Project Marriage II (Sort of)

Well, July's Project Marriage challenge was Date Night.
I had it planned. I purchased tickets to go to the picnic pops, arranged for Grandma and Grandpa M. to babysit, purchased wine and other picnic supplies....only to have to be scorchingly hot and humid the day of the event. Our friends were all planning on getting together at a couples' new home, and I hadn't hung out with them in such a long time, so we opted to sell the tickets and spend the evening with friends.
I'm a firm believer in that Date Night is not Date Night when Charlotte comes along. Date Emily is different than Mom Emily, and I could definitely use some Date Emily soon. So, no, we didn't exactly participate in July's challenge, but we'll work on that soon.

If you're not familiar with Project Marriage - bloggy edition, check it out here: http://mommyfriend.com/category/project-marriage/

I will tell you that I am looking forward to August's challenge..."In The Bedroom" bow chicka wow wow...wait. Not really. It's more about updating your space and make an improvement in the budoir. Let me just say, I have been wanting to redo our room since the day we redid it.

When we bought our home in 2006, it was in need of many, many repairs. It had water damage and most of the walls had been cut open to the studs to spray for mold. We had to have new floors, drywall installed, new bathrooms....almost everything. We made the unfortunate choice to pay our drywaller ahead of time. He and his buddy apparently got sick of working and left without actually finishing the project. It was a whirlwind renovation as we got engaged in May, bought the house in July, and needed to move in in November after the wedding. We did almost all of the work ourselves and were both working full time. So anyway, back to the drywallers...they didn't sand any of the master bathroom but we weren't able to tell that until after it was already painted. It looks like complete crap. My husband built a beautiful tile shower, there's gorgeous fixtures and cabinets, and terrible terrible drywall. We tried sanding it again, but it just wasn't working. So since that is attached to our bedroom, I count it as part of the project.

Here are the things I'd like to accomplish to make our space more lovely:

• White beadboard in the bathroom to cover up shotty workmanship
• Sell the (used when we got it) sleigh bed, dresser, chest, and nightstand
• Make an upholstered headboard
• Make a cover for an exisiting ottoman to coordinate with headboard
• Big time purging of the closet. I have a LOT of clothing I need to find a new home for. I'd like to first try to get some money for it, and what doesn't sell I will donate. I am not keeping the things that I decide to sell.
• Bring in some other used furniture that might suit our room just fine (we'll see!)

Today I already cleaned out my dresser and got rid of a lot of worn out socks and PJs and whatnots, also found a bunch of socks that never belonged to me jammed behind one of the drawers. lovely.

It seems that this should be a pretty big challenge for the month, but I really wanted to do most of this anyway, so what better time than for Project Marriage!


Oh, and let me know if you're interested in purchasing our bedroom suite! :)

Project Marriage

Oh. Hey there, blog!
I've been struggling to come up with a topic for my newest blog entry. But after visiting mommyfriend, I was reminded of the Project Marriage challenge for June; sharing your love story. I think overall, our love story is less than thrilling. I mean...don't tell Marcus I said so. However, we've had plenty of memorable moments.
Here's one of my favorites.

Marcus and I had been dating for nearly 3 years when Spring of 2006 came around. Marcus was basically obsessed with me and wouldn't stop telling me how much he wanted to get married.
Read that last sentence and replace "obsessed" with "putting up" and "married" with "buffalo wings."

It was I who was constantly bugging him about making a life long commitment to me, and I'm sure I made it super appealing by being as annoying as possible. I just didn't want to be wasting my time having fun with a guy I totally adored, ya know?

I kept on waiting for clues. But there were no special dates planned, no bridal magazines hidden under his bed, nothing! Finally, I told myself to relax and just enjoy the time that we are actually having! I was creating unnecessary tension by looking for a way to bring it up all the time. (Ugh, what was I thinking?)

One Friday night, we decided to go out kind of last minute. I had to work the next morning, so I didn't want to be out too late. He asked me where I'd like to have dinner and I decided on one of my favorite tapas restaurants. It's usually quite busy, and we didn't realize that there would be a long wait to be seated. We decided to just sit along the grill and enjoy our dinner there. It was hot, it was loud, but we had sangria and lots of laughter. And since things were going so swimmingly, we decided to grab an after dinner drink.

There's kind of a swanky spot nearby that we tried to get into, but they were at capacity, so we wandered down the street to a popular bar where you know you'll always see a familiar face. Once we got there, we thought it would be funny to sneak into one of the VIP events they had going on. It happened to be Cinco De Mayo and it was quite the fiesta in the club. We snagged a seat on a big leather couch and I ordered a glass of chardonnay, and Marcus ordered a beer. We felt so sneaky...trying to look around to see if anyone noticed that we were crashing their party. As far as I could tell, we were under the radar.

There was some hot chick strutting around with a tray full of complimentary tequila shots, and with Marcus being Dutch (read: frugal) he couldn't pass up that offer. Besides, tequila is was his liquor of choice. (He has since moved on to Scotch.) He picked up a shooter for me as well, even though I can't stand the stuff. But hey! It's Cinco De Mayo! A holiday I've always cherished because I love guacamole.

Being the ever annoying girl that I was...I just had to bring it up. Tease him a little bit about his habit of dodging "the subject". So I say to him, "What will you give me if I take this shot of tequila?" So coy, I was.
He response was somewhat uncharacteristic and he said, "I will take you for a romantic stroll downtown..."
Continuing to be delightful as ever, I replied with "That's lame. You know what I want to hear." (oy.)
All I had really expected was "Okay. Fine. I'll marry you if drink that tequila." And I would have been a happy senorita.
Then, wouldn't you know it, he was in front of me on one knee, holding a sparkly ring.
And I'm holding a mini glass of tequila.
"Emily, will you marry me?" he asked.
My eyes hurt from being open so wide and my hands were covering my mouth.
As far as I know, I said yes.
People all around were noticing.
It was the biggest surprise EVER.
I downed the tequila.
We continued celebrating when we saw nearly everyone we knew downstairs in the main portion of the bar.
I recognize it's sort of tacky to say we got engaged in a bar, but it was one of the most fun nights I've ever had.
Had he actually taken me on that romantic stroll, I think I would have realized what was going on. I loved the spontaneity and the surprise. I'm glad there wasn't a trail of rose petals and a fancy dinner...my man knows how to make memories.
And now I ponder what other surprises await me over say, a dram of Scotch...