Kitties!

Well, we made it to the Parma animal shelter in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday, only to discover that they're closed from 12-5 and then open again for 2 hours. So, rather than drive half an hour back home, we decided to look around for something to do in Parma.

Dinner seemed like a good option, so we consulted our GPS for local points of interest that were food related. Our first bid was for Polish food, but after driving 30 minutes to the only Polish restaurant that the GPS knew of in Parma, we discovered that the owners were on vacation and the place was closed for the week. We opted instead for German, drove another 30 minutes, and found ourselves at a place called Das Schnitzelhaus.

It was delicious, there was good draft German beer in 1-liter steins, delicious schnitzel, and tasty pierogi. That killed just enough time, we drove back to the shelter, and met the crazy cat ladies who run the place.

Seriously. Every one of those women was a crazy cat lady.

We ended up picking two cats, a boy and a girl, who we took home yesterday. Their new names (as chosen by us) are Schroedinger and Sappho. Schroedinger is long-haired and gray with a white face and white paws. Sappho is black and white. Pictures soon!

Invitations

We're almost done with invitations. Supplies have been purchased, components have been assembled, envelopes have been stuffed. About 3/4 of them are done, addressed, and ready to go--I'm waiting on sending them because of that last 1/4, which consists of David's friends who I've been asking him to call and get addresses from since before Christmas.

I got it all done over the course of the weekend, with the helpful helping help of the wife of one of the lads. Said lad and another friend came out to Cleveland for the weekend for an all-weekend gaming session with David and his brother, and the Mrs. and I bonded over paper cuts and the gross taste of envelope glue.

I took a couple of pictures of the process, for posterity's sake. The last 1/4 I will probably do in the next day or two, and I will probably enlist the aid of my local bridesmaid, Miss O'Molly. And then I will mail them, and once the people who read this blog have received them, I will put up pictures of the assembling process.

I actually hand-delivered a few of them yesterday, to professors and school friends and the like. It was very satisfying.

Wedding Invitations

This week is my Easter break, which means I'm in Cleveland allll week. I am so happy about this, I can't even tell you.

Last night, Dave and I went to the store in search of supplies for wedding invitation making. I'm not going to tell you exactly what they're going to look like, because I want people to appreciate them in person when they see them for the first time, but I will tell you some of the things we bought last night:

Steel paper clips
Linen paper
Manila envelopes

Whaaaaaat?

You'll just have to wait and see.

Also, stamps alone are going to run us about $84. Omgsauce. Since when did going to the post office get so expensive?

Living Space

Unlike a lot of couples these days, Dave and I aren't going to be living together until after we're married. Right now, I live in a dorm, and Dave rents from a friend who owns a house, so we're going to have to find a new place just for us before the wedding. Exciting!

A couple of days ago, I was struck with the inspiration to poke around on Craigslist and see what kinds of apartments we might be able to find in Cleveland.

I've lived on my own before, but I wasn't the lease holder for the apartment in that case--I had a financial arrangement with my roommate and even though the managers of our apartment complex knew me, we never ended up getting around to putting my name on the lease (whoops). Anyway, I've never been one of the 100% responsible parties when it came to paying rent.

And other than that, I've only lived in college dorms or with family.

So this whole apartment-hunting, living-out-on-our-own thing is kind of a big deal for me.

I found a listing on Craigslist for a duplex in Euclid that looked pretty much perfect. Not one to let an impulse get away from me, I sent the information to Dave, who agreed that it looked great. He called the number for the listing, and he went yesterday to have a look at the place. He liked it so much that we agreed we'd go ahead and put an application in for it.

Now, here's the problem: someone else got there first. The landlady is going to process that application first, and Dave gets the impression that ours will be processed only if that first applicant changes their mind or the application falls through for some reason.

We really, really want this apartment. It's the upper floor of an older house on the East side of Cleveland. It's a ten-ish minute walk from the lake, it's near some really nice restaurants, a park, and a library. It's spacious (1,100 sq. ft. for a 1-bedroom!), and it's affordable.

So, for those of you who read this that pray, how about throwing in a good word for us with the big Housing Supervisor in the sky? This place looks like it would be pretty ideal.



I mean, come on... look at that kitchen.