Best Saturday Yet

Now don't jump to any conclusions, and don't get too excited (I'm talking mainly to myself here), but...

Blake took me ring shopping on Saturday!!!!!!!!!

I will try to relay the afternoon's events with as much calm and decorum as I can manage, but just know that on the inside I am giddy, absolutely GOOFY with excitement.  After all, Blake and I have been talking about getting married for a long time now.  As my father puts it, it has never been a question of "if" but of "when".  Blake has been trying to pay off all his debts from his previous marriage, which I respect, before starting our new life together as man and wife, and he didn't want to ask me until that debt-free day was closer at hand.  So I've been uncharacteristically waiting patiently, concentrating on the other exciting things going on in our lives and trying very hard not to picture myself in a flowy white dress gliding down an aisle on my father's arm to my rock star of a boyfriend so that I can call him husband...

I digress.  All this talk of wedding makes me think of dresses and quite frankly I can't wait to try on every dress in the state.

So anyway, ring shopping.  We had one failed attempt on Valentine's Day to look at engagement rings.  What started out as a romantic gesture quickly became a disaster as we pulled into the Galleria parking lot only to realize that it was NBA All Star Weekend and most of the "stars" were shopping at the Galleria.  Which meant half of Dallas was there NOT shopping but star-gazing.  After fighting our way through the crowd the one store Blake was looking for turned out to be out of business.  Not the best way to start out.

Then on the way to dinner we passed this 3 story building with a giant diamond ring in the window.  I pointed it out to Blake and laughed, saying, "That's where we should have gone!" while inside I'm thinking "Three stories of diamond rings?  Are you kidding me?  I bite my nails.  They won't let me try on rings in a store like that."

Turns out a store like that not only will let little old me try on diamond rings by the score, they will serve you coffee and water while you ogle their shiny shiny goods.

The store was Robbins Bros., and my advice is that if you are going to shop for an engagement ring this is the only place you should go.  You can make an appointment with a personal shopper (which, of course, Blake did, ours was named Susie), and she meets you at the giant diamond ring with offers of coffee and water.  Blake had emailed a list ahead of time of rings he thought I might like, and she immediately took us to the case that housed the most likely candidates.

And then she let me try on every ring in every one of the 20+ cases in the store.  Big rings, little rings, wedding bands, three stone, pave, vintage, modern, classic, solitaire-you name it, they had it.  When we finally settled on one-wait.  We didn't settle.  We-and by we I mean I-fell in love with a ring.  So Susie shuttled us over to the "diamond education room" where we learned about cut, color, clarity, and something else c-related (I was in oooo shiny shiny mode, so this is the part where Blake was paying attention).  THEN they ushered me out of the room so Blake could talk to her about his plans without me listening.  Later he told me some of what they discussed, and Robbins Bros. helps with everything related to the wedding, even offering "proposal specialists" to help the less creative male propose in style.

All in all I left with diamond dreams in my eyes and head, and now I'm afraid Blake has no choice but to ask me soon or else watch me slowly slip into a wedding dream coma.  When I conveyed this to him his response was, "You just have to forget about the ring.  It won't be hard.  As soon as we close on the house, poof! you'll forget you ever had diamonds on your hand."

It is safe to say that he still has some things to learn about me.

How Did You Spend Your Friday Night?

Every once in a while I pat myself on the back because I've finally got my shit together.  Besides the obvious good turn my life has taken since the Great Breakdown of 2007 (post breakup, pre-Blake), I'm generally more responsible and organized than ever before.  I pay my bills weeks before they're due, I take my trash out regularly, and I manage to make my bed at least one week a month (come on, it's still me.  Some things will never change.).  I even know where my important paper work is-I have a file cabinet AND a fireproof safe.  Impressed?

Don't be.  Because this year when my W2 came I put it with all my other important papers at the time, which included the last two years income tax statements, last year's W2 from my work at Garland Summer Musicals, last 2 paystubs from last year, and everything else I needed not only to file my taxes but to give the bank for the loan for the house.  And where is it now?

I still have the income tax statements, last year's W2 from my work at Garland Summer Musicals, last 2 paystubs from last year, and everything else I need to file my taxes and get the loan for the house.  This year's W2?

Now would I be sitting here blogging about it if it was exactly where it was supposed to be?

So this quiet Friday night, in true Nikki-style, I have spent what should have been a stress-free, relaxing, possible craft-filled-wine-drinking-book-reading evening going through every single piece of paper in my apartment because the bank called today to inform me they hadn't asked before but is it possible to get a copy of this year's W2 to them by Tuesday to avoid delaying closing?

Thanks for the reality check.  Good to know I still have room for improvement.  =D

Live and Learn

I'm thirty!  I think I may be the only person I know who is excited to be leaving her twenties behind her for the next decade of adventures.  I'm working on my own version of a list my friend Lauren did...but hers was a 30 by 30 list (30 things to do before she turns 30) and mine is going to be 30 FOR 30: Thirty things to accomplish for my thirties.

Today, though, I want to say goodbye to my twenties.  I don't think I'll ever look back and say, wow, those were the best days.  There was a lot of heartache and growing pains,but I want to celebrate them rather than look back with regret or sadness.  It is the journey that makes us who we are, and I have had one wild ride.  I was a professional actress/singer, a fiance, and an aunt.  I traveled the country from coast to coast and visited several European countries.  I lived in at least 4 different states, drove from Texas to Virginia to New York-more than once, and had a landlady named Helga who was about as German as they come.  I have been to countless weddings, sang in 3 of them, and about as many baby showers.  I have been unemployed, self-employed, and fully employed with benefits.  I'm thinking there's not much I haven't done (although I know there's so much more to come!)

So here's some hard-won wisdom, 30 lessons by 30.  Some practical, some entertaining, and all true:

1. It's okay if you don't wash dishes the night you mess them up, but washing them within 24 hours is a pretty good idea.
2. If you fail at #1, it's okay to throw the dishes out.  Just buy cheap ones.  Or paper.  Or date someone who likes to do dishes.
3. 409, Pledge, Spot Shot, and other cleaning sprays are excellent substitutes for bug killing spray (especially when you live alone with no boys nearby).  Just keep a dust pan handy to scoop up the dead bug.  And you also end up with clean carpets or walls.  It's a win-win.
4.  Do not try to pack wine with plastic corks in your suitcase.  Regular corks will allow your wine to fly just fine, no exploding vintages or red soaked shoes.  Plastic means you're getting a new wardrobe.
5. Do stay in touch with your high school friends.  There's a reason you were friends back then, and (most of the time) it's nice to have someone who knew-you-when around when everyone else just knows-ya-now.  And don't worry if it's ten years between get togethers-with the right friends you'll just pick up right where you left off.
6. Don't eat chicken in Mexico.  Ever.
7. Don't drink the water either.
8. Saying "I love you" is not the same as meaning it.
9. Be open to possibilites.  You are not limited to one single dream for life.
10. Being alone is better than being with someone who won't, or can't, love you the way you deserve.  And you deserve to be loved well.
11. Your college degree does not define what job(s) you will have or what field you will work in, or even guarantee you success.  That being said, it's totally worth every penny and every hour.  Even if you never use it again.
12. After finally getting the college degree it will take approximately 7 years, several moves back in with the parents, a bad break-up, a totaled car, credit card debt, and six months of crying in your bedroom day and night for you to figure out who you are.  And that euphoria will last about ten seconds before you realize that now you have to get off your butt and do something about it.
13. You can cook just about anything on a George Foreman Grill, including scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, and toast-at the same time!
14. Toothpaste is an excellent wall hole filler.
15. Being a creative thinker does not always mean not following directions.  Sometimes someone already did the creative thinking for you and they are trying to save you the time of blowing things up or ruining your favorite cookie sheet by simply writing the process that worked.
16. Your parents will be right about a lot of things, but it's important to make sure you don't tell them that too often.  They might get big egos and expect you to listen to them all the time.
17. Good things actually do come to those who wait.  It helps if you try not to complain too much while waiting.  This is something I am still working on. 
18. The social hierarchy that began at recess and in the halls of elementary school doesn't change, just our perception of it and how we react to our place in that hierarchy.  Nerds are still nerds and cheerleaders are still goodlooking but dimwitted.  Obviously my perception hasn't evolved all that much.
19. It is not true that if you swallow gum it will take 7 years to digest.  This is yet another myth perpetrated by parents to keep you in their intellectual power as long as possible.
20. It is universal that elder siblings feel that their younger siblings had it much easier (sort of like how our parents think we have it so much easier...).  This is because it is, in fact, true.
21.  Everyone's family is weird and dysfunctional.  Some are just louder than others, and mine happens to be one of those.  Still, in the end, being loud and weird and dysfunctional sure beats being boring.
22. There are 346 ways to break a wine glass.  I personally have found them all.
23. Wine tags on your glasses don't work because the people who need them the most will have drunk too much to be paying any attention to the tag on the glass, and when they realize there is a tag designating the drink for a specific person it is likely they will spill the wine in an effort to figure out what the tag looks like and who belongs to it.  This is a waste of perfectly good wine.  Not that I know from personal experience.  I'm just sayin'.
24. Just in case someone DOES spill red wine on your carpet, plain old regular salt will soak it up and leave no stain.  This one I DO know from personal experience.
25. It's okay to ask for help.  It's not like you're asking for a million dollars.  Unless someone out there has a million to spare.  In which case, I could use that too.
26. Be kind, be patient, be grateful.  These things never go out of style, and you're never too old for them.
27. It is a fact of female life that you actually do have to wash you face every single night, even if you didn't wear makeup, if you want to avoid a week of pimples.
28. Choose your battles wisely and you will win the war.  Ask my mother about my freshman year of college and the battle for the car.  (I won.)
29. Call you mother.  More importantly, call your father.  His guilt trips are louder, longer, and harder to argue with.
30. Just be yourself, and realize that who that is will constantly change.  The people who love you will ALWAYS love you, even when you don't know who you are.  Trust them and yourself, and you'll be just fine.

Slipping Into Thirty

Last week I turned 30...and somehow it just slipped right on by and never made it into my blog!  Possibly it's due to the fact that the celebrations have lasted a week...I had a special dinner Friday night (2/5) with Blake's family, then a special dinner Saturday (2/6) with my family, including my cousin Steven who turned 26 the day after I turned 30.  Then on my actual birthday Blake surprised me by taking a half day and delivering a dozen roses and Cheesecake Factory lunch to me (it bears repeating that I am blessed with the most amazing, attentive, thoughtful boyfriend ever).

The week went quickly due to the record breaking snow drama we had here, and then WHAM! it was Valentine's Day.  Saturday Blake and I spend the day Valentining (couples massage at Massage Envy and dinner at the Melting Pot complete with a half dozen roses, a gift basket, and a bottle of wine).  Sunday my brother and sister-in-law drove in for the big family celebration and they left me and Blake alone with my nephew for a whole glorious hour!!!  I'm not sure if anyone realizes that was the BEST birthday present ever.  He's at such a fun age!  He does this thing when he's coloring where he sits back, purses his lips and puts a finger to them while contemplating his work.  Then after a moment he raises the finger like a big number one and says "Aha!"-it totally cracks me up.

And now we're kind of back to normal, normal being "catch-up mode" and me looking at 3 blogs I've started and thinking I should finish this week.  Especially since they have to do with turning 30.  And that's old news now.

Pour Some Sugar On Me

Remember how I said I was learning to quilt?  With my good friend Alicia's help this

turned into this

and then with a little bit of help from last year's birthday present (an awesome Singer Confidence...I know, I'm totally a craft nerd for being excited about my sewing machine) those colorful strips became

A super fancy (and sharp) rotary cutter (that's craft nerd speak for a pizza cutter for fabric) gave me these

Aren't you impressed so far?  The girl who cooks with a dash of this and a dash of that has actually followed directions so far!

Now the first glimpse of what's to come...

And after some patient sewing together of  each square into a row, and then two rows together I had this

(I had to hang the strip on my shower curtain rod, so the red behind the squares is my shower curtain and not my nifty handywork.  That's what happens when you live in a teeny one bedroom apartment and the longest rod in your house is in the shower.)

And FINALLY, 11 hours, 2 glasses of wine, and 1 Blake-free evening later...

It's possible I'm exaggerating the 11 hours.  But not by much.

How cool is my quilt?!

It's not quite a quilt yet.  This is only the top.  I now have to make the back of the quilt, line the inside with batting, bind it, and then quilt it.

Apparently this is not yet a quilt.

Quilting is the stitching that goes all over the blanket and gives it that puckery look.  Huh.  Never knew that before.  That's at least another 4 glasses of wine and several chapters of a Harry Potter audiobook.

The directions/pattern/tutorial Alicia chose for our quilt along can be found at the Old Red Barn Co.'s blog.  The link on the side called "How to Make a Quilt" gives you all the direction you need.  It's totally my kind of pattern...the kind that emphasizes it's okay to make mistakes, and every quilt will come out a little different.  And I suggest, if you try this time consuming but rewarding project, that you follow the buddy system.  It's been a lot of fun emailing back and forth with Alicia and meeting up on my day off to sew and chat.  It's also nice to have a human being to ask all my silly questions, like "How do I use this machine again?"

Some things never change I guess ;)

The Joining Together of These Two Households...

The hunt for our first home is almost complete!  We made an offer on the townhome in Carrollton, they made a counter, and we accepted.  We walked through the inspection (a 2 1/2 hour ordeal), decided which repairs we wanted to ask for, and signed about a thousand things.  Now we're just waiting to hear back from the seller.

And since I love to make my life complicated, we're also opening a joint checking, trying to combine our car insurance, and basically take everything that we have two of and make just one.  This is supposed to make our lives easier and more affordable.  What it is currently doing is giving me a headache.

But Blake is wonderful.  Where I freak out and lose my temper, he calmly and gently presses on.  He writes the emails that I am too stressed to write.  He makes the calls I could not make without yelling.  He lets me rant and then says, "Whatever you want, Princess".  I absolutely cannot imagine going through this with anyone else.  He is without a doubt my partner for life.

For now we are just waiting...waiting...waiting to hear back from the seller on our repair list.  This home shopping thing is NOT as much fun as HGTV would make you think it is.  On TV you pick a house and at the end of a half hour you sign and they hand you keys.  There should be a disclaimer that the half hour is actually several months condensed into 24 minutes plus commercials.

So here's to more waiting...

Oh, The Drama...

As I mentioned last week, Blake and I are buying a condo.  This sounded so simple when we decided to do it.  Rent an apartment (where I would most likely murder him within the first 6 months due to lack of personal space) and lose any money we dumped into rent OR buy a condo with room to spare and this lovely little thing called equity?  No brainer.  (PS-I wouldn't really murder Blake.  But I do like my space.)

So off we went to our financial advisor who set us up with a Private Banker who set us up with a mortgage originator.  Then we had to get a realtor who set us up with the website, viewings, the comps, and iPhone app (there really is one of those for everything).  Week one of the condo search wasn't so much a search as a big meet & greet of all the players we needed to make this happen.  And then finally the search!

This was the part I was most excited about-the big search.  Roaming through other peoples' houses and imagining what my life and my furniture would be like there, picking out in my head the colors I would paint the walls...only these condos were TRASH.  Dogs had chewed the molding from knee-height and lower in one place.  Another had amazing granite kitchen countertops...but they had awful shag carpeting EVERYWHERE.  Some had no living space, some had tiny kitchens, some had no parking, and all of them were painted a dingy white.  It was depressing to walk through them.

I finally found one I liked and brought Blake along to look.  It was smaller than we had hoped for, but it was one of the largest we had looked at in our price range.  In 2 weeks I looked at over a dozen condos and knew that unless something absolutely amazing came on the market, this condo was our best option.  Plus it had a kick-ass kitchen.

Then the drama.

First came the inspection report.  Oh boy.  There was a lot of things that needed to be fixed.  Then the realtor for the seller told us that the current owner was very close to a short sale and was hoping to have someone assume the loan.  Which meant we could either assume her loan or get our own, but either way there was very little negotiating room.  Then, after we agreed to another visit, had our realtor bring a contract, got pre-approved for our loan, and figured out all the details...someone else made an offer on the condo.  My heart broke.  I already knew where all the furniture was going!  Blake had promised me a new sink and countertops!  I was going to paint!

As if that weren't bad enough, our realtor hit us with the worst news yet: she had pulled comparative sales for the area and they were selling for almost $7K less than the asking price for this condo.  Oh man.  We knew right away we didn't want to be anywhere near this situation.  With sinking hearts we agreed to go look at a condo I had been saving as a backup.  It was larger condo but at the very high end of our budget.

And of course we fell in love with it.

So the good news is today we are signing the contract to put an offer in on our first home together!  It's so true that when God closes a door he opens a window.  This new place is big enough and nice enough that should anything happen-we lose a job, we have a baby, the economy tanks (again)-we will be able to live there comfortably and happily for several years.  All our stuff will fit, there is a nice 2 car attached garage, and the neighboorhood is a nice suburb centrally located between both our families.

Wish us luck, friends and family!  Today the bidding war begins!

Love on a Dime

Blake and I are on a serious pay-off-all-debts-buy-a-condo-please-let's-get-married-in-the-next-decade budget, but that doesn't mean we still can't go out and have a little fun.  Take Tuesday night, for example.

Right down the road from me is a dollar theatre where every Tuesday night is 75 cent night.  They show pretty good movies, too...2012, Zombieland, and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs were all playing the night we went.  They don't have stadium seating, but you can hold hands over any old armrest, so who cares?!

Here's my idea of a great date night:

Pop a bag of popcorn and put it in a ziploc baggie.  Stuff your biggest purse with the popcorn, some candy, and bottled water.  Raid your quarter jar for six quarters.  Head on out to see your movie of choice (I chose Ninja Assassin-it was something Blake wanted to see that we missed at the big theaters.  Lots of blood.  Lots of swords.  Not much story.  But hey, I got to spend 2 uninterrupted hours with Blake, which makes anything worth my time).  I guess it's not so much love on a dime as it is a quarter, but it's sure nice to spend a night out and not feel the pinch in your wallet the next day!

In other news...

Blake and I have been condo hunting and found one we like.  Good location for our commutes, nice complex, nice size for just the two of us.  We went to the mortgage guy last night to get pre-approved and now we just have to make an offer.  I knew turning thirty this year would mean I'd be doing some serious growing up, and there's nothing like signing a million waivers, copying five ID's, checking credit scores, meeting with a hundred bankers, and discussing site inspections to make it real.

ALSO!  In all this free time I have now I've been able to start a project that I've been dying to do.  My friend Alicia taught herself how to quilt from online tutorials, and she has agreed to teach me by doing a quilt-along.  It's so very "Little House On the Prairie" I can hardly stand it, but I'm super excited and spent 2 hours picking out fabrics with my mom at JoAnne Fabric.  The name of the quilt is Sugar + Spice + Everything Nice but I think I'm going to call mine Pour Some Sugar On Me.  I'm gonna be a Rock Star Quilter ;)

Public Service Announcement: World Peace

I would like to take a moment to discuss a pressing issue.  It's a problem that affects us all and crosses the lines of age, gender, and race.  Should this problem be solved, I believe it could lead to an economic regrowth, world peace, and a significant decrease in domestic violence.

"What," say you, the eager reader and peace lover, "what is the key to this happiness you speak of?"

Friends, family, fellow commuters...

Please learn to merge.

The ability to merge is becoming a lost art, and my fellow commuters seem intent to prove this everyday.  Ideally, merging onto the highway should be like two sides of a zipper smoothly interlacing so that the zipping motion is seamless, uninterrupted, and swift.  It should be so easy that it becomes a non-thought, each piece finding it's perfect fit among its peers.

Instead every morning I witness how little we have actually evolved as morning commuters jockey for position in line.  Compare a group of cars merging onto a busy highway to a group of first graders lining up for recess.  Ah, how much it says about us grown ups that the first graders do it better.  They manage to get into a straight line from total randomness with no slamming brakes, burning tires, middle fingers, or expletives.  Granted, their education has not progressed that far yet, but you get the point.

Learn to merge.  Learn to find your place in line and hold your tongue ("Goddamn it, it's my effing turn" never got anyone anywhere faster.  I know, I've tried it.).  Resist the urge to play chicken with the semi that is barreling down the highway at 80 mph.  Try your hardest to unglue the front end of your car from the helpless, hopeless driver's rear-end in front of you.  Please keep all 10 fingers on the wheel.

And please get out of my way and let me merge.

Welcome to Once Upon A Time...2010!

Hello again friends and family!  I have not fallen off a cliff or in the toilet, nor have I been swept off to some faraway desert island by the love of my life (only metaphorically speaking).  I have not died of pnuemonia (though I lost several months of my life to bronchitis) and I have not joined a cult of vampires living among humans...wait, that's almost the plot of Twilight.  Mmmmm...Edward...sigh.  I digress.

I have been too busy for my own good, which is part of my extremely loveable personality (wink, wink).  I beg forgiveness (grovel, grovel) and offer these feeble excuses for where my time, attention, and often my health have gone...

Overtime-The Sound of Music (I played Maria and yes it was amazing and no I won't ever do it again)-Blake-Moving Out (NOT the musical, ME actually moving OUT of my parent's house into my own place)-Blake-Trying to be a good Aunt Nikki-Weddings, weddings, weddings (why does everyone I know pick the same year to get married?  I'm going broke buying gifts and dresses!)-Blake-My first straight play no music at all called Don't Dress For Dinner-Massive Halloween party-Blake-Getting bronchitis and missing Thanksgiving through most of December because all I could do was sleep-Christmas New Year's Back to work already?!-and Blake.

By the way, have I mentioned I'm still dating Blake?

So that's 2009 in review.  Too much of not enough time.  This is why in 2010 I will be concentrating on some things I love MORE than theatre, and take a little break from singing and dancing.  Of course Blake is first on the list, but high up there on the list is my nephew, my family, friends who have been MORE than sorely neglected, and hobbies that I have been wanting to pursue and-GUESS WHAT-didn't have time for.  Like this blog.

So keep an eye out.  It's a new year (the year I turn THIRTY ya'll!), a new attitude, and a brand new beginning.  I can't wait to see what stories unfold...and this year, you all will be the first to know them =)