That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.

For my own sanity, I really need to start writing in this thing again.  

Let me update you guys a little bit.

We got the house.  We have spent nearly every free moment fixing it up and making it look nice.  Hence, the lack of updates.  So far, I'm very happy with the way things are turning out.  They say the first year of owning a home is the most expensive, because you have to make a lot of purchases of things you didn't need while renting.  While this is very much true, what they do not tell you is don't buy anything until you have moved in.  Some of the things you didn't own, and purchased beforehand may not be as necessary as you once thought.  And upon moving in, and especially after having lived in a place for a little while, you realize there other, more important things to purchase before you buy those rakes or whatever you thought you would need right away.  We've been able to make due, but other people with a tighter budget should definitely know these things.  By the way, I am not saying a rake isn't important, especially in my case, I was just using that as an example, because it was one thing I could think of that renters don't typically own.

Anyways, having a house has been really nice.  I can't say I particularly care for yard work, though.  Actually, I kind of hate it.  Unfortunately, our yard has been neglected for years, and we have fences and retaining walls that are falling down underneath the seasons of leaves that haven't been raked up.  So, yard work has to be done.  It's a small price to pay for getting the house we loved, though.  Our backyard is quite large (for our area) and serene.  Had it been finished, we never would have been able to afford this house.  Our neighbors told us before the last owners, a Tibetan guy (a monk, perhaps?  We have another one living nearby who I see walking around a lot) owned the home.  Apparently, the backyard was basically a zen area that was lush and peaceful.  I love that.  It makes me hopeful for what will come one day.  Also, we met a couple who wanted to purchase this house when it was on the market the time before we bought it, and they said the backyard was simply amazing, but the house was too far out of their price range.  (I believe it sold back then for almost twice the price it was when we got it).  So again, that makes me hopeful.  I really think we have something special here, and I can't wait until the backyard starts making bigger progress.  Which should be soon!  However, I don't think it will really be done for several years.  (By "done" I mean, to a point where we are happy with it and only have to make small changes, or deal with upkeep)  We've worked on small portions of the yard at a time, mostly cleanup, but some planting and placement of yard decor.  The bulk of it still isn't cleaned up because we need a bobcat and a large garbage dumpster to do it, unfortunately.  That should be coming soon, though,..Still working on timing with our landscapers.  We have become major DIY-ers, however, we don't own a bobcat OR a dumpster, so we had to hire a landscaper for that.  

Wedding planning is kind of here and there.  We've put together a lot of pieces of the puzzle.  Still a lot to put together, though.  We chose to purchase a house because of the wedding.  We felt like it didn't make a lot of sense putting a ton of money into a venue when we could use that towards a down payment on a house.  However, in any other case, I definitely do not recommend buying a house in the same year as you are trying to plan a wedding.  Both things are very stressful.  Let's just say that I've been having a really hard time keeping it together.  I am incredibly analytical, very detail oriented, and impatient.  Planning two large events in my life, both of which are tied together in a huge way (we are having the reception in our backyard), and having to wait for some things to get done before we can plan other things, has been the biggest challenge I can think of.  Not to mention, the house was a short sale.  If you are familiar with short sales, you already know that it is an incredibly lengthy, frustrating, and confusing process.  Which only added to the stress.

So, we still have some things we can't quite plan until we make more progress on the yard.  As a result of this, we still toy with the idea of just having a Vegas ceremony, so we have one less thing to plan out.

The whole goal of our wedding is to celebrate the two of us making our relationship official with our friends and family.  I don't want it to be anything more, or anything less.  However, I feel like people might be really disappointed if they weren't there for the ceremony itself.  I really feel torn between two ideals.  One, to make this as easy as possible, and two, to make everyone happy.  I guess that's the bane of wedding planning.  Honestly though, I think that's really a shame.  I don't think a wedding should be stressful at all.  It is simply a day of celebration, and that should be the end of that.  Honestly, the only stress I've had so far is solely because of the fear of upsetting or disappointing other people.  Which, in itself kind of stresses me out, because that's not what a wedding is about.  I shouldn't have to worry about anything except officially getting married and making sure we have food, music and booze for everyone who is at the celebration afterwards.  I don't like the idea of catering to everyone else's ideals, needs, or feelings about how we choose to make this bond official.  Because, honestly, that ain't what this shit is about.