Life in Texas is Nice and Warm

My first Valentine's Day with a sweetheart! I'm sorry, but if we're being honest it really is a better holiday when you do have a significant other.

Really Nice Flowers

Life keeps going. The adorable humidifier is pumping it's life away; half my seedlings have already overheated and died, because it's in the 70s here; and I cannot for the life of me keep anything from burning in the oven. It's a older single-coil oven, and the dial with the temperature markings is worn so exact temperature control is nearly impossible.

Speaking of holidays, I had a mental meltdown when I realized that this year's Easter would come without the purple Indonesian tablecloth I've seen on the table every Easter for most of my life. A cursory search on Amazon revealed that tasteful batik tablecloths are few and expensive. Oh well. We get to make our own traditions.

Been Married a While

Growing things, in February! Because it's never winter in Texas.

We've been married a month now, which is a little weird. Good, but strange to think about. Life is going along. We finally just had our first Saturday without obligations. Other than John's necessary school(even on Saturdays), we visited a thrift store that the church ladies swear by(at least, if the church ladies swore, they would) and Sprouts: a health food store. We also had heart-shaped waffles with melted chocolate and strawberries for breakfast, and epic lasagna for dinner. We're getting fat. Or at least, I am. John's body refuses. Life is not fair.

More settled than last time.

We added to our family a three-pound container of Ghirardelli hot chocolate mix and the World's Tiniest Humidifier. It's so adorable. Sooo teeny tiny sitting on our counter. That's one interesting thing about two people living in an apartment: everything is so small and cute. Curtains are up! Still waiting on wall hangings. We have live plants, too.

I think the pottery cup shelf is my favorite.

World's Noisiest Washer: It washes!

Kitchen curtains and table.

I'm more and more missing having a convection oven and broiler. World's Tiniest Oven does function as an oven, but that's all that can be said for it. I've never burned to much food in my life. Thankfully even the worst of my cooking(which isn't really that bad) is still better than what John was eating at the bachelor pad, so he doesn't seem to mind!

Soaking Salt and Burning, Billowing Smoke

Salt: Before we got married John bought a two-pound bag of lavender bath salts, which is funny because that's a lot and it tripped airport security both ways to and from the honeymoon. We tried, but despite our valiant efforts there was still a lot left in the bag after the honeymoon. So now my new favorite thing in the evening is soaking in a lavender foot bath while John is studying.

We had our first dinner guest rather unexpectedly- a foreign student who is in one of John's classes came home with him for dinner one evening. The plan was to have baked chicken and potatoes in butter, spices and fresh garlic, in my new stoneware baking dish(which I love). The dish itself was fine, but shortly after the World's Tiniest Oven got going, smoke was billowing. The gravy that had dripped out of the pot pie the evening before was going to town in making us uncomfortably smoked. The smoke detector went off, and I think our guest was a little confused as to whether or not dinner was meant to be edible. In the end I quit trying to use the oven and stir-fried the chicken, and it turned out really(really) tasty.

Also, we now have a mailbox, which we keep forgetting to check and we have a hard time caring about since we figure no one is going to send us mail.

The week's second housewifely failure involved the the newest member our family of appliances: a used washing machine. I'm really glad to have a washer after two weeks, but it did turn out to be The World's Noisiest Washer. I've done about four or five loads of laundry so far, and forgot to check pockets twice now. Opening the washer after finishing a load was like snow in Texas, made of shredded tissue. Add to that the breaking-in of our new and fluffy towels, and everything coming out of the wash has way more lint than when it went in!

And that's what's been happening.