Moving Day...Again

Here we go again!  Once more I'm moving...leaving my tiny apartment and moving in with Blake into our own home.  It really is becoming a home already, even if we aren't living in it yet.  The main rooms are painted, repairs have been made, some old features stripped down, and some new things installed.  I, of course, have grand plans to continue renovating (a kitchen/wet bar backsplash is on the horizon...), but this week the majority of the work has stopped so we could clean up.  Here's a rundown of what we've accomplished in the last month and half:

• repaired the back fence (due to a "privacy issue" with our neighbor, this was high priority)
• painted the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, laundry room, and living room, including the 20+ foot wall (which I painted because Blake is afraid of heights-actually he's afraid of falling, and he could have done it but it would have taken a week to get the first coat of paint on because he can't look down when he's on the ladder...)
• stripped the large mirror doors off the master closet (I may not have informed Blake before doing this...)
• removed the tacky shower doors from the master bath (I DEFINITELY did not inform Blake before starting this project, but got the point of no return and then asked for help.  I was determined to get rid of those things.)
• painted almost all the ceilings
• installed a double curved shower rod in the master bath (it's AWESOME)
• installed shelves in the garage
• BUILT shelves in the garage (my father bought me a saw and let me use it.  I can't wait to start another project with it!!!)
• tiled our kitchen floor (I can't take any credit for this other than I asked Blake to do it.  It took the better part of a month of weekends, but he ripped up the old linoleum, cleaned the cement, cut and laid and grouted the tiles.  It looks amazing, and he still wants to live with me, so I guess it wasn't that atrocious of a request...although I probably won't be asking any favors any time soon...)

When I say we built shelves in the garage, I mean my father heard me say we were looking at hanging shelves for a portion of the garage and he returned from Home Depot with wood, nails, screws, braces, and a saw and decided that right then and there I would have garage shelves.  Were shelves on my to do list that day?  Nope.  But my daddy took the day off to help his little girl in her new house, and who was I to argue with whatever he wanted to do?  Besides, they would have been on the "to do" list at some point.  And, I might add, we did not argue once while building them.  It may have had something to do with the saw I was wielding...but I think I'd rather chalk it up to our healthy father-daughter relationship.

I have taken numerous "before" photos, but wouldn't you know I haven't had a moment at home to upload them to the computer?  Plus, I have to start taking the "after" photos tonight before we move in all our furniture...which will drastically change the way the place looks too.  I'm so excited about having a place that's ours, and I'm determined to make it everything I/we want (within reason.  I'm still nixing the Superman mural in the "gameroom" I promised Blake he could have.)

I also have some wonderful "what I've learned in my first month as a homeowner" stories, like how our postal delivery man is actually afraid of the dog next door (I had to distract the poor blind dog while the postman snuck behind him to deliver the mail), but those definitely deserve their own blog post.  In the meantime, keep me, Blake, and our families in your thoughts and prayers this weekend as we once again move mountains...I mean apartments...

Takin' A Break

I don't know how I can make this any clearer:

Being a grown-up is HARD.

Why was I in such a hurry to move out of my parent's house, where I lived rent free and my dad filled the beer fridge weekly?  Why did I think it was so important to get a "real" job when, as an actress, I was required to only work 5 hours a day and go to amazing parties afterwards?  Why oh why did I think buying a house with my boyfriend would far outweigh living in separate apartments when buying the house meant that we would be managing three households, two families, one dog, and a partridge in a pear tree?

I might be exaggerating a bit.  We don't actually have a partridge.

I know it sounds like I'm complaining, but I've already had a glass of wine and I'm well into my second.  I'm just mildly cranky.  I absolutely love our new house.  I do.  I love working on it and dreaming about it and spending every weekend there.  I don't love coming home to a small disaster of an apartment.  I've completed neglected my actual living space, so there is a trail of laundry piling up from the front door to the bedroom.  Dirty dishes were piled mile high in my sink until Blake took pity on me and did my dishes last night.  Random knick knacks are strewn across the floor wherever they happened to last fall, since these days I generally am only home long enough to strip off my paint covered clothes and fall into bed (my parents are reading this right now and thinking, so what's new?).

It's all completely worth it.  I'm going to be living with the only man who could possibly put up with me in a house we are quickly making our own.  That's the light at the end of the tunnel.

But DAMN, why's it gotta be so hard?

(Insert cliches about how working hard for the things that matter blah blah blah.  Pour more wine, talk less cliches.)

The OTHER Man In My Life

This weekend Blake and I drove up to Kansas to spend a little time with my nephew, who will be 2 years old soon!  It's so wonderful and strange to watch him as he grows.  I imagine my awe will triple when I have my own children, but it is nice that I have this remarkable little man to observe and love on.  Actually, nice doesn't even begin to describe it.  Blow my mind is more like it.

He's such a complete little person already, at 22 months.  He has an active imagination that I only wish I could see more fully.  He understands just about everything you ask him, and even makes little jokes.  We were sitting together watching TV when I felt a tell-tale rumble from his bottom, and I said, "Jack, did you fart on me?"  He actually giggled and said in a sing-song-I-know-I'm-gonna-lie voice "Noooo...."  Maybe my favorite moment all weekend was at the mall when we rode the elevator for the millionth time and Sara finally said "Enough."  Jack insisted on riding one more time and when Sara counted to 3 he merely marched over to the button, pressed it, and turned around crossing his arms as if to say, "So what?"

We cooked imaginary meals together, read the same 3 books a million times, destroyed and put back together puzzles, looked for Tate (the dog-every five minutes Jack looks up and says "Tate?" and won't resume his activity until he has seen the dog with his own eyes), and shared pizza.  We rode swings, watched cartoons, and made up funny games chasing each other.  I became fluent in Jack-speak.  Which is why I was absolutely mortified when I climbed up the stairs Sunday morning and was greeted with Jack walking right past me to the stairs to yell, "Blaaaake!  Blaaaake!"

Actually, it's more like "Blay" which is close to his word for "play" and "bottle" ("bay" which isn't a bottle at all, it's his sippy cup), but still!  I've only been waiting his WHOLE LIFE to hear him say my name, and I get brushed aside for Blake!  I admit, I don't blame him.  Blake is a pretty awesome guy.  I just don't think Blake's heart would break into a million pieces if Jack learned MY name first.  I'm just saying.

The only thing that made me feel better and simultaneously worse was that he cried so hard when we left.  Partly it was because he really wanted to go "Ooooouuuut!!" and for a ride, but when I talked to my brother later he said Jack was pretty upset that we actually left.  I can tell already it's going to be terrible when we leave and he actually has the words to say "Don't go" or "Please can I come with you?"...

For now we'll just work on "Aunt Nikki".  And trust me, that kid will get whatever he asks for.

No One Told Me Turning 30 Meant My Body Couldn't Keep Up Anymore

Blake and I are now officially homeowners, which means...

I'm tired, sore, out of clean clothes and dishes, and completely unaware of what day of the week it is or what my real address is.  I have spent hours painting, trimming, taping, cleaning, organizing, and fixing anything and everything in our new home.  Not alone, for sure (our families have been a HUGE help), but apparently turning 30 activates something in your DNA that blocks your body from recovering as quickly as it did when you were 29 (or less).  Poor Blake has spent the same hours ripping up linoleum (at my request...I wanted a tiled kitchen floor, not knowing that it would take superhuman strength and 3 full days just to get rid of the linoleum).

We have already discovered that a toilet won't stop running, our kitchen sink leaks and molded the cabinet, our closet door sticks, the construction people who worked on the house before we moved in left both our trash cans full to the brim, and our 80-year old next door neighbor wants us to fix the backyard fence asap because "it's a privacy issue" (she also has a diabetic cat and a blind dog in case you were wondering).  We've left the back door unlocked at least once because we're too used to apartment living where you only have one entrance/exit to worry about.  We managed to change the locks on the front door (replacing the old brass handle with a spiffy silver one) but discovered that the door, now brown, had once been painted robin's egg blue-on both sides.  We know this because whoever painted it brown did not remove the handle to paint the door, and of course our new handle is not an exact match.

In other words, we are discovering the joys of being homeowners.

There are a few things that make the sore muscles and mold-induced headaches worth it.  Our bedroom is a beautiful relaxing blue color and our master bathroom is on its way to being a spa-like haven.  We found ceramic tile for 85 cents a square foot-and we should be able to lay it soon becuase the linoleum is almost gone.  Blake's parents bought us a beautiful red rosebush for our backyard (and promised me cuttings from their rosemary bush to grow my own!!!).  My parents brought us sandwiches, snacks, and beer to sustain us.  And, most importantly, in two months I will be living full time with the man of my dreams in our beautiful new home.

Mold beware.  Love is moving in soon.  There is no room for you here :)

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...