Pit & Peak

I am participating in *Pit & Peak* for the first time here. Please check out Allie's Blog and read about it and participate, too!

PITS

• Thomas and I were passed over on our offer for a Townhouse we really wanted. I was very disappointed because it had just about everything I wanted in a condo/townhouse. This was the 3rd place we had made an offer on and did not get, I guess 3rd time is not the charm.

PEAKS

• It's RAINING! I live in Los Angeles and it hardly ever rains. We just went through one storm and are in the midst of a larger one. I'm loving it and love that my desk faces a window (even if small) at work. 

• I started getting RSVPs back in the mail for the wedding! Very excited for that. 

 

• I put in a transfer at work that would take me to a district office where I would be working face to face with clients instead of over the phone - I probably won't get it (lots of people ask for it) but I'm proud of myself to daring to try something new (and difficult).

• I've done more packing this week and my room is looking more bear. This could be a pit, but I'm excited to move out and live with my man. One step at a time. 

Rain, Rain Come Again!

My mom has a story that when I first saw it rained I looked at her, confused, and asked what was happening. She says I was 4 at the time. I live in Los Angeles, so this story is not too farfetched. It does not rain here often or much. California is 9 out of 10 times in a drought and we are always being advised to conserve water by taking shorter showers, turning off sprinklers, and making sure to turn off the sink while brushing our teeth. I remember one summer when I was maybe 9 or 10 my dad used the water from the washing machine to wash our car.

This year we are being warned that we are in one of the worst or the worst drought that has been recorded. It’s only rain a couple of times all winter. Winter, that’s not something we actually know around here. We had 2 cold weeks in November (still Fall time) and winter has given us mostly 75-90* days. While it hasn’t felt like summer (because summer gives us 100*+ days) it has been a far cry from what most people consider winter weather.

Beginning late last week when forecasters began to tell us that there were a couple of storms heading our way the city and surrounding areas have gone nuts. On the news this morning they were reporting how a neighborhood was just abandoning their homes for fear of mudslides. Some of these are based on real fears – areas that had fires recently and therefore more prone to mudslides when it rains. Some people though they are just plain crazy over the rain. Listening to people talk about it you would think that it rains all the time “it’s raining again?” I can’t remember when it rained last!

The first storm has already left and I know it did some damage. My cubicle at work is against a wall – the paint on it bubbled up overnight. My supervisor’s cubicle had some water damage, papers were wet and some towels against the window were soaked. Still, it didn’t rain too much and by the time we got up in the morning the ground was drying up and the sun was coming out. (It always seems to rain at night here, rarely during the day, I wonder why?). The next storm is supposed to come in tomorrow and it’s supposed to be stronger than the last. Some people were saying that it’s strong enough that it will be placing a big dent into our drought situation. I read somewhere that there should be 3 feet of snow in the mountains. I’m sure my brother will be going to Frazier Park this weekend, after it stops raining.

We are very unprepared for rain here. My niece and nephew don’t have rain boots so my mom frets over them ruining their shoes and getting their feet wet. People drive just as fast when it rains than when it doesn’t but they don’t know how to handle their cars so accidents increase.

It's beautiful though... 

Wedding Compromises

I have never thought of myself as an organized person that is able to get things done timely. Usually I would wait until nearly the last minute to get things done. However,  I’ve learned that I am not only organized and able to get things knocked off to-do lists quickly (and efficiently I think), in planning my wedding I’ve also discovered that I am a type-A person who has to have things my way.

Like most girls I thought about my wedding in the abstract prior to having a boyfriend and even during. I didn't, however, really plan things out in a detailed way. Part of that was because I didn’t want to jinx getting engaged and also because I didn’t know exactly what I would need to do and didn’t want to disappoint myself when the actual event came. I got engaged on November 23, 2013, had my dress picked out and purchased a week later, and organized just about everything within 3 months. Part of this was because our wedding is onApril 26, 2014 and therefore there isn’t a lot of time to spare, but even when we thought we were going to get married in December 2014 I got right on the planning and prepping for the wedding. I want everything to be planned and organized as soon as possible.

Planning this wedding has not been easy, at least when it has come to the stress it has caused for me and between Thomas and I. Most of the arguments we’ve had over the past couple of months have been because of my inability to deal with things not going the way I imagined them. I can’t imagine what I would be like if I had pre-planned my wedding as a teenager or single adult.

What this has taught Thomas and I is that we need to learn to compromise, something we haven’t really had to do in the past. Thomas says that’s because I was much more accepting of what he wanted to do before we got engaged. I’m not sure if that’s true or not.

I’ve written a general description of my wedding planning in a previous post, but I want to touch on the compromises here. One of the big arguments we had that resulted in a lot of yelling and crying (on my part) was due to tacos. Yes, you read that right – tacos. Our wedding reception will be in his parents’ backyard and will be catered by Stone Fire Grill (a delicious family-style restaurant). The catering that this place does is amazing and they are very inexpensive. But they don’t do appetizers (or wedding cakes, but more on that later). Thomas, myself, our parents, and our wedding party will be staying past the ceremony to have pictures taken in front of the church. At this point guests will head over to the reception site. Apparently it is good manners to feed appetizers to guests for them to nibble on while enjoying alcoholic drinks. Enter the taco dilemma.

Thomas mentioned he wanted a taco truck for the wedding as a side comment one day. While I would not allow that us our main meal (I wanted the wedding to be formal, but because of budget limitations the location makes it a bit less than formal) I thought that it would be good as an appetizer while Thomas and I and the wedding party are still at the church. A co-worker provided me with the contact information for a guy who has a taco truck and who also does rentals for weddings (tables/table clothes/etc). I talked to him and we had worked out a deal that included 250 tacos, 50 quesadillas and then the rentals. Sometime after I had talked to the taco guy, I was going over the wedding planning with Thomas and his mom. Thomas said that 250 tacos were not enough for our guests (which will be probably around 60 for the appetizer time, since many will remain at the church for pictures). He wanted 400 tacos, the rice and beans, quesadillas along with chips and salsa.

The extra tacos meant an extra $200. While Thomas thought of this as “just $200” I thought of it as “we don’t have another $200 to spend on tacos!”. We ended up compromising after a lot of arguments and tears. We will have 400 tacos as well as chips and salsa. There will be no beans or rice due to how messy they are to eat. The chips and salsa will be on the serving table and not on individual tables. This way each person will have to put their chips and salsa on their plates when getting their tacos. He will also provide the divided plates for this. Additionally, Thomas’ parents are helping out with the cost which reduced my stress on my budget ($5k for the entire wedding).  We also agreed (finally) that the tables with be sectioned off so that people don’t sit at the tables until the formal sitting later on.

There are other issues that are coming up that we will need to work out. Some which I will not budge on my position and others in which I might need to bend. I’ll refrain from talking about them on here for now to avoid creating additional problems.

I do have to say that Thomas is super patient with me and to put up with my emotional needs he is an angel and must truly love me. And I him.

House Hunting

One of the reasons that money was (is) something that has stressed me out when it came to the wedding is that Thomas and I need somewhere to live. Currently we both live with our parents so we will be starting fresh. We have plenty in our savings and make enough together to afford to buy a place to live. Unless we spend our savings in a wedding. Luckily Thomas did not want something huge and our parents have helped us out enough that we will be able to stick to a $5k budget.

We began looking at houses to buy in January and we started out rough. While Thomas’ main concern is how much we spend on a home, I am more concerned with what it looks like, how many rooms it has, where it is, if it has a back yard, etc. Unfortunately the budge that Thomas had in mind does not match my requirements – mainly the location need. There are homes in the budget (about $350-$400K) but they are in areas that I do not want to live in. Ideally I (we) want to stay near our parents and our work.  The homes in the budget that was set are located much further from where we live currently and our jobs (which are near each other).  

We found a place at the end of January that I really liked. It had 3 bedrooms that were decently sized, it had a backyard without a pool, it had a fireplace… it was just exactly what I wanted. But it was over our budget by nearly $25k. We put in an offer at $410 and settled at $416k. Thomas was very stressed because of this. While we could afford it, the down payment would use up most of our savings and we wouldn’t have too much left over to save on a monthly basis. We were set to go for it anyway, though. However the inspection report found many things that needed to be fixed – including a couple of big things. While the sellers did inquire about quotes for fixing one of the items, Thomas and I decided that it was too much for too high a price. We backed out after investing $400 for the inspection.

After pulling out of that deal things got hard between Thomas and I. We argued over what type of home we should look into and what budget we should stay within. We blamed each other for not understanding us. After a week of going back and forth we sat down and worked things out for the most part, although it is a work in progress. A lot of compromising had to be done when it came to looking for a place to live.

We have decided that since there are no homes in the price range we are comfortable with we going to look into condos or townhouses instead and lower our budget. We are lowering the budget because we don’t want to spend as much on a condo as we would want to spend on a house. Finding a condo or townhouse has also been difficult. In looking into these type of homes we have to consider the HOA fees that we would need to pay on top of our mortgage payment.

We had the same trouble as we did with homes – some were in the price range but did not meet my expectations or needs, others met my needs but were more than what we want to spend. In having to live in a condo/townhouse my requirements included having laundry in the home and ideally for there to be an enclosed garage for storage. While the former is mostly available in everything we’ve been finding, the latter is not. There are townhouses that have garages but they are a bit above our price range. Compromise!

We spent a weekend going out and looking at basically every condo and townhome that fit both our requirements. We settled on 2 that we liked. One was gorgeous on the inside with updated everything. It looked like the realtor had staged the home it was so nice. The downside to this home included the location and that the windows faced other windows. The other location we found is in a better neighborhood (that by name only will sell more easily than the first) but isn’t as nice out of the box. The owners have been at this location for 20+ years and while it has been kept in good condition it isn’t as pretty walking in. It has some things that made it my preference. These include the location, that the front windows look over the pool and the back windows face a courtyard and not other windows. It is also about 200 sq ft bigger than the first. It has a few draw backs which are all fixable: kitchen isn’t updated and it has to be repainted immediately (the man smokes so the house smells, but a little paint and airing out should take care of that). Eventually we would want the windows updated to be double-paned so that we can save on our AC bill.

Before we could get a hold of the realtor we had switched to the 1^st home I mentioned went to “pending” status (meaning that the sellers have accepted an offer and the house is going into escrow). The 2^nd home is still on the market and we are trying to put into an offer for that one. The price is slightly high but still within our budget and the HOA fees are the same budget wise. I’m hopeful that this condo will be the one we buy. While it does not have a garage it is very spacious and I could see us living there comfortably and starting a family (although our hope is to buy a home in 4-6 years to raise our children).

Wedding Details

As I’ve mentioned previously I have gotten a lot done for the wedding. My initial check list is just nearly completed. Now that most of the big items have been taken care of I have to turn my attention to the details – the things that are harder to pin point and to complete too far ahead of time. I don’t like this part of the wedding planning. Mostly I’ve been avoiding it (although with good reason – we are trying to buy a condo) but I have to work out the details of the wedding day.

Part of the problem I have with working out the details is that I forget what they are and they keep popping up on me. There are some things that I am avoiding because I don’t know how to do it. For example, I have to figure out what I want the tables to look like but without having the table clothes, table diamonds, plates, utensils, and whatever else it’s hard to do. The tables, table cloths, and diamonds won’t arrive until the day before so it’s hard for me to really picture it. Worse I won’t be able to set up the tables (they will be set up the day of but I will be busy that day, of course)  so I have to instruct someone else on how to do it (and as I said before I want things my way and giving the job to someone else makes me anxious!).

I also have to come up with a seating chart which is difficult since most of the invitees are his family and I’m not exactly sure who should sit next to whom. I will have to involve him for this part. But I can’t do any of that until I receive RSVPs. I sent the invitations a week ago, so hopefully they’ll start coming in in the next few weeks. After getting the seating taken care of I have to create a way for the guests to know where they will be sitting. I had started looking into this but wasn’t sure what I wanted. At previous weddings I found it difficult to find my seat because there were many people trying to look at the same paper to figure it out. Luckily I’ve figured out how to do this (even if I still have to get it done).  Thomas often puts movies on his computer and then connects the laptop to the TV in the living room to watch them. While doing this the other night I realized that I can create a slide to put on his laptop and to have on the TV so that guests can easily see where they will be sitting. I still have to make the table numbers, but that worries me much less.

The biggest detail that I have to work out and coordinate with other people is the timeline of the event. I’ve gotten a rough timeline which I think will work well. However I still need to sit down with Thomas and go over it and make sure it makes sense to both of us. Once we have it written out I have to send it out to our DJ, photographer, ceremony coordinator, and my make-up and hair people. And possibly others that I can’t think of right now.

Speaking of the DJ I have to really sit down with Thomas and a computer/iPad and work out the songs we want to make sure he plays as well as the special songs for the scheduled dances. I’ve been avoiding this one as well because I’m not huge into music and I do not like to dance. It has to get done, though.

The other details that I’m worried about are things that I’ve given to Thomas to take care of. These include getting a car/limo for the ride from the ceremony to the reception. Thomas tells me we can do this the day before. As you can imagine, this didn’t go well with me since I like to have things pre-planned and figured out. I really don’t want to take this back and do it myself, but if too much more time passes I might have to. I’ve also left him in charge of dance classes and getting his suit rentals (as well as organizing his groomsmen to go get measured). I went with my dad for his suit and he is all set for his.  

I’m trying to not worry about his to-do list, but I get anxious about it sometimes.

I haven’t opened my wedding binder in a few weeks because the time we have put into buying a house (post to come about that). I need to fix that. The bag is sitting in my trunk at the moment. I will try to bring into work and go through the to-do list I have in there and see if I have knocked anything else off and if I need to add anything.

 

Getting To Know Us

To get to know me you have to understand how my mind works sometimes. I have never been a social person. The opposite, really. I suffer from mild SAD. Social anxiety disorder. Some people don’t believe in this disorder, but I can tell you it is very real. My symptoms have changed over time. At this point in my life it basically means that I do not like to be in big social gatherings of people I am not absolutely 100% close to. This includes being around Thomas’ family, unfortunately. When I am in those type of situations (a party, large classroom setting, gathering, etc) I feel that everyone’s eyes are on me. They are all looking at me and making judgments about me. Logically I know it is not true. I know they aren’t doing that, but I still feel like they are and it makes me very anxious. I will write about my anxiety and how it affects me now in a future post, but I wanted to introduce myself with that information so you can understand how I came to meet Thomas.

Because of my anxiety I typically avoid parties and other social situations. This started when I was young and resulted in my not making very many friends. I was always a one friend type of person. This caused me great difficulty in finding potential dates. My first date and kiss was when I was 21. He and all the other boys (and men) that I dated until and including Thomas I met online. Some people think this is a unsafe thing to do, but I counter that it is not any less safe than going to a bar and talking to the guy on the stool next to me. Actually, it is safe. I can get their name, phone number and use the powerful tool of Google to discover more about them. I never had any trouble (and I did quite a bit of dating!).

Thomas says that he had responded to an I had placed online a year prior to when we started dating, but I turned him down. He says it was after he sent his pictures but, although I don’t remember this at all, I think it was because he told me he was living near Compton. Nevertheless he replied to a post the following year and after talking and texting over the course of a few weeks we finally went on our first date the night before my 27^th birthday. It was a nice evening at Black Angus. We had planned to go out the next night after I went to dinner with my dad (we share our birthday) and he went to a “game night”. Unfortunately he chose to stay at the game night. I forgave him (but I am not letting him forget) and here we are nearly 2 ½ years later just about to get married.

We are a stay at home type of couple, something that I think attracted us to each other to begin with. As I mentioned before I’m not a person that likes to be social so it was nice to meet someone who wasn’t into party’s or bars. Thomas likes video games and I can usually find him in front of his computer. When we met I started playing one with him which was an adventure that I will write about later on. When he isn’t playing video games we are usually watching Netflix on the couch. We also sometimes go to a “Game Night” hosted by someone through Meet Up which is typically a lot of fun. Once we have our own place we plan on hosting them ourselves. Once or twice a month his parents host a family and friend gathering at their home to watch the MMA fights. Although I wouldn’t say I enjoy watching the fights I think it is nice that his family is so close to each other. As you may have guessed, though, these parties cause me great anxiety.

That is basically our lives up to this point. I’m sure much will change in the coming months (after all we both live with our parents and will be living with each other within 2 months) and I’m sure I’ll be sharing it with you.  

Welcome To Him & Me!

Welcome to my first post on Him & Me (But Mostly Me!).

Although this is my first post here, I have been blogging since 2002 when I started college. I use blogging as a release for my stress so you will find a wide variety of posts. I decided to start a new blog because I’m entering a new part of my life. I got engaged in 11/2013 and will be married on April 26, 2014 to my one and only, Thomas. He will probably make many appearances in my posts. Not only are we getting married in just 2 months. We are also in the process of purchasing a home. As I’ve waited to make decisions on what to name my blog and then to set it up I’ve written a few posts which I will be posted here in the next couple of days – these go into the wedding and our home buying experiences.  I look forward to writing about my life as a wife and homeowner and sharing my ups and downs with my readers (are there any out there?).

I want to share a little background on my blog-writing. As I mentioned above my first blog began on Live Journal in 2002 when I moved to a dorm room at Long Beach State. During probably the first year or two (or three) of my blogging I treated my blog like Twitter (remember, this is pre-Twitter). Of course I matured of the last 11+ years and so my posts have evolved. Still, I never developed into some of the more serious bloggers out there (maybe you?) that review things, hold giveaways, and are sponsored. Quite honestly I don’t have the patience or dedication for that. That said, until the past couple of years I’ve been a pretty consistent blogger. A few years back I blogged every single day of the year, even when it was just a nonsense post. I would like to one day have all my posts printed out, but that will have to be a project for the future.

After being on Live Journal for a few years I came to Blogger for a short while before moving to WordPress. I’ve had a few different of blogs on there (including a couple of main ones and a side one that I was using for my short-lived teaching career) and liked the way it worked. However when I was deciding to start a new blog I knew that I wanted it to have an amazing design because that would help keep me interested and coming back to post more. In order to have that I knew that Blogger was my best bet. I searched for designers for a while before choosing Brianna at Sparkle Out Loud. Not only did she have some amazing layouts in her portfolio, but her prices were much more reasonable than most. Brianna has been amazing even when I bombarded her with questions (including the dumb ones). I recommend her to anyone wanting to get a new layout made.

Lastly I wanted to mention the title of my blog. I would have to say that I am not a very creative person. I had a very difficult time coming up with a name. I scoured the internet for potential names, I enlisted friends and family and was still having a hard time. I finally decided on Him & Me which my friend at work thought was boring. Then I decided to spice it up with (But Mostly Me) because we all know it will be about me, my actions, my feelings, etc. He will just make a few appearances here and there. I thought it was cute if not catchy. I also liked it because I can add to it once we have kids (which won’t be for a couple of years yet).

In the coming days I will also post a little history on Thomas and myself, so please check back!