It has been so, so long since I wrote a real entry that I am completely out of the habit of figuring out how to put my thoughts into words. Which is sad. This is going to be a clunky post.
Okay, so OD is gone (or about to be). Not surprising, obviously, but it is a little sad. I started writing there a couple weeks before I graduated from high school and turned 18 (which happened on the same day), so basically, I've been writing there my entire adult life.
I'm not sure if I am actually sad - it had become frustrating to use, and I feel like part of me always lived in fear of waking up one morning and finding that the entire site had disappeared without warning and had taken all of my un-downloaded entries with it. It was time, I think. It had a good run.
Not quite sure how I feel about Prosebox - it seems pretty much just like OD - same layouts, same basic functions, same people, even - but with a nice, modern look. On the other hand, it seems like it does precisely nothing that OD didn't do (like does it seriously not let you upload pictures??), and OD has been around since 1998, so....I wouldn't say I'm super impressed.
Okay, anyway. This is a super boring entry.
Life has been generally good. Ethan and I bought our duplex, and we love it. We have downstairs tenants who pay 2/3 of the building's operating costs, which is great. We love it so much that we are actually in the process of buying another one - we are kind of like those couples who bang out four kids in super-quick succession, only we're doing it with investment properties. Most of the cash for the down payment for this one is coming from him, and I have to say I'm really impressed - I'm not going to quote dollar amounts here because I am writing publicly (for now), but it turns out he was sitting on a pretty significant pile of savings and investments that I didn't even know he had. Five years ago, when he started his current job, he was $2,000 in credit card debt, so he's done an awesome job.
He really doesn't care for his job, and our medium-term goal with buying these properties is to generate enough income that both of us have some more career flexibility, ideally enough to work part-time. It will be a few years (and we'll need at least one if not two more properties) before this is reasonable, but I think it's a feasible plan. The one we are in the process of buying is in a poor (and therefore cheap) neighborhood that is right along a light rail line that is opening in June. Our goal there was to buy something that would be priced according to today's rents, but in a location where rents are likely to go up in the near future - and I think we are probably going to do pretty well with this one.
So that's been exciting.
What with buying property and such, we decided to pull the trigger on getting married this year, and we are planning something for September. I am REALLY not a marriage-minded person, and for me personally, it really is little more than a legal thing that will make doing our taxes a ton easier. So I really don't want to have a big deal wedding or any of that, but I do want to have something where friends and family can come to celebrate. So after a lot of hashing stuff out with our families, we decided to have a small, private ceremony for family and superclose friends (we are each inviting two friends) and then a big picnic kind of thing in our backyard. Super chill. No wedding party, no wedding dress, no flowers, no centerpieces, no months of planning....that is exactly what I want.
I was really freaked out about telling our families about this, mostly because I was assuming they'd do the big YAY AWESOME LET'S FREAK OUT kind of thing, and I don't know why but I can't stand the thought of that happening. It would be fine if I thought of it as a big deal, but I don't, and it just seems like it would be embarrassing. So I told my parents when I was home for Christmas, and I made him tell his family over Christmas as well, when I wasn't there. I'm sure they thought that was super weird, but whatever. I asked him to tell them that we really don't want this to be a big deal, and they have been awesome about it - we went to have dinner with them a couple days after I was back from Christmas, and they just did a very simple toast to us when we cracked open the wine and that was it.
I wish I could say the same for my mom, but we spent half the time that I was home fighting over it (ugh, which is exactly the opposite of what having a small, simple wedding is supposed to achieve). I'm not even sure what we were fighting over - I was trying to tell her that I didn't want people to make a really big deal of it, and she somehow got the idea that I didn't want anyone to be happy for me, and got upset, and we both ended up crying over lunch one day. It was the. most. ridiculous. omgweddingdrama moment. It was like straight out of some awful Bridezilla/Mother of Bridezilla movie. I love my mom and we're close but there are areas where we understand the world in completely opposite ways, and this is one of them. Anyway, we mostly cleared stuff up by the time I left.
The main reason we decided to do this this year is because of all the property/finances/tax stuff, but one other thing we had been waiting for for a while was a realistic expectation that my dad would be able to be there - and it sounds like he might. At this time last year, he was just coming home from the nursing home. Today, he has lost 160 lbs. from where he was when he was hospitalized, he's getting around using a walker, he's leaving the house multiple times per week, he's off oxygen, he's off some medication he was taking for his diabetes... It's nuts. I never thought he would ever get to this point. And all he's done is follow an 1800 calorie whole foods diet (oh, and take an antidepressant, which has to be helping). It is nothing short of astonishing. I am so incredibly grateful to have this second chance with my family.
Okay, anyway. That was a super long first entry. I really will try to write more frequent, shorter posts.
Loading comments...