Let's get moving

After signing oodles of paperwork yesterday, we got the keys to our new place free and clear! We went out with our pal Matt to a fab celebration dinner. All was fun until we realized only about 30% of our apartment had been packed. That's where we are now -- and the movers get here in a mere nine hours.

But now for pictures!

Greg's favorite part of the new place is the upgraded kitchen, yeah-yuh!

Apollo loves dark spaces, so he took to the boxes. Here he is slinking out after a nap.

But I'm sure he'll miss his first home a little, too!

Back to packing! We'll post pics of the new place once we get settled. :)

On being uncrafty and asking the gals

I'm far from being crafty. I can assemble Ikea furniture, but I'm too impatient and critical (and a shopaholic) to make things myself. I figure I'm keeping people who sew, knit, etc., in business! Etsy for the win!

Since the economy tanked, do-it-yourself projects (DIY) have become uber-common in the wedding sphere. "So, you love personalized napkins? Break out a screenprinting machine and do them for a fraction of the cost!" This works for people who like spending time doing crafty things and spending money buying crafty gadgets. I'm more of a "click and credit card" gal (at least I'm honest).

Unless it involves a computer. College exposed me to some desktop publishing programs, so I'll at least give real simple paper products a try.

Case in point? "Making" cute cards to ask my friends to be part of the wedding. I use quotes because I'm not really a DIY bride -- call me a resourceful one: I know when to leave things to professionals, but I'll do my darndest to still get a deal.

I bought a set of blank white notecards and envelopes from Target ages ago, thinking I'd make my own cards for holidays (my shopping side got the best of me, and I splurged at Paper Source). I came across a free customizable graphics service offered by The Wedding Chicks. The blog teams up with fab designers and presents the freebies in a super easy-to-use interface. Win and win.

I picked out the bicycle built for two design and spent a few minutes experimenting with colors. I simply changed my page setup in Microsoft Word to the notecards' size, added some cute dotted brackets and punctuation (go grammar!), and printed. Time spent: 20 minutes for the cards and about an hour to write memories and funny stories for my ladies on the back. :)

Ta da! (personal photo)

Though I know the cards weren't necessary, it was easy to do, the ladies loved them -- and who doesn't love getting snail mail?! The whole "We're getting married" thing really started to sink in as I wrote to my best friends how much they mean to me. It was a fun project that was great for all involved!

Our busy offseason

Greg told me last month that we love baseball so much that when it's over, we don't really know what to do with ourselves. It's no coincidence that our wedding blogging drought coincides with the lack of baseball. Not because we're lazy - we've been busy!

Our answer to being baseball-less seems to be: "Let's stress ourselves out with life changes." So, the news:

• October: We got a cat, who is doing great and is definitely a mommy's kitty.
• November/December: Spent the holidays in San Diego and San Francisco. (Recaps to come!)
• December: Greg graduates from grad school. No more night classes!
• January: Greg switches jobs and is loving data analysis at Capital One.
• Late January: We realize that since I love my job, too, we should look into the D.C. area housing market.
• February: Oh yeah, we have a wedding coming up. Let's start on invitations...
• Mid-February: We fill out miles of paperwork, I get stressed like crazy, we put an offer on a place in Arlington, Va., and it gets accepted!
• Currently: We're packing our apartment (ugh) and moving next week.

The best part? Opening Day for the Washington Nationals is the 31st, yay!

Now that the wedding's less than three months away, there will definitely be a lot of posts coming. And I changed the look of the blog. And I already have posts lined up. Let's play ball!