A Year

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'll try to make this quick... This has absolutely been the best year of my life. It had been extremely stressful at times, dealing with the drama that grad school, work, deaths and divorces in the family from a couple thousand miles away, and moving cross-country... Again. But dammit, it has been amazing :)

And all because of this girl. Cheesy? Yes. But she makes me smile. Every. Single. Day.

I've always been a happy person by nature, but Shrimp just makes every little part of my life better. Take, for instance, when I came home 366 days (it's a leap year!) after she worked up the guts to make things official. I came home to this...

On the front door

And on the living room wall

A whole slew of little notes she wrote about all "our little things." From our firsts to our favorites. I love this girl :)

~Tater

Our genius Ikea project (one of many)!

Well lately it seems like we are on our way to having an Ikea furniture/items filled house so why not go all out and give the cat an Ikea litter box, right?

 Inspired by something like this that we saw in a SkyMall catalog.

We got a great deal on a storage bench with 3 compartments in the "As-Is" Ikea section a few months ago. The genius idea that made us break down and purchase this was "We could so make one compartment hold (HIDE!) a litter box for the cat and we'll be litter box "free"! So we purchased it and spent a solid 30 minutes trying to make this huge box fit in Tater's Honda...which ended up w/ me in a super uncomfortable awkward position smashed under the heavy box and Tater laughing in the driver's seat.

Now, this piece of furniture sat in the box in the spare room for at least a month.  It wasn't until we found out that Tater's mom would be staying with us for a few days that I decided to put this thing together for her to have a place to put her stuff while she was here. So of course the morning of her arrival I started working on this project.  A few hours later it was all done even if I had a few pieces left over (crazy Ikea instructions...I mean who really knows how to read those things correctly?!) it looked great!

Look familiar?

 A few months pass by....still a great piece of furniture in our spare room, but still haven't had the time to turn it into a fully functional piece with a hidden cat box!

Then one February evening, after a few mimosas, we decided to pull out the Dremel Tater's mom bought us (best house warming gift ever!) and get started on this project!

After several broken dremel blades, more mimosas, a hand saw, mallet and determination we (mainly Tater) successfully cut out a square opening in the side of this wonderful Ikea wooden storage bench...and we immediately say "This damn cat is gonna have the coolest s!@* box in town"!"

 Tater thinking this is going to be a piece of cake.

 Me hard at work wearing my "safety goggles."

  We even made her a ramp.  We were so excited after we cleaned up our mess and put her litter box in the compartment and shut the door...surely this cat is going to love this!  NO.....not at all!  She. Hates. It! So now the litter box just sits beside it...FAIL!

After all that work and planning of our amazing idea...I'm just hoping she warms up to it soon!  If not...then like Tater says "Well, we can just put a blanket in the compartment and she'll have a really neat place to sleep and we'll be really sweet cat owners for making her a comfy hideout."

We'll keep our fingers crossed and start planning our next home improvement project...over mimosas of course.

~Shrimp

Missing People & Places

It's a funny thing, missing someone.  I don't really understand how or why it works, but it really starts to mess with you!  I've never been the type to get homesick.  I left home for college almost nine years ago and haven't spent much time under my parents' roof since.  I don't pick up the phone nearly enough to stay in touch with my far-flung loved ones (thank goodness for Facebook!), despite having a downright wonderful relationship with my family.

...But Shrimp leaves me on a business trip for less than a week and I am all sorts of flustered, disconnected and just plain functioning below par.  It doesn't help that this week a project I had been planning for since November finally had to be executed, or that I got sick, but come on, I should be able to handle this, right?  I mean, we've not even celebrated our first "official" anniversary yet, and for over half the time we've been dating we've lived 1000+ miles apart.  It's true, though, she's become a pretty important piece to the puzzle of my life.

It became apparent this afternoon when I was pulling in to the driveway.  I saw Shrimp's car and I got so excited.  That was right before I remembered she wasn't actually home yet.  I would have to spend one more afternoon with the beasts (the three dogs and a cat we have between us) and without my girl.  Ugh.  And that led into my longing for the good ol' days.  It was actually before we were even dating, when we were back in the town where we met.  We had an amazing dog park and we could just go there and run and be with the pups and each other.  It's hard to explain why it's such an amazing place, but if you have dogs you know how nice it is to be able to take them somewhere and not worry about leashes or cars, and to have a large expanse of land and trails to just go to.  The area where we live now has nothing like that. I.  Miss.  It.  (Note to self: Add "dog park" to list of needs at next residence.)

 The awesome park we all miss!

Well, enough of that.  Needless to say, I am extremely excited to pick Shrimp up from the airport tonight, even if it is really late and I have to be at work really early.  Just to have the comfort of her being home will be great... and she's not too bad at cuddling, either :)

~Tater

Meet the Neighbors!

Hi!

Nice to meet you.  We're Your New Neighbors!  You've probably noticed us struggling to maneuver Ikea boxes from the back of an SUV, chasing our dogs when they escape the front door, and racing to pull out the recycling bin as the truck pulls up on Tuesday mornings.  Yep.  We're painfully normal.

 But there's something a little different about us.  Sure, we're just a couple of girls trying to get by in the crazy race of life.  Somewhere along the way, though, we figured out how much better it would be to run the race together.  So here we are, hand-in-hand.

The intent of this blog is to document our adventures (and misadventures) and hopefully connect with a few amazing like-minded people along the way.

Have a great day!

~Your New Neighbors