How to Clean 90 Year Old Dirt

As I've mentioned, the house we're renting was built in the 1920s. It is, of course, very old. A lot is original, like the molding, doors, jalousies, etc. Some is "newer" like the kitchen cabinets added in the 1950s, and the random wood paneling added on two walls circa 1960s. I'm going to guess this place has had like a million tenants.

Anyway, my parents came today to help us clean it up and get ready to move our stuff in. We had a plan to wipe down the cabinets, lay shelf paper, and hang curtains in a few hours. After some digging, we discovered that the cabinet makers were lazy and simply put up the cabinets over the original wallpaper. This was covered by project board cut in haphazard squares. We decided to pull off the paper--floral paper glued to burlap glued to the wood plank wall. There were plenty of roaches and dirt and grime. Several applications of cleaners later we were still wiping up dirt. We then decided to varnish all of the cabinets and that wooden wall to seal in the 90 year old dirt and hope for the best. It was an ordeal, we were there like 10 hours!

It's quite a first home for us, and at the risk of being too metaphorical, quite a parallel to our relationship. Some hidden, grimy things that with a lot of work became a beautiful piece of both of us. Awww...

How to Nest

Many pregnant women talk about the impulse to nest--you know, get a nursery ready, buy stuff for their new family, etc. I think perhaps some engaged couples have the same impulse, especially right before the wedding. My theory is that in general we feel so all over the place that it makes us feel better to buy or receive stuff that will go towards creating our first home. Or at least that's what I'm saying to make me feel better about how much fun we have accruing stuff.

My FH's former church in his hometown threw us a shower this weekend. It was overrun with very nice people I had never met, who all gave us lots of stuff. And we played the old standard game of making a wedding dress out of toilet paper, only this time the men were models.

I've also been thinking about how our pasts come in together. Obviously our current lives have meshed well, but we're still learning about each other before we met. This weekend was a good window into the history FH had before me. There's really a lot to this becoming one thing, and I quite like it.

How to Dazzle with Your First Dance

So in preparation for our first dance together at the reception, my FW and I have been taking dance classes. We spent 4 weeks in a beginner ballroom class and are now almost finished with our four week "Romantic Sway" class. We will be waltzing across the dance floor to plenty of oohs and aahs.

The ballroom class has prepared us for our future Dancing with the Stars appearances. You may think that we don't really have star power, but maybe you have never watched the show. Real stars don't have time to dance. I couldn't tell you who most of the people on the show are or why I should care about their dancing ability. Anyway, we learned the basic steps of the waltz, rumba, foxtrot, cha-cha, tango, and jitterbug in our ballroom class. The romantic sway class has been teaching us turns and dips and all sorts of impressive looking moves for our first dance. Get your cameras ready folks.

I never really pictured myself taking a dance class, but it has been enlightening. One thing I learned is that men apparently are unable to follow a simple two-step rhythm, at least that is what one of our instructors said. Maybe the Y chromosome has an anti-dance gene on it. That sounds scientific and easily provable. I happen to take pride in the fact that even though I am not totally graceful, I can always find the beat. I think it comes from all those years of marching band.

It has also been fun to hear what songs other people are using for their first dance. There are the predictable-in-a-make-me-want-to-vomit-sugary-sweet type songs like "God Blessed the Broken Road." (Is there an emoticon for gagging?) One of the songs is in a completely different language, sounds Japanese to me, pretty cool I might add although it does not have a regular beat. We will be dancing to Cole Porter's "Night and Day" as sung by the amazing Ella Fitzgerald. It is a little more upbeat, so it is really fun to dance to. Plus, it doesn't make me want to vomit.

On a related note, there will be no "Chicken Dance" at our reception. I know it is often the highlight of the night, so I thought I should warn you now lest you be disappointed later.

How to House Hunt

Currently, we live two blocks from each other in a very cool neighborhood with no zoning. Thus, we refer to it as the "all rent district"... government subsidized housing next to million dollar homes. It's quite unique. We wanted desperately to stay in said neighborhood when we moved into a new place.

We had certain criteria on top of location. We've given up driving whenever possible so our new home had to be in walking or biking distance of most everything. We were also looking for a yard for our dog (or at least a place that would accept dogs... that was tricky). We wanted a porch, a place to store our bikes, a washer/dryer, enough room for my at-home workspace, and oh, yeah, a low, low price.

We used a realtor and good ol' craigslist to come upon our awesome place. Ironically, it's around the corner from our church. It's the bottom floor (we have an upstairs neighbor) of a 1920s Victorian house and met every single requirement we had. No dishwasher, but since FH will be doing the dishes and he doesn't care about that, no worries.

I'm not really into urban renewal and gentrification. I understand tearing down beat up, abandoned houses that really can't be saved. But getting rid of perfectly quality houses just because they aren't new just makes me sad. My grandmother is the last original owner on her street, having lived in her house over 50 years. Two-story new construction houses are going up around her, and I want to stand in front of the wrecking-ball so her house won't go down.

Anyway, back to our house. Our upstairs neighbor has lived there a while and told us some of the history (I love history!). Apparently our neighborhood was the site of a very large state fair back in the day, and he assumes our house (which looks identical to many on the street from the same era) was a boarding house for folks who spent a few weeks at the fair. Given the extremely odd layout of the place, that makes sense. He's also convinced it might be haunted, but I don't believe in ghosts, so we're good.

It's so fun to imagine the stories of the lives of people who have lived in our place the past 80+ years. What a story to build on for our first home together.

How to Shower

So apparently when you get married, people give you a lot of parties. That's really fun!

Today was the first of "shower season," as I'm calling it. Our church hosted a couples' shower for us and it was a lot of people I love in one room. One of my bridesmaids took the day off work yesterday to prepare gourmet desserts, including drawing our monogram in icing on the cake. Her husband actually torched the creme brule right before the party started. Minus a slight malfunction of the chocolate fountain, it was all pretty perfect.

We played the "Newlywed Game" which tests trivia like the first movie you saw together, your first kiss, etc. We got most of them the same, even "what's the most embarrassing thing you've done in front of your fiance"... FH answered "nothing she's perfect" and I had said "nothing, I'm too cool." Then we played a really awkward game where I was blindfolded and had to feel the hands of 5 different guys to see if I would choose my G2B. Sadly, I chose my BSIL, thinking it was my FH. Talk about awkward...

Of course opening gifts was fun... FH didn't know about the tradition that for how many ribbons you break, you are going to have that many babies. Who makes up these rules? Most of the gifts were from our registry, with a few exceptions. One was a set of sheets from my FSIL who doesn't do registries, as she explained (fortunately she has great taste!), and another was vegan banana bread. We also got the exact same gift from two different people... the same cookie sheet and cook book. My parents started a tradition with my sister that she got 6 silk flowers 6 months before her wedding, then 5 flowers 5 months before, and so on. For me, my parents are giving me anniversary date ideas in the countdown to the wedding. This month it was a pasta pot and fancy pasta and sauce for us to make on our one month anniversary.

Really we're just very loved, and "showered" (sorry it was to easy) with affection and support.

How to be Stressed...ish

In my mom's experience as a wedding planner, the last 3 months before the wedding are the craziest. She warned me of this phenomenon, especially just after we were engaged and I thought planning our wedding was the greatest thing ever. It's still the greatest thing ever, but the life stress of all these changes is pretty intense.

Here's what we have going on:

1) FH graduates with his master's next week (hooray!).
2) I'm (sadly) leaving my job of 2 years in 2 weeks. My dissertation is not writing itself and I need to focus on it solely.
3) FH is looking for a job for next academic year and finishing his current job next week. Note that there will be a period of time when neither one of us has a job. Yikes.
4) We're looking for a place to live. Actually we found the perfect place, we're just waiting for final approval.
5) I'm moving in one month. Then I'm moving again in 2 months. And Eric's moving in 2 months. And finally after the wedding no one will move for a very long time.
6) Our small group is "multiplying". We are quite huge, so we are making more groups out of the large community group we have.
7) We are still, obviously, planning a wedding. Thankfully all the big stuff is done, it's just the little details and pulling everything together.

The funny thing is, I don't feel stressed most of the time b/c I'm so happy about my life. I do, however, have random breakdowns or get exhausted all of a sudden. Then I remember all that we have going on and remember that I'm stressed. :) But it's a good stress, a time of excitement and possibility and transformation that's weird and beautiful.