Travel Plans for 2014

It's only March, but I'm already feeling overwhelmed about everything that's going to be going on this coming year. So I thought I'd take a moment and share our travel plans for the year, and then maybe I won't feel so overwhelmed? Maybe? Please?

Now the funny thing is, I always say that I don't particularly like to travel, and that I don't do it very often. Now don't get me wrong, it's not a fear of flying or anything like that. I actually love to fly. It's airports that I hate. Long lines for security, body-scans, rushing to get to your gate seconds before the plane takes off, only to discover that the $5.99 coffee you just purchased in the terminal can't be taken on the plane... Ugh, and don't get me started on the fees associated with flying these days.

Anyway, despite my claims to not be a big traveler, my husband and I have already made three big trips in the 7 months we've been married.

• In August we went on our honeymoon, driving first the the Toledo Zoo, then to the Mutter Museum in Philly, then to New York to celebrate with family and relax in the country.
• Then in November, we drove 10 hours down to Baltimore to celebrate Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle and cousins.
• In January, as you might have noticed, we went to Washington D.C. (which is the best trip of 2014... so far)
• In May we'll be flying up to New York again to celebrate our niece's wedding (and hopefully meeting her fiance at some point before the ceremony).
• In July, we're off to fight in the Pennsic War, or at least to watch the fighting. And don't worry, I'll be posting about the prep for this trip, as it promises to be interesting.
• We'll probably head back down to Baltimore in November, as Thanksgiving tends to happen once a year, and celebrating with my aunt and uncle has sort of become a family tradition over the last few decades.
• And finally, in December, my husband and I are hoping to take a trip to Israel, as I haven't been there in about 8 years, and that's a sad thing.

So uh, yeah. I think that's it. 7 major trips in a year and a half. That's not crazy, right? Right?
Okay, maybe it's a little insane, but what can we do? We've got wandering feet, I guess. Or, just a lot of family celebrations all over the country!

See why I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed? I swear, I'm such a homebody... Oh well.

Stay tuned for more madness, and I promise to blog about all of these amazing trips as they happen!

Project Sunday 2-23-14

I know it's not Sunday anymore, but I was simply too exhausted last night to possibly post this, and I'm going to tell you why.

Sunday is usually the only day of the week that both my husband and myself have free time. So we try to spend almost all of our Sundays working on the myriad of projects that we're occupying our time with. Thus we have dubbed the day Project Sunday. Catchy, right?

So what did we do this past Project Sunday? I'm so glad you asked.

First, since we're planning on going to Pennsic this year (yes, that again) I'm going to need something to wear. You might remember that last time I went to Pennsic, I had to make a bunch of funny looking cloths for myself... Well, I don't know what we were thinking, but they all came out way too big. Over the years, we took in one of the tunics and made it wearable, but nothing else really fit me. So yesterday, we went to a Garb Workshop in our Barrony and fixed up the other two pieces! I'm so excited that now I'll actually have garb that fits me! We spent the whole morning measuring and cutting and sewing and surging, and it was so much fun. There's still a lot of work to be done. One of my tunics needs to be hemmed, and I still don't have any pants, but oh well. Such is life.

After the Garb Workshop, we headed over to my mom's office so that I could do some work, and so my husband could provide some tech support to her. No matter how old your children get, they will always be your precious little IT people.

Next was a trip to my in-law's house to have "dinner" (at 4:00pm) with some friends of theirs, and then to work on a really special project that I can't tell you about now, but that I promise I will blog about as soon as it's finished!

Now you might think that we packed a lot into our Project Sunday, but we weren't done yet! We had the most important project of all waiting for us at home.
We had to finish our thank-you notes! Yes, I know that we've been married for over 6 months, and we haven't done our thank-you notes yet. But guess what? They're all done now! It took about 4 hours of solid work over Saturday and Sunday evenings to hammer out all of the details and write some of the ones we had been putting off. But it got done. I'm going to head out to the post office today to mail them! (then I just have to worry about my grad-school apps... yay)

And that was really the end of a very long, yet very productive Project Sunday. What will we get done next time?
Stay tuned and find out!

Wedding Ring Review

So my husband and I have been married for just over 6 months now, (I know, I know, we're an old married couple) and I thought that the six month mark would be a perfect time to tell you guys all about our wedding rings.

First, the back-story.

My husband and I had our wedding rings picked out before we even got engaged. When we first started talking seriously about getting married (this would be back in March of 2011) I started looking for rings. I found a pair I liked on etsy, and "favorited" them so that I would remember what I liked.

Fast forward a year or so... we got engaged in July of 2012 (he proposed with his grandmother's wedding ring and her blessing) and kept poking around online, looking at possible wedding rings. But over and over we kept coming back to that first set we had seen.

The "Starry Starry Night" wooden wedding rings from Minter and Richter Designs on etsy.

We hadn't officially picked out our wedding rings, but I was showing pictures of these to everyone saying "wanna see the rings we're looking at?" After a few months of that (and some half-hearted looking at other bands) , it occurred to us that we had picked out our wedding rings.

Now let's fast-forward to a few days ago. I logged onto my etsy account wanted to leave some amazing feedback for Minter & Richter. You see, when my husband and I were first looking at these rings, I checked the seller's feedback on etsy to see what the reviews were like. They were (and still are) overwhelmingly positive and I got very excited. But they were all from people who had recently purchased their rings, and I was really hoping for some long-term reviews.

So now that my husband and I have had our rings for 6 months, I thought I'd post a review on their etsy page... But I can't; etsy has a 60 day cut-off for reviews. Which means that the only way I could have left a review for the rings would have been if I had done it within 60 days of my purchase, by which time we hadn't even worn them yet! That is ridiculous.

Well, since I can't post my review on etsy, I thought I'd post it here.

We've had and worn our wedding rings for over 6 months now, and I can confidently say that it was a wonderful purchase! I'm so glad that my husband and I got these rings. They're absolutely stunning and unique!

The metal is titanium, and the inside is a dyed wood in-lay. I love that, because my husband and I are the only couple I know of who have wooden wedding rings!

When we placed our order, we gave the size that we thought we needed, and we received sizers for that size, 1 size up and 1 size down so that we would be sure to get rings that fit us perfectly!

As for wear ad tear, I can tell you that after 6 months of use, they still look brand new! I was told by the sellers that because the rings are sealed they are completely water proof. But I'm very protective of my ring, and a little paranoid, so I do take it off when I shower/wash my hands/cook messy foods.

This is going to be short, because I have nothing negative at all to say about these rings or the sellers!

All I can say is that if you are considering getting and jewelry from Minter and Richter, go for it! The jewelry is beautiful and extremely high-quality, and their prices are very reasonable!

So that's it for the wedding ring review! I've got a lot of other cool things coming though, so stay tuned!