Random talk thread!

[TooPatient]

I'm sitting under a dryer. Not sure what she is working towards but she just painted me with a color. Talk of layers and stuff too!

Pics when done!

 

[audball]

I'm sitting under a dryer. Not sure what she is working towards but she just painted me with a color. Talk of layers and stuff too!

Pics when done!

Well!?!!

 

[TooPatient]

I'm sitting under a dryer. Not sure what she is working towards but she just painted me with a color. Talk of layers and stuff too!

Pics when done!

Well!?!!

I LOVE it!

It looked great the first 10 minutes after and then it looked a bit goofy until the curls settled down some. She just used the iron to add some curls after she was done so it will be straight again by tomorrow, but it is fun having curly hair for a day!

The highlights she put in were more than highlights but less than a full out color. She did such an amazing job getting them to look natural and just subtly different from my natural color that DH hasn't even noticed that she did any color.

I've got to get dinner started but back with pics soon!

 

[audball]

Where's our picture!?!

 

[TooPatient]

Okay!

Got super busy Friday when DH needed some help with some stuff and "A" let me know people were coming over to stay Saturday night (I suggested but hadn't heard back...).

Living room full of teenage girls now so here goes! (In other words, I've got to be awake to get the dogs settled in and make sure the allergic to cat girls don't have a problem so I'm stuck up for another couple of hours )


Before picture is from October e-pics. My hair was longer than that when cut. Hung down covering full chest and then some. Past pant waist line in back.

After was taken just about 6 hours after cut. (Curls are gone now). DH didn't know it had any coloring done until I mentioned.

 

[audball]

Pretty! Must be refreshing to get some length off!

 

[TooPatient]

Pretty! Must be refreshing to get some length off!

Thanks!

It is SOOOOooo much lighter! Sort of strange showering and washing such short hair again.

 

[audball]

I know the feeling, I remember getting 5+ inches cut after the wedding and the hair washing is the weirdest!

 

[audball]

Don't forget to add you week 14 photo from last Friday!

 

[TooPatient]

Don't forget to add you week 14 photo from last Friday!

Gah! That is what I forgot!

Hmmm.... Guess I'll have to go play in our wedding pics and find one

 

[audball]

 

[TooPatient]

No dance picture for us. We took classes to get ready but ended up not having any dancing.

I love that you guys had a first dance in your room! So sweet

 

[audball]

I remembered you guys were taking lessons!

We really wanted to do a first dance but DH thought it would be awkward to do just the two of us for pictures somewhere out in public. I agreed -- but wanted to do a dance anyway. He suggested we have a quiet few minutes to ourselves at the end of the day in our room and it was perfect

 

[TooPatient]

Interesting discussions today...

Friend from CA called and asked if I'm pregnant yet (the only one to have asked when we were going to). She thought it was silly that DH wants to wait until I'm done with school and things line up right. She made lots of sense!

So DH and I talked. He wants to figure out what we'd do for childcare, but thinks she made very good points that we'd overlooked before. Not the least of which is that I've got another 2 years (plus a bit) to finish school and then they bring the recruiters in to hire us into companies. That would be a great opportunity to get started and I'd hate to miss that. That pushed us out to something like 5 years or so before starting to try (unless something else came up that made the timing not so good).
It is exactly that sort of thinking that made it take 9 years before we got married!

I'm looking into childcare options to see what is an option for us. If we had a baby while I'm still in school, I could take a quarter off and then only need a few hours a day of childcare (or less). The school offers childcare to students.... at $1300+ per MONTH
After my transfer, we'd get priority admission to school childcare centers at "only" $1600 per MONTH
(They do sliding scale based on income, but DH's income alone puts us in the top pricing bracket )

We can't do that on just DH's income. Heck, I only made $1600/month when I was working 30 hours per week!

So I'm trying to find alternatives. All of our friends work. I suppose we could go the hourly babysitter route and hire various college girls on a quarter by quarter basis?

I'd like to figure it out, because if we were to have a baby in the near-ish timeframe I'd be able to take a quarter or two off and then by the time I was getting hired the kid would be about ready for a pre-school (give or take).

 

[audball]

OMG! That is big news. What were your friend's reasons that changed your mind? How's the potential future childcare search going?

 

[TooPatient]

Mostly came down to a reminder that there is always something that makes any time less than perfect.

They'll have recruiters from companies after I finish my degree so it isn't good to postpone starting work then.
I'm already not working so we wouldn't be losing my income for another couple of years.
I also did the math again and as it is DH will likely be 60 even if we started trying soon. Waiting another 3 or 5 or 10 years would only make him even older.

It was the waiting for everything to line up just right that had us together nearly 10 years before the wedding. I don't want a repeat of that.

Haven't done more childcare looking yet. Need to talk to the school centers and see what they suggest. Probably going to be a quarter by quarter thing with hourly babysitters. Can't really plan that ahead... But I can see what other people around here do.

 

[TooPatient]

Progress!
Would have to visit places in person and visit again when the time comes to be sure they are clean and safe, but looking at websites there are a few options around...

One place that seems nice charges $11/hour for "drop-in" but is dependent on space. Might be an option.
The owner has a degree as a medical assistant.

 

[audball]

I wish you the best of luck in finding out the best solution/timing for you!

 

[TooPatient]

OMG dinner was good!

I did a full brisket dinner for our Passover seders. It was SOOoo much work but SOOOOOOO yummy!!

Good news is we have enough leftovers that I won't be cooking again this week

 

[audball]

Yum!

 

[TooPatient]

I can't believe we've already been married 6 months!
I can't believe we've only been married 6 months!

After living together since 2005, it feels much longer than 6 months but it doesn't seem like that long ago that we were sipping wine and enjoying the gorgeous views at the winery.

 

[audball]

Happy 6 month anniversary! I was just thinking last week that our 6 month was coming up and I couldn't believe it. It was shocking to me that it's already been 6 months and yet *only been* 6 months. I've been happy every single day and love our married life together. I'm so glad we didn't wait another year to get married for the big party -- our elopement was *perfect* and I can't imagine having done it any other way.

 

[TooPatient]

I'm feeling better about childcare. Got some good options. Finances will always be a worry because there are so many unknowns in life. We're always having some appliance die or needed house repairs (like the $2600 chimney repair and partial rebuild we just discovered we have to have soon). Nothing to do there but pay down what little debt we have and re-build savings. We've always been fine before so this isn't a huge stressor.

I am super worried about "A". She seems to be doing great and then has a period of lying/manipulating including stuff as serious as starting a fire in the microwave. She is of an age where I should be able to trust her to help a bit with a baby (supervised at least yo start. She'll be 15 this summer. I just worry that she may do something either intentionally or accidentally to injur a baby. She's still so careless that she can't even do basic stuff in the kitchen... She nearly impaled DH on a butcher knife the other day when I asked her to put away dishes...
I don't ever want to be in the position of blaming her (and myself) for injuring a baby.

Eh.
We'll go with it as it comes. For all I know, she'll be done with high school and off at college before a baby comes. Just on my mind as I want to make sure we do all we can to make her feel comfortable and not like 2nd best. I've been there and don't want her to feel that way.

 

[TooPatient]

DH just e-mailed me ideas of how to make a nursery in our already crowded house

 

[TooPatient]

DH just e-mailed me ideas of how to make a nursery in our already crowded house

 

[audball]

Sounds like your talks are progressing!

 

[TooPatient]

How did the interview go? Did he get the job?

 

[audball]

How did the interview go? Did he get the job?

Sorry, I forgot I didn't update here! The interview was bizarre and archaic. It was in two parts. The first part was a 15 page written booklet. The first part of the booklet was behavioral based interview questions he had to hand write out in essay format. They didn't provide him a pencil, thankfully he brought a pen with him. DH has terrible handwriting and was stressed about trying to be neat. He took way too much time trying to do that and didn't have time to finish. Of course, the end was more important as it was a mechanical assessment. He didn't have time to finish. The second part was the actually interview. They asked really weird questions and focused a lot on the potential future of layoffs and transfers to other offices (including international ones).

The next day he got an email that while his resume and interview were impressive, they weren't moving him on. I'm sure it was because he essentially failed the assessment portion because he didn't finish it and they probably couldn't read what he did finish.

Ultimately it sounds like it was a good thing he didn't get it, but it was still a disappointing and frustrating experience.

Back on the lookout.

In other news -- we have had more maintenance issues with our apartment and have definitively decided we are moving. We have an apartment at our preferred complex on hold but haven't signed anything yet. This unit met all of our preferences, but it has a move in of 5/30 and our lease isn't up until 6/30. We'd rather not have a full month in overlapping costs so we're waiting to see what the mid-late June options are before deciding for sure.

So we've been furniture shopping which is both fun and stressful!

 

[TooPatient]

Yikes!

I hate interviewing! Sorry he didn't get it, but it sounds like it is probably best to not be working for people who run interviews that way. Not to mention already talking about laying him off or moving him out of country! I hope he finds the perfect job in a great location

Maintenance issues in apartments suck. We had the WORST luck in the last couple of years in the apartment so I get the feeling of needing to move!

The highlights for us included a light fixture leaking water bad enough to need a bucket (we were ground floor...), broken sewage pipe under the building oozing out from under the bathtub (they refused to fix this as they claimed it was just condensation ) , flying ant infestation, and more. Oh.... and maintenance set the apartment above us on fire the day before the movers were supposed to get our stuff. (and all this for ONLY $2,300 per month )

A house is a lot of work and sometimes big expense, but at least we get to fix stuff right! (and our mortgage plus taxes plus insurance only comes out to a few hundred a month more than the apartment -- I might feel differently if apartments cost less around here)

 

[TooPatient]

I want to grow up to be like this couple: Ohio Couple

The love and friendship they had was amazing. I'm glad they had 70 happy years of marriage together. 8 kids, 23 grandkids, 43 great-grandkids.