I have an awesome husband.  :)

The rotors and brake pads on my car have been slowly been deteriorating, culminating to a horrible, awful, annoying screeching noise anytime I slowed down, and also when driving under 30 mph.

Since we were supposed to be in our new house this past weekend, Bryan said that he'd fix my car Sunday night since we'd have a garage.  Well, the house closing has been delayed (yet again) until Thursday, so fixing the brakes this past weekend went out the window.  The problem was that I could not take the noise any more.  It was especially bad in parking lots, such as Meijer, where there were lots of people.  I just had enough!

Being that it's warm outside I figured that last night would be a good night to fix the car and get it over with.  I had no idea it was going to pour.  Bryan, though, being the magnificent husband he is, worked through the awful weather.  Everything was slippery, oily, cold, and wet.  There was very little light to work with.  Parts would not fit how they're supposed to.  Even though it took much longer than expected to fix my darn car, he stuck to it and got it done.

Today, my car is running great!  There is no screeching, the sound of knives sharpening or an airplane taking off has ceased.  :)  All because Bryan loves me.

So this (along with many other things) is why I am the lucky wife. 

I love diet soda, especially diet coke and diet pepsi.  It's a terrible weakness of mine.  It just tastes so delicious I can't resist!  So today at lunch I ventured over to Elaine's Bagels to get a salt bagel (another favorite) and a diet coke.  Because in addition to diet coke, I love a good salt bagel. Unfortunately Elaine's could not offer either a good diet coke or tastey bagel.  The bagels available didn't look too hot, even though they were just made this morning.  The majority of the bagels were shaped more like a round ball than anything else.  I can deal with that.  What I can't deal with is the terrible quality of their soda fountain.  I almost returned it right then and there, but I had already had the cashier adjust the price as she had previously wrong it up wrong.  And she didn't speak much English. 

Anyways, what makes this diet coke so terrible you might ask?  Well, for starters, it's not cold.  And on top of the lukewarm mediocre temperature, the fountain pop machine does not have any ice.  So it's warm pop without ice.  And then, even worse, it's 100% flat.  There is not the tiniest bit of fix to be found.  Awful.  Elaine's Bagels is not recommended.  I am sticking with Einsteins for my next bagel adventure.  They have delicious diet coke, so delicious that when I worked at Metaldyne I would go there just for a soda, no food. 

In case you don't know it, I can be cheap.  I don't like to part with my money, unless it's for a really cute top on sale, or an awesome pair of shoes on clearance.  To help illustrate how bad this diet coke was, I almost when to 7-eleven to buy ANOTHER diet coke and to just throw this one away.  But alas, my cheapness won out.  I couldn't just throw $1.48 (for a measly 24 oz.) away...

So now, I just finished a second rate bagel and am left with a third rate diet coke.

Mmmm, delicious!  The Cara Cara orange is a naval orange that is very sweet, perhaps sweeter than a normal naval orange, and it's also a little less acidic.

Better yet, it's PINK on the inside!  :)  What a fun and delicious fruit.  I will have to enjoy it while I can, since this orange has a very short season.

After chatting with Kathy at work I was just thinking a little bit more about unpacking once we move.  Until now I was just thinking that we don't have much stuff, unpacking won't take long, and then we can get right to fixing drywall and painting.  And then I remembered something fabulous!  We have all of our new dinnerware, glasses, kitchen electrics, mixer, etc!  And new towels!  And more!  All from our showers and wedding, we decided not to open anything or use anything until we found a more permanent residence.  And now that we have, we can use it all!  And even better, organize it all!!!  I can't wait.  :)  It's going to be GREAT!  Just thinking about my pretty swirl dinnerware puts a smile on my face...

Bryan and I had a very nice weekend together.  J  Friday night we relaxed and made dinner together, chatted with A.J. for quite a while, and watched an episode of The Office on nbc.com (Season 4, episode 2).  We can’t get enough of that show! 

Saturday morning we went to Verizon to get Bryan a new phone (his now matches mine – we’re twins!), then I headed over to Novi and had lunch with my sister Katie.  She found out she got into Wayne State Law School, and I am so happy for her!!  And she still has a few schools to hear back from yet…  We went to Olga’s together, a favorite of ours.  Their three cheese Olgas can’t be beat. 

After lunch I headed over to Jamie’s house and went to a bridal show at the Rock Financial Show Place with her, her mom, and her future mother-in-law.  It was fun.  I think she found it helpful.  I am very excited for her wedding, and it’s still nine months away! 

Saturday night Bryan and I went to Cheeburger Cheeburger for a quick dinner.  It was our first time there, and I enjoyed it.  They have a really nice side salad with really fresh lettuce, some spinach, and no iceberg!    Bryan wants to go back and polish off a pound burger to get his picture on the wall.  I can already feel arteries hardening just thinking about it.. ;)   After dinner we picked up Katie and went to see the movie 27 Dresses.  I thought it was very cute and much better than expected!  I really enjoy Katherine Hiegl, and I also liked the rest of the cast.  Katie and Bryan liked it as well. 

Sunday Bryan and I stayed inside out of the freezing cold!  We prepared for the move a bit by packing and cleaning up some odds and ends.  The place looks much better now!! And we watched Superman Returns at night.  I guess we couldn’t get enough of James Marsden this weekend.  J  It was a pretty decent movie.   

And that’s our very simple, nice weekend together.  J

I love Fridays.  I was talking to my friend Christina here at work this morning and she asked what's better about Fridays - wearing jeans or knowing that you can sleep in the next day?  I said that both make it alot easier to get up in the morning.

 weighed in at Weight Watchers today at lunch, and recieved some surprisingly good news - I am down 3 pounds from last week!  (Another good thing about today!)  After a weekend of a lot of fun, I wasn't sure how things would turn out at the weigh-in.  Luckily, though, I did not technically go over my points, I just used all of my extra flex points!  And I wrote EVERYTHING that I ate down.  I hope to record everything this week too, and maybe not use all of my flex points..  We'll see..

More to come later.

We should (finally) be receiving the title work today!!  Thank goodness..  But we still won't be able to close tomorrow.  :(  I guess the bank needs time to put a few things together, so we should be closing on Tuesday, January 22, one week later.  We really needed this weekend to fix up the drywall and do some painting, etc. but that will have to wait.  During the week next week we'll have to do some deep cleaning and then move on January 26.  We'll just have to fix the drywall and do all painting after moving in.  That stinks, but there's nothing we can do.  We need to move that weekend because we told A.J. (our quasi-landlord) we'd be out of his place by the end of January.  Oh well.

We're going to have a pretty empty house for a while..  I am not sure when exactly we're going to get real furniture, but hopefully soon.  But there are a lot of decisions to make as far as colors and styles go - it's very overwhelming!!

I am sitting here enjoying on of my favorite Lean Cuisine lunch options - Roasted Potatoes, Broccoli, and Cheddar Cheese Sauce.  It's a five point meal according to its current package, but it used to be only four points (as reflected on the website: http://www.leancuisine.com/Products/Details.aspx?ProductID=79) until it seems 20 extra calories were added.  It jumped from 220 calories to 240 calories.  I am a little saddened by this, since this dish was once my favorite Friday lunch choice in anticipation of a night out.  But alas, I will have to suffer with an extra point.

I was very apprehensive when first giving this one dish classic a shot, but after the first few bites I new it would become a lunch-time favorite, along with a few other Lean Cuisines and the odd soup or turkey sandwich.  I like that it is very filling and provides ample flavor.  Unlike the Weight Watcher's Smart Ones variety of this mean, Lean Cuisine's version contains quite a bit more broccoli and the cheese is not nearly as orange - two bonuses in my opinion.

Overall, this meal is a solid choice, especially when followed by a ripe piece of fruit.  :) 

Okay, so maybe marriage is not a hardship, but it's definitely not a walk in the park either!  We officially lived together for about a year before getting married, unofficially even longer than that.  That is, my mail got sent to his address for a little less than a year before marriage.  It's all about the mailing address to Mr. Hubby.  Since we'd been cohabitating, we thought that maybe that first year of marriage people say is so easy will be done with - we've been through it all!  Not exactly.  There's something very different about living together before and after marriage.  And we're experiencing the first year right now.  There are lots of ups and downs that are just unexpected.

Here are a few of my quick thoughts about what has been difficult:

-Changing my name.  I almost refused to sign my new last name on the marriage certificate after our ceremony.  It's just a very difficult change!  My old last name just had such a flow...  Now I have a last name that may be common on the west side of Michigan but is foreign to anyone over here.  And it doesn't have the same ring.  But as hubby says, it's my name now too, so I guess I need to be proud of it..

-Knowing that in order to break up, you would need to get a divorce.  As silly as it is, it's both and good and bad thing.  But a divorce seems alot worse than just an ended relationship.  Most people have break-ups, but not as many seem to have a divorce, especially not as many twenty-somethings.

-Habits that you just nonchalantly blew off before the marriage now are not so little.  The silly things start to annoy you alot more.  Some of the big things do too.

These are the main things that I can think of right now about how marriage is a lot different than a relationship.