Day 365: We Made It!!!!

This morning we woke up early and made our new favorite camp breakfast - bagels with breakfast potatoes, bacon, cheese, and eggs.  Yum!  But then we had to pack up directly after to go to church.  Any other day, we might have skipped church to keep hanging out with family, but today is different!  One year ago, today, we were getting married!  After the service every week, Father Gar or Father Kevin asks if there are any birthdays or anniversary's being celebrated, and they say a blessing for you.  So it was important to us to go up today for our first anniversary blessing!

I was talking with Eric this afternoon about how I feel a little guilty that a lot of people we know have had relationship problems over the last year - and it doesn't seem fair that they have to go through all kinds of crap while we are so happy with each other (though we do have our problems, they have been minor and quickly resolved).  I really liked how Eric responded - we've got some pretty amazing relationship role models, and it's important that we can potentially be that for other people as well.  That got a big "awwwww" out of me, because I really hope that will be true of us.

Anyhow...we have made it a full 365 days of marriage, life, and blogging!  I guarantee you that there will be a post tomorrow, because it is our first wedding anniversary.  I can also guarantee that there will no longer be daily posts.  I truly love what this blog will provide us in the future, and absolutely plan to continue updating regularly to chronicle our memories.  How cool is it that years from now, we'll be able to share this (in the form of a book where the blog will be printed) with our kids or grandkids?

This morning Molly wrote on my Facebook wall and said "Cash was looking at some piece of paper and at the top was a banner and he asked what a banner was. I told him it was like ribbons on the paper. And he said, 'Ribbons like we put on Grammy's tree?'" Too cute, and definitely made me cry!

Father Kevin reading the anniversary blessing - I only ALMOST cried!  But I actually did cry at the beginning of the service.  The prelude music was Pachelbel's Canon in D, the song we used at our wedding.  I couldn't believe it, and it was Eric who noticed it first!

 The awesome bridal shower cake, made by my mom's friend Julie Fennel.

A year ago, last Friday, I was riding Bodacious!

My godmother, Helen Svoboda-Barber, did our wedding ceremony.

Left to right: Leslie, Jenna, Tera, Molly, Cash, Ashley, Helen, Me, Eric, Steven, Brian, Shannon, Julie, David, and Nate.

A hilarious cake picture from the wedding, haha! 

The bouquet toss! 

Eric going after the garter!

Day 203: Breakfast in Bed

We have now survived more than 2 weeks without a microwave!  (The house hasn't been clean enough to call the apartment manager to ask about getting it fixed, haha!)  Eric works today at noon and I woke up first, so I decided to make us breakfast in bed.  I had to boil the hot water for the oatmeal and use a stove burner to help get the butter soft for the cinnamon sugar toast.  I keep telling him that I would make a great stay at home wife...

Maple & brown sugar oatmeal, cinnamon sugar toast, and ice cold milk.  Delicious!

Day 200: We've Been Married 200 Days? Wow!

200 days...it has been six and a half months of marriage, and we're getting into the groove of things just fine!  Our drive to get out of debt has been the biggest focus of this past year for us.  We are really looking forward to owning my car next month, I don't even remember what it feels like to not make car payments...but I can't wait to cut that line out of our budget!

I signed up for Dave Ramsey's emails that focus on starting out 2011 right.  Today's email proposed a $100 challenge, asking you to look at your TV cable, home & auto insurance, cell phones, unused items around the house, you hobbies, your "toys", and fast food habits, and find a way to give yourself a $100 raise this week. 

1) Our TV cable is already at the bare minimum, go us!  We're never going to give up our internet, but we already don't have cable TV.  Maybe in the summer, when we're more active, we could give up netflix and save $10...but it isn't likely.
2) I've been meaning to call around about insurance, and today was the day!  Geico is affiliated with our renters insurance, and I chatted with an incredibly enthusiastic agent today.  They can save us $250 on our car insurance - hooray!  That's only about $40/month, but every bit helps! 
3) Our cell phones are also the most basic plan + texting, and no...we aren't giving up texting! 
4) We're actually got a few things to return... $30 sunglasses that don't fit Eric, a $15 shirt, a bowl from the wedding that has a defect... that's an extra $70 in our pockets straight away! 
5) My hobby is playing on the internet, and that doesn't cost anything extra.  Eric's hobby is video games, and he buys any games for 1/4 of the price on Half.com (and it's rare that he actually folds and buys something new). 
6) We have been a little bit bad about buying "toys" in the past month, but it was only with Christmas money and we don't feel bad about it.  The only extra that we spend each month comes out of our blow money allowances of $50 for him and $60 for me.  Though I've stopped getting sodas at the gas station as frequently...so I'll give up my extra $10 of blow.  Another $10 found!
7) Hmmm...lately we've been so far under budget on food that we have been more flexible with fast food spending.  So maybe we'll plan on cutting out fast food for the rest of January and saving $20 (or more) there.  Then we can just pay ourselves the food money that is left over, instead of spending it because it's there.

There you have it, I just earned us a $350 raise this month!!!  It's cool what you can accomplish when you take some time to deal with these things!

A long way to go...but we've had a great start.

A look at the entirety of our Baby Step 2 journey; past, present, and future.

Our short term goal is to get through the 2 car loans and 2 credit card debts.  An experienced Dave fan might point out that I've got them in the wrong order because the one we're paying on right now is obviously larger than the one above it - but we received an insurance payment of nearly $2,100 that we applied to the loan, which made it the next smallest debt in line!

Here is a look at my student loans, the majority of the lion on our backs :(  That is 3 companies broken into the semester-by-semester loans.  Basically, a huge mess that we can't wait to get rid of!

Day 117: Michigan, At Last!

Our trips to Michigan every few months are always a welcome break!  I cried a little bit on our drive up, in happiness, because I realized this was a goal of ours this year.  On the morning of our wedding we both wrote down our top ten life goals, goals for our first year of marriage, and our thoughts that morning.  For a goal in our first year of marriage, Eric wrote "Visit 'The Murray's' as 'The Green's'".  We're now completed 2 out of 10 - paying off one credit card, and going to Michigan as a married couple.

We made really good time through the night - probably because we were listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD.  We were running really early, the GPS said we would arrive at 6:30am, so we decided to stop for breakfast at Denny's.  Our waitress was definitely drunk, high, or crazy!  We got to Molly & Nathan's house just in time to see them and the kids before they all left for work or daycare.  We got to take a nice nap, run some errands, pick the boys up from daycare, and make some really good chili.  Molly and Nate got home from work after 9 and we played a new game called "Robo Rally" which was pretty cool, and some Euchre.

Oh, and the primary objective of this vacation...Cash's 2nd birthday!  Molly decided to make a bulldozer cake and put me in charge of the background again.  She was going to do a marshmallow fondant, but the yellow frosting ended up being perfect for it.

Declan all tucked in to go for a walk.

Cash playing in the leaves.

Molly and I working on Cash's bulldozer cake.

It looked like a school bus for much of the creation process!

Day 97: Some Time Together

As you can all tell from various "today at work", "tonight Eric's worked", "I did ...", "Eric did ..." statements, Eric and I don't get a lot of time together.  We've got opposite work schedules and with the exception of a family emergency or a handful of carefully planned and requested days off, haven't had a day off of work, school, and teaching since our honeymoon.

Today was no exception!  I took today as a personal day to catch up on all of my KU schoolwork that I've fallen really far behind on, and Eric had work at 4:30.  But in the morning I made cinnamon rolls (and burned them) in the halogen oven.  I told Eric they were "sexy cinnamon rolls" because they were topless after I removed the burned parts.  Then he did schoolwork and played in the living room while I laid in bed doing schoolwork.  In the afternoon we walked to the grocery store for bacon bits, sour cream and chips.  I had an amazing baked potato...well, 2 really small baked potatoes, and Eric reheated a burger from last night.

I got to cleaning the house when he left for work and I must say, I'm very impressed with our kitchen!  I also took a pumice stone to the toilet and totally removed all of the hard water marks - go me!

Tonight we made Hamburger Helper with turkey, and I'm really starting to get sick of that meal!  I know Dave Ramsey says "beans and rice, rice and beans, there are a million combinations!"  But our $1.25 meal isn't cutting it anymore!  We also watched TV and, overall, got to spend a lot more time together than usual today!

Addy helping me with my homework... She insists upon laying on me while chewing on my red dog.

Laying on top of the computer is her most preferred location.

 I am proud of our kitchen!  I showed off the cooking area a few days ago - above that is our wine and liquor bottle collection, I cleaned the fridge and rearranged our pictures - wedding stuff on the freezer door, family and friends on the fridge door, and ads on the side.  Then is our bookshelf, which we had to buy because we received so much kitchen stuff for our wedding!  It's got a display of wedding items on top of it, glassware on the top shelf, crock pot/rice cooker/and deep fryer (along with the Skittles vodka) on the next shelf, then is cook books and fresh foods (onion, tomato, avocado), and random whatevers on the bottom two shelves.  How's this for a caption!!!

The other side of the kitchen isn't as impressive on first glance, but I still love it!  Apron hanging on the fire extinguisher, coffee clock and the duck bowl from Grammy, a wine rack on the window ledge, drying rack for our hand washed dishes (because our dishwasher sucks!  It has 2 cans of soup under it because it falls out of the counter otherwise!), a nice knife set, our junk stackers, and step trash can!

Day 1: We're Married!

I've seen some really cool "365 Blogs" where the blogger posts a picture every day for a year. I immediately thought this would be a fantastic way to document and share our first year of marriage with our friends and family. Starting today, Eric and I will [attempt to] post photos of us and of things going on in the first year of our lives as husband and wife.  

The wedding was a great party and we really enjoyed it. Eric and I were both really excited to bring both of our families together for the event.

Day 1, and I'm sure many more will be, is too cool for just one photo. So I'll share my 2 favorites so far:

This was the first married shot that either of us saw, and I love it!

...and second, we had a really great photo booth at the reception.