to not have much worry about conceiving. I hope.

Anyways, that's really all for now. It's been a busy few months, and the next 6 weeks are going to be busy/awesome!