Happy Holidays...Almost!

Well we are half way through November...how did that happen?  I swear I start every one of these posts with some version of "where has the time gone."  I'm beginning to learn that that particular feeling won't ever really go away.  It's funny as a kid all you want is time to go faster-you want school to be over with, you can't wait to get your driver's license, and then you can't wait to go to college.  At some point (apparently for me its 25-26) you start to realize the value in just being happy with now and wanting things to slow down.  I can only imagine this feeling is amplified once you have kids of your own.

So what have I been up to?  Well I got to see my lovely cousin get married in September in St. Louis and some dear friends of mine tie the knot earlier this month in Madison.  Those are the big highlights of the past couple months for me.  It was great to see some family in St. Louis and, as always, it was lovely to be back in Madison a few weeks ago.  I'm actually pretty happy that we haven't been doing as much traveling lately.  Plus it's nice to have some time at home.

Even without the traveling we've managed to keep pretty busy.  Matt is staying busy with school and work.  He ended up having to travel all of last week.  We only had a couple of days notice but I managed to not get too lonely or bored while he was gone this time.  It's baby steps for me on some things!  I've been keeping busy with work and my involvement in AFP.  My department just launched a huge three year campaign that we are teaming up with the Detroit Lions for.  So that is keeping me pretty busy.  I'm also taking over a committee for AFP starting in January so I've been working on transition stuff and coming up with my "vision" for 2014.  So no lack of things to do in our house!

We're both starting to get pretty excited for Christmas and we might just have started eyeing up new Christmas decorations...maybe :)  Although I'm working on holding Matt off from putting up the Christmas tree until the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I love all of the colors associated with fall and Thanksgiving.  Plus-I just can't be that family that puts up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving :)

Well that's about it for me at the moment.  Matt just got home from class and we have an episode of "Bones" to watch.  Have a good week!

Updates

Well hello long lost friends!  It is crazy how fast this summer has gone.  Overall it's been great though.  The wedding went fantastically and it seems as though everyone had a good time.  Since then the summer has flown by.  The weekend after our wedding we were on our way to Kentucky for one of Matt's good college friend's wedding.  Things haven't stopped a lot since then.

In July I was lucky enough to be able to go to a conference in Madison for work.  It was so nice to be able to see my friends every night and it was great of everyone to make time for me.  The conference was okay-but pretty basic.  I'll take it though if it means I get a week in Wisconsin :)

Right before I left for the conference we had a small electrical fire on the outside of our house.  No damage to anything we own but it did get us really thinking about how long we want to stay in our current house.  As much as we'd like to buy a house it just isn't in the cards for us right now.  We're hoping our landlord will agree to let us out of our lease early (or sublease) so we can find a slightly nicer/safer house that we can sign a multi-year lease for.  You might be surprised to see that we're looking for a multi-year lease but...Matt started grad school tonight so we'll be here for at least two and half more years! Yay....and yes that is sarcasm you are sensing (about the 2.5 years-not grad school) ;)  Really though it should be okay.  I like my job and I'm excited at the prospect of getting in to a new house, so I'm working on convincing myself I can handle a couple more years.  Even if we can't get out of our lease we'll still leave at the end of it-I'd just rather move in September or October over early March.  Hopefully it will all work out.

We just got back from our honeymoon which was also our first vacation in over two years!  It was great to get away for us.  We stayed for a week in Rivera Maya at an all inclusive resort.  The resort was great-they only had spotty internet so you really could just disconnect from everything.  We did one excursion to Chichen Itza and other than that just laid on the beach or by the pool.  Here's a nice picture of our view on the beach:

It was a great break but it's also kind of nice to get back to reality....and a land where you can drink the water.  It's the little things for me :)  I hope you're all doing well.  Feel free to drop me a line any time!!

Where Have I Been?

Don't worry everyone-I'm still alive!  I couldn't believe I had let nearly 2 months go by without posting.  I'm officially terrible at this blogging thing.  Although, to be fair, I have had a lot going on.  So what have I been up to?

Well, the wedding is now less than 1 month away (Yay! and Yikes!)  We've been doing a lot to get ready for that-some DIY projects, some shopping and attempting to keep up on thank you notes as we keep getting wonderful goodies delivered to our doorstep.  I've been blessed to have had 2 wedding showers in April-both of which were lovely and resulted in us needing to completely re-arrange our kitchen.  It's a nice problem to have though so no complaints here.

We've also been incredibly busy with our yard.  I am happy to say that we are basically done with yard stuff for the summer. We've got lots of little baby plants to keep up and alive and we've even got some baby grass growing!  Here are some pictures so you can see what we've been up to (fair warning-there are lots of pictures):

Stage One:

Starting with a blank slate this year!  So much better than last year.  As a refresher, here's what it looked like last year around this time:

We've had so many more perennials come up this year over last.  I attribute it to there not being quite so much junk in our back yard.  It's been kind of fun to try and figure out what kind of plants all of the new little green leaves coming up are!

Stage Two: Planting!

It's hard to tell in this picture-but there are about 15 to 20 coleus plants and a few marigolds up front in this bed.  I'm hoping the coleus does okay back there this year-but we'll see.

More coleus along the fence-and an Azalea tree that actually bloomed this year!

And even more coleus between the driveway and back yard.  We had a lot more space to fill this year so we're hoping all of the coleus will fill out nicely.

View from the patio.

We're giving butternut squash another try this year (on the left) and also growing some tomatoes again. This year I've put marigolds in the planters with the squash and tomatoes and I put some around the outside of the container.  Hopefully they help keep the critters away.

Stage Three: Grill, Furniture and Mulch!

Our fantastic neighbors had a few wheelbarrow fulls of extra mulch...so they just dropped them off in our driveway for us.  I still owe them a pie as a thank you-I should probably get going on that :)  So we put some mulch in the small bed between the cement pad and the walkway-that is now our grill's new home.  I also split and transplanted a few different hostas in that bed-just to add a little something.

We bought a table!  We had plenty of chairs so we just got a table for now.  It's so great to actually have a full size table to eat dinner outside on.

Our patio pots :)  We have three this year instead of just two.  This year we went with the normal, bigger petunias rather than the small super petunias.  Matt didn't enjoy deadheading tiny super petunias all the time-so we switched it up just a little.

Oh-I forgot to mention the yellow things on the fence!  We found those at a garage sale and I repainted them.  We weren't sure they'd work inside so they found a new home on the fence outside.  Just adds a little something I think.

We also added some solar lights and pots of lavender by the table.  It actually looks pretty cute at night when they light up.  I haven't been able to get a good picture of that though.  If I can, I'll post it.

So that has been our yard work progress.  Really, we're in good shape to just maintain and not have lots of projects all summer.  We're both excited to have the plants grow up a bit more and just enjoy having our own outside space.  I think it's a vast improvement from what it all looked like when we got the house.

We've also been busy with some other things.  The Gilda's Club event I was on the committee for happened a few weeks ago.  It all went very well and seems to have raised a decent amount of money which is always nice.  Here's a slightly blurry picture of Matt and I from that night:

We've also been able to make it to a couple of Red Wings game and Tigers games.  We're going to a Tigers game on Monday-I'm hoping that this time will actually be warm.  The first two times we've gone I've needed blankets...and gloves...and a hat!  So hopefully this one gets above 50 degrees!

My first Red Wings game!

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!  Hopefully it's slightly warmer where you are.  It's been in the mid to high 60's.  Matt loves it, but it's a bit on the chilly side for me.  I'm hoping our trip to the zoo today brings with it warmer weather!  Even if it doesn't-I still get to go to the zoo!  

Have a great holiday everyone!

Spring!

This past year has gone fast!  Yesterday marked our first full year in Michigan; naturally we celebrated by going to a Red Wings game :)  That wasn't actually why we went but the timing just worked out nicely.  It’s been quite a busy year for us with lots of ups and downs but overall its been an worthwhile experience.  I’m even beginning not to completely dislike it here-or as Matt say- I’m beginning to tolerate it.

Sadly, this year has not been as warm as last year which is a big bummer for me since I now have an open yard to play with.  We finally got the management company (by way of the owner) to tear down the terrible gazebo like thing in our backyard!!  Yay for small victories :)  Getting rid of that thing made our yard look about twice as big-and not nearly as ghetto (always a plus).  It also means I can plant more flowers in our back bed and hopefully the back part of our yard will actually be able to grow some grass.  We did our first outside work day/afternoon this past weekend.  We removed a bunch of old boards that were “edging” out our driving and replaced it with some plastic edging.  It’s amazing how much a quick $50 project can make something look so much better.  It only took us 2 hours to take out the old boards, move the dirt as needed, run to get more edging (we underestimated the length of our driveway) and set the new stuff in the ground.  Overall not too shabby.  We’re also working moving some dirt around, moving some rocks around, and just prepping the grass and dirt for when spring truly decides to come. 

On other news and updates (since it’s been a month since I posted last) we successfully navigated the new car adventure.  It was one of the more stressful things for us, not because we couldn’t decide on a car, but because I am someone who figures out what I want and then I immediately want to get it.  Matt figures out what he wants and then researches and tries to haggle to get the best price possible.  When you put those two things together it can result in some tense discussions and planning.  We made it through however and I am now running around in a 2013 Subaru Forester!  We ended up just leasing it but we calculated things out pretty well so we should be good on miles and either way I love this car!  Except the new car smell-that gives me a headache every time, I’m hoping that goes away soon.

Let see, what else is new….not a whole lot actually.  We finally made the jump to a new mattress.  Well we ordered it and it’s arrived but it’ll be a few days before we can sleep on it.  We decided to buy a memory foam mattress and it was shipped to us so we have to wait a few days for it to reach its full size.  Tonight is installation night…we’re getting some wood boards to put across our frame and taking the thing out of the box.  I’m pretty excited because it means we can finally put our current bed in the spare room and the futon can go down to the basement which means we will have a legitimate bed for people to stay in when they visit!  I feel so adult now!  Matt’s also pretty excited because it means he can get a second tv to put in the basement.  Although our basement stays fairly cool in the summer so we’re thinking it will helps us keep our AC costs down if we just watch tv in the basement during the summer. 

I think that’s about it for me.  Work is going well.  I’m also managing to keep myself busy through my Gilda’s Club event committee and I’ve taken on a co-chair position for the Membership committee of AFP here in Detroit.  That is turning out to take up a decent amount of time and energy.  Plus there’s still wedding stuff to be done!  Overall we’re keeping fairly good track of everything and not annoying each other too much about everything that needs to get done.  Now if some warm weather would get here I would be a very happy camper!

February

As usual, I have no idea where the time went.  I know February is a short month, but even considering that, it just flew by!  For Matt and I, February had lots of new things.  I started my new job, Matt went on his first  long(ish) business trip since we've been together, and we are in the process of making our first big joint purchase (a car-not a house).

So I can now actually tell you a little about my new job, since I've been here for a bit.  So far it seems like a good choice to have come to this organization and this team.  It was a little bit of an interesting start since I was one of two new people on our annual giving team.  The team is made up of a specialist (me), a manager (he's been here a long time) and a director (she started this Monday).  It's been interesting because I started two weeks before the director so nobody wanted to start having me get into things until she got here.  I mostly just have jumped on to whatever project or task needed an extra hand for the last two weeks.  It hasn't been too bad and I think its a good way to learn about different aspects of the group.  Since I've gotten to meet my new boss I'm even more excited about this position.  She seems really great and, like the department director, seems very into encouraging professional growth.  It's nice to be in an organization that not only encourages growth through things like conferences and professional group memberships, but that also has the funds to actually have people do things.  I've already been told I can expense things-this is a word not often spoken so freely in non-profit.  I am seeing the advantages of joining a large, more corporate, non-profit.  

I've been pretty happy with how easily I've gotten back in the swing of things and having a full time job.  I got extremely sick last week and am just now-after about 10 days-starting to feel like a normal human again.  That kind of put a hamper on my ability to keep up with everything at home (read as-our house got pretty messy for a few days, which is very unusual).  Besides the being sick, Matt and I have re-adjusted pretty quickly to sharing household chores which is great.

Matt made his first long trip for his new job.  He was gone for 5 days and was unfortunately sick the entire time (he was ever so kind as to share his illness with me before leaving).  It was an interesting week.  I'm not crazy about the idea of having a partner that travels a lot but I've just had to come to terms with the fact that it's a requirement of his job.  So, to try and brainwash myself into liking the alone time, I went to the grocery store the first night he was gone and bought a ton of junk food and stuff we don't normally buy because its either terrible for you or he won't eat it.  I also made plans for pretty much every night.  Sadly, I then got really sick the next day so I didn't touch any of the junk food and kind of just went through the motions with the plans I had made.  Overall it wasn't as bad being home for a week by myself as I had expected it to be.  I think my brainwashing attempt was successful (even if I didn't eat all the junk I bought) J

The other big thing we’ve been doing in Febraury is trying to find a new car for me.  We’re looking for either a new to me car or one to lease for a few years.  Matt really had to sell me on the idea of a lease but I finally came around to his point of view and I’m good with it under certain circumstances J  So, we’ve been going to car dealerships pretty much every weekend for the past month.  We’re getting closer to closing on one but, Matt in all of his negotiating glory, can’t quite close the last few points of negotiation with the dealership.  I am so hoping that this weekend will be the last weekend we’re dealing with this.  I’d love to have our Saturdays back!

Well that’s about it for us.  Besides travelling, the new job and car shopping we haven’t been up to a whole lot else.  We’re slowly chipping away at wedding projects (although at this point it’s mostly just me doing things).  I am currently working on putting together all of our favors-oh the joys of DIY!  I’m going to start addressing all of the invitations soon as well and I’m planning on getting those in the mail the first week of April.  At this point, I’m just happy the months are going by pretty quickly.

Oh!  The other thing we've done is gone to see The Lion King on stage.  It was Matt’s Christmas present and we went on February 15^th and made a night of it with dinner before the show.  It was the most amazing thing I think I've ever seen-and the Detroit Opera House is pretty impressive itself.  The costumes and colors and scenery were just spectacular.  If you ever have the opportunity-GO!

That’s it for me.  Feel free to send me an email and let me know how you guys are doing.  I love hearing from you!

Good News

I am happy to say that I can start this blog post with some happy news-I am starting a new job on Monday!   I accepted a position last week with one of the largest health care providers in the state of Michigan.  It's pretty much the same type of job that I got last year but this time with a thoroughly legitimate organization :)  I made sure to do my homework on the woman I will be working for and the organization in general.  I've been trying to get myself back to getting up early and getting going right away in the morning.  I succeeded most of the days this week on getting up early....most.  All in all I'm excited.  It' kind of bad I can't totally remember what the job description for this position even said!  I've looked at so many of them that they all just kind of blurred together after a while.  Either way it's a job in philanthropy and no matter what I will be keeping it for the next 12 to 18 months :)

The job came at just the right time.  My original six months of unemployment were going to be running out relatively soon and on top of the wedding expenses we now have to start looking for a new car for me!  Mine still looks like such a nice car but needs more mechanical fixes than we're willing to pay for at this point.  It's a slightly bittersweet thing for me.  This car was the first big purchase I made on my own and I haven't really had it that long.  That said, I am pretty excited about getting a new car (minus the cost but that's just something that will never be easy-large purchases are always a bit terrifying!) but Matt is about as thrilled to go car shopping as he is to go furniture shopping.  In short-he loathes it.  Furniture shopping is his own personal version of hell and car shopping is only a slight notch above that.  I'm sure we'll find a way to power through the pain :)  If anyone has a car they love or have heard great reviews on-please let me know!  I'm always open to other's reviews of cars.  Luckily, I think we're both pretty much on the same page on the type of car we want to get.  Now we just have to put that theory to the test!

Other than the new job and looking for a new car there isn't a whole lot new with us.  Matt is liking his job.  He's been travelling quite a bit-mostly regional but he does have a week long trip coming up.  Thankfully I'll be getting into work more so I'll have something to keep me busy.  I've also joined and volunteered to co-chair an AFP committee so that also comes with a decent amount of work to do.  That's actually what we are doing this morning-Matt is catching up on news and working from home and I'm finishing all of my online on-boarding for work and slowly chipping away at my committee work.

Things with the wedding are slowly coming together.  We think we've found a tie we both like for all of the guys in the wedding and I've ordered part of the girls gifts.  I love that we are actually getting stuff for the wedding now!  We've also worked on quite a few other small projects of DIY things for the big day.  It's hard to believe it's only 4 months away.  We both couldn't be happier about it.  We've only had one small disagreement thus far which I think is pretty darn good!  We've got that issue all settled and have happily moved on to the next item :)

Well that's it for me at the moment.  I'll write again after I start the job and let you all know how it's going!

Christmas Celebrations

The holiday season certainly was in full swing in our house!  We decked out the house with lots of Christmas decorations, pine tree smelling candles, and holiday music.  While the festivities are all over we do still have a nice festive feeling in our place....we still haven't had the heart to take down the tree.  Maybe next weekend :)

We were busy making and getting presents for everyone this December.  It's always fun starting a new project, but I have to say, this time around every project took longer than we expected!  Thankfully, we started perhaps earlier than we needed to so we still got everything done with a little time to spare.  Sadly I didn't remember to take pictures of all the presents before we wrapped them up :(  I definitely dropped the ball on that.  We made some coaster sets, decorative painted wine bottles, and a pair of decorative (and reversible) cloth covered bulletin boards.  All in all, not bad for us.  We branched out from our normal painting based projects which was pretty fun actually.

We were lucky enough to be able to spend some holiday time with both of our families.  With the distance its not really possible to see both sides on Christmas or Christmas Eve.  Instead we had a nice dinner and opened presents with Matt's parents and sister the night before we left for Wisconsin.  We stayed with my family for a few days in Wisconsin and when we got back, spent New Years Eve with Matt's parents and cousin.  It worked out pretty well.  Thankfully the weather cooperated for the most part and travelling wasn't too bad.  We even got to spend a night in Madison on the way back.  It was really nice to break up the drive a bit and we got to stop and visit some friends and their little boy and even got to have dinner and breakfast with some of our good friends!  Overall not a bad trip :)

Since nobody reading this got to come to our Christmas party I thought I'd share a picture of our Christmas tree with almost all of our presents underneath:

So besides the general holiday happenings and busyness we also had our Christmas party.  We had one last year too and decided we want to make it a tradition for us.  It's pretty much the only party we throw all year so we generally go all out for it.  We make all of the food ourselves and its a big reason that we deck out the house so much.  Here are some pictures of the house all set up:

All of our more substantial and savory food.  I have to say-our cooking ability is slowly improving!  Here's what we made: 2 types of meatballs (one with regular BBQ sauce and one Cherry BBQ sauce), baked brie with cranberry sauce, cherry salsa and cream cheese dip, spinach and artichoke dip, a cute meat and cheese Christmas tree with tomatoes.

A nice little bar area, always a must for a party :)

All the sweets!

The sweets menu (my favorite part!): cream filled strawberries, pumpkin pie dip, dunkaroo dip (tastes like cake frosting!), home-made chocolate/mint fudge and the only item we didn't make: whoopie pies.  Matt's cousin who lives across the street brought those over.

I found this cool fireplace movie on Netflix that we played on our TV all night.  It was pretty awesome actually!

So that's what our party looked like.  For those who know me really well, I feel the photos are needed so I can prove we actually cooked all that :)

I've discovered something interesting about the auto industry-it completely shuts down between Christmas and New Years.  I personally loved it....I got to have Matt home for the whole week!  It was great.  We definitely kept ourselves busy but it was nice to have some time for whatever we wanted.  We made it a point to spend a day (well it turned into an evening) exploring something new that we haven't done yet.  So we decided to go to Cranbrook Institute of Science.  I had never heard of Cranbrook before moving here but it's a crazy good, and disgustingly expensive, private school.  They also have a science and art museum on the campus.  It was fantastic!  We ended up going at 5pm because it was 50% off after that time-but the place stayed open until 10 so it was perfect for us.  As usual-we were the only adults without kids but we enjoyed it just as much :)  I even got to go to my first planetarium show (at least I don't remember going to one before so I think it's my first!).  All in all it was a lovely evening.

Other than that not a whole lot is new.  Well, I guess except that Matt has accepted a position with a different company.  He is starting next Monday actually.  It was a nice opportunity with a good company and more along the lines of Matt's interest.  As I figured would happen when he took the job here, he got bored pretty quickly with the job that brought us here.  He is a guy who likes being in the thick of things and who works well under pressure.  His current position is a little too slow paced and not nearly challenging enough for him.  So this opportunity presented itself and we decided, why not?  We don't have to move and he'll be happier.  So he gets to start somewhere new on Monday.  I'm still looking for a position.  Still reaching out to anyone I can think of and I'm working with a staffing agency now that has some experience placing people in non-profits.  So hopefully the new year will bring new opportunities!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!