Done With Atlantic! (Really!)

Posted on by Jordan

Heather and I made our last trip to the house in Atlantic today, to final-clean the place before turning in the keys.

I will miss parts of living there. The being in a house was a nice change from apartment living. Being able to open a few windows and actually have cross-ventilation is remarkable. We didn’t hear neighbors at all. We had a front porch, with a swing, overlooking a little yard with a huge tree. We could walk all around town any time of day or night and not be even a little worried about safety. We could walk anywhere in town. I loved getting to see farming going on every day, especially harvest. I suppose it is possible I have an overly rosy memory of a lot of that, but I really enjoyed getting to be involved with harvest as a kid.

It reminded me a lot of growing up in Curtis, when I would see people at the grocery store and they knew each other and were just talking. It was kind of sad to know we were never going to have enough time outside of our drive to actually become part of the community. We were living with one foot in Des Moines, and one foot in Omaha… Leaving not much to put down in Atlantic.

On the other hand, there are certainly things I will not miss. Driving 120 miles a day chief among them. Having to hand-wash all our dishes got old rather fast. Living in a place with water pressure so low it wasn’t possible to do any two things with water at the same time had it’s drawbacks. Having to keep our trash for a week in the closet because we didn’t have a garage or a dumpster didn’t end up being as big of a problem as I expected, but still wasn’t ideal. Somehow that house managed to always be freezing cold, even when the thermostat said it shouldn’t be.

And finally, the daily thorn in my side, the thing that annoyed me so much it made me wonder if bathing daily was worth it:

Atlantic_shower

A 360 degree shower curtain! It looked… sketchy to begin with. After the house started getting cold I discovered that the hot air, inside the envelope, rising out of the shower caused the walls to suck in, meaning you couldn’t shower without having plastic clinging to at least one side of you at all times. I know I sound like I am whining, but it really got old after a while.

Somehow we managed to survive though, so I guess it can’t have been so bad 🙂

-Jordan

Another Week Down

Posted on by Jordan

… Leaving only two weeks remaining until the wedding!

This weekend, Heather will attend the fourth and final shower before the wedding. Also this weekend its looking like we will get questionable weather, again. I still hold out hope that we are getting all this out of the way before the wedding, but bad weather keeps consistently hitting on weekends as of late, it seems.

Driving conditons permitting, I plan to stop buy the church to see how it has been decorated by some other even, as a hot tip said they did a really good job. Hopefully I can get a few ideas for Heather and I to use. Not to say we don’t have any, but seeing something tried is a lot better than guessing how things might look. Sadly the weather is going to prevent Heather from getting a chance to see it, but maybe I can take some pictures 🙂

-Jordan

Christmas Day Five

Posted on by Jordan

The final day of our Christmas trip / vacation time was probably the least Christmas like for Heather and I, but still an enjoyable day.

It started out Tetris style, trying to pack everything we had accumulated up to that point into the Escape. Everything fit, but the entire cargo area, as well as the back seat were filled. Not filled to the roof, but the majority of the gifts we had been given did not lend themselves to stacking all that well. Throw in suitcases, and we barely had room for us to sit for the drive up to Curtis for church.

Church was somewhat entertaining as we got a mix of reactions, some people super excited to meet Heather, and other people not even knowing who we were. Its kind of easy to forget how long I have been away from Curtis sometimes, things like that will sort of remind you.

After church we headed out to the farm to eat. We had yet another really good meal, and again heavier food and larger portions than maybe Heather or I typically eat, but amazingly good. We also had time to sneak in quick naps before Heading into town for another shower.

The last shower of the loooong weekend was hosted by the mother of one of my groomsmen, Zach. Thanks to the Christmas holiday, Zach and his wife were able to be there, which was really nice. The rest of the attendees were people who were a big part of my life growing up, and I was really excited for Heather to finally meet them. It was a couples shower, I guess I should mention that… probably a good format for meeting 100% people I know and Heather doesn’t. I can’t say as I am really sold on going to showers, but getting to see everyone was pretty awesome. We also got some very thoughtful gifts, but by far the highlight was getting to spend a few minutes talking to various people that afternoon.

Somehow the shower ate up time a lot faster than we expected, and we missed our departure time goal by an hour or so, not leaving Curtis until close to 5:00. Adding that to one required stop in Kearney, and a rather long drive, made for kind of a rough end to the day. I shouldn’t say end to the day, the day ended with Heather and I making about six trips up three flights of stairs to get the escape fully unloaded. It left the apartment full of gift bags, ensuring that there would be something to do for the next two weeks :). I think the worst part is after all that, Heather still had to drive another 40 minutes to get home.

All in all it was a great trip, but definitely ended up being one of those where you wish you had more time to recover after you get done with the trip. I shouldn’t complain too much though, we got a nice break from work, and Heather and I have another planed break coming up in just a few more days.

-Jordan

Wedding Update

Posted on by Jordan

The wedding is now less than twenty days away.

Over the weekend, Heather discovered that the person who was set to arrange the flowers for the wedding isn’t going to be able to do them. The whole point of using silk flowers to begin with was to save money, and save headache because they would be done far in advance of the wedding.

Goal one remains intact, but goal two wasn’t going too well back in November when the flower lady said she didn’t want the flowers dropped off for her to work on until after the new year. Apparently she was low on storage and expecting to be busy with other things over Christmas. Sometime between then and now she apparently decided we had canceled with her, and moved on to other things. Unfortunately Heather didn’t discover this until Saturday.

On the bright side, she found out we needed a plan ‘B’ for flowers while she was in Kansas City, and while a number of her bridesmaids were in town. They put together a group of people with some experience doing flower arrangements and completely finished the flowers in one session Sunday! It created a frantic weekend for Heather in the midst of a shower, but in some ways its less stress than hoping the flowers would be done in time if we had gone with the lady that didn’t want to start until now.

My only wedding related progress was to book a hotel room for the two nights before the wedding. Heather seems to think she needs a place to stay before the wedding, and kicked me out for those days. It was kind of odd, I don’t think I had ever booked a room over the phone before. I am sure I could have figured out some way to do that online, but I wasn’t sure I would get linked with the wedding properly.

Sunday night, Heather returned from the KC shower/girlsNight/flowerArranging with her Civic packed to the gills with boxes. Again, I am overwhelmed by the generosity people have shown us, and amazed at the cool things we were given. I also don’t quite know how we are going to fit it all into the apartment, but Heather and I managed to find homes for nearly everything she brought back. We only had to stay up way later than ether of us wanted to, but at leas the “new stuff” factor provides enough excitement that it doesn’t feel too much like we are just forever putting dishes away. 🙂

-Jordan