Since I’m heading into the salon, I figured it’s the perfect time to travel through the “History of Steph’s Hair.” Buckle up y’all. It’s a bumpy ride.

Now, I know I’m not the only one with a few hair misfortunes.. Tell me all about your worst hairstyles. Oh and any suggestions for my hair appointment on Wednesday are more than welcome.

We’re so freaking exciting.

It is 2010. This past New Year’s Eve, instead of waiting for all our computers to explode from Y2K, we were all just so relieved to leave 2009 in the dust. Cale and I decided to celebrate in a more low-key way: by watching random TLC shows about the super-obese and primordial dwarfs, while drinking hot chocolate (the fancy kind on the side of the Hershey’s can) spiked with Bailey’s. So for those who are so anxious to hang out, be warned, we are not exciting. In fact, it’s official we’re boring.

It was so mundane, that I didn’t even realize that we were embarking on a new decade. Or that just ten years earlier, we were entering a new century. And then I remembered what I had been doing ten years ago.

me: “Babe do you remember what you were doing ten years ago?”

me: YES!

Well Cale wasn’t anxious to stroll with me down memory lane, but ten years ago, Cale and I were spending New Year’s together! I had totally forgotten. If you haven’t been a reader for long, I posted a couple years back about “our beginning”. It started in 1998 as friends, and we were shortly boyfriend and girlfriend from 1999 to 2000. Well, as much as you can be boyfriend and girlfriend at fifteen years old. That New Year’s Eve, my childhood neighborhood threw a new years eve block party complete with bounce house and barbecue. And Cale was there. I vaguely remember the night, and I don’t even know if he was allowed to stay until midnight (most likely not). But how fun it is to know that ten years ago, we were just two teenagers running around a cul-de-sac with my neighbors, eating food, and jumping around the bounce house when the little kids left.

Here’s to many more New Years together and to actually making plans next year. The way we spent it this year was just plain embarrassing.

Well this year, I decided that I’d like to give something away for my birthday again. Why? Well it’s just so darn fun. And there are so many of you I just love, and I wish I could have a huge birthday party with all of you, combined with wine, girly movies, and makeovers of course. Since I can’t logically do all that, I’d like to spread some fun and prettiness your way in honor of the fact that I’m steadily getting older.

Sigh.

Danni has a lovely little carousel necklace in her ohhellofriend etsy shop that I just fell in love with. Because if I may share a little tidbit about myself: I used to love all things carousel and unicorn related. I have a box of porcelain carousels stored safely away at my mom’s house. My room used to have a lovely little unicorn wallpaper border, all adorned with pastel colors. Really that necklace is something that the moment I saw it, it took me right back to that little girl, carefully organizing her figurines by height (seriously. That was me as a child. OCD much?)

What’s a birthday without some childhood photos?

this can become a part of your own jewelry box!

So for my birthday, I am going to buy this as a gift for one of you! All you have to do is leave a comment with one of your childhood obsessions, be it a boy band, the care bears, you name it! (One comment per person please!) The contest will close at 11:59pm on Friday December 11th, and I will announce the winner on December 12th.

But in the dream of more space, I started browsing Craiglist for two bedroom houses to rent. I had no expectations of finding anything. Clearly it was a far reaching dream: two bedrooms, a big backyard, a detached house, in Sunol, with lots of trees and nature, all for only a little bit more than our already ridiculously-amazingly-low rent for the Bay Area. Who was I kidding? Impossible.

Apparently not. There it was. Two bedroom, overlooking Cale’s favorite golf course. Of course the rent was quite a bit higher than what we wanted to pay, but with utilities included, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least look at it. Horrible horrible idea. We both fell in love. Cale’s eyes went so wide looking at all the space. You would have thought it was a mansion. I liked it a lot, but wasn’t sure how I felt about the added cost. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that the added expense really wasn’t worth it. So we put it out of our minds (as much as we could).

Then a couple weeks ago, I left for training. And waiting for me when I landed was an email from the landlord saying they were going to lower the rent, and since they were really keen on us, wanted to know if we would be interested. What a wonderful distraction when I’m all the way in Arizona! Cale was a trooper fielding all my questions, videotaping a detailed tour of the house so I could envision how we could make it work and ironing out all the details. You would think that I was on board right off the back, but I really wavered. We have had such a wonderful experience with our current landlords and cottage. What if it wasn’t as good? Do we want to spend the extra money? But over the week, I became convinced. We both canceled our gym memberships to offset the additional rent. When I got back home, we met the landlords at the house again, and finalized all the details.

So over Thanksgiving, instead of stuffing ourselves and taking a nap, I’ll be busy painting and Cale will be moving our things to the new house. To say that my stress levels at the moment are high, is a drastic understatement.

goodbye our little gravel road

sidenote: If you have our current address, we will be keeping our Post Office Box, so there will be no changes there.

Today I’m photographing Cale’s friend’s wedding, and Cale is officiating. It also happens to be the day where the blogosphere is throwing Miss Renee a virtual bridal shower. Am I the only one feeling so warm and fuzzy with all the love? It so touching to see people getting geared up before their wedding. It brings me back to all the anticipation that I experienced before ours. Last night Cale and I sat down and watched our wedding video. Yep, we’re that couple. We ooze in our own lovey-dovey-ness.

Now over two years since we’ve been married I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Maybe even faster had I known back then how truly awesome my husband is. I had no idea how often he would step it up in the kitchen. Or how much of a deep thinker he is during his down time around the house. Or how often he would bring me flowers. Or how he would be there to stand by me one hundred percent of the time. So when I see couples in those weeks before their weddings, I have to hold back. Otherwise I would be proclaiming in their faces: If you let it, this will be the best step in your lives. You are in for something so amazing. Such closeness with your spouse that you have never yet experienced. Enjoy it.

Because if it’s one thing I do clearly remember before my wedding was I did not enjoy the unsolicited advice.

775 days married. And clearly very happy.

Renee, enjoy the short time left before your wedding, but don’t worry it only gets better from there. <3

So if you thought I died in Vegas..

You were about half right.

I got back from Vegas with an occasional *cough cough*. You know, those dainty little coughs that come and go.

Well fast forward to last Tuesday, and I was like *COUGH URGGGGJROOOTHSKG COUGH* Phlegm everywhere. Eyes crossed. Fever. Kill me now. That kind of sick. And from there I went into a Nyquil-induced coma whence I emerged today. I dragged my booty back to work, resisted my urges to ram my car into the other lane during my morning commute, because clearly a broken leg or two wouldn’t be as bad as coming into work when I still am battling a chest cold and when my body decided that four days of 20 hours of sleep wasn’t enough because oh-my-goodness I’m still exhausted.

During this coma, I managed to sleep my way through our 2 year anniversary. A day when usually I would write an adorable post about how much I love my husband and we’re meant to be, with butterflies and doves fluttering about. Instead my anniversary will forever be marked by:

but my husband brought me jamba juice, crackers, cake, gatorade, and now getting me french fries. Exactly why we’re been married for 2 years
9:54 PM Jun 10th from Tweetie

There you go, the mark of a wonderful marriage: a husband who indulges your horrendous sick-person-appetite with whatever it is you’re craving because otherwise you’d just rather starve.

Luckily we did celebrate our anniversary properly while in Vegas a few weekends ago. A weekend that involved room service of Jalapeno poppers and Champagne, my first Bloody Mary with breakfast of course, a mani/pedi for me, getting outfitted by a seriously awesome Gap employee, fabulously fancy Chinese food at Fin, the front row at the Beatles LOVE, and Cale doubling up his gambling money before left for our flight home. The Beatles LOVE was AMAZING. I cried. We bonded with the other Beatles-obsessed woman sitting next to us. I almost died from the Blackbird flying 2 inches above my head. It was worth every single penny. Actually, it was worth the entire trip.

The next weekend I flew back to Vegas for a weekend of fun with bloggers. Some I read, some I didn’t. My pre-Vegas-cram-session of reading blogs didn’t end up happening. But by the end of the trip, my faith in humanity was restored. I’m most certainly the textbook definition of an introvert, so flying to Vegas where I did not know a single person “in real life” was without-a-doubt frightening. I was ready to back out. I was literally talking myself up until I was seated in the airplane. I got there and all my anxiety was gone the moment I walked into wishcake’s and my hotel room, helped myself to her wine, and waited for them to come meet me. Everyone was just as nice as I imagined, multiplied by five hundred. I felt a little behind because I missed the group dinner with all the introductions, but spent the weekend meeting everyone and having a good time. I always knew I could stalk their name and other details I missed when I got home. I concentrated on having fun during the short time we had together. It was truly a life-altering experience. I had sunshine paired with a Bud Light at the Luxor pool, amazing pasta at Mario Batali’s, cheap wine at Zefferino, and a tall margarita-dacquiri-something-who-cares-it-was-delicious at the Mirage. There were tons of laughs the entire time. I now know that I have friends all over the United States with whom could have a fabulous time. At any time. And who I fully expect to see next year because we must do this again. And it makes me despise the fact that I’m not called “Steph Corwin” in my “real life”.

Some of the many girls that are my new BFFs. Photo courtesy of the talented and sweet Elizabeth

As if my life hasn’t been exhausting enough, this weekend I am ecstatic to go to Bakersfield to meet my new little brother and sister-in-law, who were born the day Cale and I got back from Vegas. They are both healthy and at home with Cale’s dad and wife. The little boy looks like Cale and his dad, which just makes me so gushy and happy. I am looking forward to spending the entire day trading off holding them and taking pictures of them.

That’s my life in a nutshell. I’m sad that I’ve been out-of-commission the past few days, but if you want to know some good shows to watch while you are sick: Californication and United States of Tara. Though during my bouts of unconsciousness, I did end up having some pretty crazy dreams filled with sex, drugs, and tattoos, most certainly thanks to watching two entire seasons of Californication in the span of two days. Entertaining to say the least.

Then after graduating, I turned in my iBook, packed up my iMac and moved in with my new husband. That man who had the monstrous Dell laptop. A huge beast of a laptop. The man who also had a desktop PC. And who had purchased me my own little PC also. That is right, we had four computers at one time. We sold off the desktop PCs, leaving us with Cale’s laptop and my trusty old iMac. An iMac who was slowly being outdated and who I found myself neglecting for the speed of the newer laptop. Then when Cale’s Dell gave up on life, we got him a new HP laptop. A purchase that I think both Cale and I knew was mostly for him. Even though I would insist it was “our” computer, we would always refer to it as his. And we would battle over our computer time. It got to where even Cale agreed it was time to upgrade the iMac for me.

We started checking them out a while back, but realized we should wait since it had been a while since their last iMac refresh. One was due any day according to the mac rumors sites. Well much to our surprise, this morning Apple announced the new iMacs, along with their other desktop computer refreshes.. and those new computers were available.. today! So my husband had his mission. He was calling the store, waiting for them to get their shipment in. Until around three this afternoon we became the proud owners of a new iMac.. with a whole terabyte of memory! I am so relieved to have a computer to myself that runs quickly and is oh-so-pretty. (That I didn’t even have to set up, by the way. I came home to it all pretty on top of my desk).

Just to compare.. New Mac… Old Mac. Bye bye old Mac! I’ll miss you!

So after a short venture into the PC life, I’m very glad to be back to having a Mac. A big, huge, beautiful Mac.

Well it started out in a very different way from all other years. Cale’s grandma Verla passed away right at the start of the new year. It was the first of two funerals I would attend this year. While the passing was not a surprise, it was still very sorrowful to lose a member of my newly-acquired in-laws. Then the day after our one year anniversary I got a horrible message. Our friends’ son had passed away. I read her email over and over. I couldn’t believe it. Then I ran in to Cale getting ready for work, and I sobbed so heavily and deeply, barely able to relay the news to him. I called her saying of course we would be there. And we were.

On January 2nd, the day after Verla’s passing, I took (and later not surprisingly found out that I did not pass) my first CPA exam. And the rest of those exams would take up the good first half of my year. I took two tests each testing window until my last one on July 2nd. And after that first fluke test, I passed all four, which resulted in a nice bonus that funded my very first DSLR camera.

At the beginning of 2008, I never would have imagined that a new camera would sky-rocket to the top of my wishlist. I slowly began to take an interest in photography throughout the year as I learned how to work our little point and shoot and as I began to blog more often. In January I wrote a total of three blogs that entire month. February there were four. March there were fifteen, and it just increased from there. Then in April I started participating in Exposaroonie. The regular challenges pushed me to learn and experiment with photography. And you know what? It was fun. So fun that during the latter part of this year I started up my Daily Me: a self-portrait everyday. It’s a great way for me to drag my camera out every day. So I guess you could say in 2008 I found a great new hobby.

I also lied before when I said I never went anywhere. But actually 2008 held several adventures for me. Earlier in the year we had visitors to our little cottage. Chris and Alyssa visited and we all went to San Francisco and, among other things, got yummy donuts. My husband and I took a short weekend holiday to Carmel to celebrate our one year anniversary in June. We both ended up with severe sunburns and spent the remainder of the weekend recovering. Then my family all joined in Tahoe for some adventures that included dog diarrhea, bears, and more sunburns. Our last trip was to the California coast for my sister’s birthday, whose pictures have still yet to be seen on this blog, as my ultimate procrastination has caused a four month delay in posting apparently. One other adventure that I took solo was to Orlando, FL for a work conference. Of course it wasn’t entirely uneventful, as I went early to visit Disneyworld and I did take a break in the week to make it to an Obama Rally in Kissimmee.

There were also smaller trips throughout the year. Mostly to Bakersfield to visit family. And as the year went on, the trips became further apart, which was not a bad thing. I was learning to be more independent. To enjoy my weekends of leisure. To get the most out of our visits when we did make them. Halfway through the year I made a special trip to Fresno to visit with Morgan and to meet some new friends. Because over the year, I met people through this blog that are my friends. This blog that I only posted in three times in January grew in a way that allowed me to meet people; awesome people at that. Awesome people who I shared the contents of my purse with, came to our Christmas party, and who I exchanged scarves with. It also allowed me to stay up to date in the day to day lives of my “real life” friends and family. I got to go to my best friend’s baby shower and cried when I got to hear as she was going into labor. Alyssa inspired me to craft. Talia inspired me to cook. Cait shared our seesterly love.

While I didn’t get married in 2008, I did get to celebrate a one year wedding anniversary. Not only that but I learned a lot about being married and what all that entails. Following the wedding I was bound and determined to be a perfect wife. I wanted a perfect house, to cook perfect meals, and to do it all. As I started having to stay at work later and later into the evening, I saw my dreams of being the perfect wife slip away. I was asking Cale to cook dinner and was watching the dust pile up. But you know what? Cale didn’t care. He taught me a lot over this year about being a good wife. He showed me that it’s not about what I do, but it’s about coming home and being there. He showed me how to be romantic. He showed me that no matter what happens at work or elsewhere, I can always come home and get a good cuddle. Our relationship grew tremendously over the past year, and at the start of the year, I never would have thought that it could get any better. But it did.

So I guess all that was just to say.. Wow. 2008 wasn’t all that boring. While I don’t have any monumental life experiences headed my way, I can’t let life pass me by. So much can happen that could just dissolve into oblivion if we don’t take a second to savor it and to put it into our memories. Looking forward to 2009 I know that I can count on another year that is eventful. No matter what eventually happens.