We're on the hunt...

FOR A HOUSE! 

Seriously. We've been talking about it for months, but yesterday morning (after both got home from our night shifts) we went to the bank and looked into mortgages. We got pre-approved for a good amount, enough to buy a home in an area we want to live in. And today I called a realtor who was recommended to us and we set up an appointment for Saturday morning at 11am. 

YAY!!!!!! I am so excited about this! Cross your fingers that things will work out!

Enjoy it!

After all these years, I still don't know....

What a weekend I had, I am telling you what. Seriously.  My Saturday was a shambley mess and I loved it all. We did a Pub Crawl to benefit MS research, which my friend Meg suffers from. This is the fourth year we've done it, and it's guaranteed to be a riot. 

**SIDE NOTE #1 My college friends have not called me Meagan since the 2nd week of freshman year. We already have a friend Meghan, so I got the nickname Bud. Long story.**

Here's how the day went:

At home, I showered and tried on 3 different outfits, 2 of which I just bought the night before on a ridiculous shopping outing. I ate a muffin the size of a planet and also a bowl of oatmeal, because I knew we would not be eating for a looooong time and there was a lot of beers headed my way.

Kevin dropped me off at my friends' house at 11am. There were about 1000 girls wandering about, but only one of them actually lived there. Kyle and Rick, more commonly known as "the boys", were sitting on the couch, playing a drinking game. Seriously, who pregames a 14-hr day-o-drinking?!

11:07 - I cracked my first beer. Woof. Beer is NOT meant for 11am. 

Around 11:20, the other 2 occupants of the house return, with an 18 pack of beers. I showed off my 3 outfits and then combinations of them. I ran up and down the stairs about 8 times and then more girls showed up. The boys left for Rick's apartment because they had to poop and couldn't get into the girls' bathroom with all the extra females looming about. 

1 pm, we finally left and headed down to a bar called O'Cals. Rick, Kyle, Cair and I drove together. and minus the 1 bouncer and 1 bartender, we were the first four people there. We hung out and played darts. It got crowded pretty quickly. Before we left, we played a ridiculous game of Flip Cup, which turned into elimination Flip Cup, which turned into a huge mess. Also, only one stall in the ladies' bathroom was working. Awesome. 

Next stop - The Angry Duck. Yes, that is seriously the name. I swear to you on all that is holy. More beers. I managed to take 4 pictures before my battery died. Some of us split up (there was a taco place across the street), but me, Cair and Meg headed on to Avenue Pub, the gay bar next door. Where we got hotdogs. I hope you all see the humor in that. Also, we waited in line for the ONE bathroom. What is with bars putting in minimal amounts of ladies rooms?

Next, on to Acme, a bar so dirty that no one uses to the bathroom there, because its cleaner to pop a squat outside, but not so dirty that we couldn't order a couple slices of pizza. Since the boys didn't want to go to the gay bar with us, they were there. Stayed for a drink or two (it's easy to lose count...)

Onto our favorite - OXFORD'S! Many phone calls were made to Kevin, who was with his family celebrating his little brother's 21st birthday. At one point, I was up by the window, trying to get some reception, and some man came up behind me, wound up and hit my ass. Hard. Then, looked at me and said "Oh, I thought you were someone else" and walked away. This was around 7:30-8pm. You know, after we'd been drinking for 9 hours. So after I went back to Cair and the boys, I got really upset. Cair went and talked to him and told him that I was married and that was not cool (like it would have been if I was single, apparently). And I started crying. Which apparently the boys cannot deal with. I had been bugging them all day to do a shot of tequila with me, so to cheer me up, we went and did tequila (which, btw, was a very good idea to cheer me up <3).>

**SIDE NOTE #2 - Variety Packs, as far as I know, are one of Rick's inventions. It is 3 shots, you order them all at once, and do them one after another. I guess it could be anything, but we usually go for 2 of the bomb variety and then something else to finish with.**

Ok, so back to Variety Packs - we did JaegerBombs, Grape Bombs and then Soco&lime - WHEW! And then left and walked back to the girls' house to take a nap. We somehow picked up Christine, the ex of one of the other boys we hung out with in college who turned into a super-lame friend after graduation. She was one of the girls staying at the house, along with 5 of her friends. On the walk home it was revealed to her that Greg had some monkey-business going on at school with another girl while they were talking (not dating, just talking) and it spiraled out of control into this huge ball-o-drama when her friends got wind of it. 

Kevin came to pick me up and walked right through the crossfire of drama in the living room, and found me upstairs crying about the boy in my friend Meg's room. Despite the fact that I could not hold myself up straight while standing, I insisted I go back out. But Kevin said no and took me home (after we got a garbage plate of course, you need something to soak all that booze up!). I got ketchup EVERYWHERE, but hey, I was happy, right?

The best part of the whole day, though, happened very early on when Kyle turned to me and said, "Bud, after all these years that we've been friends, I still don't even know your name."

LMAO!

Enjoy it!!

The story of us

Well, when I started this blog, I had originally intended to tell all about Kevin and I, how we met and everything. But I never really got around to it....so now is as good a time as any for a little bit of backstory, right?

Kevin and I went to the same college and we were in the same learning community (a group of related classes that you take with the same group of kids, so you get to know them and make friends). We sat together on our first day of English, and right away I knew I liked him. Of course, we started talking because we had the same pencil - green with flowers and a girls name on it. Mine, of course, said Meagan (which was exciting because I can never find anything personalized with my name spelled correctly) and his said his girlfriend's name. Nonetheless, we talked a bit and I eventually invited him to hang out with my friends. Which he did (and got into a fight with his gf about)....but when he came down to my room, we weren't there!

We were also in a Freshman Seminar together, a 1 credit class about dealing with college (yahoo!). One day in class we had to choose our theme song and bring it to play for the class. It had to be something that you thought "If I was in a movie, this would be the song playing when I walked into the room." Kevin's was most surprising. He got up there, this big 300+lb, 6 ft tall football player and on comes this tiny little voice singing, "Am I not pretty enough? Is my heart too broken?" (seriously, YouTube it folks - "Am I not pretty enough?" by Kasey Chambers)...and he wasn't even joking about it. I was hooked haha.

Well, time went on and when we came back to school sophomore year, Kevin was single. A friend of ours was dating a guy on the football team, who took it upon himself to try and set Kevin up....with my best friend Carolyn! I didn't say anything because I thought that he was really interested in Carolyn, and I didn't want to be second choice. Turns out, he was going along with it because he thought Cair liked him, and she was going along with it because she thought Kevin liked her. And neither of them actually liked each other in that way. One night a group of us went down by the lake and Kevin and I had a really good conversation, it felt like we just clicked. But I just let it go. 

((Kevin points to this night and says, 'If you'd only said something, we could have been together." But I think I needed the experiences I had later to appreciate what a catch he really is.))

Summer came and went, and shortly after we got back to school, I re-met and started dating my first serious boyfriend, also (conveniently enough) named Kevin. It was a wild start and a crazy ride. We were NOT good for each other. Kevin was very jealous and possessive and I withdrew from my friends. At the same time, Kevin (the husband, not the ex) started dating his ex-girlfriend from freshman year....we lived in the same building, and often said hi to one another but we were not really friends.

By the time senior year had rolled around, I had broken up with my bf but Kevin was still dating his ex. Actually, I was after another football player (having given up on Kevin) named Moose (actually, now that I think about this, Kevin does not know this). It was a lot of stolen glances and nothing of substance. Made for a lot of fun for us girls though - being silly. 

I graduated early in Dec '06 and moved back home. One day before the new semester was starting, Kevin's relationship status on Facebook changed to single (and we all know that its not official until its on Facebook). My friend called to give me an update, I checked what she was saying, and I ran downstairs and told my mom "Kevin is single and I love him and we're getting married." Later in the week, I made plans to come up and visit my friends still at school and we found out Kevin and his friends would be out celebrating his roommate's birthday at the bar we went to every Sat night. 

That night, I said "I'm going to buy him a beer." That was the plan. We ran into him and his roommate standing up against a wall - they weren't really into the club scene. We all said hi, and told Sven "Happy Birthday" and went out to dance. I went to the bathroom by myself, and on the way back I stopped to talk to Kevin, saying I couldn't see my friends and I lost them. Him being almost a foot taller than me, said he could see them out on the dance floor. So I said, 'Thanks. Do you want to come and dance with me?" and (completely out of character for him) he said yes. We danced all night and had a good time, and when the lights came on at the end of the night, I asked him back to have a beer with us. He drove home with us and we had a couple beers, my friends went to bed and we stayed up until 7am, just talking about anything and everything. That was it for me - I was sold.

Two months later, we made it official. Two months after that, he was telling me that he could see himself spending the rest of his life with me. And five months later, we were engaged. Ah, l'amore.

..."the night"...

O.h.m.a.n.

As you may know, we have two lovely little kittens (who are not so little, or always so lovely anymore haha), Oscar and Vivienne. They are 6(ish) months old and we've been dodging a bullet with them so far.

They have not been fixed. But so far, that has not been a problem, at least one that we've observed. The thing is - its EXPENSIVE to get your animals fixed. So we applied to see if we could get some $$ to use towards it. We didn't get the kittens from a ASPCA or anything, my boss's mom's cat had kittens and she was giving them away. So the opportunity presented itself, and we went for it. 

The vet we went to gave us a lecture on how important it was to spay/neuter your pet and how we should pass that along to the person we got them from. And I agree - there are a lot of animals out there without people to love them, so why keep creating more? But at the same time...if its so so important (ms. vet tech), why don't you make it a little easier on the budget? 

Anyhoo....bullet dodging...oh ok, here's the point. 

Last night, the cats decided it was The Night. There was horrible noises coming from the kitchen and I went to see what was going on, and there was Oscar, mounting Viv. Which, would not only leave us with kittens we 1 - aren't allowed to have and 2 - wouldn't know what to do with, but they are also from the same litter, so we'd have kittens with 3 eyes or 19 toes. GAH!

SO I scared them apart and they've been separated ever since. Which also means, sleep is tough. The first night, Oscar was in a room by himself. He cried the WHOLE damn night. The whole thing. You would think he'd tired himself out and give it up. But no. He woke me up at 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, 5:30am.....

Lesson learned - we can't wait for him anymore. So he has an appt for the ol' snip snip on Friday. We bring him in Thursday night and pick him up Friday afternoon. She is the more expensive, so we are waiting to find out if we can get any credits. At least they are indoor cats so they aren't picking it up someplace else haha.

Now let's see how the next couple of nights go.....

Enjoy it!

Return of the Crazy Dream

Ok, this one is a doozy. Seriously.

I worked at a mall, in a store like Macy's or something. And Tyra Banks was my boss. And we all had to go home early from work because she was in a fashion show later that day, and they were going to start setting up the vestibule of the mall. I told her that I was meeting my husband and his friends there, so I wasn't leaving and she warned me that under no circumstances was I to interrupt her walk, specifically by exiting through the door near the end of the runway.

Oh, also, I was very large and in charge - pregnant!

So Kevin and his friends showed up: Justin, his wife Heather (also pregs) and Derek. They come into the mall and I tell them what Tyra said and then all of the sudden there is a huge candy store on the inside of the department store that we are in. And Heather said we HAD to go there. So we went and started looking around.

Heather and I were grabbing candy off the shelf and the guys were like, 'come on! Lets go!" and then I start to freak out about how we can't go out of Macy's because the doors are locked and we can't leave out the door by the runway because Tyra will fire me. Then Heather hands me a carton of ice cream (vanilla with pretzels in it?!) and we both start eating. So then we have to pee, because that is what pregnant ladies do, and there is no bathroom in the store.

We peek out the windows and see that the lights are flashing and there is loud music playing, so the show has starting. We grab our ice cream and walk outside. The door by the end of the runway is the only one that we can get to, but I keep yelling at them and telling them no. Then some poor, unsuspecting schmuck tries to leave out that same door and Tyra comes flying down the runway and tackles him. So we sneak out while she is distracted.

We drive around the mall to the nearest restaurant. It is VERY fancy and we stand out like a sore thumb. I go to the bathroom first, then Heather and then all the boys decide that they need to go to, so I am left standing alone.

For some reason I am barefoot, so I start putting on my shoes and socks, only they are not the same things that I left the mall in. I have tall soccer socks that are shamrock green, and very high heeled, t-strap shamrock green shoes (ps, they were super cute!!). So as I am putting on my sock, some woman at a table asks what sort of activity I could possibly be doing that would require socks like that. And as if it was an explanation, a woman at another table licks my toe.

So I finish getting my shoes and socks on (so the woman won't lick me anymore) and when everyone comes back, I tell them what happened. And they tell her that we were going dancing. And then Heather breaks out in an Irish jig. And music starts playing. And then the guys join in. And they really know what they are doing! Kevin is doing a jig, and a darn good one at that!

And then I wake up laughing. Oh my heavens, I wish I could show you what I saw when they were dancing. It was too too funny!

And so the moral of the story is: Don't eat popcorn chicken before you go to bed!!

Enjoy it!

Happy 100 Posts!

Well, I made it to 100...finally. Since I started this blog, I've worked 100 million hours, planned and successfully completed a wedding, moved to a new city, in with a boy, adopted 2 kittens, gotten a new job, and branched out in my cooking expeditions.

So whats next?

I guess we are weighing our options for right now. We are planning to start looking into mortgages, what we could get approved for and whatnot, and pending what happens with that, looking for homes.

No babies on the horizon anytime soon, so don't hold your breath for that one.

My best friend Kara just got engaged yesterday, so I guess that means helping plan another wedding. Which should help keep me busy! Its very exciting!

Stay tuned for more....

Enjoy it!

In a rut!

Wow, I am so so sorry for deserting you. I have missed blogging ever so much, but it seems like I have hardly had anything to blog about theses days. And then there is the fact that I no longer have a job that requires me to sit at a computer for hours on end. Now that I don't have to be here, I don't really spend a whole lot of time on the computer.

Lets catch up, shall we?

Last you heard, I was married, right? Well, the honeymoon was amazing. We were completely pampered and LOVED it. Seriously. It was exactly what we both needed. On the way home, we got stuck overnight in NYC, which was pretty craptastic, but other than that everything was great.

And actually, the delay worked out in our advantage, because we stayed in Buffalo for a while and I called the photog, who said I could pick up my proofs that day, after 4. YES!!!

I've spent the past month cleaning, doing dishes, laundry and cooking. And watching obscene amounts of America's Next Top Model (Oxygen, I shall be eternally grateful that you show marathons every weekend. I could watch every season over and over and over again. The ego, the drama. Le sigh). I've tried my hand at cooking. I managed a few ok dishes and some really good ones, and still we're in a rut already.

I carried my proofs everywhere we went, it seemed, for about month. I'm STILL trying to figure out which pics we want in the albums, which we want big prints of, which ones to share, etc.

We finally got a bed frame for our amazing mattress. And Kevin splurged and got a new couch, which we both love love love. Our old couch was a hand-me-down from a friend of the family, and very formal. The new one is huge and deep and practically begs you to snuggle in. In fact, if I sit all the way back, my feet dangle above the floor (about a foot or so!). Of course, I'm pretty short at *almost* 5'4", so that is not saying a whole lot.

A few of my girlfriends from college moved up here this past weekend and I am so glad to have friends in the area. I've realized that one of the things I miss the most about being home is the familiar people. Now at work, no one I know comes in. No one knows who I am, asks how my family is doing, or that I just got married, or anything. The people I work with are very friendly, but the ones I work with on a regular basis are either 1 - still in college or 2 - have kids my age, so it isn't really conducive to making new friends. I do like the managers/coordinators/STLs a lot tho, and I am hoping that I can make friends with them more.

We are hoping to go to a couple of banks soon and find out if we can get approved for a mortgage, and for how much. It seems a little silly to keep paying rent and getting nothing out of it, when for less $$ a month, we could end up owning a home.

Geez, I guess I did have some things to blog about. I promise I will try to be more regular about it. I'm still figuring out how to hook my camera up to this computer, so hopefully I will have a few pictures to share soon.

Missed you all (and hope you missed me!!)!!

Enjoy it!