Are you are a bad-ass rockstar? Do you make simple tasks a monumental occasion? Do you believe household cleaners should intimidate?
Then ZEP is the window cleaner for you!
My mother brought this over to my new place, and I love it. Haven’t used it, but look at the packaging – it’s amazing! I feel like she’s going to tell me she toured with a heavy metal band in the early 80s as their housekeeper. Oh wait…she was raising me and my siblings…
OK Blog, it’s not that I haven’t been thinking of you…I have. It’s just, well, things have been busy. Where do I start? How about with Christmas…
PART 1
My honey and I woke up on Christmas morning and decided to exchange our gifts before leaving the house or picking up his son. It was just the two of us in our jammies and after I opened up a couple little things the guy was on one knee with a ring in a box asking me if I would marry him. For a few seconds I did a “huh?” “wha?”, then he followed up with a romantic, “hey, don’t leave me hanging” and so I burst into tears and laughter and said “YES!”
It was Christmas so instead of picking up the phone we told all of our family, and some of our friends, as we saw them that day. Actually here it is a week and a half later and we’re still slowly telling people. I didn’t want to announce it moments later to my 550 closest facebook friends, because a good number of those friends are our closest friends and we wanted to tell them in person. Or at least with a really loving text.
Why Christmas? It was our year anniversary. Why the surprise? Well I knew for some time my crazy bachelorette days were numbered, what I was surprised about was that he managed to get a ring without me knowing. Remember, the last month or so we’ve been buying a house, so that guy hasn’t had a single second to himself. We’ve been in each others emails, accounts, everything…this is the sort of romantic intimacy that comes with buying a house.
So there is the update. We got engaged on Christmas morning. It’s been so wonderful, and I am so excited. I don’t feel super comfortable with the word fiance so I alternate between his usual nicknames and calling him husband, which I love. People ask us if we’ve set a date, and we say 2013, cause in 2012 we’ve got something else to work on.
PART 2
Four days after our engagement (la-dee-da, sounds so fancy, right?), we closed on our house. Can’t remember how much I’ve blogged about this in the past, but we bought a 1.5 story craftsman style bungalow, that’s dated as 1900 (could be older). It sits on half an acre of land, has a two car garage, a swinging sixties bar in the basement, beautiful built-ins in the dining room, a bathroom that should be outlawed, and a full screened in porch on the front of the house. We love it. We loved it the moment we saw it, with all it’s shag carpeting (in the dining room too) and flocked wallpaper.
We move in at the end of this month, and sitting down to write this post is the longest I’ve stopped working on it so far. We’ve gutted our bedroom, ripped out ugly/decorative beams in the living room, taken down wallpaper, taken up carpeting, and on and on. My boyfriend/husband/honey guy is working full time while we do this and now this is his second job, and I’m on the house full time. My future father in law calls me boss lady. It’s the biggest project I’ve ever taken on, and I love it!
We have little money and lots of renovations that we aim to do this month before we move in. Some things, like the kitchen/entry/deck remodel, will wait till more lucrative times and we’re cool with that. But our house already, only four solid work days in, looks so much more beautiful. We have something more precious than money working for us – family. The first two workdays, I would stop and look around and begin to express my gratitude – and burst into tears. Seeing our family all work together; problem solving, laughing, sweating, swearing and singing; has been so wonderful! There will never be a way to thank them enough. Especially since every time I start the waterworks begin. Not good when you’re trying to run a construction crew.
And lastly, we have the boy. In this deal I’m getting a husband and a stepson. He’s seven years old and sometimes when he’s chatting away with me or doing a crazy dance, I wonder if he’s mine instead of my man’s. The kid is nuts, and I absolutely adore him. We got him little work gloves because he wants to be part of the crew and says how much he loves working (don’t worry, we know that may fade). Every couple of hours on the days he’s been with us in the house, he’d look around, nod his head, and say, “I can’t believe we got a house.” And we nod our heads, neither can we.
Things are good friends. Very good. 2011 started with a very promising 2nd date, and ended with a proposal and a house. 2012 is starting out just as good. Happy New Year, I’m off to the job site!
sarah's designed life 