Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Did I mention that we were busy? I hope so. I hope the complete and utter lack of posting also showed that.
Let’s recap:
*On December 31st, 2010 we moved into a new rental house with a one year lease.
*In mid-April 2011, the owners of the house [heretoforthwith knows as Dickheads] (who had put it up for rent after
it wouldn’t sell when the husband’s job had him transfer out of state TWICE) called our agent to tell her that,
“Hey. The job is moving me back to [local city] and we want our house back.” Period. End of story. So begins
rental hell. With that came several months of neighbours-who-were-previously-sweet-and-super-friendly-and-who
we-later-found-out-were-friends-with-Dickheads [now to be known as Fatties or Assholes Next Door] constantly
calling and complaining about noise from guitars and band practice (they had been totally fine with it for four
months!), sometimes IN TEARS, and traffic from Ben’s students and grass being unmowed (for more than five days,
if it wasn’t mowed, they called our agent complaining about snakes–in a goddamned subdivision!!!). It was awful.
Truly truly horrendously awful. Our sweet sweet agent, who technically worked for The Dickheads, was constantly
apologizing for their retched behavior. Keep in mind, this awfulness lasted NON-FUCKING-STOP from mid-April thru
mid-September. (Including a story from September about me walking out of the shower to find The Dickheads
circling the house with open blinds.)
*On May 7th, 2011, our ten-year anniversary, we got married. It was a semi-elopement that we didn’t tell anyone
about (grandparents got 10 days notice to attend) and was more stress/work than anticipated. Because our
anniversary fell on a Saturday, that meant the courthouse was closed; which meant we had to hire someone; which
meant more money; which also meant we had to have a location in which we could be married; which meant more
money; we wanted to write out our own ceremony; which meant a fuckload of time and even more money…you see
where this is going? All along with the news that The Dickheads wanted to push us out. But you know, it was still
a whole hell of a lot of fun. Plus we had a badass four-day honeymoon of fun.
Sister made the most lovely star garland in our favourite colours for our location.
*Mid-May 2011–Very-Early-August 2011: When we got back from the honeymoon we started looking for houses to
buy…well, first we started talking about buying a house A LOT more seriously than we had planned on doing
(original buy date would be sometime in 2012) and then we started looking to buy. And we looked and looked and
looked and looked and said no to a shitload on the internet and viewed a few houses before rejecting them and our
sweet agent (that same dear hippie lady who kept apologizing for The Dickheads continuing harassment) was about to
give up on us when she e-mailed me one morning with a link to a newly-listed house and the subject line, “LOOK!
LOOK! LOOK!” and inside all it said was, “This one came up in my search this morning and it seems perfect for
you!!!” and it was ADORABLE! And looked so good!! And so very Us. We made an appointment for two days later to
view it and when we pulled up, Dear Agent walked out of the house and told us in no uncertain terms that if we
didn’t buy this house, she will fire us as her clients. Of course we loved it and of course we put in an offer and
of course we ended up buying it. And of course we are absolutely completely and totally head-over-heels-in-love
with our house. OUR HOUSE. It’s beautiful.
Hastily taken photo of front door seconds before we moved in.
I plan on writing a huge post about buying/moving with pictures of the house…but please, be patient for I will
scream if pushed to do too much too fast. My poor Rock Star nearly had a meltdown at the signing of the contract
for the bid for the house. Near. Catastrophic. Meltdown. My wonderful man does not accept change easily. But he
did. And we did. And at the first of August so we began the house-buying process. (Details to come, I hope.)
*Within days of putting in a bid, having the bid countered, signing the contract, having an official house
inspection, etc. etc. etc. we went on our already-planned 10-day vacation to see wonderful people we knew in
Virginia and to tour D.C. (I’d been twice, but my museum-loving Rock Star had never visited). After the incredible
stress of the first part of August, seeing my sister, my lovely and amazing friend, and Ben’s very best friend was
just what we needed to calm the ever-living-fuck down. We first saw Sister and her fabulous dog, Lizzy, then we
stopped at the ever-wonderful Erin’s house, then we trucked up to see Josh in DC. It was fantastic seeing my
sister as it always is when she lives too far away from me; and spending time with Erin is about as happy and
peaceful as any time I’ve ever spent. Josh was an amazing sport about letting us crash at his place and showed us
some wonderful sites (sights?) in the downtown area. With him as our guide we had some of the most amazing food we
had ever eaten. I’m so glad we know wonderful people who enjoy food and history as much as we do. We really do
have fantastic friends.
Happy Lizzy looking for a bellyrub
Me standing inside an Alexander Calder sculpture at the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden
Comet Ping Pong's The Smokey & The Yaley--HOLY SHIT! You have to try this pizza!! It's too good to be true!!
Ben in awe of ancient mummy in Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Josh and Ben about to enjoy the hell out of their Dogfish Sampler of various beers
*We came back mid-August (nearly bypassing my birthday entirely [cue: guilt and extreme sadface] and began to
finalize the closing and go through the entirely stressful closing process as well as the extremely stressful
packing-cleaning-moving-cleaning-unpacking process and let me tell you, we have a lot of shit. No. Really. I don’t
think anyone understands just how much shit two childless twenty-somethings can acquire when they live in a house
together for several years. It’s way too much. It’s embarrassing. But on September 17th, 2011 we moved in to what
(if we so choose) could be the last house in which we ever live. [cue: angelic voices singing heavenly tune]
*Since then we have cleaned, unpacked, painted, rearranged, cleaned, unpacked, painted, painted painted,
rearranged, unpacked, cleaned, painted, rearranged, painted, painted, unpacked, painted, tiled, painted,
rearranged and back to tiling and painting some more. That’s house stuff. And [re: hopefully/skeptically] soon I
plan on posting more detail on house stuff if only for my own records.
*October 22nd was the Homecoming Day for my five-year college reunion. Not only did the beautiful Erin come to town
to visit, but I got to catch up with some of my favourite old art alums (how fuckin’ snooty does that sound?!?)
and that was a metric ton of fun–plus we came home with a beautiful piece of art by the always wonderful Robin
Grace Venable who provided the alumni exhibit this year.
*BUT Halloween is our favourite holiday and last year we were in the process of looking for a new place and had
previously thought we would be moving in October and didn’t decorate at all and just threw a meager little
Halloween party. This year we knew we’d be only five weeks in our new house, but we couldn’t forgo the annual
Petler Inn Halloween Bash, so we invited costumed close friends to our transitioning house for an awful good time.
And the week prior, we participated in something we had always dreamed of doing…sort of: It has been a life goal
of mine (and now the Rock Star’s too) to die some gruesome grisly death in a B-horror zombie movie. Our super
talented friend, Ben (affectionately called Other Ben), participated in a local grindhouse-style horror trailer
contest to go along with a local Horror Fest our town throws each year, and we got to be the zombies!! We had way
too much fun making it, and even though Other Ben’s didn’t win on account of it being “too pretty” and “not
grindhouse enough” (although we counter that the genre he drew, “Knoxploitation” is AWFUL) it was still one of the
best ones entered and we LOVED it.
As for our costumes this year, we went all out for the zombies for the movie and were so focused on cleaning
up/painting/tiling the house before the party, that we didn’t even start to think of anything until seven-ish
hours before the party was supposed to start (with us having to work in between that time-frame). Ben went as
Rorschach from The Watchmen graphic novel and I went as a clean basket of laundry–I was particularly proud of the
crumpled dollar bill and wad of thread I hot-glued to my tshirt along with socks and a sock on my headband. Not
too shabby for last minute; my costume problem also had to account for being able to literally throw it on when I
got home from work in less time than it takes to pee (also accounts for the utter lack of makeup as I drove home
like a maniac and ran upstairs to don Halloween garb). Even though it was small and not-that decorated, it was
still an super fun time with awesome people. And we’ve already started planning out next year and the full on
epicness that will occur.
in zombie garb for pseudo-movie
That damn basket bruised my thighs, I was so sore the next day.
Funnily enough, to answer nerd questions everywhere, he wasn't wearing anything underneath that coat.
And with that, I have skimmed my life forward to present day. There is so much left out and so much more to add. And [WITH GREAT HOPE] I will get back into my regular blogging schedule; which is to say, two or three times a month.
cheers!
-K
Step 3: ...profit! 