The search for cake continues

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If a cake is delicious, I can handle if it's ugly. And if a cake is beautiful, I can handle if it's bland. And I can handle ugly and bland both a little better if it is cheap. So if you show me a portfolio full of sloppy fondant designs, feed me samples that taste stale, and quote me a price $100 higher than your consultant did three months ago, well, then, the search for cake continues.

Yes, D and I went to our first cake tasting this morning—apparently, the first of at least two! I was really disappointed: even the flavor that I already loved once was bland this time, the white chiffon cake we sampled was incredibly dense instead of light and fluffy, and the rum cake tasted like vomit (well, maybe not that bad, but I would never serve it to anyone). So once that was established, there was no need to discuss the baker's artistry (or lack thereof). Fondant cakes should not be sloppy... but "attention to detail" is probably not a phrase frequently applied to the decorator. They were basically a hot mess.

We got a price quote anyway (just in case they were significantly cheaper than other bakers we will visit in the near future), and were told that to feed 125 people cake would be $600, plus a $60 delivery fee. I don't know how much delivery fees usually run, but I'll accept it as industry standard, even if it seems on the high side to me. But since I was told a few months ago that a cake that size would run $475-500 by someone who works at this same bakery, that was pretty much the end of the visit.

We did get some great ideas about what we want our cake to look like, though (other than just "not like crap"). We are planning on three tiers, with the top and bottom tiers covered in cream-colored fondant with brown stripes, and the middle tier in chocolate fondant with gold or cream-colored henna designs. Something like a combination of all of these cakes:

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The colors might change, but it's nice to have a basic idea to go into the next cake consultation with.

Kind of annoyed

I sent an email last week to the invitation printer letting them know I would be out of town the first week of August, and not to ship anything to me between July 24 and August 8 so that it would not be sent back to them. I got a confirmation from my consultant that nothing would be shipped prior to August 8. Today I get a notification from UPS (I HATE UPS) that my package shipped on July 29 with a July 31 scheduled delivery date.

They are so lucky that the delivery date is tomorrow, because after that, we would be out of town... for too long for the UPS distribution center to hold the package for us. So if we're not home when they deliver (a strong possibility, since we have a lot of errands to run tomorrow), I'll just be checking in fanatically to ensure that they hold the item to be picked up in the evening.

I wish more shipping companies used a vacation hold system like USPS. Which may be the first time I've ever wished anything was more like USPS.

In search of cake

I admit it: I am not a big fan of wedding cake. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and what sweet tooth I have is much better satisfied by a tart sorbet than mushy, gooey cake. So maybe it was low blood sugar from an exhausting day of trying on bridesmaid dresses, but when a local baker was handing out samples at the front of David's Bridal a few months back, I was sold on the marble cake-chocolate fudge-bavarian cream goodness.

The only problem: I don't like her cakes. They are fondant only, which is okay when they are beautiful (but they have to be beautiful, because buttercream tastes SO much better). But her cakes aren't beautiful. They are kind of... blah, if the pictures on her website are any indication.

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So D and I are going cake-tasting tomorrow, and hitting up her bakery first: to see if (1) the cakes taste as good when I'm not dying for lunch, and (2) if any of her more recent creations are any better than the several-years-old pictures on her online portfolio. And if not, we move on!

I'm calling it now

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I am so on top of things that I booked a videographer at 10:00 last night. It would have been good to meet him first, but the prices were good (not so good that I didn't trust him, of course), the deposit was small, his responses to all of my emails were timely (not as fast as I would respond to "Give me some confirmation and I'm ready to book TODAY," but maybe he doesn't check his email as many times a day as I do...), and the examples of his work online are really awesome.

Although, considering what I just wrote, I know that if anything goes wrong with my wedding, or if any vendor fails to achieve my vision, I can look right back on this post and tell you which one it was and why. I'm going about this entirely in the wrong way, really, and I don't know why I am so blasé about the videographer when I'm so uptight about everything else!

Anyway, on to the next thing: flowers.

Lull

No, I didn't off myself after finding my first gray hair, but I have been elsewhere: wrapping up work for my internship and getting ready for a week-long vacation (starting this Saturday) I've been counting down the minutes to since June. :)

Posting on vacation will probably be limited to stories about shredding and editing photos from my mom's wedding—her photographer was pretty meh, so I'll be doing my best to make her pictures pretty and assembling an album we'll get printed online. I figure the album-making practice can't hurt! Of course, should anything more exciting happen while I'm away, you'll be the first to know. Or the fifth, after my travelmates. Etc.

Goodbye, youth

I had a terrible morning. I woke up feeling mopey and irrationally sad. Still, I got ready to meet the future in-laws for breakfast, as we do most Sunday mornings, brushed my hair, and noticed something... bright. Shiny. Unexpected. And TOTALLY DEVASTATING!

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My first. Gray. Hair. (No, that's not me. I was too busy having a complete, tear-filled meltdown mourning the loss of my youth to take a picture of my own gray hair.)

It was about an inch and a half long, so I guess I'd managed not to notice it for about three months. Oh, sweet ignorance! It's much better not to realize that you are becoming the old geezer you always joke that you already are.

I'd better not get many more of those before March. Although I suppose that if I had to start dying my hair, it'd be much easier to get extensions to match!

Viva sweet love

It occurred to me that I never really got around to taking good pictures of my engagement ring. Well, I still haven't—the macro setting on a point-and-shoot with a little bit of Photoshop loving doesn't really substitute for a good picture, but here it is anyway, courtesy of Bill Shakespeare and e. e. cummings. :)

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Day 2

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With Day 1 of the Shred down, I can say one thing with certainty: stairs hurt.

Anyway, I've finished Day 2, and there was definitely less pain both during and after. There is no muscle "buzzing" tonight—although there is definitely some tiredness—and the stiff soreness I've had all day went away after the second workout. This really isn't so bad. But, so far at least, it really seems effective. Best of all worlds!

My plan is to do Level 1 tomorrow, then "start" on Monday: two weeks of Level 1, followed by two weeks of Level 2, then two weeks of Level 3. I'm only going to do this Mondays through Fridays, so technically this is still 30 days, right? I'd like to do longer workouts on the weekends (our Ultimate Frisbee games usually last 90 minutes at fairly high intensity, so I don't think another 20 minutes is really necessary). I've been doing this in the evenings after work, and I'd like to eventually add some core-strengthening yoga in the mornings before work... if I can ever get myself awake that early, anyway.

When the 30 days are up, I'll either figure out a new plan, or go back to Buff Brides. Poor Buff Brides. It's such a good workout, but once you actually get good at it and have to move to the advanced level? It takes forever. Who has that kind of time?

Anyone else struggling with their fitness routine?

Shoe shopping

Obviously I won't buy shoes (and other accessories) until I buy my dress, but that totally hasn't stopped me from shoe shopping online anyway. :)

Hyannis Sizzle by Coloriffics, $66.99
Paris by Johnathan Kayne - Benjamin Walk, $80	Cameo by Tahari, $75.50
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I'm not really sure about the lace (but I think it's a cool idea!), but the other two would both work really well with the dress I'm getting, especially the Taharis. Hopefully they wouldn't hurt as badly as some of the heels I've been wearing lately...

Who are these people?

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I stopped by the Fendi accessory sale at Gilt Groupe today on a whim, and saw that the $1,300 bags were "In Members' Carts." Who are these people dropping $1,300 on a bag? I want to know. And then I want to borrow their bag.

She said "shred," not "tear"

As the minutes progressed after my first shred, my muscles started to feel more tired... so I knew I needed some protein, stat! But on a hotter-than-Hades kind of night like tonight (MY GOD IT IS SO HOT IN THIS APARTMENT!), eating meat sounded more or less horrendous... so I went straight to the next-best protein source, beans. And because I love you all so much, I will share with you my fabulously modified (from somewhere... I can't for the life of me remember where) black bean pasta deliciousness. Seriously, it's SO good.

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Ingredients
* 2 cups spiral pasta (try it with whole wheat!)
* 2 cups tomatoes, diced (I usually use Roma because they are the easiest to find in the supermarket, but use the juiciest you can find!)
* 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
* 1 green bell pepper, sliced
* ½ tsp grated lime peel
* ¼ tsp ground cumin
* Lime wedges (optional)
* Sour cream or grated parmesan cheese (optional)
* Cilantro leaves (optional)

First cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve a small amount of water (maybe 2 Tbsp?) and add to a large saucepan with the tomatoes. Boil tomatoes and pasta water, then mix in the pasta, beans, bell pepper, lime peel and cumin. Cook on low, covered, until hot (about three minutes). Garnish with lime, sour cream or parmesan, and cilantro if desired.

I have no idea of the nutritional information, but something this simple and colorful? Cannot be bad for you. :) D estimates the points at around 4 or 5 for Weight Watchers purposes. (This recipe makes about three servings, by the way.)

Am I shredded?

So I just finished level 1 of the Shred. Am I shredded? I don't know, but I sure am sweaty. Maybe some of it is the nearly 80 degree temperature (even in my air conditioned apartment), but I'm sure a lot of it is the jumping jack/jumping rope/punching/butt kicking I just finished. Even if it was only in two-minute intervals.

I might not be in as bad shape as I initially thought, because it didn't totally kick my ass. Still, my quads were shaking a little at the end, and my arms are definitely buzzing a bit now. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Anyway my muscles feel appropriately burned, even with only three-pound dumbbells (I was using ten pounds or more for most things before the great crap-out of 2009—i.e., the last two months), although I will have to have something heavier on-hand (really on hand! you can't stop between reps in a twenty-minute workout!) for the chest stuff in the future. And there will definitely be a future! Because a twenty-minute workout is going to be much easier to convince myself to do than a ninety-minute one.

I'll probably be too sore to do this tomorrow, but I'll definitely do it again on Friday. And then I'd like to make a point to do something back to four or five days a week. Woo! Back on track. Hopefully. :)

Trying something new

I haven't really talked about fitness in awhile, and that's probably because I haven't been thinking about it. Well, not so much that I haven't been thinking about it; more that I haven't been doing anything about it. Which is a darn shame, because two months ago, I was in the best shape of my life. I haven't really gained any weight since I stopped working out or watching my diet—maybe one or two pounds, which, now that I think about it, took me almost a month to lose before, so damn! what am I doing?—but the difference in how I feel is astounding. Not only do I not feel like as much of a hottie, but I get these horrendous knots in my back now from not using my muscles enough, and cramps in my legs from sitting too much. It's lousy.

But as crappy as I feel (and as incredibly effective as I've seen it be), I haven't been able to bring myself back around to lifting weights on the Buff Brides program again. I guess 20 weeks is my absolute burn-out point? So I decided to try something new (to me): Jillian Michaels - 30 Day Shred. I've heard so many people raving about it, and at $6.49 I just figured it was worth a shot. Anything to get me out of this flabby-garbage feeling rut!

I'm about to try it now, for the first time. Wish me luck!

Ceremony and reception decor

I already knew I was not going with floral centerpieces for the wedding, but I got a sort of reconfirmation of this today when I found my vases/hurricane candle holders, pillar candles, and river rocks for twenty tables for only $237.80. I will try to sell the vases and the rocks after the wedding, too.

So that leaves for the florist: 1 bridal bouquet, 5 bridesmaid bouquets, 1 groom's boutonniere, 11 other boutonnieres (6 groomsmen, 2 bridesmen, Papa Spaniel, my step-dad, and FFIL Spaniel), 3 corsages (mothers and grandmother), and any floral decorations we will need for the ceremony.

Well, given that my photography/videography/deejay expenses are going to top the $5,000 limit I'd originally set for them (probably by about $500) and that part of the floral budget is being burned up by candle centerpieces (pun absolutely intended), I need to find all of the flowers for under $1,200. How will I do it?

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With Baby's Breath, duh.

I don't really know what these bouquets will cost yet, but I would imagine: not that much. Still, I don't want Baby's Breath for the bridal bouquet or the corsages/boutonnieres—I just don't think they'll look right, so here is my second floral.

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Why, Green Tea Roses! They match our colors, won't look bad with some Baby's Breath interspersed (I think), and they make lovely boutonnieres.

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Of course, this all depends on seasonal availability and pricing, but luckily I'm not too tied to any particular flower (I am tied only to CHEAP!!), so I think it's fine to plan. :)

Hooray! Progress!

The money talk

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Money doesn't grow on trees, and it's definitely not growing in my empty bank account. You may have gathered (etc.) that this is a source of some distress for me and throwing a wrench into my planning, and I'm pretty sure it's a major part of the reason I've started developing rashes and otherwise inexplicable bumps on my skin! :-/

I decided to have a little chat with my mother about all this wedding business. She seems to be misinterpreting my stress as just generalized worrying about the wedding, but it's not: it's knowing more or less what I want, and not being able to move forward AT ALL with ANYTHING because most vendors are less than inclined to hold a date for you without at least a nominal deposit. She agreed to give me a little in the next few weeks so that I can secure my videographer (which I think I've found, pending confirmation of the price!) and my deejay (which I haven't found yet), and the rest in several months, which was exactly what I was hoping for!

So after this weekend, Operation "Okalani-Lobsterson" Knot-Tying moves forward at full speed! Finally!!!

Dress date

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I have a date with my mom and MoH (and tentatively with two of my other bridesmaids) to finally go buy my dress... in a month. August 22, actually, which is way later than I wanted to buy my dress!

Oh well. I don't even know if we'll be able to buy it that day, but I sure hope so. I'm starting to feel behind, with all the things I haven't finished from prior to-do lists hanging over my head. Then again, all I really need to get done this month is to meet with the rabbi we've already booked, and find a deejay and videographer (and I'm thinking of going with a company that provides both the music and the video, and a small discount for going through them for two services). So maybe I'm not actually that behind.

I'm incredibly stressed out. What do you do to relieve wedding-related stress?

Eight months before (by July 20)

• Book the photographer and videographer
  We've got a photographer, but we haven't chosen a videographer yet.*
• Book entertainment
  We haven't even started on this one yet. Ack!**
• Register
  We've registered at two stores with physical locations near our families and online options (Macy's and Crate&Barrel; we're considering adding an Amazon.com registry as well if people actually end up using these).
• Purchase a dress
  I haven't bought my dress yet, but I have picked it out.***
• Start meeting caterers
  Our venue provides catering.
• Reserve block of hotel rooms for guests
  We found a hotel with a free shuttle for guests to our wedding venue! How cool is that?
• Launch a wedding website
  Done. We sent out the URL with our Save the Dates.

* Update, 7/29: We booked a videographer! Only nine days late... I consider that a success, and relatively on-time.
** Update, 8/11: The DJ is booked. One one hand: thank goodness. On the other hand: I'm terrified.
*** Update, 8/25: I bought my dress this weekend!

Destination unknown

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Or not. I just found this Big Sur wedding at Earth Friendly Weddings and had a mini-swoon fest.

I never thought of Big Sur as a destination wedding location, but I'm now sold. Or I would be, if I didn't feel a family obligation to have a larger, more local wedding (and hadn't already made deposits on a local venue and mailed Save the Date cards!). But if I did, I know it would have been a Central Coast or California wine country wedding, with about forty people—just the closest of friends and family (in fact, basically all the same people who will be at our rehearsal dinner! Maybe I at least have an idea for a theme for the rehearsal!).

Someday, maybe... for a vow renewal, perhaps? :)

The proof is in the pudding. Or the email attachment.

As you may recall, I had originally wanted to DIY my invitations, but I found a really great price on letterpress invitations that didn't require my amateur graphic design skills, and that were actually less expensive than printing my own (at $3.50 per suite from Ajalon Printing). Score!

Well, I got my proofs! I'm still a little sad that I didn't do them myself (awwww, poor me), but I have some DIY plans for these suckers!


I know it's a little hard to get a feel for them with all the names so distorted, but I am sure you can envision the loveliness. ;) Basically, the invitations are written in script font (I think it's Shelley Allegro), and Mr. Spaniel's name and mine, as well as the venue location, are in block font (Palatino Linotype, maybe?).

I love the "baroque" scroll art around the outlines of this invitation, and I'm planning to find a complimentary paper to line our envelopes. I'm also using the pattern to create a Directions insert card (which I'll print myself on cardstock).

And here are the RSVP postcards!


The outline on these were a little different than in the samples (since they are postcards), but I'll use this outline in the programs and menu, most likely, which I will, again, print at home (or at some print shop, but they won't be letterpressed, is my point!). I originally did not want to print menus, but since the full meal selection is not on the RSVP card, I want guests to be prepared for their side dishes, etc. I will have this information on our wedding website, eventually, but I know not everyone will check!

The programs will probably be the most involved DIY project I'm going to attempt. As it stands, I'll be printing up two column, portrait-folded invitations onto plain paper, cutting them in half, and affixing them to either side of a piece of portrait-folded black card stock. Then the backing will be folded, and the whole thing will be held closed with a belly band (matching my lined invitations, of course!). But this is only tentative... since we want to explain all of the cultural traditions in our multi-cultural wedding ceremony and introduce the wedding party in our programs, we might need more pages... in which case the programs will get more complicated!

But it's only fair, right? I mean, with how much I love paper, of course I would drop some serious time on it, right? Now accepting all justifications and excuses for spending my entire winter break on sprucing up paper goods. :)

My real question to you, oh 'Hive, is this: what in the world should I do with the back of these postcards? Don't they need a little sumthin'-sumthin'?

Is Golightly awake?

Here is the latest update on Golightly. I honestly can't tell if this means she's woken up or not—all of the updates have sounded so upbeat even when her condition was looking pretty dire, so I'm not really sure how she's doing. Please keep praying for her... maybe one of these days she'll be able to tell us herself.

Scatterbrain focuses!

Since I can't do a lot of the big stuff yet, I've been focusing my energy on things that can get done: addressing the rest of our save the date cards, and sending off the wording to the invitation printer.

We had to wait a long time on the wording because of uncertainty about the time of the ceremony, the exact menu we would be serving, and my mother's last name after her own wedding. So we finally picked a time for the ceremony right around sunset (and one-half hour after guests are technically allowed to arrive) and left meal choices as "Chicken," "Beef," and "Vegetarian," so we could pick specific dishes later—we'll be explaining the options in more detail on our wedding website.

My mom's last name was the hardest part. She's been an "Okalani" longer than anything else, and has a professional reputation and a private practice under that name... so she didn't want to change it. But it's my father's name, her ex-husband's name, and she has a new husband now. So she finally told me to use "Okalani-Hatter" and that should be fine.

With that new information, I sent off my invitation wording last night. I can't wait to see my proofs!

Oh, that's right, the wedding...

D finally got on board with straightening up the place (or he got tired of me snapping at him every few hours for no good reason), and now we've just got a few decorative items to find homes for and pictures to hang on the walls until we're done (then there's the matter of that bookcase we still need...). What's really great is that since I didn't have to nag him to help out, we actually got along well for the first day since we got the keys!

We're planning to invite his parents over for brunch this Sunday (we used to go out for breakfast with them almost every weekend when he lived with them, so we're just changing the scenery!), so that is the new drop-dead date for cleanliness and order. And I think we are actually going to make it!

In other news, don't I have a wedding to plan over here???

A couple of decisions have been made: I'm ordering my dress and my bridesmaid dresses (I'm deciding between the tulle dresses in Wedding look 9—because they are $122 and $139—and the lace ones in Wedding look 10 at $189 each) from House of Brides, unless I can get the bridal shop to match the online price (in which case I'll get my dress from the shop and the bridesmaid dresses online). I haven't decided if I will just buy all of the dresses myself and get money back from the bridesmaids, or each let them order their own—I'm not too concerned about dye lots since the dresses they are ordering will either be black, or black and ivory, which are not all that hard to get right!

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Does anyone have any experience ordering gowns online (bridal or for the maids)? Any advice?

Lovers' spat

Well, the wall of boxes is now a wall of bookcases, which is an improvement, but the continued lack of real order in the "Okalani-Lobsterson" household is proving to be truly stressful.

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We're still a bookcase short before all of our books can be unpacked, and there are lots of items that we still need to finish putting the place together (a broom comes most to mind! You should see the floor... now that it's not completely covered in boxes!). Space is an issue: we are sharing a desk (although we did not end up building our own, after all... we just put together a 78" Ikea one) and a closet, and those are areas always ripe for territorial behavior. But the mess is the one that's really getting to me: we've been here for a week and I've been unpacking in nearly every spare moment I have, while D doesn't quite see the urgency of the situation.

People, I am STRESSED. If I can't get my space the way I want it—even if it's just for a few hours—SOON, I may snap.

I am really glad we did this before we got married. If I had to deal with "post-nuptial depression" and moving/merging stress simultaneously, it would not be pretty!

I hate this part

I've updated my address with the post office, the bank (all of them!), my school, and our registries. I've even ordered new return address labels (and got some extras with my married name for FREE!) and a new box of checks with the new address. Clearly, this is my legal residence. But it is not relaxing—the way home should be relaxing—yet, and here is why:

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GOOD GOD THAT'S MY DINING ROOM UNDER THERE!

The picture actually doesn't do justice to the mess that is the rest of the apartment, because you can actually see the floor here. I might not have any other place to go, but this just can't feel like home until this crap is taken care of! So with a heave and a cough (lots of coughs... stupid flu), I will be tackling the mess for the rest of the evening. At least until D gets home, at which point I will happily pass the baton (after thoroughly washing my hands, that is).

Ah, the life.

Surprise!

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One of my co-interns just bought an engagement ring for his girlfriend and is surprising her with it next weekend, after "letting it slip" to her that he didn't think a proposal would happen until after graduation (two years from now for him). He gave himself a quick education in diamond selection, then went ahead and purchased a huge stone (like, HUGE) on day 2 of shopping.

Why do I tell you this? Because I kind of wish, sometimes, that D would have done some of this without me. ;) As much as I appreciated being part of the selection process (pretty much the whole part of it, actually) and love the ring I ended up with, I might have liked to be surprised a little more than I let on... I just didn't want to wait anymore!

Oh well. :) We have lots of anniversaries for him to surprise me. ;) I'll just try not to hint too heavily that he should!

Still on the agenda

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I have about two weeks to find a videographer, a DJ, and buy my dress, according to my timeline. Oh timelines, they are so... restricting. I'm a free spirit, man! I need flexibility in my wedding planning! Either that, or I need a kick in the pants!

I would definitely love to do the dress-buying on the sooner side rather than the later one, but it's one of those items that require financial help. Basically, the way we've split costs is that my dad is taking care of expenses related to the venue (the most expensive part: this covers the use of the location for the day, catering, drinks, and some rentals), and the rest will be pulled from a certain-dollar amount from my mom and D's parents—with D and I footing the bill for everything else (I estimate our contribution at about $3,000, not including the Mehndi, which I'll probably be paying for... is that a faux pas? Do brides not do that themselves? Meh). My dad has set dates for his contribution, but the rest of our wedding day sponsors (ha) are sort of... at their leisure. My mom is still recovering from the financial ramifications of her own wedding, so she's not really ready to help us, and I think D's parents might just be planning to write us a check at the end (helpful, yes, but deposits still need to be paid!).

This is a long-winded way of saying that I can't afford to buy my dress this month, and I don't think my mom wants to go shopping with me until she's ready to pay for the dress. Sigh.

I've been using the time, though, to do more research on DJs and Videographers. I am finding that, despite the crappy economy and despite the fact that some wedding vendors seem to be doing some price cutting to lure in budget-conscious couples, nobody is cheap enough for me!!!

I'm tempted to go buy a $300 camcorder and enlist a friend to do our video... after all, then we get a camera out of it! It's really been a challenge finding a recommended vendor for under $1,000. We would spend more if we could, but I've prioritized photography, and that seriously hurt the video budget. At this point, I'm mostly looking for someone that I can trust to actually show up and then deliver video at a later date. I'm not really looking to pay for art in this category, just reliability.

As for the DJ... this one is just hard. There are people at or near our budget, but how do you really know if a DJ is any good until after the night is over? How do you know that he will play your "must-plays," or that he will actually ensure that he's waited for the champagne to be poured before he cues your little brother for the toast (another glitch at my mom's wedding!)? How do you know if your definitions of "cheesy" are the same? If his equipment will actually work?

Arg. Stress! I know wedding planning is stressful for almost everyone, but somehow I thought that a long engagement would relieve some of the pressure. Instead, it just postponed it. :)

Still alive!

So the move was a success, in that all of our stuff is in our place and most of it didn't break (my Mikasa wine goblets didn't make it, but I wouldn't have had any room for them in the kitchen anyway). Not so successful: I caught a flu (and yes, it could have been of the swine variety) a few days before we actually moved in, which made packing a horror of the highest magnitude (and D had to pack all of his own stuff, and almost all of mine as a result). It also made unpacking pretty dreadful, as D is not the veteran mover that I am so each box I unpack sends me into three different rooms to put everything away, slowing me down almost as much as the muscle aches and lingering fever (just kidding; the fever went away!).

At this point, other than a tower of empty boxes by the door and an entire fortress of them filled with our books in the dining area (we are nothing if not readers, and also people who do not own bookcases oh my god), we're pretty much unpacked. The bathroom has no storage (seriously, there is not even a drawer under the sink! the situation will need to be remedied before I'm comfortable here) and we can't finish unpacking our desk until we get D a new file cabinet, but other than that we are... home.

Wow. Home.