There's so much to do here!

K and I didn't do anything crazy for our anniversary. I guess we're still so excited about finally living together (we're going on 3 months now!) that just having a "normal" night in still feels pretty special. K got me a cute little card, and we cooked some pasta and had wine with dinner. Then, we went to the gym, which has unfortunately become an abnormal event for us. Last night was our third night in a row, which is more times than we've been to the gym in weeks. Heck, it's probably more times than we went to the gym for the whole month of July (and we didn't do much better than that in August). It feels great to be getting back on track -- finally.

Part of the reason we were OK staying home on Tuesday night was that we'd done some special things in the days before.

On Saturday, we went to VA Beach for an Italian festival. There was a strolling musician and of course delicious Italian food and wine. We got to crush grapes with our feet, which was something I never thought I'd do! It's definitely a slippery job, and the grapes stick to your feet a bit when you get out.

And of course, we had to eat some delicious Italian dessert.

K was kicking himself for forgetting to wear his "Kiss me, I'm half-Italian" shirt. At least he chose wisely if he wasn't going to wear that one.

Plus, our shirts resulted in an unexpected change: As we were walking to the oceanfront, a passenger in an oncoming car leaned out the window and yelled, "BOOMER!" to us (the awesome call of Sooner fans. The initial yell is, "BOOMER!" The response is "SOONER!"). Our new friend was also sporting Sooner gear in the form of an OU hat. I was so excited by the pleasant surprise that I was jumping up and down. (I'm a dork like that.)

I love lighthouses, and K's boss had told us about one near VA Beach, so we checked it out. There were actually two. They were so neat! The brown bricked lighthouse is Old Cape Henry. It was completed in 1789 and established in 1792. It was the first lighthouse built by the federal government! It's one of only 9 lighthouses to be registered as a National Historic Landmark.

You can actually go inside the lighthouse! You have to climb quite a few stairs and even a ladder, but it's worth the view.

The black and white lighthouse stands only feet from the historic lighthouse. It opened in December of 1881 and is called New Cape Henry. It's beautiful!

Then, on Monday night, K and I went to a concert. We saw After Midnight Project, who we didn't know before the concert; Halestorm, who we'd just seen Sept. 11 in Richmond; and Chevelle. The concert itself was great. K and I both loved AMP, and Halestorm was just as impressive as they were 9 days earlier (that girl can wail!). Chevelle sounded exactly as they do in their albums, which was awesome to see (and hear).

K and I saw a few concerts in Dallas and even some in Louisiana in the last year. They were all in big venues, and a couple were even outdoors. A few of the concerts were hard rock, so there were crowd surfing and moshing going on. You could jump, and you could definitely move if you wanted to. The two concerts we've seen in VA have been in pretty small venue. They don't allow moshing (which is fine with us) or crowd surfing (that one is a little of a bummer, since K and I have both tried it, but whatever). Somehow, though, prohibiting those actions makes everyone just stand around the whole time. K and I decided by their second song that AMP was awesome. We wanted to jump around and enjoy ourselves (not moshing, but moving to the music), but the girl next to us kept looking at K like he was crazy. Oh, well. She just wasn't as fun as we are. :)

One of the perks about a small venue, though, is that we got to meet everyone after the show. That actually made me a bigger fan of Halestorm. They're so fun, and they're really down to earth. The drummer is my favorite. (He's on the left in the second picture.)

This weekend, we're back to traveling. We leave at 5 something tomorrow morning to fly to Boston. We'll drive from there to NH for a wedding, and then we'll be staying overnight in Maine. Hopefully I can see another lighthouse or two while we're there -- I've already looked into the ones nearby!

Two years, already?

Time flies when you get married, send your new husband off to war, work out the whole time he's gone, welcome him home, plan your "real" wedding, and then move across the country together to live with each other for the first time in your entire four-year relationship!

(Did we seriously do all that in two years?!)

It's been an unconventional first couple years, but I wouldn't trade them for the world. I'm stealing these words from a picture frame K and I bought together several months ago:

I love you not only for who you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

One of our very favorite pictures from the wedding, taken with our matchmakers, whose wedding we met at. (Thanks, CG!)

Lord, thank you for blessing me with such an amazing man who brings more love and laughter to my life than I ever could have imagined.

We're keeping it!

After a couple days of getting used to it, K and I both feel a lot better about our bedroom set. Your comments and suggestions definitely helped me feel better that first night we got it. I guess I have a tendency to panic if things don't look exactly how I thought they would. (See: guest bedroom) Since I'm pretty new to this whole house decorating thing, I tend to doubt myself pretty easily.

I was able to do some decorating in our bedroom yesterday, which definitely helped the look of things. We still have boxes around the room, since we haven't moved into our dresser yet. I guess we figure we've been living out of boxes and 3-drawer Tupperware "dressers" for 3 months. What's a few more days?

The style of our bedroom set and the decorations I put up give the room a more romantic, elegant feel than the rest of the house. I like it that way. It makes it feel (to me, anyway) more like a romantic retreat.

I have one other idea in mind that will only increase the glam factor. I'm a little nervous about the execution, but it just might work. I can only hope this finished product looks even half as good as it does in my head. Either way, you can bet I'll post pictures as soon as it's done!

Shit, shit, shit

K and I ordered our bedroom set on July 6. We got it today. And it does not quite look how we thought it would.

We underestimated the height of our mattress, and we also didn't realize how high the mirror above the dresser is.

Does it look that bad? Be honest, please!

[As I see it, we have three options: (1) Keep the bed as it is, if it doesn't look stupid. (2) Remove the box springs -- but then, where would we put it? Also, we're supposed to use the mattress with the box springs. However, the bed has a ton of slats running across it, so we may be OK. (3) Return the bedroom set to switch for a new one that hopefully won't take an additional 2.5 months to arrive.]

A tour of our guest room!

For being the room I was most excited about decorating when we first moved into our house, the guest bedroom sure has been something I couldn't make up my mind about.

When K and I chose the bedding a year ago, I envisioned a peaceful, calming room. When it came time to paint, I looked through several paint swatches before settling on a color called Putting Green. It looked like the perfect shade in the room in which I tried it on the paint company's website. Once we got it on the walls, however, it was a much more energizing shade than we'd planned. It wasn't quite neon, but it was close. Since then, we've debated on repainting. We weren't particularly excited about the thought of having to paint the whole room again, even if it would just take one coat, so we just left it.

Then, a funny thing happened. We chose our curtains to help block the all-day sunlight and to help balance out the white bedding. When I looked for a tablecloth to cover the side table, I found something even better than I'd hoped for. It tied in the green in the walls (well, the green we'd hoped for), the yellow in the accents I had all around the room, the white in the bedding, and the color of the curtains.

As I started finding items to fill out the room, I stumbled upon things that weren't my typical style, but they fit the room perfectly. Things like the funky, old-school alarm clock, and the lamp for the corner.

Someday soon, I plan on searching for some kind of patterned fabric to make a headboard for the bed. (Of course I'll post "Woohoo, I did it!" pictures once that's done.) I'm excited about the options I have to play off the colors in the tablecloth.

I found an adorable plate at Pier 1 for a whole $5, and it fits the style of the room perfectly! It's now on the wall right when you walk in the door.

This little decorative hook I found awhile back fits the room great. I also hung some mirrors on the blank wall next to the door.

I can't forget our fabulous blue sky-patterned ceiling. We can't take credit for it, as it was already like this when we moved in. We actually like it. It's a fun little detail that a lot of times people don't notice initially. There are even a few glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling (also not our doing, but totally staying)!

I like that the room has meaningful touches to it. The "Yellow" art near the side table is a card a friend gave me when I started my last job in Dallas. She knew yellow was my favorite color, and I thought the card was so cute I hung on to it. It looks great next to the side table!

The pictures in the white frames are meaningful as well. I took the photos in the small frames. The lilies are from the bouquet K sent me last May for Military Spouse Appreciation Day. The picture on the right was taken the first time K and I went to the beach when we moved here. The picture of the rose is one I bought at Michael's, which is why the sticker is still on it. I think a picture of a funkier flower might be a better fit, and I think it's fun to have history behind the photos.

I do have to say I would love to paint the dresser in the corner white (or black), and I'd love to paint the chest black and change the fabric on top to a more fun pattern (or even have it match the tablecloth), but I'm reluctant to paint them just for this room, especially since we'll just be in this house for two years. (Note: In the second photo below, the color is a bit off because I turned the flash off so I could get the shot straight-on.)

Still, I'm really happy with how this room turned out and how it's come together. I never would've thought the accessories would tone down the color so much. The friends who've visited so far have all commented on how happy the room feels and how they like that the color is so unexpected.

I think we'll keep it!

It was the worst date of my life

Until tonight, I'd never been on a blind date. The closest I'd come to that was meeting bloggers whose posts I'd read for months. I'd seen their pictures. I knew things about them that they didn't share with their friends in some cases. Definitely not a blind date.

Tonight? Absolutely a blind date.

K and I still don't really have friends here. Our retired neighbors and K's much older coworkers don't exactly offer many options for buddies to hang out with.

K has a new coworker who's around our age who seems pretty cool. The one time I met his wife, I liked her too. Trouble is, she's British. She's in the process of getting her visa, but until that happens, she's primarily in London, flying back to the U.S. only for short visits. Boo.

CG told me about a military wife network online, so I joined. I found the forum for our new area and asked if anyone would want to meet up. People answered! Four of us set up a meeting for tonight.

This afternoon, one of the ladies had something come up, so she couldn't make it. There were still supposed to be three of us meeting up. I had high hopes.

Turns out I had false hopes. The third girl didn't show, so it was just me and one other lady, Jill. Jill was nice, but I really don't think we have much in common. She was kind of weird, and sometimes her mannerisms and the things she talked about made her seem child-like.

The conversation wasn't very good, and there were several awkward pauses. It was definitely not one of those instant friendships, but I was still hopeful.

She was a Navy wife. I have no idea how old she is. She had a young face (maybe 30s), but the way she dressed and her hairstyle made me wonder if she was in her late 30s or early 40s.

I asked if she had kids. She said she had four-legged kids. The word "furkids" kind of freaks me out, and none of my friends have ever referred to their pets as their kids. (My response to the kid question is always, "Nope, just a dog.")

Jill knew I don't know anyone here, but she told me stories about her friends. She referred to them by name, even though I had no clue who she was talking about. She gave me random factoids. Six of them (including her) had June birthdays. Sarah suddenly stopped being her friend, but it was her (Sarah's) loss because they would've taken her out for her 21st birthday. Emily moved to Michigan. Good to know.

Sometimes the things she had to say seemed pretty negative. She told me how she'd gotten kicked off the board of a (volunteer!) military spouse committee. I've heard those can be catty, but that's still a weird thing to share so early.

Several times, Jill mentioned her husband's deployment. The Army typically has much longer deployments than other branches, so I intentionally kept from mentioning K's deployment(s). After she mentioned her husband had gotten home in April, I finally took the bait. "How long was he gone?"

"Seven months," she said. "It was a long time." I bit my tongue. (Eventually, she asked about K and if we'd been through deployments, so I had to answer then.)

She told me about the trip to Hawaii that she and her husband had taken in May. Her sister, who also lives on the East Coast, had called her while she was in Hawaii. She asked her sister what time it was. Confused, her sister said 8. Jill told her sister she'd call her back in the next couple hours. (Another riveting story.) She didn't explain the ginormous time difference or that she was in Hawaii because she knew her sister would tell their parents that she was in Hawaii.

"Wait, your parents didn't know you were in Hawaii? And you didn't want them to know?"

She nodded. "Are they big worriers or something?"

She told me that they still don't know she went to Hawaii. I never could figure out why she'd kept it from them. I got distracted because she told me about how they also don't know she went to Dubai for five days. She went there to meet her husband while he was docked in Dubai. "Did you not tell them because it's another country?" I asked. She told me they probably would've said she didn't need to go, since there was a chance her husband would dock before or after her trip, so she could miss him altogether. "So what? He's your husband. That's understandable. If the Army had told me I could fly to Kuwait and spend even 24 hours with my husband, I'd have been on that plane come hell or high water!"

Why on earth would a grown, married woman feel the need to keep from her parents (who she said she has a good relationship with) that she went on f*!king vacation?!

It was then that I let myself write this lady off. There was just too much that didn't make sense, and there was too much negative. I'm not opposed to being acquaintances or to meeting up with other people and having her there, but I don't think we'll become close friends.

Bummer.

I guess it's confirmed

I'm a little bit country. Good thing K is too.

It's us in a room!

Before K and I got married (heck, before we got engaged!), we had a deal: We would have a room in our house that would be half devoted to OU, and half devoted to whatever K chose. We decided to make that room our office.

Once we started putting things up and deciding what would go where, the room became more of a half-K, half-me room. I love it!

We have our big bookshelf that contains a lot of special mementos to us. I've got an OU shelf, a shelf of things from my hometown and childhood (which includes a diecast model of a car my brother worked for when he first started in NASCAR). The top shelf has memorabilia from K's two tours to Iraq. The fourth shelf contains items from K's time in Korea and Afghanistan, and the bottom shelf is our college yearbooks, my Army wife books, and some patriotic memorabilia.

We've got a few Yuengling items up, which represents K and his home state of PA. We have my nice OU football that's just waiting for a Bob Stoops autograph. And the 2006 glasses from our first New Year's together, spent in NYC.

There are framed gifts from K's old units, and pictures from my time in the Pride (yes, I'm in that OU picture). I even have my rehearsal bouquet in a vase on the desk.

Nearly everything in that room is an important, special item that represents who each of us is today and how we got here. I love it!

View from the doorway (turned slightly to the right)

View from corner by desk (in front of the sombrero in the picture above)

From in front of the bookcase (you can see the door to the room on the left)

Closeup of my OU stuff (again, the door is on the left)

Another detail shot of some of K's Army mementos

I'm a what?

I've really gotten into decorating now that K and I have a house. It's been fun trying to make a nice, comfortable home that's not too feminine or too masculine. I've enjoyed adding little touches to make our home express who we are separately and as a couple.

I've started looking at design blogs and websites from time to time for ideas and just for the fun of it. Today, I found this handy little quiz to find out what my style is called.

I shuttered when I saw the label. When I read the description, though, I have to say this site hit the nail right on the head.

You are a COUNTRY CASUAL

Your home expresses your open, easygoing approach to life. You love unique finds, and can turn a few mismatched garden chairs or floral teacups into a charming arrangement. You appreciate a pretty mix of relaxed pieces, like painted wood or weathered furniture, lovely florals and other patterns, lots of throws and pillows, mementos and bunches of fresh flowers that give your home a unique sense of breeziness and charm.

You value comfort. Your home is a warm and open friendly place, and you feel happiest when everyone is cared for and relaxed in your space. Elements like pillows, throws, overstuffed furniture, and good lighting set the mood. You may also enjoy layering different fabrics or mixing patterns to create a cozy effect.

Not much laboring going on here

We had an awesome, but exhausting Labor Day weekend! Thursday night, our friend Sully drove down from Boston. K had Friday off, so the three of us relaxed on the beach. On Friday night, our friends Jay & Ry flew in from NY.

Jay, Ry and Sully are all friends K made while stationed in Louisiana, so it was great to have a little reunion. We spent the evening relaxing and having drinks on our back porch. Ry, who is a more regular wine drinker than I am, poured for the evening, which means while everyone else was sleeping, I was seeing my wine again in the bathroom. Yikes.

Saturday, the plan was to go to Busch Gardens. Everyone else felt great, so off we went.

I love being in control, so roller coasters scare the bejesus out of me. Since I was still feeling a bit shaky, I sat the first roller coaster out. I was grateful to have a solid excuse to skip out on this dropoff (It's 90 degrees at 75 mph)!

Obviously my friends weren't worried (or hungover) as they waited in line for the coaster.

After they finished their ride (They loved it, but they said it was scary. They also said I'd definitely have thrown up again if I'd ridden it!), we all got lunch. I felt much better, so I joined in on the rides. We had a good time walking around the park, and we finished with a nice splash ride. (You can see we're all soaked in the picture as we were leaving.)

That night, we grilled out at our house and watched the Sooner football game. And that's all I have to say about that. (OK, OK. Yes, we lost. Yes, it sucked.)

Sunday, we all slept in (theme parks are exhausting!), then headed to Virginia Beach for the afternoon. We had dinner at a great restaurant on the beach. They had amazing drinks they called Orange Crushes. With the amount of alcohol in each one (and the amount of fresh orange), they were very appropriately named!

The food was also delicious! For an appetizer, we ordered calamari, which was served with some kind of BBQ sauce (turned out to be a great combo!), and buffalo-style fish bites. For dinner, K and I both got crabcake sandwiches. Jay got fish tacos, and Ry's pasta looked amazing too. It was all delicious!

After dinner, we went back down to the beach for a Black Crowes concert.

We had brought my OU quilt to sit on before the show. We managed to get pretty decent spots (in proximity to the stage AND a beer tent), so we had lots of people walking by trying to sneak in on spots around us. I just started having fun with it by doing silly faux karate/yoga/whoknowswhat poses to block people from our blanket. Obviously our blanket still got trampled on the sides, but I kept people from walking on our things in the middle. And it gave us all a good laugh.

The concert ended without a performance of "She Talks to Angels" or "Hard to Handle," which was disappointing. There wasn't even an encore!

Thanks to the city of Virginia Beach, though, our night ended with some a nice fireworks show.

Mars/Venus: Thank You cards

It's been a busy few months for us. We had our "real" wedding Memorial Day weekend. Immediately after it was over, we packed my apartment, moved almost everything to Louisiana, packed up K's apartment, sent it with the Army-contracted movers, I quit my job, and we set out to see my family in OK for a couple days, then drove out to Virginia to start our lives here. That all happened in barely over a month.

We looked at houses, signed a contract for our house, returned to Dallas for a ER's wedding, came back just long enough to have our furniture and household goods delivered, and then departed for 9 fabulous days with the in-laws. We meant to take our thank you cards with us, but a quick decision to use K's computer bag instead of mine meant the cards stayed in Virginia. Whoops.

We had little time to catch our breath after the PA trip was over. We had lots of unpacking to do, we had several visitors, and we were trying to get settled.

Last month, I looked over the list of gifts, and I got out a large portion of our thank you cards. The ones I left were cards K said he would write. (We figured his uncle in Florida who I'd never met might appreciate a card written by K more than one from me.) So I wrote a few dozen cards. I made K sign each one, and he wrote the return address on a lot of them. He bitched about the fact they weren't already done, but it was better late than never.

I went through the remaining names and starred which ones would get the feminine version of the cards I'd designed. His close guy friends could have the masculine version. I left everything stacked neatly for him in the living room, until last weekend, when I finally moved them to the office so our guests wouldn't have to stare at them all weekend.

And today? We get an email from his aunt about how one of their older relatives (she wouldnt' say who) had said she was worried the gift wasn't appreciated because she hadn't received a thank you card yet. She actually was worried that her gift wasn't enough.

I can understand her having that reaction. I hate that she feels that way. And I hate that K hasn't written his damn cards yet. I knew I should've done it myself.

I called him immediately and read the email. He's as disgusted with himself as I am. You can bet those cards will be in the mail tomorrow.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a dining room!

I'm so sorry to have left you with Miley Cyrus's face for so long. That wasn't what I'd intended, but it's been busy lately! We had a few friends come in for the holiday weekend, so I spent last week getting things ready for their arrival. Every time we have guests come, the house is a little more finished than it was before.

This time, we actually had a dining room table! K and I ordered our table and bedroom furniture way back on July 6. The store was having a special, complete with free delivery. Evidently our bedroom set was on backorder and was set to arrive in mid-August. Since it still wasn't in stock, we didn't get our table either. We finally called and complained, and voila! Our table was here a few days later. Finally!

It happened to arrive the day after K and I bought a new grill, so we celebrated both with a nice steak dinner.

We found a nice rug to go underneath the table. Now, all we need is to finally get rid of my bachelorette couch, since I ixnayed K's stadium seating idea. (Supposedly a buyer is coming to pick it up soon.)

I made our cute little chandelier shades when I had trouble finding any dark blue ones online. I also had this sign custom made on etsy.com. It's a piece of advice an old boss gave me that I thought was worth a daily reminder.

I'd really like to paint this room yellow. I think it would be nice if we could do some sort of paint treatment so it's not just INYOURFACEYELLOW. We'll see. I also want to find a china cabinet eventually, so I'll probably check out Craigslist every now and then. After that, this room will be complete!