I submitted one of my favorite honeymoon photos to dsktps.com (one of my favorite sites for desktop wallpaper), and it was featured today. I’m pretty geeked about this, to say the least. 🙂
Summer Fridays
Summers at work are quiet, which means that Summer Fridays are nearly silent. And after so many weeks of oppressive humidity and daily thunderstorms, a gray morning with the windows open and a fresh, almost-cool feeling breeze blowing my papers around feels like heaven. Sure, it’s supposed to storm again later, and then the heat and oppressive humidity will return, but I’ll take cool, quiet moments these days.
I had to walk to a nearby office to pick up some paperwork this morning, and took a few photos while I was out. When I couldn’t decide which photo I liked best, I turned it into a series of my path through a Summer Friday. So here you’ve got our front steps, the crosswalk, the (much prettier) brick steps of the other office building, my office, making copies, the surprisingly lush front lawn, and our (very) well-worn porch. To give you a sense of the quiet, I have seen two people so far today (the lady at the other office and the FedEx guy). I’m only likely to see two more actual people this afternoon (the mail guy and the cleaning lady).
But it’s Friday, and weekends are the best. We’re going to celebrate a first birthday this weekend and get to see some friends we haven’t seen in way too long. And on Sunday, we’re going to go see some more houses. Next week is our birthday week (Dan’s on Thursday and mine on Sunday), and birthday week is never anything less than awesome.
I leave you with my current favorite song (which is resonating even more having read all the lyrics).
Have a good weekend, dudes.
Finding a Place to Call Home
I have written here and there about our house search, but those little tidbits, nestled into rambly posts, don’t really give you the whole picture, which is that houses and where we will live is taking up a huge amount of my brain space lately.
I have moved every two years, like clockwork, ever since I moved out of my parents’ house in the summer of 2007. I have also had four different jobs in the past six years. I’m now, finally, working at a job that’s not too far from Dan’s, and our current apartment is fairly centrally located between our two jobs. Location has always been THE issue when we’ve talked about buying a house; up until last fall, I was working an hour and a half away from where Dan worked. We just couldn’t figure out where we’d live, and neither of us really wanted a commute that long. So once we got married, and figured out where we were financially, it seemed like a great time to start looking. We have a decent-sized search radius, and while we know we’re not going to find our Forever House, it seemed like it wouldn’t bee too hard to find a place that could be a great First House.
As with any major Life Event, we have gotten a lot of advice and many horror stories from friends and family. We looked for over a year! We bought the first house we saw! Avoid this town! Don’t ignore the elementary school! Make sure you know what your non-negotiables are! Don’t get caught up in ugly wallpaper! It was (mostly) hugely helpful. Our biggest non-negotiable is the kitchen; we know a big kitchen may not be possible, but we really, really want more counter and cabinet space than we have now. We want to make sure there are lots of places to park for our friends and family. We don’t want to be on a busy street. We want a nice flat backyard (one that’s good for sports-playing).
So armed with all of this information, we started visiting actual houses back in April. I have been moderately obsessed with House Hunters, probably going back to high school. I love seeing the types of houses, laughing at how ridiculous people are, and trying to guess which house they’ll pick (and which one I’d pick if I were them). Even though it’s obviously scripted and a non-reality situation, I was still surprised at how far from the traditional House Hunters experience we were. We weren’t being unreasonable (although we have had moments of horror where we whisper to each other that we sure hope we aren’t THOSE buyers, the ones whose realtor says “they have NO clue; they’re never going to find what they’re asking for”). But everything we’ve seen has either been way too expensive or had some sort of fatal flaw (including but not limited to: a horse farm in the backyard, a sink in the bedroom, a sliding glass door off the living room on the 2nd floor that leads to… nothing, it is in a major flood zone and only looks so nice because it just got redone after flooding completely, a house on a hill so steep that if your kid threw his or her ball over the fence it’d be rolling for hours, appliances older than I am, no A/C at all, chew marks from the 5 giant dogs on all of the woodwork…) or needed so much work (and we’re not talking wallpaper and carpet like that photo above, we’re talking roofs/septic systems/furnaces/appliances/ all the flooring needs to be replaced) to then push it back up out of our price range.
We figured we’d be able to say “oh, we don’t want a fixer-upper” and mean “not one so bad that you’d need the Property Brothers to jazz it up” (and I can’t tell you how much I wish I could just have them come solve our problems. Well, bad enough that I looked up on hgtv.com to see if they were casting. They’re not.) But we were seeing houses at the top of our price range that needed complete overhauls. As we got more and more discouraged, people have been telling us to just keep at it, just have hope, don’t worry you’ll find it eventually.
It has been SO frustrating. After all of these years of nomad-like living, I just want to know where we’re going to end up. I want to order a custom return address stamp. I want Dan to be able to join a softball league because we’re gonna be around for a while. I want to hang a gallery wall made up of my photos. I know there’s a process but OMG can it just be over already? We didn’t know it would be this hard. At all. We haven’t had hope.
And so right now, we’re facing some realities about the area we want to live in, and our price range, and what you get for your money here. I am so angry that with our budget, we’d be able to find what we’re looking for… if we were looking in different parts of the state. I don’t want Dan (or me) to have a long commute once we have kids. I don’t think we’re being so picky that we’ve passed up on perfectly decent places, either.
What does all this mean? Well, we’re trying to re-evaluate. We can’t raise our price range too much higher if we want to have the kind of life we want to live once we have kids. Maybe we can’t find a single family home with a great backyard (even if it’s small) in a good school district. We have started looking at townhouses (which we’ve avoided so far because we’re tired of sharing walls, and we want a real yard, and we don’t want to have to pay association fees) and it’s really amazing how much more square footage you can get in a townhouse vs. a single family house.
I don’t have a happy ending now, although it would be great to end a post like this with “and then we found a place and it’s going to be so great!”. This process has been kind of AWFUL. We have been so discouraged. But we’re really hoping that with this healthy dose of reality, maybe we can find a place to live after all. We’ll see, I guess.
A New Look
So! I have been bored by the look of this site for a while, but until a few weeks ago, had no ideas or inspiration for how to re-imagine it. I knew it had to be stripe-ier, more colorful… and more current. Here’s what the site has looked like since about August 2011:
Which was fine, but I have wanted something jazzier for a while. Luckily, stripes are not above my (very mediocre) Photoshop talent level.
Here’s the new look, if you’re viewing this from a feed reader:
Pam helped me out with some social media icons, which I re-colored. I updated the About page a bit, and added sidebar links to my current and recent projects (Project Life, my 52 weeks of no color photography project for 2013, as well as older projects like 30 Before 30 and Handmade52). I have also added links to a few of my favorite posts from years past, since I enjoy reading those on other blogs.
I overthink this blog, sometimes; I know I’m not a big fish, and I mostly write for myself. But just like Project Life is worth the energy because it’s about preserving memories, writing here is worth it for me for the same reason. And having a look I’m jazzed about just makes me want to be here more. And I really do want to be here.
Project Life: April
It has been a while since I posted here, and I never know how to start again when that happens. It has also been a really long time since I posted any of my Project Life pages, and I am still loving this project so much that it seems like such a shame to leave them hiding away unseen by anyone but me. I thought it would be neater to just start with April’s pages, which are all pretty simple, for the most part.
Week 14 was a week in which I had very, very few photos. I was obsessed at the time with my brand new gold boat shoes, especially when combined with brightly colored pants. I really love how this page turned out.
I really enjoyed the two books I flew through this week, so it was a great way to get to include them, as well as a quote I particularly loved from The Fault in our Stars (which you should REALLY read. I know I’m late to the party on this, and yes, it will make you cry like a fool, but it’s so worth it). We also went on our first house hunting trip this week, which was huge news.
Week 15 showed signs of spring (finally), and I had to include the photos I took of those signs. We also had some crazy and turbulent weather, and Dan and I fell into some pretty serious Candy Crush Saga obsession that is still going strong two months later.
I’m enjoying the Monday starts this year especially because it means that I often get to leave the entire right page just for weekend activities (which is great, as there are often more interesting photos of that stuff). We had a great time on Friday night with my sister and her husband and my brother and his girlfriend. We saw some more houses, and then hung out with one of Dan’s friends in NYC.
Week 16 was SPRING, finally. And the bombings at the Boston Marathon. I never know whether to include much about current events, but this is a good example of one that we couldn’t stop thinking about, watching news, and the fact that it spanned so many days in what felt like some sort of awful action movie come to life, it wouldn’t have been right to exclude it. The 3×4 card is a folded card that tells the story of that house, which I fell in love with, HARD, and which we seriously considered bidding on, until we went back and admitted what buying it would really mean. I was brokenhearted, and really wanted to tell the story (even if it makes me feel awkward thinking about it and that house now).
Our 3 month anniversary! Hanging out with family and one of the happiest babies on the block, and our first in-person baseball game of the season.
This week gave me a great place to save the card that came with the flowers my colleagues sent me for Administrative Professionals Day – flowers which completely took me by surprise and really meant a lot, especially during such a busy time of year.
Lots of photos of food and Dan, which I love. Another book cover, as I became obsessed with The Passage all over again as I re-read it to prepare to read the sequel.
Many of these pages were super simple because I got so behind and was putting these together using my notes, but sometimes I find that the simplest pages are the best. Seeing all of the Project Life kits and blog posts and photos everywhere, and design team inspiration… it can all get really overwhelming. People are doing some amazingly creative, beautiful things with Project Life. Sometimes I feel like I should have more supplies, or subscribe to a kit, or embellish more… but then again, then it wouldn’t be me. And isn’t that the whole idea anyway?
Currents
Ah, Friday. Windows open, sun shining. Little things, more than ever, as ever. Since I last wrote, I deleted my Facebook page, so it’s entirely possible the small number out there reading this has decreased significantly. Deleting Facebook was strange at first, and then not really strange at all; I interact with many of those people on various other social media already. I have been surprised by the number of people who said “oh I’m so jealous!” or “I wish I could do that!” after I went for it. I wasn’t really expecting that. Other than getting lives in Candy Crush saga, I haven’t missed it much; if anything I feel a teensy bit more free.
We’re still house hunting, technically, although we haven’t seen any houses in person in two weeks or so, with the combination of Dan’s week-long business trip and then dueling sinus infections. We’re getting a lot of encouragement – “it’s so much fun!” “so many ups and downs!” but to be 100% honest? It has been frustrating and far from hopeful so far. We haven’t had any ups. I get angry watching House Hunters now, at people who sneer when there’s only one sink in the master bathroom, or that the appliances are WHITE I mean, heathens, amirite? I’d be perfectly freaking happy with white appliances, because some of the appliances we’re seeing are pre 1990. And with a master bathroom that (a) exists at all or (b) wasn’t so small as to require a special and miniscule (and green) sink. It’s still early, of course, and we really haven’t seen very many houses. I’m hoping we’ll get to see some more soon, and that it will feel more like “of COURSE we’ll find something we love in a town we don’t hate” instead of “maybe we’ll find something that isn’t TOTALLY AWFUL”.
I’m kind of discouraged and whining, of course.
But there have been some really fun times lately, including a capital Q Quest for a maxi dress (because I suddenly became convinced that I NEED one?), s’mores over a camp stove on Mother’s Day, a beer festival in the forest, pb&j at work for lunch (now that it’s summer and I’ve got the place to myself), and a new lens. And it’s finally warm enough for sandals again. And perhaps best of all, the countdown to our real, actual honeymoon is currently at 15 days. The weekend is great stuff, but an actual vacation? I can’t WAIT.
Happy weekend, dudes. Here’s a song I can’t get out of my head (the whole album, actually)
Project Life: Weeks 9 and 10
I’m still behind on Project Life, but working hard to catch up, both in blogging it and in actually creating the pages. I’ve created pages through the end of March, but then again… April is over in only a few more hours. Baby steps… right? I do still really love this project; sometimes I wonder if planning the pages is one of the best parts. (At least they’re all planned!)
But anyway. Week 9 was all the way back in February, and that means we’re going back in time to the era of my name change. The best part, though, of Week 9 was definitely the fact that I got Dan to participate in Day in the Life. This is exactly the kind of thing that I’m going to be SO glad he did in ten years. Hell, even two months later it’s fun to look back on. (And how cool is it that he was willing?) Looking back, I’m so happy to see so much Dan in this week’s pages; that was definitely one of my goals for this year’s album.
Yes. I totally saved my old credit card in one of the pockets. That thing was in my wallet for years! I also can’t seem to stop saving the cardboard sleeves from coffee cups.
Week 10 involved some regular (and more stressful than usual) days, but the big exciting, documentable thing was for sure our weekend getaway slash mini honeymoon to Washington, DC. The trip was made possible thanks to an awesome wedding gift from my sister, brother-in-law, brother, and brother’s girlfriend, and even though we may have wanted to travel sooner, it was exactly what we needed, exactly when we needed it most. It was great to get away, and I took a million photos of our adventures. Full page photos, two inserts on top of the regular pages… just awesome. (Also fun: collecting every single bit of paper we could through the four days; I had so much to work with!)
Currents
Spring did, in fact, arrive this week. For a few days, it actually seemed like we skipped straight to summer. Being on a college campus on the first really nice day of the year is something else – the students act as though it’s the fourth of July, breaking out their summeriest dresses/shorts/flip flops, driving past the office with music blaring through open windows, and throwing impromptu parties on their front lawns, complete with inflatable pools. I make fun, but isn’t that how we all feel on that first really beautiful jacketless day? Like drinking a beer on the front lawn while listening to loud music and shouting with your friends? Metaphorically, at least. You know.
We saw a few houses last week, and learned that there’s a pretty huge difference between a house built in 1800 and one built in 1915. Very old doesn’t necessarily always mean the same thing, obviously. The charm of a house that old can be hard to resist, until you’re standing in the house and realizing what owning it might actually mean in real life. I’ll still want to see every cute one that comes along, but the chances we’ll end up in a cute old house are probably not very high. We have a few more to see this week, and I’m glad about that. Touring houses feels so much more like action. Even if it’s not necessarily action, but process, still.
I’m so behind on Project Life, it isn’t even funny. I have been printing photos and planning out my pages, but I haven’t put anything together in weeks. I don’t really know when I’ll get a chance to work on it again, but I suppose I’ll keep planning and printing and get there eventually. Life seems to get in the way, and that’s okay sometimes.
Here’s the song I’m listening to on repeat this week. The Postal Service sends me back in time to 2003 like few other things. Ten years ago, when I was freshly graduated from college, working at a bookstore and trying to figure life out, and could never have predicted where I’d end up.
Currents
They said it would rain today, and instead it’s sunny and warmer than it’s been in what feels like forever. This has been a winter of celebrations and big changes, changes that are exciting and have made me so happy, but still. The idea of warmth and longer, brighter days and the fresh start that spring brings is irresistible. Even if it’s been anything but spring-like up until, you know, today. I’ve got my gold shoes and my rainbow pants ready, so it had better stick around.
I’ve been feeling kind of … totally overwhelmed the past few weeks, with all of the Life Thinking and Planning Dan and I have been doing. It’s amazing to be talking about things and have them be so much closer to real, rather than just “one day in the future after we’re married”, and it’s so exciting… but it’s also kind of completely nuts, too. I am and have always been someone who thinks WAY TOO MUCH, and wants to be able to plan everything as much as humanly possible. Maybe more than that, even. I think the hardest part about it is that Dan and I just spent an entire year planning a wedding – a day in which every detail can and will be planned out down to the color of the napkins. And now we’re talking about buying a house and maybe having kids eventually, and neither of those things are all that plan-able, other than deciding how much you want to spend and where you hope you can find a house you both like, and hoping it’s not too difficult to get pregnant. (And then you realize you just said the word pregnant on the internet and you feel even WEIRDER. I read about this stuff on other blogs, not mine.)
So, you know. Life. And stuff. Gold shoes and baseball and hoping everything blossoms soon so I can go take some photos is just so much simpler. But it’s sunny and warm today, and we’re going to look at a bunch of houses tomorrow (it’ll be like House Hunters! Except in real life! Should we be bitchy and unreasonable about granite countertops? Or stainless steel appliances?) and I think I’ll take a walk and feel the breeze.
(here’s a song that makes me happy:)
Project Life: Weeks 7 and 8
The middle of February seems so long ago, but I do love how the pages for Project Life came together rather simply, yet full of color. (I’m also trying to let go of needing to document something from every day, in favor of things that are more fun, like all of the Valentine’s Day stuff this year.)
Valentine’s week! I’m sure other things happened, but our first married Valentine’s Day, featuring flowers, pink pants, a heart painted on my nails, and Jodi’s Valentine’s postcard was much more fun to document. I wanted to include things from the other days, but couldn’t eliminate any of these and decided that was totally okay.
This page is all weekend. I totally swiped that placemat menu from the bar where we had dinner with my sister and her husband and my brother and his girlfriend on Friday night. (I kinda love that my loved ones are now 100% used to me swiping any and all available papergoods whenever we’re out. Sometimes they even spot them; I’m fairly sure my brother asked why I wasn’t going to take this menu home.) We also got to visit some of my college friends and their adorable daughters on Sunday afternoon, which was such a great treat.
Week eight didn’t include too many photos, but I made up for it with some cute paper, washi tape, and the envelope that included some mail at work. (Mail from Europe looks so much more fun than US mail.) It was also our one month anniversary, which seems crazy.
But this page is my favorite. Dan spent the weekend at Dreamation, which is a gaming convention in northern NJ. He loves it, and did a pretty fantastic job of saving me his badge and taking a few pictures for the album. The top two slots are a photo from my Saturday afternoon at work to catch up, and a napkin and business card from my Saturday night out with friends while Dan was in the midst of a 12 hour gaming session.
she likes stripes 