Are we there yet?

"Are we there yet?" is quite possibly the most annoying and possibly most blood boiling question a child can ask you on a long car ride. As the adult you say "we are almost there" about 10 times before finally snapping and saying "stop asking me! We will get there when we get there!".

For once, instead of being the driver, I am that child in the car. I know there is an end in sight, but just can not take the waiting anymore. After over a year and a half of being engaged, that is my question I ask myself everyday. "Are we there yet?!?!" and the answer is "we are almost there".  There is less than 4 months left till our wedding day.

Don't misunderstand me, I am so incredibly excited to get married to my soul mate after 8 years of dating. I could not be more thrilled for December 17th. However is it wrong that sometimes I feel that I can't wait for it all to be over? I can not wait for my wedding day to be finished and begin our life as a married couple. I am tired of the drama that comes along with weddings. Family drama, friend drama, money drama...is this really what it is all about? Everyone always tells the bride "Your wedding day is about you and your husband, nothing else matters, don't let anything get to you." Well that is alot easier said than done. In theory, yes the wedding should be exactly what you and your finacee want but let's be real here, it never happens that way.

Large events such as Weddings or funerals bring out the best and worst in everyone. I am thankful for all the people in my life right now that understand that this wedding is for Ken and I, and will accept whatever decisions we make without complaint. As for everyone else, if you don't like it, tough.

As our day approaches there are still many things that we need to accomplish. In the beginning I was so overly proactive and ahead of schedule with everything. Now, I feel like I have started procrastinating. As of now invitations must be ordered, the floral arrangments must be ordered, tuxes must be picked out, bridesmaid's shoes as well as my own must be chosen, and more importantly our honeymoon must be booked!

Food Shopping is an Art

Everyone has to go food shopping. It is something that anyone who runs a household must face. Mastering the art of food shopping isn't any easy task. You go to the store, pick out what you want, pay, and you are done. Right? Sure, food shopping can be simple, if you don't mind going every single day, and don't mind emptying your savings account.

To shop efficiently, takes a lot of effort. More effort than anyone could ever give a person credit for. The shopping adventure begins before you even leave your house. First thing anyone should do is CHECK their own fridge! How many times do you go the store, purchase something, come home and realize...Damn, I already have 3 of those! Secondly, you check all the local circulars to see what specials or coupons are available. (Not Q-pons, I can't stand when people say it that way)  Then plan out what you can cook with the things that are on sale. You make lists of the items you need and the stores with the best prices. At this point you leave your house and finally get to the store. Now this is where strategic navigation of the store begins. At this point, the shopping list mentally gets separated into things that you can put in your cart immediately, and things you should pick up as you are about to exit the supermarket. For example something like cereal can be put in the cart at any time, vs. ice cream which if you decide to put in the cart first will be soup by the time you get home. I try to start over by the fresh vegetable section and end in the freezer/dairy section.

Sales, can be a huge money saver but can be disastrous as well. Just because watermelons are on sale this week, doesn't mean you should buy as many of them as you can possibly fit in your cart. If you purchase things in large quantity's, you might not get to eat all  of the merchandise before it spoils. Only buy what you know you can eat BEFORE it grows some mold.

Once you have checked out of the supermarket, and get home everything must be stored appropriately. It's best to make sure and double check you got everything out of the car, to avoid that "Hmm my car smells funny, I wonder why" a week later when those bananas are rotting in the trunk.

And lastly...If you buy coffee beans at the store, don't forget to ground them, like I did earlier today! Have I food shopped before? Yes of course. But now that I'm doing the food shopping and running a home on a daily basis...there is a lot to learn. I'm sure I will have more epic supermarket failures coming my way.

Oh Jet Dry....

The last of our problems with our new apartment was finally rectified yesterday.

We moved into our apartment on August 1st. Our family and friends helped us move all day long. I am so grateful for some of the people in our lives. When you need help, you find out who your real friends are. The move in process began around 9:30am. We cleaned, lugged items from our homes, unpacked, and set up our things in our new place. By 11:00 pm, I was exhausted and just wanted to take a shower and crawl into bed. (Our brand new mattress and box spring that was sitting on the floor without a frame, which was delivered on this day as well). I walked into the bathroom, turned the shower on, and of course nothing would go as planned. The shower head started spraying everywhere making it impossible to bathe in our shower. I was sweaty, tired and cranky. Ken being the amazing husband in training that he is, ran up to Walmart before they closed at midnight. He purchased a new shower head and a tool, came come, installed it, and I was in the shower before 1am. Well little did I know, that this would be the least of our problems with our apartment...and so begins the dishwasher saga.

The day we moved in, I tried to turn on the dishwasher in order to run all of our plates and cups through before I put them in the cabinets. I was having problems getting it to run, and figured it was nothing and I would figure it out the next day. Sure enough the next day rolls around and I try to use the dishwasher. When you push the big round button in, the cycle is supposed to start. Well I pushed the big round button and every time I would take my finger off the button it would shut off. I tried taping it down, and that didn't work. I then thought it would be the smartest idea in the world to just sit criss cross on the floor next to the dishwasher and hold the button down for a while to see what happens. Bad Idea. A word of advice...if something isn't working properly, you probably shouldn't force it. So..I'm sitting there holding in this button, and water begins to pour out the bottom of the dishwasher. I immediately let go of the button and cleaned up the water. When Ken opened the dishwasher, we learned that not only would it not stay on, the water would not drain out of it.

Two days go by, and we finally see our landlords and explain the problem with the dishwasher to them. Explaining things to our landlords, especially things of a complicated nature already, is very difficult because their English is very poor. So they assure us that they will go out and get us a new dishwasher right away. That day they went to P.C Richard's and purchased a brand new dishwasher for us, which would be delivered on August 7th. The dishwasher arrives and I can not wait to test it out...however P.C Richards requires a separate appointment for installation. I made the appointment for the following Saturday. Saturday the 14th. Now, in the meantime, I have the old dishwasher still attached, and the new dishwasher sitting in the box in the kitchen. (Our place is not that big, so accommodating a dishwasher in a box is a hassle). P.C. Richard's does not take away your old appliance unless it is disconnected already, so Ken disconnected the dishwasher and noticed that the electrical work behind it was done poorly. He figured it would be a problem. Now we jump to Saturday the 14th. P.C Richard's comes, takes one look at the electrical and says they won't touch it, due to liability reasons. They explained that the electrical was very unsafe. There was no ground wire, and wires were spliced everywhere and they were not in a junction box. They then proceed to explain that they do not take the old appliance away until the new one is completely installed. After all this, I STILL have two dishwashers sitting around.

We spoke to the landlords again, and they were having a ton of trouble understanding why the store couldn't install the appliance. I spoke to their son, and he translated all of the information for us. They were very understanding and said they would have an electrician look at it the following Saturday. Saturday the 21st.

Some time later (probably after getting an estimate from an electrician), the landlords decided they wanted to do the project themselves, but had no clue how. Chung (the husband) asked if Ken would go to home depot with him and show him what he needs to buy. I was definitely not waiting a whole week AGAIN for this dishwasher. Ken went to Lowe's by himself (with permission from Chung) got all the supplies, came home, fixed the electrical and installed our brand new dishwasher (that is currently working beautifully). Chung reimbursed Ken for all the supplies, and all is well now.

Hopefully, that is the end of fixing stuff that was already wrong with this place before we moved in. It's so frustrating renting because these problems could be fixed so much quicker if it were our own house. Ken knows how to do so much, but unfortunately you can't mess with a house when you don't own it, no one wants that liability. Someday, I will find all of this very comical...someday.

The Theme Of My Blog

   I have wanted to start blogging for a long time and kept putting it off because I felt I didn't have a specific enough topic to write about on a daily basis. I have seen some really great blogs about things such as traveling around the world...I thought, how can my life top that? Well the thing is, I have realized that it really doesn't matter.. The theme of my blog is my life. There is no set topic. Life is not made up of any one specific topic so why should my blog be? There are thousands of everyday experiences than define who we are in this world, and they are often overlooked and thought of as being insignificant.

   My life is currently more interesting than it has ever been. I am 23, getting married in exactly 4 months from today, and my fiancee and I just got our own apartment and moved out of our parent's homes about 2 weeks ago. I am currently a nanny for 3 beautiful children who always keep me on my toes. I have a bachelors degree in speech pathology, and eventually need to get a masters.

   This is the beginning...