Weddingbee

Now that Mr. Lily and I have been married for a few months, we decided it was time to take another new step in our relationship: buying a home. Looking for an apartment in Manhattan, as those of you who live here can attest, is a trying process. We **think** we have found a place we like (do you ever really know after a 5 minute walk through?) and we **think** we are going to put an offer in tomorrow. This made me wonder, how many of you out there are in a similar boat?

And if you do own, did you have panic attacks, dry mouth, and gag reflex when thinking about your very own mortgage?

Happy first monthiversary to us! Exactly one month ago today, we were married in the best. wedding. ever (at least, in my opinion)!

We lived together for almost a year prior to getting married (and spent several nights a week together before that), so it’s not like we had to deal with the transition of merging lives and belongings. A lot of people who live together before marriage say that nothing really changed once they were married. In some ways, I guess that’s true. But it does feel a little bit different. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what or how. It’s beyond that immense sense of pride I feel when we go out together and I’m wearing my wedding ring and beyond being able to check “married” on official government forms. I guess it’s more a feeling of contentedness (is that even a word?) that we’re married and the firm belief that finally, I feel like my life is moving in the right direction.

Happy monthiversary, love.

How do you think your life is going to change once you’re married? Do you have any moves to make (long distance, with each other, etc)? If you’re already married, how did things change for you, if at all?

1. He thoughtfully cleans up the mess from me making dinner, even though he didn’t eat what I made.

2. He takes me to 7-11 at midnight to fill an ice cream craving.

3. When I bring home the supplies for an ice cream sundae (that I’ve been talking about for literally 2 weeks), he laughs that I bought light vanilla ice cream, but doesn’t judge.

4. He’ll take time out of his schedule to help me pack up and move my classroom.

5. He doesn’t care that I practically kill his Palm battery playing solitaire.

6. Because he tears up when he talks about his dog that passed away earlier this year at 12 years old.

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Mr. Peppermint and I made our first purchase for our apartment together. This may not seem like a “big step,” but it was an instance when we had to come to agreement on this new addition to our apartment. It’s especially difficult for me (not just because I’m a control freak!), but also because he’ll be moving into my apartment. Granted, he helped me pick it out two years ago, but I’ve been in charge of all decorating decisions…until now.Are you ready guys…?

Drum roll please….

Meet: Our new lamp!

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(image via answers.com)

Ok so our house is not the White House….but in my mind our first home will be just as grand. And in a few short days we finally are closing on our first house! So exciting!

We have never lived together so this will be such a fun journey for us as a newly married couple. I had some serious anxiety about being a home owner, but Mr. Butterscotch held my hand through the whole process and now I am over the moon with joy! And believe it or not buying a house was less stressful than parts of planning our wedding have been.

If you already live together, what is the one tip you can give us for this big adjustment?

Life has been a whirlwind this past week! We just started looking for our first home recently, and didn’t expect to find something so soon… but we did! It’s a new construction building in Chicago’s West Loop, and even though it won’t be completed until July/August of 2008, there has still been a flurry of activity. Meeting with realtors, MAJOR number crunching, upgrade negotiation/discussion, contract signing, large checks being written… *gulp*

We won’t know for a few days whether or not the developers will accept our contract, so right now we are on pins and needles. Due to all our wedding expenses, we requested that we be allowed to pay the deposit in 3 increments within the next 70 days or so. Hopefully that won’t be an issue for them. Eeks, please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Mr. Bluebell and I have been living together for almost 4 years, renting all the way. It’s not really because we’re getting married that we started thinking about buying now, but it seems like there must be some correlation since so many people buy their first home to move into when they get married! So, it’s time for a few polls on living situations:

Not too long after our wedding, Mr. Bird of Paradise and I took super fun newlywed pics. Kenny from Kenny Champagne Photography so kindly offered to take our pics for free. Love that. Here’s how it went down.

We arrived at Rip Van Winkle Gardens and changed into our wedding attire, complete with bout and bouquet. We were able to truly see each other as we did the day of our wedding, but without all the chaos that the day brought. This time we were abe to take it all in. Mr. BOP looked so sharp in his tuxedo, and I felt amazing in my dress. It was just us and a camera. Oh, and our little doggie too. Hehee.

I truly recommend taking NW pics. It was definitely memorable and fun, and we got some amazing shots. Here’s a few from the shoot.

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Mr. Bluebell and I did the dishes together last night, in our own particular way. We have long had the agreement that, if one of us cooks, the other one does the dishes. But if neither one of us cooks or we both pitch in, we always fall into the same pattern: I unload the clean dishwasher, and he rinses the dirty dishes and loads them in.

This has always worked well for us as we each prefer our task to the other one, which I think is very indicative of our general personalities. I asked him once why he doesn’t like unloading the dishwasher, and he said because it was annoying to have to take all the mixed up dishes and sort them out into their own appropriate compartment.

However, this is what I like about unloading the dishwasher! You get to make some sense out of the jumble, and then you have the promise of all those nice clean dishes eagerly awaiting future use. That’s why I find loading up the dishwasher depressing - you get your hands all dirty and they just go into a temporary holding cell (the dishwasher), so you don’t get to the step with that final satisfaction. But, when it comes to final satisfaction, Mr. Bluebell thinks it’s much better when you put the dishes in the dishwasher - because then you know they’ll soon undergo a magical transformation, whereas when my clean dishes are sitting in the cabinet, they are already done with the whole cycle and simply awaiting dirtying again.

Admittedly, this is quite off topic, but I just thought it was interesting and wondered how all of you handle who does the dishes between you and your fiance! Do you think that what type of chores you like to do gives any insight into your personality?

Like a few of the other Bees, Mr. Plumeria and I do not currently live together — so starting out together as a married couple is REALLY starting out together for us. In terms of furnishing our home, I have a lot of decorator odds and ends and kitchen items from the college days, not to mention plenty of paintings and artwork (also from the college days, as an Art and Design major), but not much to speak of when it comes to furniture.

We had earlier resigned ourselves to making do with my college futon as our sofa and getting cheap IKEA and/or used furniture for everything else. Somehow, though, things furniture-wise have been falling into place unexpectedly. Just last week, we went to see some of my wonderful relatives, who offered us their sofa and loveseat set, as they are buying some new ones to fit the decor in their home better. The set is only a few years old, practically new in appearance, and as modern as I could wish for!

And now, just a week later, this, as an insanely generous wedding present from my grandparents: the Carolina 6-piece queen bedroom set from Costco, now on sale at Costco.com! We’ve been joint Costco members for a while, and I have to say that shopping at the large warehouse store has helped us to save money, but this well-made furniture set is probably one of the nicest things we’ve gotten from there.

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