Some times you feel like a nut...sometimes you don't

I'm not exactly talking about Mounds and Almond Joys...but more about this blog. I had an intense desire to blog when I started this. I thought I would have words of humor or wisdom to share with the world about our first year of marriage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all disappointed in our first year....I am however more disappointed with letting our story fall to the way side. Now I'm not promising new or constant updates but I will say that last night I knew that if I didn't blog about a certain incident I'd regret it.....


For kickers, we celebrated 1 year of marriage on Monday August 31st. The year has brought us so many ups and downs, but over all I couldn't have asked for a better way to start our marriage. Money has always been our great debate. Always.

For our Sunday night (Labor Day in this case) tradition we grabbed two movies from the Redbox....'I Love You, Man' and 'Confessions of a Shopaholic'. We watched the first Monday night but ran out of time before we got to the second.

So after a long Tuesday, including a night meeting for me, I returned home to find that Stephen had sweetly prepared spaghetti for dinner and offered to watch my chic flick. Go ahead and say it......awwwwwwwwww! But just wait.

If you haven't seen the movie, consider this a spoiler. If you have...you'll know what I'm talking about...this fashion loving, working girl racks herself up some credit card debt. I think the movie first mentions $9,000 and it ends up to be about $16,500. Poor Girl.

For the record I have NO credit cards. I had two in college maxed out my $2,000 limits and then paid them off with my first job. Forgive me for being blunt but my only current debts are my student loans, my car payment...and now a mortgage. I'm not bragging by any means. Some people have debt who need it....this girl just wanted clothes with labels and the latest accesories for her I felt no sympathy!

Ladies, before the handsome suave protagonist can arrive my husband has whipped out the laptop and is asking me questions about our budget. CAN YOU BELIVE IT???? I was merely watching a work of fiction and he dives into our banking statments, bills and develops a family budget before the movie is over.

My heart sank. I know I'm not perfect. I see stuff, I often buy it. I'm overly genreous sometimes sharing or gifting things. Our new house has perhaps turned me into a monster. But nothing I buy is designer, top of the line, straight out of Southern Living. I work so hard to find it on sale or discount. I live at Hudson's for heaven's sake. But that is exactly my problem. Because it's on sale....I think, it's ok!

For the first time I feel like peer pressure has moved upon me. When friends or family or the neighbors say stuff like:
"it'll look great when you get your shutters up"
or
"have you thought about what kind of curtains or rugs you want?"
or
"let me know if you want to paint more and I'll come help"

my brain says to me.....

"ooh you need to go ahead and buy those valances for the living room"
or
"maybe I do need to paint..."
or
"I need to buy the first rug I find on sale" YOU GET THE POINT!

In my quest to finish everything with the house lately, I've been doing it a little here and a little there. This is driving Stephen CRAZY! $10 here. $7 there (even if it's on SALE) Adds up.

I'm not building some crazy mound of debt. But I'm not adding to the savings account either! I was just beyond me that the mere mentioning of debt and shopaholics annonmyous sent him in to a budgeting tither!

So I held in there....reviewed his budget and went to bed. Calm. Cool. Collected. I can do this! I need to do it. Stephen isn't being some kind of big mean restrictive man, he's looking our for us our lives and stabilitly. Luckily I work too, or else I have a feeling I wouldn't be able to justify what I do spend.

So I recognize that if I spend everything I want now, I'll never get to saving for the European vacation that I want or be able to go hog wild when we start the nursery. I did it, I tightened up for the last year with the goal of our house. It was easy to save when you didn't have room in the apartment to bring anything home to. For now...I get it and I love him for it. Yet, I admit it won't be easy to stick to the plan. Because the last thing on my mind before I went to sleep was... "what am I going to buy with my $25 house decorating allowance?"

Post Wedding Day #95

I have no clue where time goes. The last 100 days before our wedding felt like eternity! And yet, the last 95 have flown by.


The last 10 days have been pretty exciting for me! Thanksgivng in Stringer was nice. My parents came down, Aunt Barbara & Uncle Doug, Julie & Scott, Aunt Jane (who is in a better mood), Ken & Diane and Jon! It was nasty rainy weather most of the weekend.

Saturday Stephen and I went to watch the Iron Bowl and to a Bowfire concert. It was so awesome!

Sunday we unpacked our Christmas wreath and Advent wreath, with anticipation for a small tree. We weren't sure we'd have room for a big one. I hung lights over the dining room table! Our little apartment isn't much to decorate but we're making the best of it!

Monday Lauren gave birth to a health 8lb 13oz baby boy! William Hunter Raborn! Our new Godson! We're so excited. I drove down and back on Monday night just to see him!


Last night we got a 3' artificial tree from Stephen's mom to put on the hearth it's kinda pitiful looking. I have about 10 ornaments and 2 strings of lights on it. I hope we'll get more ornaments this year, especially since it is our first Christmas together.

I'm looking forward to Christmas and the rest of the holidays! We both get two weeks off! And have plans to see friends and family!

Well that's the up date for now...sorry life has been too busy to take time and share!

Top 10 things I love about being married for 10 days!

Ok so we've been married for 10 whole day now! Yippee!




It's been such a blur....so here's my 10 favorite things about being married so far in the last 10 days.


10. The wedding is over. It was grand! but it's over!
9.Handing over all my mail and bills to Stephen!
8.The extra little silver band on my left hand.
7.Room service on the honeymoon. And well the honeymoon itself was awesome!
6.I have to admit the bedroom part is kinda fun!
5.Being called Mrs. DeAngelo by EVERONE...ok that's good you can stop now.
4.Seeing Stephen wear his ring!!
3.Changing my last name on my emails, door, nametag, signature card, etc.
2.Seeing and sharing all the wedding pictures!
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1.Waking up next to Stephen EVERY morning!

Life's not perfect and marriage doesn't make it that way either. I can recognize that. But this all sure beats being long distance for 4 years. I don't care what anyone says.

The wedding was everything I dreamed of! We're starting to post picture links on our website so check it out! www.evelynandstephen.com We'll add others especially pro pics later on as they come in.


Thanks again for all the love and support. I can't wait for the next 100 years with my best friend.

Today...and two days to go??

Well the stress is wearing off. I think I've reached numbness...I'm running on adreline and cranberry juice. No vodka I promise.

We've packed our honeymoon luggage and our weekend luggage. No I'm trying to move things upstairs in the event of a flood. But I'm convinced the more I move upstairs that the roof is going to blow off. Just my luck.

We're driving to NOLA tonight to pick up Jen at the airport. An odd but short minivacation for us. There and back.

Tommorow morning we pack up at the DeAngelo's house and head north. Evacuate to our wedding. Who would have ever thought?

My parents left tonight and are picking up Dawn my sister at the airport in Bham tonight as well.

I dunno if I've told you that my brother Timmy made me the most amazing prayer bench for us to use at the wedding and keep in our home afterwards. It's probably one of the most special gifts I could have ever recieved. I'll have it for years to come and it's handcrafted. Not off a registry but with his own blood sweat and tears. That makes me smile to think about my family what little true family I have left that way.

OK well I gotta run but that's my update for the day.

I hope to add one more before the wedding, but if not...

It's been grand. I've loved our dating, engagement and last 100 days and I'm ready for the next 5 years!

Thanks for all of YOUR love and support! I'll definately post some wedding pictures here.

Later,

The future Mrs. Stephen DeAngelo!

What were we thinking???

I cannot belive that we planned our wedding during hurricane season???? We were more worried about football season that hurricanes? Ok so since 2005 the Gulf Coast has been recovering from the Big K...and have yet to have to deal with another miserable hurricane season. Never fear though, because if there's a time for it to happen. It's definately going to be the weekend of our wedding.

Granted, my worries are not that our outdoor chapel will have rain blowing sideways thruogh it on Sunday afternoon. I'm pretty sure we're going to be good to go with the wedding. It's everything else that concerns me.....

Like the fact that we'll be in Birmingham/Cancun when the storm hits. Our house will be here alone, will all my newly moved boxes, unpacked and on the floor.

While on our honeymoon, if Cancun is spared and giving that we're even able to fly there. We'll be thinking about our home, our friends and our families. Instead of enjoying bliss. And if it's bad....dear God please don't let it....we'll be staring at the TVs thinking about it 24/7.

So either way..there's something on my mind.

In other news, I just can't belive that there is only 4 days left! 4 jelly beans!!! and a million things to do!

We've had changes in the wedding party, music and have yet to make things like the programs....it's all going to happen I'm convinced. In what form or fashion, I really don't know.

I guess for now I'll just say how lucky I am to know that we're going to have the wedding with or with out the hurricane. It's just after the wedding part we have to figure out.

Any advice for preparing for the hurricane/wedding/honeymoon/mental breakdown?

Eight Crazy Nights!

No we're not celebrating Haunnaka but we have been preparing for Hurricane Faye. Like I mentioned yesterday, I'm not so much stressed about the wedding right now as I have been about moving and other things.

This storm upped all of that about 100%. Not only am I hurrying to move things before it starts raining, but I'm moving a good portion of them in the downstairs part of the townhouse, in a location that is prone to flooding. Great, just great.

Good news is that we were very productive on Friday. Not only with the moving but Stephen and I both got our hair cut. We also made time to go to downtown Mobile and get our marriage license!!! It was so sweet when we arrived a Marine and his lady dressed in cute white summer dress had just gotten married.

So we filled out all the paperwork, signed our names, raised our right hands (yeah I dind't know that was part of it?!?!?) and got our marriage license. The lady specifically handed the license to me and gave me the instructions. Then she handed Stephen a work book with his name on a big label and told him to READ IT! It was a marriage prep book that is distributed by Extension of all things! It was fun. Then since it was such a beautiful day we went and wandered around Spanish Park.








Ha! Any one notice how similar this is to our Olympic Park engagement pictures? Guess we have a thing for water fountains!

Ok so the rain starts tommorow....got your floaties on?

10...

Dear friends and Fam...

It's the big ONE OH.....ONLY 9 JELLY BEANS LEFT IN THE BOX!

Ten days to go! I don't even know what to say today. I can't think about the wedding, my mind is bogged down with the stress of figuring out how to move out of my apartment, finishing my grad school assignments, and all the end-of-year reports for work and new club meetings!

Now Faye is making our lives wet, dark and semi-miserable until mid-next week.

Any stress advice? I know the wedding is going to happen. Is it weird that I'm almost not worried about it?


pulling out my hair,

E