YaYa Princess

I’ll be the first to admit that when we moved into this house, it wasn’t the most plesant time in my life.  24 hours prior to closing on the house I flew home from my last onsite of 2008.  When I landed at Regan, I found the lovelist little e-mail to one of my VP’s from one of my executive directors.  An e-mail which proceeded to talk about all of my shortcomings.  An e-mail that had more than one “falsehood” in it, and yet I was forced to keep my mounth shut and take on for the preverbial team.

When the boy picked me up at the aiport I found out that it only got worse.  The mortage company was late getting some of the paperwork in.  The morning we were supposed to close, while the boy was continuing to pack I shut down to an extent.  I kept jumping on my laptop, trying to deal with work e-mails.

By the time we closed at 2:30pm, the charm around this special first in our lives was totally gone.  Secretly I was nothing short of heartbroken.  This is supossed to be this amazing day, full of hope and happiness.  And there I sat in a lawyers office, while a lawer rushed through so he could hand off our paperwork to his assistant and get on the road for his Thanksgiving road trip down to his UVA football game.  There wasn’t even some dramatic handing over of the keys.  Our realtor gave them to us at the walkthrough as an afterthought.

In the back of my mind, aside from the mess that was my worklife, I was stressing over dealing with the movers and how my poor little stinker was going to deal with the move, much less deal with us boarding her.  And oh yea, how about having to pack and drive 15 hours to Mississippi 48 hours after we moved.

Moving day was cold and bitter.  The boy, ever Mr. Social, wouldn’t deal with the movers.  That left me.  It’s my role in this marriage, and I get it, but that doesn’t make me like it.  The fact is it’s weird to stand there while a bunch of people move your stuff for you.  But it was also the boy’s birthday, so I went with it.

Looking back now, I really have to give the boy credit.  I was even less than barely engaged during the move and the days following (even after we returned) during the unpacking process.  Truth is, by the time we opened our front door, well, frankly I didn’t like this house.  I less than didn’t like this house, I resented this house to an extreme.  There, I said it.  I resented this house, I missed Fairfax, I wanted to move “home”.  Except here was the thing, this house was “home” now.  And man was a bitter.

We’ll have been in this house 5 months tomorrow.  I didn’t even realize this when I started this post.  In those 5 months I’ve finally started to come around.  But oh it took a while.  The day of the walkthrough and the immediate days following I began to wonder if the former owners forgot they had to move out until the morning of given all of the crap we found in this house (that did NOT help my attitude).  As a side note seriously, if you’re moving out and you don’t want your sh*t, guess what, I don’t want it either!

Anway…it’s been a long five months, but in that time I’ve slowly started to come around.  I’ve painted (with the boys help) most all of the house.  I’ve wanted to hire people for just about everything, but I’ve trusted the boy’s lead and we’ve done everything thus far ourselves.  He just keeps reminding me that not only does it save us money, but it helps us “bond” with the house.  He’s continually surprised me with not only his handyman skills, but his patience.  If he ever reads this, I’m sure that while he may be shocked at the fact I finally admit that I resented this house, it won’t be a surprise.  He knew, the whole time he knew.  And slowly he has helped me to accept this house and make it our own.

This weekend we decided to tackle the front yard.  12 bags of yard waste later, we discovered our front yard of …dirt.   But, we also found another garden, and some flowers, and most importantly a fondness for this place.  At one point in the afternoon the boy looked and me and told me how he was so excited to see me sincere interest in our home.  Because somewhere in the last 5, very long, months that’s exactly what it has become.  Our home.

Oh sure there’s a lot of work to do.  And I know for a fact I won’t always be interesting in whatever project the boy is cooking up, and I’m sure there will still be times when I am frusterated or days I will curse the former owners.  But it’s our home, and we’ll do whatever we can to make it comfortable. 

 But don’t think I still won’t try to hire help

2 Comments | In: Everyday Life, The Boy | | #

I’ve never been what you might call a fashion maven.  I’ve always been more of a “jeans persuasion” kinda gal.  I pretty much peaked in college when wearing pj pants and a tee shrit to class was considered the height of fashion (yay for the 90’s!)  After that, it all seemed downhill.

When I graduated I didn’t have much money, and therefore not a lot of ability to purchase suits.  Then I got a job and moved to NOVA and had even less money.  I’ve often half joked that I need to purchase full outfits bc I have no ability to put them together myself.  The problem with this is that I couldn’t afford to go out and buy full outfits, and I never learned how to dress myself in something more than Jeans and PJ’s.  9 years later, I’m still looking for full outfits.

 I stress to no end about what to wear, HATE packing for vacations, and absolutely love it when one of my clients has a uniform that we are required to wear onsite b/c simply put, it’s brainless.

When I met the boy, I quickly discovered his love of all things visual and spacical.  I learned this as it pertains to web design, but this also includes a great eye for style.  This doesn’t necessarily mean he’s GQ (though quite frankly he’s more of a classic style anyway), but he understands all of the fashion rules.  All of my life I always thought that somehow I just missed out on the day they taught us about plaids and stripes, brown and black, which shoes match which outfit, and here I get matched up with the man who has all of the answers.  Today, the conversation in our room went a little something like this:

So I can wear any color nuetral shoe with any color nuetral pant, as long as my belt matches b/c it’s an accessory. 

Black can be worn with tan, but only if it’s a shirt/pant combo, not a pant jacket combo, especially since black is the most formal and matching it with tan is informal, and with a cordoroy tan jacket is even moreso. 

And Brown, well brown as it pertains to pants is really a color, not a neutral.

And on we went.  Yea people, that’s right, this coversation was a FASHION LESSON.  And not my first mind you.  That’s right, I’m not ashamed to admit it, my husband has waaaay more fashion sense than me.  So I got a fashion lesson, one that I requested,  complete with the boy trying different color combos on to show me how they DON’T work. 

Bless his heart, he married a fashion moron.

3 Comments | In: Everyday Life, The Boy | | #

It’s no secret that I’m a reality TV junkie.  I find it interesting to see how other people live and react to different situations.  Granted, it’s often manipulated, but it’s interesting to me none the less. 

I’ve enjoyed all the TLC shows, including “Jon and Kate Plus 8″.  Let’s face it, the sextuplets are precious (I could do without Mady).  Recently I’ve started to turn sour.

I can buy the trips, the new house, even the absense of jobs?  But then they got the Dogs.  Two peeing, pooping German Shepard puppies.  And no, I couldNOT buy that.  There’s no way in hell that wasn’t fixed. Then I saw the headlines saying that Jon was caught gallivanting around.  I admit, I was intrigued. 

 I googled the show and found some interesting websites, including one written by Aunt Jodi’s sister.  You will notice, she’s no where to be found anymore….apparently Kate “kicked” her off b/c they wanted to give Jodi money and Kate insisted that no one make money off her family but them. 

The point of all of this is simply that I was stuck in the house due to our “lovely weather” and too much Google, which got me rilled up (and let’s face it, I’m a little obssesive complusive). 

So the boy and I were sitting there at dinner talking about all my new findings and I make some statment about “how can these people sell their children like this-at what point does it stop?”  Which is when the boy made a rather intersting statement:

“well, isn’t it just like X or X (two very popular bloggers that shall remain nameless)?  Doesn’t H talk about and show picutres of her daughter L  Isn’t that what attracts other mothers, which in turn attracks the sponsors which in turn pays the bills?  I mean really, they are using their family too”

Now, let me say this.  I have NOTHING against the two blogs (who shall remain nameless) that we were discussing.  I read them daily, enjoy them thuroughly and have uber respect for both of them.  But he brings up a good point (and an interesting dinner conversation).  Women today don’t have the same support system that our mothers and grandmothers did.  Sure there are Moms Day Out Groups, but most of the mom friends I know rely on the web to reach out and bond with other moms.  Heck, most PEOPLE I know use technologies to stay in touch with others.  So people write witty thoughts and posts about their families, they bond with other moms who need some interaction and a good laugh which in turn brings into readership, and the next things you know you have sponsors offering you money to try your products or put ads on your page or whatever.

So the boy has a good point.  Technically these bloggers are using their families as fodder.  Yet their intent is to reachout to others, not to turn a profit.  Or so it starts out.  Sure there isn’t a camera in the kid’s face, but if it weren’t for the freaky little things your family did, would you have the sponsorships?  Why am I so quick to run to protect their honor, but I’m disgusted by the show?

It just makes you think.

Don’t get me wrong, I already have the season finale of Jon and Kate on DVR ready to roll…even if it is just to see if it’s going to be their last show.

2 Comments | In: Everyday Life | | #

It started out as curiosity, looking at places.  We originally found the most precious condo that had been in an old character filled building but with all the new bells and whistles.  That’s how it started.  Then we learned about FHA’s, and all that went along with loans.  And we quickly realized we would need to move a little further out in order to get more than a closet for our money.

Almost by a fluke we found it.  The boy had been to an open house while I was out of town, which consequently was purchased immediatly.  So then the boy took me to another property when I got home, and though it wasn’t a place we would have purchased, he wanted me to see the layout since all the layouts are basically the same.  The neighborhood also happens to be one where friends of ours live.  When we got home that day, the boy actually found the property online and we found out we had missed the open house…by ONE STREET.

Tuesday we headed out to check the houe out with our realtor Peter.  I got stuck on freakin’ Glebe road so the boy was there with Peter checking it out while I trudged through traffic.  It about did me in!  When I got there Peter said “this place has already been bought” and my heart sank.  I had been checking it every 30 mins for 3 days to make sure a contract hadn’t yet gone through.  Then he quickly corrected himself-he meant that the boy had decided to purchase it, not that it had been purchase.  Oy.  I ran through the house trying to take it all in.  I was in love.  We decided to make an offer that was a little in excess, figuring that the owners would probably feel like they should counter, and thereby keeping us in our comfort zone.  Sure enough, they liked the offer but wanted to counter-and we countered back.  On October 22nd at 10:00pm we got the word.  They accepted.

Throughout the whole process with this particular home, somehow it always just felt right-I actually felt calm (relatively ).  Sure we still have the home inspection, and then there’s the “lets close, move in and then drive 14 hours to Mississippi” fiasco, but really I just feel good.  And I cannot wait to get my hands on my two white rocking chairs for my most perfect front porch.

And just like, we’re heading towards our first home.  Joyful.

3 Comments | In: Everyday Life | | #

There really isn’t too terribly much to tell, not that would be exciting to the main population anyway. Married life is good, work is heating up. I probably should be working right now–I know, it’s Sunday-but there’s just that much work, and yet I just don’t want to deal with it.

Two of our dear friends are getting married in NY State next Sunday so we’re heading up there, and I just plan to try to have some long days this week to catch up. Technically, I don’t know if it’s “catch up” or “keep up” but whatever. I’m happy at my job (finally), but as with most people I could do with either one less client or 4m ore hours in a day. I probably should be hyperventiatling right now actually, but I”m not, so I’m not going to think about it.

1 Comment | In: Everyday Life | | #