Kathy's Barbershop

A year or more ago Thomas realized that he could save money if I shaved his head instead of him going to the barbershop to have it done. The only shaving that I had ever done at that point only included my armpits and legs. Thomas' had confidence in me, even if it wavered when we started. 

Thomas hates it when his hair gets long and would keep it nice and short (#1 clipper) all the time if he could. I think he looks better with his hair a little longer, but alas it's his head so he gets what he wants. 

The first time I shaved his head I was nervous so he started it off for me but I quickly got the hang of it and got upset with him when he continued doing it himself. I don't let him near the clippers anymore. I enjoy making sure all sides of head are even and I especially like shaving close to his neck and around his ears. 

We get around to shaving his head every few weeks. We don't live together so the opportunity just doesn't present itself as much as it will once we get married. 

(I see a heart shape there, can you?)

We shave his head in the backyard so it's easy to sweep up afterward. 

(the aftermath)

Do you cut your man's hair? Does he cut yours? 

House Hunting: It Sucks!

I knew that buying a home was not going to be an easy thing to do. There are so many aspects to it and so many ups and downs that it had to be a trying process. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be, though.  

I had been telling Thomas that he or we should buy something for over a year. The market was right in 2013 with homes available and price pretty low. However Thomas wasn’t ready and honestly it wasn’t a good idea to buy a home together without at least being engaged. Unfortunately now that we are engaged and ready to buy together home prices have risen quite a bit and interest rates are also on their way up.  Nevertheless we need a place to live and I really don’t want to rent.

Thomas grew up in a regular single-family home while I grew up in apartments and townhomes. When we talked about where we would like to live once we moved in together Thomas had indicated to me that he wanted to live in a house. This was fine with me. When I picture raising a family I see my children in a backyard with a place to play. This is not something that is easy to do in a condo or townhome. Although I did grow up in a townhome it was located across the street from a park and it was during a time where I could go out and run around and my parents didn’t worry. That isn’t something that can be done today. No matter my opinion on that we have decided that for now we have to settle for living deeply within our means so that we can save money and buy a house later on.

I have to say that I was disappointed in having to pull out of the home we wanted to buy originally. It had everything I had wanted in a home to raise a family. Some things just aren’t meant to be and when one door closes another one opens, right? In my last post about the housing situation I mentioned that we had been looking at 2 condos. Shortly after putting our offer in for the one we preferred we were informed that it had been sold to an all-cash buyer. There wasn’t much we can do to compete with that.  I hope we don’t keep running into these types of buyers, if we do we will be doomed.

The same day that we put in the offer with the condo a townhouse came onto the market. While it appealed to me initially, I was happy with the condo we were trying to buy so I disregarded it. When the condo went off the market I e-mailed my realtor and asked for a showing to the townhouse.  I had written a whole description of the townhouse really thinking we would get it, however before I was able to post this, they informed us that they sold it to someone else. I am very disappointed.

Since we are now searching for a 4^th home to purchase my hopes are very low. I have gone over and over the homes available in the area we want to live in for the price we want to pay and there are very few options. The homes that do go on the market are quickly sold – and not to us. Right now there is 1 condo left that fits our criteria (in a good neighborhood, over 1,000 sq ft, 2 bedrooms and 2 baths – with hopefully a garage and windows that don’t face other windows).

We will be looking at the condo Monday during our lunch hour. This home is not listed on the MLS yet and they are not showing it to others. I think they will officially list it in April because there are tenants in the condo until 3/31/14. However we are being allowed to look at it because the listing agent feels bad for our situation. The listing agent is the same as the other condo in the same complex that we had put on offer in last week. I guess having someone feel sorry for you is a good thing. The bottom line on this is that if we like it we can get it. No one else has access to it for now.

The condo has pros and cons before even seeing it in person. The pros include it being down the block from my parents’ house. This will be very useful when we (read: I) have to drop off our future children with my parents when I go to work. It is also large, with 1,310 square feet.  It has the 2 bedrooms and 2 baths that we want as well.  The cons right now include that it does not have a garage and there is no window over the kitchen sink – 2 things I wanted to have, but that I can live without. Another con that might or might not be true is that it is only accessible by an outdoor stair case. Although we are a young couple, I have nerve damage in my ribs that does not allow me to carry heavy things, especially up and down stairs. I am not completely sure if this location has that issue or not. It might be accessible by elevator only which would be fine. Finally, another con is tandem parking. This is an issue because our schedule’s are different. One of us will either have to move the others car every day to get in and out of the parking garage or the other will have to come down to move our vehicle. This is not very convenient, but something we can work around (especially if there are guest parking spots we can use).

While I am hopeful for this location I am very hesitant to get excited about it or to even think that I will like it. I am going in without the best feelings. Maybe that’s a good sign. Either way, wish us luck to find a location to move into before we get married!

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.