Oops

I just realized that I haven't written anything here in a month. My excuse is that the "S" key on our keyboard is being sticky and so it's frustrating to write.

Here is a summary of our recent news:

I got a job. It's nannying--it's fun, it pays well, I'm working full time, and we've doubled our income. That feels good, cause we were pretty broke.

Now that we have some money, and now that the weather is cooling down enough that we are no longer wandering around in a soporific heat-zombie haze, we've started to look about ourselves and turn our apartment into someplace where grownups live. This is an improvement over its previous appearance, which can best be described as a glorified storage facility.

Today we rearranged the living room, hung artwork and clocks, and put up curtains. It's amazing how curtains and a few paintings will make a whole room suddenly feel like a "real" room, even if it's still a mess. There are boxes and things everywhere still, but it feels much more put together all the same.

I sprained my foot at LARP a week ago. Still sore, because I haven't been keeping off of it. Whoops. There is a somewhat less-than-thrilling tale connected to it that I may share at some point. Mostly I'm just annoyed because I didn't hurt it doing something fun and/or glorious out in the woods in the middle of the night. I did that for 3 1/2 hours without so much as a stumble.

Also, we bought a real live grownup alarm clock today after three months of using cell phones with alarm tones that we hate. It is a fancy schmancy $12 dealie from Wal-Mart that wakes you up with either alarm clock bells, cathedral bells, or wind chimes. It also plays noises to help you fall asleep. I am currently listening to the "ocean" setting ("brook" had too many frogs and not enough running water, and "wind chimes" was essentially an Enya song that never made it to the vocals). I feel sleepy already.

Now that I'm settling in to a work routine and our house is finally, finally getting to a state where it's set up, it's finally beginning to sink in for me that we are for-real married and not just on some glorious temporary vacation from life. It's a good feeling, but surreal in a too-good-to-be-true sort of way. Does that make sense? After the last year, my brain is convinced that seeing Dave every day means that I am on vacation from whatever drudgery I am normally involved in, ergo the fact that I see Dave every day--well, you see what I'm saying. The idea that I can live real life and see Dave every day is novel and exciting.

I think there were other things I was going to say, but, although I was being facetious about it a few minutes ago, the ocean sounds and seagulls really are starting to make me sleepy, so more later.

A Wee Update

Hello, friends and family.

Well, we just keep on keepin' on, so to speak. Dave is still looking for teaching work, but there is still a prospect or two on the horizon so keep praying for him. He did get hired as a tutor with the Princeton Review, which won't be enough for him to be able to leave his current job, but will be really nice supplemental income.

And speaking of supplemental income, I have discovered something. While I would love to stay home every day, and enjoy the theory of it immensely, I'm not sure it's worth the boredom when Dave works 12-hour days combined with the anxiety of being so close to the wire financially speaking. So, I've been looking around for some work and I've got a few prospects.

Of the three phone interviews I've had, all of them went well and were promising. One netted an in-person interview and got me to the next step of the vetting process. Of the other two, I have another interview tomorrow, and one interview that has yet to be scheduled. All of them are for part-time or extremely part-time work, but two or three of them in combination would make a huge difference in our current money situation, so let's all keep fingers crossed, yes?

We went to another LARP event this past weekend, which was super fun. I've got a new project--sewing a dress for my lovely sister-in-law--and we're continuing to settle in well to married life.

Someday I'll get the wedding photos posted, I promise.

Anyway, I have patterns to cut out and things to pin, so that's all for now.

Lumberton

So, for the last weekend of our honeymoon, we decided to go to a Live-Action Roleplaying event. This is something Dave has done before, and I never had. Essentially it involves spending the weekend at a Girl Scout camp, dressing up in costumes, getting foam swords, and fighting people dressed up like monsters.

It was so fun that I feel sort of guilty about it.

I did bring my camera, but didn't take any pictures. However, our friend Jill also brought her camera, and she did actually take pictures... so here some are.

Dave models the linen tunic I sewed for him
on my new sewing machine


Making music on blades of grass... music
that sounded like dying geese.



Apparently, I wasn't able to blow on blades
of grass with a straight face.


I know I look really angry here, but I'm not. It
was just incredibly hot, and the sun
was in my eyes.

I admit, I was dubious about the whole exercise, but it was tons of fun. There's another event in August that I think we're going to try and go to again. I've got a couple of modifications to make to Dave's costume now that I've seen it in action--the snaps need to be moved a little and reinforced, etc... but all in all I was pleased with how it came out, especially given that I haven't sewn a piece of clothing other than that one in about four years.

Plus, I got to dress up like a gypsy and sing folk songs to the most appreciative audience I've ever had. How could I not want to do that again?

The Honeymoon Wraps Up

Well, it's time to settle down into real life again, I suppose. We're coming up on our 1-month anniversary of married-dom. I'm not entirely sure how it went by so quickly, but it's probably because we were so busy being totally freaking rad that we forgot to notice the passage of time.

We've been enjoying our wedding gifts--some, I confess, more than others. For instance, the two lovely clocks we got still aren't on the wall... but our salad bowl gets used nearly every day, all of our towels have been through the rotation at least once, and our sheets are soft and comfortable. The two dutch ovens we got have been seeing a lot of action, and I spent two full days glued to my new sewing machine, making a LARP costume for Dave.

Highlights of the honeymoon:

1. Excellent food! I keep meaning to take pictures and then not doing it, which I think I'll regret later. I've been trying to make bread, and we've been doing almost all of our shopping at Whole Foods (with the occasional jaunt to Giant Eagle for dry goods). We've done a good job of sticking with mainly fresh produce, usually local and/or organic. Very little processed food. Very lots of deliciousness. For instance, last night we rubbed a chicken down with rosemary, sage, thyme, coriander, garlic, and olive oil, then roasted it in the dutch oven and made couscous in the broth when it was done cooking. Now we have half a chicken left--the meat for chicken salad, the bones for stock. We've also identified several restaurants that we really like, including Lemongrass (for Thai food) and the Jerusalem Grill (very very tasty falafel).

2. Lots of sleep. This is a big one for me, because historically I have wicked insomnia. Well, no more. It's boring to stay up once Dave is ready for bed, so I don't. And it's a lot easier to fall asleep when someone else is being sleepy next to you and insisting that it's time for bed. I've gone from an average 3-4 hours of sleep a night with lots of waking-up in between to an easy 9-10 hours a night.

3. Trip to New York. We went up to ye olde homestead in upstate New York for July 4th to put in an appearance at my family's yearly reunion. Highlights-within-highlights include a picnic at the rest stop overlooking Chautauqua Lake, illegal home-launched fireworks, really good catered food, Scrabble, and a comedic little interlude involving us, naptime, a locked door, a trio of 13-year-old cousins, a video camera, and the roof outside of our windows.

4. Movies. We saw Public Enemies and Harry Potter in the theater. I recommend either or both to any reader of this blog. They were lots of fun. We've also been watching lots of movies at home, thanks to Netflix and the awesome TV my oldest brother and his wife gave us for our wedding.

5. Trip to West Virginia. This is probably going to warrant an entire post on its own once I get photos. We went to a Live Action Roleplaying event down in Wheeling, West Virginia. That was pretty much the final Big Event of our honeymoon, which is funny given that the camp rules prohibited us even from kissing or hugging during the weekend. That being said, it was tons and tons of fun and I want to go do it again, maybe when the weather cools down to a more reasonable temperature.

6. My birthday! As of yesterday, I am 25 years old. I feel a deep sense of satisfaction at having got married before this happened. Dave gave me a new sewing box for my birthday, after watching me ogle the ones at JoAnn's for an unreasonable amount of time. For someone who doesn't sew himself, he showed excellent taste. It's roomy and attractive and will match the other things I own. Win.

We've been slowly (and I do mean slowly) unpacking things, washing all the clothes that have sat in garbage bags for the last month while we moved and got married and did more important things, and organizing our kitchen. We're getting to know our neighbors. There's a couple living on the second floor who seem to be a lot of fun, and a very friendly guy lives on the corner just across the street from us. He came over yesterday to introduce us to his dog, Puff Daddy, and to inform us that he lives in the house where Paul Newman was born.

Maybe now that I'm all caught up it will be easier to go back to individual blog posts about one thing instead of these massive catch-up summaries.

Et voila. Our honeymoon.