Celebrating Two Years Of Marriage

Today the hubby and I celebrate two years of marriage! It's been a crazy roller coaster ride, but all the ups and downs have just added to the thrill.

We went out for a special lunch on Sunday at the beautiful Juniper's Restaurant at The Wildflower Inn. The food was delicious, the view was gorgeous, and the company couldn't have been better.

As I think back over the last two years a few things stand out:

• We began our journey to debt-free living, and have so far paid off over $25,000 in debt.
• We got to be on the Katie Couric Show and meet Dave Ramsey and his daughter Rachel Cruze and win $594 in the money booth!
• We have gone on vacation to Boston, and Old Orchard Beach in Maine.
• We've had a blast creating three music videos, all of which Jake wrote the lyrics for.
• We've completed lots of home improvement projects together.
• We recently came to the decision to sell our great big beautiful home.
• We are still excited about all that we have to look forward to in our future, including hopefully transforming our imaginary kiddos into real kiddos, adopting some more kiddos, moving closer to our church and Jake's family and growing old together.

If you were to ask Jake (and I just did) he would say that our second year of marriage has been marked by events smaller than our first year, but more significant. Where are first year was a bit of a struggle as two extremely independent people learned how to share their lives, our second year saw us both learning how to relate to each other better while growing emotionally and spiritually. Our first year was tough. Our second year was much improved.

We've made it a tradition to return to the Ivy Chapel in our hometown of Bethlehem, NH, and re-take a photo from our wedding day every year on our anniversary.

Our Wedding Day 2012

First Anniversary 2013

Second Anniversary 2014

And Lord willing we will have about 50 more of these photos someday!

Keep pinchin' :-)

A House On The Market Is Like A Tomato Drying In The Sun

Sun-dried tomatoes are exactly what the name implies—tomatoes that have sat in the sun for ten days and had more than 90% of their moisture sucked out. To me, the longer a tomato sits in the sun the more disgusting it becomes. Like a wrinkled old piece of human flesh. Blech. Amazingly though, tomatoes lose none of their nutritional value when sun-dried. Put a human in the sun for ten days and it will lose ALL of its nutritional value, but tomatoes are... I don't know. Immortal or something. They can sit there for days and days, shrinking, getting all wrinkly, and yet still have all the necessary goodness to amount to something. What's interesting about putting your house on the market is that as soon as the listing hits your house starts drying out, like a tomato in the sun. When the listing first hits the house is a novelty, capturing the curiosity of simple spectators and hooking the interest of serious buyers. The longer it sits there however, soaking up the sun, the less attractive it gets. Our realtor calls this a "stale listing," a home that has been sitting on the market for so long that it has become unattractive to buyers. The home still has all of its nutritional value—you know, all the good stuff inside—but people judge it based on the fact that the prolonged listing makes it look ugly. Like a sun-dried tomato. What constitutes a stale listing seems to depend on the market, but in general it looks like any house that's been listed longer than two months can be considered stale. Our lovely 2,500-square-foot colonial went on the market two weeks ago this Saturday. We've had four showings so far, but that's all. One interested buyer came to look at the house twice, but we haven't heard anything since. It's a bit irritating having to be constantly available for showings, especially when you're still living in your house. You've got to keep it cleaner than usual, keep your junk put away, and your underwear off the floor. And if you have a wife who works nights and sleeps during the day than, yeah... it's especially irritating. Anyway, everyone keeps saying the market is on an upswing and that "this is the time to sell." So here's hoping we can sell our home while it's still juicy, before that sun-dried tomato look starts to take hold. Keep pinchin' :-)