homeowners before the wedding?

Aaron has been looking at houses on the market for the last month or so. It started with normal house hunting, and then has moved to a few other options. The first was to buy a lot and build our own Tiny Home! Now, these are super cute, and very space efficient, but you buy the plans, and then build it (or have it contracted to be built). Aaron's not found too many lots for sale.

Then he started looking at remodeling a home. Apparently there is some remodeling loan that you can use to get your house all fixed up and stuff. It would add to the value of some old, dilapidated home, that is for sure. But then you couldn't live in it while it was being remodeled, so you'd be renting in your apartment and paying the mortgage at the same time. Yuck.

He was talking about a "green certified" remodeling, which would make the house more energy efficient, as well as get you some tax breaks. Things like solar panels, and who knows what else. I'm letting him do all the research and see if we can do all of this.

And now for some random fun:
Odin got into a bag of catnip this morning that I thought I had put away.

High as a kite, he is



OM NOM NOM NOM NOM



Showing off his stash


Rolling around in his 'nip



Now it's time for a nappy!

here's another one

Last night we had some friends over who we haven't seen in a long time, mostly due to lack of coordinating nights off during the weekend. Jamie and Karlie came over, we had some drinks, Aaron made stir fry / Kung Pao Chicken with rice, and we listened to old records, played laser beams with Odin, and sat around. It was a really good time.

Our friends Nathan and David came over just as we were finishing up dinner. Man, Odin REALLY hates Nathan, and we have no idea why. Nathan used to live with two cats, he's never been anything but nice to Odin, and as soon as Odin even gets close enough to smell Nathan, he'd start doing this weird growling thing as he tried to bite Nathan's hands. Bad kitty.

Eventually, we had to lock Odin in the bedroom in his bad kitty cage because he was just getting a little too wild and upset. I had set him up on the bookshelf, because he loves being up high, and then most people wouldn't be bothering him. It worked for a while, but Jamie had brought his camera over and wanted to get a picture of Odin for his Photo A Day blog. He got his picture, and now Odin is the feature for the day, but man, after about three snaps of the camera, Odin had enough of that!

Jamie told us about a wedding fair that he's going to have a booth at on Sunday (today), and that we should come. I'll be able to get some ideas on cakes and decorations, as I already have the dress, which is probably the FIRST biggest thing in weddings.

David sat in the chair and played Patapon with the big headphones on all night, so he was not so much the social butterfly, but I think he's just kind of a quiet guy.

The funny thing about the group in the apartment last night was that all of us lived in Spearfish, South Dakota at one time in our lives, many of us all at the same time. And now here we are, all in various suburbs of the Twin Cities. Small world, eh?

Odin is doing much better now, not so overstimulated, but he's still rotten to the core. To punish us for having other humans over, he pooped in the bath tub. Bad kitty. We're going to have to figure out a way to keep him from doing that. The other night, Odin had done the same thing, so that night, we filled the tub with about an inch of water, and then he used the toilet like he was supposed to. I guess we could just put water in the tub every day while we aren't actually using the shower. We'll need to get a different drain, because the one that came with the tub is very difficult to remove, which is why we never use it.

Work is still going well. They're really harping on us to have our tasks done within four business days / seven calendar days (whichever comes first), because we have such a low volume of work coming in right now. I'm thinking it's because people aren't opting for those elective procedures with the economy the way it is, and they are trying to stay at work as long as they can, for fear of not having a job to come back to when they are all healed up. I've seen it happen, and I can't imagine having to go through the same hardships and situations.

I have some new pictures of Odin that I need to load on the computer and post, but maybe another time!

Happy Valentine's Day

Even though Aaron and I aren't officially celebrating today (or traditionally celebrating), I wanted to wish everyone a happy day, and say that I am SO happy for a three day weekend!

Tonight Aaron and I are going over to Bret and Jess' for dinner - prime rib, roasted asparagus, fancy potatoes, and Aaron's making a garlic dip for crackers. Mmmm, the garlic just got out of the oven, and is wafting through the whole apartment. Smells great.

This week was a normal week, nothing super exciting going on. We got to wear jeans all week at work because the company was celebrating its 5th year of going public (I think that's when the company switched from one name to the one we currently use, but I wasn't around during that time, so I don't remember exactly).

We almost got our taxes done last weekend, but Aaron wanted to wait for some bill to pass regarding people who bought a new car in 2008 (which both of us did), but he just found out yesterday that it only pertains to new cars that were bought after November 12th, and ours were both prior to that. Oh well, never hurts to try to catch a break!

Aaron started looking at houses again this week - seems like there's a lot of houses in the area where the monthly payment would be less than what we pay in rental here for the apartment. Which would be GREAT. We'd have to put in two months' notice at the rental place, and our lease ends in September, so we'd have to notify them by June or July. Which seems fast, but I guess if we can pull it off, more power to us. I'm also worried that we wouldn't be able to plan our wedding and work on buying a home all in the next 4-8 months, but Aaron seems to think we could pull it off. I have no idea what he's basing this on, as neither of us have planned a wedding OR bought a house before...so...yeah. We'll see how long this lasts, because it was about this time last year that Aaron was looking at houses.

We have FINALLY moved on to Step Three of Odin's toilet training! Which is to cut a slightly bigger hole in the center of the litter trainer. We had been on the first small hole (and half of that hole for a while) for probably two months now. Each step is supposed to take a week, but he kept having accidents or pitching fits, or SOMETHING to extend each week out into another. He's finally had a couple of weeks of no accidents, and I'm ready for him to move on, and for our apartment to be litter free.

Odin has a vet appointment on Monday, since I had the day off, to get his distemper and rabies shots, as he is now a healthy kitty. Then we can finally get tags for his collar, and get him registered with the city! (Since we were supposed to do that a year ago when we got him. Whoops!)

Well, I guess that's it for now. Until next time, whenever that may be!

blurbs

Well, I forgot to post last weekend, so here goes a couple week's worth of updates (not that there will be a ton of writing, as I've likely forgotten most of last week anyway).

On the last Friday in January, I was invited to an 80s themed rollerskating party by one of my co-workers. It was probably the most fun I'd had in a long time. Pants rolled tight at the ankles, rolled up sleeves, side ponytail with crimpy hair, bright blue eye shadow, jelly bracelets, and pink lipstick. Man, it was awesome. I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have pictures, but believe me, it was great.

The weekend was pretty chill, cleaning the apartment, groceries, all that jazz. Aaron and I even watched TWO movies, Pineapple Express and Step Brothers, which is pretty amazing, because Aaron has the attention span of a flea.

The week was pretty uneventful, as far as I can recall, except for a new discovery of Odin's ineptitude and badness. He got sick on the carpet a few times, and it was discovered that he had been eating my ponytail holders, and they were not sitting well with him after a few days. He even managed to poop one out. No wonder he hadn't pooped in a few days! So I guess I have to keep a better eye on those things when I take my hair down.

This weekend we hung out with Nathan again, but without getting pulled over this time. We also had dinner with our friends Bret and Jess and Will. Will just had double knee surgery, so we picked him up and headed out to Bret and Jess', where we had hamburgers, salad, fries, and played Rockband until 2am. Oof.

Work is going well. We've been super slow so far in 2009, so I've been able to stay caught up on my workflow and emails. Always a plus. We've been having all kinds of "stress relief" things at work, since the holidays plus tax season is always a little stressful, apparently. We do get tons of phone calls regarding W2s, but it hasn't been COMPLETELY stressful at work. But every Wednesday we get the Stress Cart, which is a cart filled with goodies that we get to pick from. There are games and puzzles in the break room that we can work on during lunch, as well as random theme days, like Country Western Day, Spanish theme, etc. Kind of a nice thing, but I think we're getting spoiled by the treat cart!

Tonight while Aaron was working on dinner, a bubble of butter that was in the pot exploded and hit him in the eye. Fortunately, he had his glasses on, but he did get a large splotch of it right under his eyebrow, which blistered and broke immediately. Sure hope it doesn't scar or scab up really bad - that would be terribly uncomfortable.

Then I think I shut Odin's tail in the closet door while I was getting some Neosporin to doctor up Aaron's eye. The boys are in bad shape tonight, that's for sure.

And I guess that's it for now!

Oh! Be sure to check out my poll on the left! <-------------