The wedding, the honeymoon and the ring

So, weddings are hard aren’t they?

Still in our blissful “just engaged” haze, Joe and I have been doing lots of research to see what we’re into, what’s “us” and where we want to get married (I’m told that venue is key and then the rest comes later – I’m slowly but surely learning!).

The thing is, in reality the wedding isn’t going to happen just yet.

Mostly because we have a lot of saving to do before we can even think about booking anywhere or setting a date. Also, because we think we deserve a bloody good honeymoon.

If we get married in 2014 – the current plan – it would be 7 years since our last and only holiday for the two of us. We’d love it to be longer than a week (10 days should do it, budget allowing) and somewhere that’s hot and where neither of us have been before (recommendations welcome!)

I found this about honeymoons which was quite fun.

It’s amazing how many women have their wedding planned already in their heads from a young age. I’m not sure why but I wasn’t one of them. It’s not that I was pessimistic or anything (“Oh no, what if no-one ever loves me?!”)  I just guess I never thought about it much.

In hindsight, I’m incredibly lucky to have ended up with someone so lovely and normal. Our friends and family will dispute that normal bit, but if you consider that when I was a kid, I genuinely thought that either Dan Akroyd (more specifically, Elwood in The Blues Brothers) or Adrian Edmonson (Vyvyan from The Young Ones) would one day be my husband, then you could very easily call Joe normal.

I think actually, I’ve done rather well for myself. The handsome devil.

Although we may not be able to book anything just yet for the big day, I did pick up my ring last weekend to keep the excitement plodding along. I was originally told it would take up to 6 weeks to be re-sized for my teeny tiny hands so I was overjoyed when it only took 1.

We’ve also got an engagement meal with both of our parents to look forward to in a few weeks and may even throw an engagement party of some sort for our friends.

For this weekend though, we’re going to look into more venues, think about colours and music and honeymoon – y’know, the fun stuff. If you’ve been following this blog though, you’ll know how much we struggle making decisions. It takes us weeks to pick a paint colour. Not sure how we are going to pick all the wedding details! Best crack on

Karen x

Wishlist Wednesday – The William

This week I’m loving The William.
Joe posted this video onto my Facebook wall earlier last week – yes that’s right, we live together and yet still talk on Facebook. I don’t know if this is tragic or terribly romantic. I’ll let you decide…

Anywho, it just fascinated me!

We’re not ready to start work on our kitchen just yet, and I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that when we do, it won’t contain anything quite so advanced. I actually prefer gas cookers and I think giving a computer heat instructions takes away half the fun out of cooking. But the lazy person in me thought it was a brilliant idea.

What do you lot think? Has anyone seen one before?

Karen x

I caved and joined Pinterest

This year, I will be embarking on wedding plans. When you consider that I already talk about interiors and home DIY on this blog, the natural thing to do is to get my butt onto Pinterest.

For my relatives that may not know what this is, Pinterest is like a pinboard on the internet. You ‘pin’ things you like onto a board that you create as a source of inspiration.
For those that do know what it is, apologies for my utterly basic explanation. But, as you know, the website is just full of house ideas and wedding images, so I thought it was about time I got on it.

So, I’ve created 3 boards so far:
Kitchen – Ideas for our kitchen one day.
Wedding Fun – Just fun images related to marriage and weddings.
Wedding Inspiration – Research for the real deal.

So far so good.
It’s fun and let’s me indulge in all the things I enjoy looking at without boring my friends to death with this grown up type stuff. (Also, I’m finding wedding magazines really uninspiring – everything looks the same!)

We’re not getting married for a while yet so we can save up for a good do, and we don’t want to neglect our work on the house (there’s only so long we can go without a kitchen!) so Pinterest should fulfil my needs for now. I’d quite like to create a Wedding Dress board, but for that I’ll stick to cut-out images from magazines. Can’t let Joe see my ideas!

Karen x

Wealthy washing

I opened up my inbox today to discover an e-mail with the subject: “Win a washing machine worth £2500.”

Since moving into the house, I must admit, I’ve entered a few competitions. It has left me inundated with junkmail but I optimistically do it ‘just in case’. I get bombarded with stuff like this: “Win a toaster”, “Win a £500 voucher” “Win a new kitchen” blah blah. I never win of course. And more often than not, it’s stuff I’m not really interested in. But today, I had to do a double take. What on earth qualifies a washing machine to be worth so much dosh? I’ve had cars that weren’t worth that much money!

For £2,500, I would want my clothes, washed, dried, folded and ironed.

I think it’s pretty obvious from the very existence of my blog, that over the past year, I’ve had a growing interest in all things interiors and household stuff, as me and Joe try and make this house a home, but sometimes I really think companies take the royal piss out of people. Either that or some of you have more money than sense, in which case, can I borrow a tenner please?

This is what i imagine a person with a £2,500 washing machine lives like.

Sorry about the negativity. It just baffled me. Normal smiley service shall resume shortly

Karen x 

We’re on a mission. A bathroom mission.

I know I almost never mention work on our bathroom* but this past few weeks Joe and I have tried to get some bathroom fitters in to give price quotes on getting the job finished.

If you’re wondering what we need doing:

• Final piping (including installing the shower mixer into the brickwork and fitting the waste drainpipe).
• Then the shower tray and doors (essentially the whole thing!) can go in.
• Then we can put in the bathroom floor.
• Then we can permanently fit our sink and toilet.
• Then we can claim that we have a bathroom!
• Then we can do a victory dance.

You get the idea. We need help.

The shower job is a hindrance because it is not something we are qualified to do. We could probably give it a jolly good go, but quite frankly, something that is going to live forever behind a tiled wall/stone shower floor, we want doing right.

Back to my story, if that’s what this is. We have been let down. Bathroom fitters have turned up and had absolutely no idea how to complete the job. Or, they haven’t turned up at all.

I really can’t tell you how frustrated I am at the situation. It’s almost as if they don’t want the work. I thought this was a recession?

I don’t want to use this blog as a moaning station. When our house is complete and I decide to re-read our progress, I don’t want to remember being angry or upset, because apart from this bathroom blip, fixing up our house is probably the most fun and exciting thing we’ve ever taken on (although maybe the wedding will take the number one spot soon *squeal*)

So, it’s a complete long shot, but if anyone in the Trafford/Greater Manchester area (UK) can recommend to me a good bathroom fitter, we’d love to consider them.

Help!

*some statements may not be complete and utter fibs!

Karen x

We’re engaged!

Yesterday, Joe popped the question and I, of course, said yes.

Wooohoooo!

My mum, step-dad, sister, and baby niece, came to visit yesterday morning. I don’t get to see them nearly as much as I’d like because the family is scattered between Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Worcester at the moment. After they left, Joe said he’d like to take me to the Manchester Museum – we’ve been planning to go for ages, because:
1) It’s something to do for free, and…
2) I just love dinosaur exhibitions, and they have a T-Rex there.

So off we went. Being the nerdy person I am, I took far too many pictures…
This elephant walked from Edinburgh to Manchester…

They had a zoo section, which I didn’t know about. This guy was my fave…
I also love Space. I did a little sqeal when we got to this area…
Stan the T-Rex!

After what I thought was just a lovely spontaneous afternoon outing, when we got home, there was a box in our lounge…
…with another box inside…
…and another…
…and another…
…and another…
There were actually 10 boxes altogether! The lounge became a bit messy…
And inside the smallest one was a note…

I was so suprised.

I turned around and Joe was on one knee with a ring. He’s such a softy

We rang around our immediately family to let them know the good news and in the evening we went out to celebrate at a chinese restaurant that we’ve been going to for years.

In fact, we were planning on going there this Saturday night anyway, because we have a running joke that we always tell them it’s our anniversary, and we get free wine. We’ve probably had about 8 anniversaries there, and we joked that we’d go for a ‘special occasion’ this time around too. Turns out, this time it was genuine!

It was an amazing day which I’m sure we’ll never forget.

I was going to post a picture of my ring, but I think I’ll wait. I absolutely love it. It’s gorgeous. But, today we took it to get resized and unfortunately, my fingers are so small they don’t even stock the ring size in the country. It will need to be specially made and could take up to 6 weeks. I’m pretty gutted that I won’t get to flash it to everyone just yet, but I’m sure I will make up for it when it arrives!

For all those congratlations and nice words, thank you! I haven’t had chance to thank everyone individually yet, but I will!

I know I usually talk about housey-type things on this blog, but it’s called “Well I guess this is growing up” and I couldn’t think of anything more fitting than our wedding plans. I’d best get started!

Karen x

Where’s Pebbles?

I’m thinking about creating a book called Where’s Pebbles? - It will be just like Where’s Wally? but a bazillion times easier. Let me explain why. I’ve previously spoken about the neighbour’s cat that just wanders into our house and makes herself at home. We don’t mind it at all! She’s good company and all she wants is a cuddle. But from time to time, I genuinely don’t know how she got inside!

Here’s a few snaps of Pebbles popping up unexpectedly this month.

I’m sure I made the bed this morning…

No Pebbles, you cannot get in the bath.

Waiting for me to get home…

Just chilling on the windowsill. We see you cat!
Mmm bathmat!
She’s a stealthy one. One minute I look outside and she’s in the garden, the next, she’s rolling around by my feet. Ninja cat.

Karen x