brief fupdates and evidence we still exist

bachelorette selfie with my sister, only semi relevant, but you need a picture right?  there will be more eventually.

let's be honest here folks, things are currently rather surreal.

my name is going to be different in less than 18 days and between trying to finagle a new job and tie off all the pre-nuptial loose ends it just doesn't feel like i have much to blog.  things are simply too vague or surprise-inducing to announce to the internet right now, so i've obviously found solace about my bloggers-block in the form of a 1028 page novel and 6 seasons of jersey shore.  rest assured there will be much more to be said, some hopefully sooner than later, but should you be knee deep in concern for my absence from this blog, you can expect to see more around maybe halloween-time, when hopefully things reach some semblance of normal.

in the meantime, here are some fleeting thoughts about our new home and current conditions:

1.  cost of living differences between houston and ann arbor are blowing my mind.  gas is so cheap (not really a shocker), groceries are basically free compared to michigan, also there are forms of gainful employment here that render people more upbeat than the metro-detroit attitude of "you have a job, you thus have no right to complain about anything ever.  genocide?  deal with it.  you have a job.  be thankful."

2.  on the topic of the upbeat people of houston the friendly-factor is probably the biggest culture shock here.  people are just so darn nice.  i feel like an ice queen for not striking up a conversation with the cockroach i found in my dishwasher.  midwesterners have a much more "you do you" (thnx jwoww) attitude about what constitutes politeness.  probably because it's so cold you can't really be expected to leave your house to talk to anyone 8 months out of the year.

3.  also yes i found a cockroach in my dishwasher.  just a small one.  he was not the first.  there also aren't 8 months out of the year here where everything freezes and dies.  thus bugs.  they happen.  i'm learning to deal with this.

4.  on the topic of cold: it is not.  unless you're indoors because, wisely, everything is air conditioned to the max.  i am essentially in heaven.  i hate the cold.  cold ranks somewhere below human trafficking and somewhere above the big bang theory in terms of things i do not appreciate.  if you read this blog often, i would guess about 80% of its contents refer to my hatred of the cold.  i'm so pleased and warm and tan in houston.

5.  on that note, the locals here tend to think it's way too hot and they can't believe i think the weather here is a plus.  this, to me, is like whining about your broken laptop to a starving child.  you do not understand the suicide-inducing misery of months below 0 degrees fahrenheit.  seriously.  i don't like cold.

also there are little lizards all over the place in our apartment complex and i love them.  hopefully i will get to posting the rest of the pictures from our bachelor/bachelorette weekend very soon (thank you to my 10/10 maid of honor sister for taking pictures and also crafting hard).

there: we still exist. ta for now.

back from the lull!

enjoy these belated valentines day images... jeff's chain is counting down the days to our wedding

hi self, welcome back to the blog!

for those of you who have missed me, i can promise i have not been blowing off blogging for no good reason.  family guy reruns are a very good reason thank you very much.  well, at least they are when you've actually been stretched thin with too much to do.  so what have we been up to lately?

things are changing a lot around my workplace and as a result i have a significantly greater workload.  high hopes this won't keep me from blogging too much in the future, but a reasonably demanding job is actually quite a time suck.

planning a wedding is a task and a half.  particularly while planning on being a bridesmaid in two weddings, a guest at three more, planning an international vacay, and existing as the point of contact for everyone who is planning parties related to these weddings.

also somewhere in there we're fitting in a cross country move and related job hunt.  which honestly is becoming more of a stress reliever than stress producer given michigan's cruel persistence of mega-freezing temperatures.  science has confirmed it:  michigan's winter 2014 officially sucks the most.

on the plus side:  i finally replaced my battery charger for my DSLR so with any luck there might be more pictures coming to pretty this place up.  i'm going to do my best to keep pre-blogging when i can to try and spread the fun out over several posts for y'all.

now re-reading this it's occurred to me... not much is new (well my boss is new, but she's great).  i hate when people bemoan how busy they are, so let's call it a day.

xoxoxo

PS like the heart garland on our mantle?  it's easy to make - check out my post here.

all kinds of count downs

photos are from the week before last when we ventured out into the cold for roughly seven minutes before our ears started to freeze.

chugging on to february and it's still cold.  i've found a lot of freedom from frustration by no longer allowing myself to feel entitled to doing things.  is that sad?  probably.  whatever, it makes the serendipitous moments of entertainment all the more enjoyable for now.  besides, in-climate weather apparently cut the chicago murder rate in half briefly.  frosty silver lining?

the groundhog saw his shadow in pennsylvania a couple days ago, which in these parts usually signifies roughly 12 more weeks of winter. still, when "leaving the house for reasons other than sustainable income and survival nourishment" is a rare treat, and when you find yourself saying "goodness me, eighteen degrees has never felt so warm," you start to look for light at the end of the tunnel.

having perfected the art of making chili, and having knitted enough things to start googling carpel tunnel syndrome, i'm thinking it might be time to make an excess of decorative paper count-down chains.  we've got so much (matrimony) to look forward to, and hey, all the trees look dead already!  when life hands you frozen lemons make kindergarten crafts (and a supplementary lemon drop will probably take the edge off too).

so how much paper are we going to need?  hmmm... let's make a list of the biggies:

sarah's bachelorette party in san diego: 87 days

paige's wedding in iron mountain:  95 days

sarah's wedding in ann arbor:  137 days

[insert ambiguous number here to signify our move]

our wedding in gull lake:  221 days

our honeymoon in greece: 224 days

hope everyone else has fun on the horizon!

bits and pieces (snow and cats)

so we are literally buried in snow right now.  like dig your car out to get to work, dodge falling trees, and let jesus take the wheel when you're driving, buried in snow.  the photos are misleadingly tame looking.  this is some extreme IRT weather.

as a result steve and i were cooped up inside last night so we ordered in delivery for dinner and i busted out the sewing machine steve bought me for christmas.  bert had an absolute field day and would not let me get at my pretty linen fabric until i distracted him with the elastic.  i'll post more about the skirt i made soon, but i want to shorten it a bit first.

speaking of honeybooboobear (ok i give my cat creepy nicknames) he and his bff are about to be separated.  my sister and roommate is moving across the country next week and bert is about to be very lonely (and me too)! my sister's cat erwin is bert's homeboy and boyfriend.  hopefully steve and i can shake off the snow and move somewhere where they can be reunited for play dates more easily.

no we don't live in siberia

one of my favorite ways to get through the miserable freezing unpleasantry that is winter has always been going to the beach on lake michigan.  it is so beautiful and peaceful to see the snow and ice along the shore, covering the pier.

surprisingly we weren't the only ones out there!  it was a really rejuvenating weekend trip... and... my good ol car hit the big milestone turn over of 100,000 miles!  we have a lot of great memories with this old girl, but there probably won't be too many more (i'm shopping around).

hope everyone had a as great a weekend refresher as we did!

photo recap

i heart seasonal decor

winter has really been getting to me this year.  i am pretty sure i could eliminate snow from the rest of my life and feel no remorse.  the other morning when heading to work my car had a frozen lock.  after busting through the passenger side door and shimmying my way over to the driver's seat i opened my driver's side door from the inside.  this ended up being a big mistake as the latch became frozen inside the door and i had to drive about halfway to work holding the door shut until the car had warmed up enough to loosen the latch.

*frown*

so, in an effort to cheer myself up yesterday, i decided to pack away the big wooden glitter snowflakes i had hanging in the front window and make something cute for valentine's day.  heart garlands seem to be all the rage on pinterest so i thought i'd make one of my own.  it definitely makes the front room cuter, but i'm still waiting for it to melt the ice outside.

(cardstock hearts painted red with acrylic.   smaller cardstock hearts hot glued in the middle with sharpie letters.  strung together with white thread.)