Our bank is still reviewing all the documents we submitted to secure the mortgage, and they’ve assured me that we’re right on track, which means… very little. Still, it’s reassuring, and we’re hopeful that we close on our anticipated date. Our lawyer (gosh I just love saying that we have a lawyer. Feels so #richkidsofinstagram) is securing the title binder (which will turn into the title for our home when the sale is completed). And our insurance company is liaising with the bank to put our policy together. Other than a few emails to clarify certain questions, we haven’t had much to do on the home buying front.

We have been working though! We heard from a lot of people that the one thing they wished they’d done before moving in was refinish the floors, so we got a couple estimates and put a deposit down to have the living room, dining room and hallway floors sanded and stained. The process takes 3-4 days during which time the floors are off limits, so we figured, what better way to use the grace period between when we own the house and when we no longer have a claim on our apartment.

We found movers! I used Yelp to find a father-son company in Jersey City with good reviews, and they gave us an estimate I liked, so we scheduled them. We also picked up some paint chips and are currently planning on painting three rooms. We’re waiting to see what they look like in the house before we make a final decision. We also took care of some minor things like scheduling a TV/Internet/Phone installation date.

We both have a million items on our to-do lists of little projects we’d like to undertake in the new home, but right now, our real life task list looks like this:

• Follow up with our apartment management group to see if they’ve found new renters to assume our lease.
• Keep in touch with the bank to keep our loan on track
• Pick up boxes, tape and bubble wrap
• PACK!
• Get a certified check from the bank for the total amount due at closing
• Perform a walk-through of the house (final inspection)
• Close on that bad boy!
• Meet and pay the floor guys
• Paint
• Meet and pay the movers
• UNPACK
• Relax?

So, yeah there’s still a long way to go, but we’re getting closer every day.

I’m by no means an expert, but I have been learning a lot as we go along, so I hope to wrap this whole series up with a few tips that have helped me get through this (relatively) painlessly. We’re almost there!

• I’ve worn skirts twice this week! That’s a 100% increase over the past several weeks. Warmer weather, can you please stick around? PS- we are still totally sure that the first “crazy hot” weekend of the year will be our moving weekend.
• Speaking of the move, I’ve had to (sometimes literally) sit on my hands to avoid getting ready. It’s really too early to begin doing anything (when you live in a one bedroom apartment, you use most of what you own on a daily basis so packing more than a couple days in advance is problematic) but I’m absolutely itching to get started. I have this belief that if I can just start early enough, maybe instead of being stressful this move will be all unicorns and rainbows. I think I might just have to come to terms with the fact that all moves are stressful. Always.
• On the upside, I’ve been really into weight workouts lately, and considering it’s been like 3 weeks since I started doing them regularly, I’m probably totally jacked right now. I might not have to hire movers after all.

I’ve been loving these three in particular:

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest

• We went to my littlest sister’s dance recital Wednesday night, and I was blown away. First of all, how did this tiny baby manage to turn into an almost teenager overnight? Seriously? Secondly, how is it even possible that she has more grace in her little finger than I have in my whole body? I mean, really.
• I want to go to the zoo. This has nothing to do with anything except I saw a picture of a giraffe the other day, and I realized it’s been way too long since I saw some genuine, non-feline wildlife.
• I ordered these awesome housewarming invitations off Etsy weeks ago and finally got them printed and shipped yesterday. They are so, so great. I cannot wait to send them out!
• We going to a post-marriage wedding in a baseball stadium this  weekend. We’ve been to quite a few weddings in the last couple years and no two have even been remotely alike. It’s been so interesting to see everyone’s unique personalities shine through in the way they get married. It’s been a reminder that there is no right way or wrong way. If it makes you happy, just do it.

Happy trails!

We met up with Steve and Lindsey and got to celebrating. Steph, along with some of her friends and family (Lindsey too!) got some beautiful henna on their hands and feet from Umair’s very talented cousins. I was busy eating, as usual, so I didn’t get a chance to get henna’ed, but I’ve got quite enough ink already (according to my mom at least).

There were a few ceremonies that took place and a whole lot of dancing which I loved! Any chance to learn some new moves is seriously appreciated. We hung out for a while before heading back up to Jersey City for the night.

There were a few ceremonies that took place and a whole lot of dancing which I loved! Any chance to learn some new moves is seriously appreciated. We hung out for a while before heading back up to Jersey City for the night.

The next morning, I had grand plans of running to the finish line of the Newport 10k to meet up with some friends who were racing, but it was raining, and I was exhausted from the night before, so I figured I’d just drive over once the race ended. No sooner had I poured myself a bowl of cereal (note: this is how exhausted I was this weekend… I hate cereal for breakfast, but I ate it both days!) than I heard sirens and realized that the race actually runs right by our building!

I abandoned breakfast (and Chris, sorry!) and quickly threw on some pants before running downstairs to cheer. I was actually able to spot all my friends, which was just awesome!!

Chris and I did eventually get a 3 mile run in, but we didn’t get a snazzy police escort. Oh well.

After a run (and a shower and a nap) we got dolled up to head back down to Central Jersey for the Nikkah. The ceremony was lovely. The moments between Umair and his mom were really touching, and Steph looked so absolutely beautiful! Her gown and veil were so ornate and spectacular.

We had a chance to give the happy couple our blessings and get a few pictures before they were escorted away to greet the rest of the well-wishers. We spent the rest of the night eating and dancing, and I even got to bust out some Gangnam Style. Sweet.

Sunday morning we were up with the sun for an early breakfast with my mom and Molly. We met them in North Jersey for eggs and pancakes then walked around debating if the weather was nice or not nice. It seemed like nature just couldn’t make up her mind.

http://instagram.com/p/ZNvELakRf5/

After parting ways with them, we hit the road to travel back to… you guessed it, Central Jersey! We both wished we had clocked our mileage for this weekend, as it might be a record for the year, but I’m gonna guess it was 12,000 miles. That sounds about right, no? Can you tell how good I am at estimates? Needless to say, we (and our car) are excited to move to the literal center of our little universe.

We stopped at Lowe’s to pick up paint chips to sample at the new house (!!) and price push mowers. It was super glamorous and sexy.

Actually, it was pretty fun, and I’m not sure why that place has a reputation for boring women to death. Everyone I know loves it! From there, we headed to David’s Bridal to pick up my wedding gown (because how often do you get to use the word “gown”?)! It was so much more exciting than I thought it would be. Just seeing it gave me butterflies, and I am at least 104% more excited for the wedding than I was prior to this.

I’m still so much further along in planning than I need to be (remind me of this smugness when we are two weeks out and I’m in tears. actually, don’t) so it made me laugh when we scheduled my alternations appointments for NEXT YEAR. That’s right. My beautiful gown will not even see the light of day for a year. I tried selling Chris on the idea of Wedding Wednesdays where I wear my dress every Wednesday from now until next July, but he didn’t think it was a good idea. Lame.

Thankfully, my wonderful mother-in-law-to-be (hyphen city!) is storing the dress for me, so we had a lot of fun ogling it before packing it away. It’s currently living in Chris’ childhood closet. That makes my heart happy.

As a thank you for storing my dress (oh and creating two wonderful children) we took mama out for dinner to celebrate. We actually took a few cute pictures, but none of them were on my camera, so you’ll just have to imagine our smiling (cold, because the weather was in fact, “not nice”) faces.

After a very minor car accident (we got rear-ended but were fine and the car has minor damage), we headed back up to Jersey City and promptly fell asleep at 9. No joke.

I hope your weekend was the right kind of exhausting too!

• I keep having this irresistible urge to stop time. I know this is going to be one of the best years of my life, and I want to remember EVERYTHING. It’s hard though because right alongside these huge, monumental events are these mundane everyday events like remembering to pack lunch and going through my pre-bedtime routine of putting everything away and refilling the humidifier. On the one hand, I’ve always praised myself on cultivating and maintaining such a structured and efficient day to day schedule, but on the other hand, I wish I could take back some of that brain power and use it instead on remembering exactly what it felt like to celebrate my second anniversary with my best friend knowing I get to MARRY him this year! I’d rather forget my lunch than forget what it felt like to try on 12 dresses with the most important women in my life. 
• We celebrated Chris’ birthday on Wednesday, and it was so much fun. I was giddy all day planning and scheming. I like other people’s birthdays so much more than my own.
• My wedding dress is ready for pick up! I am absolutely itching to start doing wedding things. I’m holding myself back because it’s too early, and I want to save my energy for those fabled frenzied last two weeks, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t drafted a toast for the rehearsal dinner and mentally pinned items to include in the guest bags. Contrast this desire to speed up time with bullet #1′s urge and you’ll be privy to my internal conflict of late.
• Pet ownership is a funny thing. In the same week I’ve found myself both googling “How much could I sell my rotten cat for?” and taking 100 instagram pictures of said rotten cat because he’s so damn cute.
• Eyebrows are another funny thing. After years of overplucking, I’m trying to “grow mine out” for the wedding. I feel like I need to tell everyone I meet that this is what I’m doing, and I’m not just some unkempt sasquatch. Generally I refrain. This is not one of those times
• I think if you have more people you love than time to spend with them you are both cursed and blessed. Though, mostly blessed. We are embarking on a busy season. It starts with our birthdays and ends with, I don’t know, Christmas? There are weddings and big moves and little moves and BBQs and day trips and weekend trips and beach trips and just general summer-ness. We find ourselves so busy most weekends that pretty much every Sunday night ends with, “Seriously, how is it 11:30 on Sunday night? Did you pick up any food for next week?” (Who am I kidding? I’m asleep at 10 on Sunday nights, but you get the idea). We are simultaneously thankful for all the people we get to spend time with and remorseful that we don’t get to spend more time with them. Like I said, it’s really more blessing than curse.

So, I guess time (and eyebrows and cats and cats with eyebrows)  is on my mind (yes it is). Happy Friday! Have an amazing weekend! Enjoy every (fleeting) second of it.

• Be really good about keeping a food diary.

Meh. I haven’t been too good about this. I think maybe I need to do a bit more research on it because I don’t find it really useful when I eat a meal with 7 ingredients and then get sick. It’s too hard to tell what caused the problem, and it makes me scared of all the foods. I’ll do the research and get back to ya.

• Ease up on the restrictions so I don’t lose my mind, but monitor my intake of “trigger foods.” 

See above. I’ve been eating more gluten, and there’s no obvious link to stomach issues. Still, I’m not ready to fully rule it out as a trigger. Maybe I’ll abstain for a few days then eat some gluten and see what happens. I’ve been really careful about lactose, spicy foods, and, unfortunately, chocolate. Again, it’s hard to tell if these things are really helping because some days are good and others are not.

• Stick to “safe foods” in a flare situation.

This has been a biggie for me. I’ve made a couple significant diet changes that have really seemed to help. I find I always have problems with my stomach in the morning and afternoon. I have this theory that it takes my stomach a long time to “wake up” so even though I’m hungry first thing in the morning, anything I eat before 10am makes me sick. Also, I feel like sitting all day at work really irritates my digestion.

Because starting my day at 10 and walking around all afternoon is not an option I’ve been sticking to really bland food before dinner. I eat low fiber cereal or toast with butter or avocado most mornings with the occasional egg when I have the time. Lunch used to always be a huge salad or something else veggie based because I love that, but it was wreaking havoc on my guts (gross, sorry) so I switched to simple sandwiches, wraps or leftover dinner (minus the veg). Basically, I eat another low fiber meal.

I felt kind of crummy about this because there’s not a whole lot of nutrients to be found in white foods, but I think I found a solution. I starting “juicing” (I say “juicing” because I don’t have a juicer so it’s really just blending to a fairly fine consistency) 2-3 cups of spinach or kale with pineapple and orange juice. It tastes great, and it seems to be a lot easier on my digestive system than straight up raw veggies. I try to drink one a day in order to keep getting those vitamins. I also load up on veggies at dinner time. It’s not a perfect system, but it does seem to help.

• Learn to manage my stress and anxiety effectively.

Meh. No huge progress in this area. There’s a lot going on these days with the house and the wedding. I’d love to start doing more yoga because I find that really effective. Yoga in a class setting is super relaxing for me. Yoga DVDs? Not so much. I just can’t get as into it, so I’m waiting until we get settled in our new town to find a new place to get my ohm on. Otherwise, I’ve been trying a few little things here and there. When I feel stress coming on, I do a “full body evaluation” and try to release any tension I’m holding on to (usually in my jaw, shoulders and stomach). I also try and practice my deep breathing every few days.

• Explore alternatives.

None so far. Again, I’m waiting to find an acupuncturist in our new locale. It didn’t make sense to me to try and find someone in Jersey City if I won’t be here much longer. I’m still totally on board with the idea though. I’m also taking 1-2 probiotics daily, and I can definitely notice a difference on days I forget to take any. Those expensive little pills are wonderful!

• Maintain a regular exercise schedule.

I’m doing great in this area! Since choosing not to do the half marathon, I’ve felt so much more enthusiastic about working out. I don’t worry as much about being too sore to do a long run or getting injured, so I’ve been running, lifting or biking pretty much every day. I do think it helps. At the very least, it makes me tired enough to get a good night’s sleep which is always good.

So that’s where we stand. Since the colonoscopy I’ve had more good days than bad, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m beginning to trust my body again, and it’s giving me enormous peace of mind. That being said, I’m still sick more often than I’d like, and it’s still discouraging. I’ll have a week of good days then find myself sidelined for a weekend. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s frustrating, but I’m forging ahead and hoping for the best.

Chris, you are so kind and wonderful. You make so many people smile every day. I hope today is perfect for you because you deserve it. Happy Birthday!!

Saturday we had our much anticipated and not at all sexy oil tank inspection at the house. We passed! Hurrah! One more obstacle cleared on the way to home ownership.

After that, we celebrated this cute guy’s birthday at… Barcade! I wonder if he planned on wearing that shirt.

He even got a high score!

Sunday was spent mostly recovering followed by a huge birthday dinner at Chris’ parents house.

We’ve got a lot coming up, so it was nice to spend some time just being silly. On the horizon we have:

• Chris’ birthday!!
• two non-traditional weddings on back to back weekends (wedding season has started!! yay!!)
• double the Mother’s Day
• MOVE IN DAY!!

I feel like maybe I’m forgetting something, but I’m sure it will come to me.

• ONE. The final pieces of the spire are going up on One WTC. It’s been a fun week at work, and I have to admit, I got a little choked up when I caught a glimpse of the skyline yesterday. 

• TWO. I have zero regrets about deciding to skip the half. My feelings may change this weekend when I see a zillion facebook posts about the perfect race weather, but so far, I feel so much more relaxed having opted out.
• THREE. On a similar note, my workouts have been really good this week. I feel free to do whatever I want, and that’s resulted in two great runs and two weight sessions. I also woke up early for two of those workouts, which hasn’t happened in FOREVER.
• FOUR. I had my first bit of wedding drama yesterday. I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and it sent me into a panic where I contemplated (am still contemplating) buying a different dress. Thankfully, I have wonderful friends and family, so the crisis was mostly adverted.
• FIVE. Buying a house is so surreal. It’s such a long process with so many ups and downs and unknowns, that there’s never really a good time to get excited. People laugh at how nonchalantly we say, “oh we bought a place,” but really you have to maintain a flat affect throughout because it’s all just so tenuous. We are *hopefully* in the home stretch, and I will be drinking a bottle of champagne once those keys are in hand.
• FIVE point FIVE. These surprise anniversary flowers are so beautiful, and they make the entire room smell like heaven. I am a lucky lady.

The plan:

• Monday- 2 easy miles
• Tuesday- rest
• Wednesday- 5 miles; 3 @ 9:30
• Thursday- 2 easy miles
• Friday- rest
• Saturday- 9 miles
• Sunday-rest

The actual:

• Monday- 2 miles in 21 minutes; avg pace 10:30. 
• Tuesday- 2 miles in 19 minutes; avg pace 9:32. I just wanted this run to be over faster, and I was on the treadmill, so I just kept upping the speed. It was fine, but I was exhausted, so it’s very safe to say I will not be able to maintain the predicted 9:45 minute miles during our race. I think we’re looking at 10:45s. I finished this workout with some deadlifts, weighted squats and lunges, and some core work. This will likely be the last weight stuff I do before the race because it still makes me so sore for days!
• Wednesday- rest; played a little lacrosse and took a walk with my sister and their dog.
• Thursday- rest; met my mom for a super early sushi dinner then slipped into a food coma for the rest of the night.
• Friday-3 easy miles.  
• Saturday- 13 mile bike ride. Saturday was gorgeous! Definitely the best day of the year so far. Chris and I dusted the bikes off and took them for a nice ride up the waterfront to Hoboken and back for some tacos in the park. Perfect.

• Sunday- 5 easy miles. Clearly not 10 miles. More below.

So Chris and I decided not to do the Long Branch Half Marathon. Our hearts were never really in it. We were doing it because we had $200 in non-refundable race fees hanging over our heads. Looking at the logistics of the race weekend we decided it was going to be more hassle than it was worth to us right now. We’d still love to do this race someday, but for now, we’ll probably just do a nice long run next Sunday instead.

This weekend was so wonderful, I didn’t want it to end. Alas, rainy Monday is here, so I’ll have to settle for reliving it through pictures.

Friday night, Debbie and Mike took us to a place in Cranford they’ve been raving about call A Toute Heure. It’s a farm to table restaurant tucked away in a cute little house in the middle of a neighborhood, and it’s wonderful! Their menu changes daily, and the staff is so friendly and helpful.

Chris and I shared a pot of mixed olives to start.

For my main course, I had a huge pot of mussels with feta cheese and pesto in a delicious garlic broth plus a side of fries.

Even though I was about ready to burst at the seams, Chris and I decided we had to split the hazelnut pudding.

Wow! Just looking at the pictures makes me hungry all over again.

Saturday was beautiful and perfect, and I seriously hope the spring weather is here to stay.

Sunday wrapped up the weekend with a day I had been anticipating for weeks… dress shopping! One of my bridesmaids lives in Chicago, so when I found out she would be in town this weekend, I knew I had to try to get everyone together for some dress shopping. I emailed the moms and all the bridesmaids and everyone was free, so we were on!

I told Chris and the bridal party that there was no way that I’d be buying a dress. The wedding is over a year away, and I only had a small idea of the type of dress I wanted.

Along with my mom and little sister, my middle sister Annie drove up from Maryland for the day. Chris’ mom came along too! How lucky am I to have all these beautiful ladies in my family?

All my bridesmaids were able to come too!

I picked out 5 dresses that were all very similar, and the consultant at David’s Bridal picked out 5 more. Molly also requested that I try on at least one “poofy” dress (I’m more interested in sheath style gowns), so I probably tried on close to 11 dresses.  I fell in love with the first one, and just couldn’t shake it. Many dresses later, everyone agreed that while there were definitely a few beautiful dresses, nothing could top the first one.

So, I bought a dress.

http://instagram.com/p/Yss1aEpeYi/

This isn’t it, silly. I won’t be posting it on the internet for a while. This was one of the contenders. It was a little too white and a lot too strapless for me.

I know it sounds kind of crazy that I bought the first dress I tried on during my first appointment over a year away from the wedding, but it makes a lot of sense to me. I generally have a pretty good idea of what I want. I’m a “know it when I see it” type, and I knew this was the one.  I’m happy to have found my dress but sad that it was over so quickly! I guess this just means I have a lot of shoe shopping to do, right?