Our First Trees

Owning a home is really fun! (Expensive, but fun).  This weekend has been chore-central at our house.  Not only are we in crunch-time for all of the wedding stuff, we also have to find time to pack for our honeymoon, and finish with all of our "to-do's" for the house. 

We planted our first trees this weekend, and I am so excited to watch them grow!  They are Mexican Fan Trees.  Supposedly they will produce medjool dates when they get older - I'd love that!

When we get back home from our trip, hopefully we'll be able to plant a few other things.  We'd like to get a garden started soon!

Other than these two trees, our backyard is still quite bare.  I don't know why the previous owners never planted any trees.  We do have two huge oak trees in the front yard, at least.

And now, I present to you the newest addition to our backyard:

The Unexpected

I wrote before about all of the wedding planning bloopers that have come up during our 9 month engagement.  Well, there've been more, but they're all inconsequential if you really think about it.  Not all of them are directly wedding-related, but it's sh*t you don't expect when you're trying to plan "one of the happiest days of your life".

Two weeks ago, I was let go from my job.  It's still sinking in and all of the emotions start swirling around in my head every night as I try to fall asleep.  It was unfair, unwarranted, and completely unexpected.  They did it on Monday morning of the week we were supposed to close on our new house.  Which, if you've ever bought a house before, is not a good thing.  It ended up working out okay, but we did have to extend our mortgage term, thus increasing the interest rate.  But, we still qualified and that's what's important.

So, we bought a house last week!  And it proved to be a pretty good distraction to keep me from thinking about being unemployed.  This weekend, Austin's mom came to visit and I hardly even thought about being jobless.  But now she's gone, and Austin's back at work, and it's easy to start feeling awful again, wondering what I'm going to do with my future.

Of course, luckily, I have one other small distraction, the wedding and our honeymoon!  I'm just worried that I'm not going to be able to fully enjoy it all because I'll be freaking out about all the money we're spending in just a few short days!

I've always struggled with looking at things in a positive light.  It's something I'm working on, though.  Perhaps God just wanted to give me a little break.  I'll admit, it's nice having a bit of time to get unpacked and settled in our new house.  Also, now I'll be able to go to my parent's house a few days early and straighten out all of the last-minute wedding details.

Everything always works out for the best, and I know this to be true.  Sometimes my mind likes to play tricks on me and convince me that I'm just a huge failure and always making a mistake.  I'm not.  I try my best every single day to be successful, and I'm going to make it.  And my future husband?  He'll be right there beside me.

Buying a Home

After months of searching, and two failed attempts at the contract-signing stage, we've reached a mutually agreeable price on a house!  It's been a stressful process, and I can't help but be a little nervous that something else might go wrong, but I am just so excited!

It has a pretty kitchen with granite countertops, brand new appliances, plenty of cabinets, and a large pantry!

One of our must-haves was a fireplace.  Even though we live in Houston, we still love to cozy up next to a warm fire in the wintertime, on the rare occasion that the temperature drops below 40.  And check out the nice wood floors - installed throughout the living room, entry and dining room!

We really wanted a big yard, for Dozie to be able to run around and play in.  We both fell in love with this 12,000 sqft lot!  It backs up to a quiet park with a walking trail, so there are no neighbors behind us.  Of course, the landscaping needs some work: we've got to get some trees planted, and Dozie's petitioning for a squirrel-feeder...

Hopefully everything will be smooth-sailing from here on out - our closing date should be mid-March.  Just in time for us to move out of our apartment before the lease ends.

It's going to be a busy month!  And then we're getting married in April! Woohoo :)