Well, it only took us four months to find the time, but after a quick visit to the Social Security office this morning, Sarah Leone Sturm has officially become Sarah Leone Williams.
Just in time, too, since the airline tickets for the honeymoon are in the new name — and we still need to order up Sarah's new passport. And change her name on all accounts and legal documents.
Husbands have it easy.
Jason
Friday, October 31, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Finishing what the termites started.
The termite eaten, dry rotted, all around unattractive and unstable patio cover has become the first significant casualty of the remodel project. My dad and I demoed it today — part one of a multi-stage project that should result in a sparkling new patio cover built by Thanksgiving.Sarah and I have been slammed with school and work, nothing new, so besides the little fixes here and there around the house to get settled, this is our first major work on the house since we moved in. Rebuilding the patio cover will likely be our only big ticket remodel project this fall, unless someone gets elected president who's willing to "spread the wealth around." Joe the Plumber may have $250,000, but I don't.
Jason
Friday, October 3, 2008
The first 100 days.
On Day 1 we got married again, and it’s been great since. We were fortunate to kick off married life with a few days in the redwoods with friends and family, and then some time to ourselves on our little honeymoon just east of the Sierras. We soaked it up because we knew we’d hit the ground running when we got home.
And we did.
Sarah jumped right into the beginning of her fourth year in a row of full time work and school, and with the economy sucking and her energy flagging, it’s been a tough start this go around. But — it’s her last year! It seems like a long way off, but by the end of next summer she’ll be graduated.
Everything converged for us during the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September. To Sarah’s schedule I added my seven-course fall semester load (I’m also taking a California history class as part of an A.A. I’m working on). Any leftover time went to prepping for the move from Grandpa’s to our new home, which crammed tenting the house, scraping the popcorn off the ceilings, painting, and installing new flooring into a two week period (see slideshow below). The painting took twice as long as we expected … for various reasons. But everything looks great, and thanks to a little help from our friends, the move went smooth.
We lost two additional weeks spending our spare time looking for our lost cat, Belikin, who we’ve yet to find (see posts below). We did manage to bring home a similar, yet ultimately different cat, which we’ve taken to calling Maybe.
Those six weeks of busyness threw us fairly far behind in work and school, and we’re only now beginning to settle, catch our breath, and catch up. With a little tinkering here and there we’ll put Phase 1 of the remodel to bed — and with an eye toward June 25-26, 2009, we’ll take the first few tentative steps into Phase 2 of our massive project.
We’ve really enjoyed all the milestones of the past 100 days, both wedding related and not. We had a blast anticipating the arrival of our wedding pictures with everyone else who checked the Trailbrook blog by the hour, and then sharing those pictures. Following our wedding we got to celebrate the marriage of Sarah’s cousin, Melissa (She became a Williams, too, after tying the knot with fiancé Klay Williams). We were happy to congratulate my dad on his retirement coup, calling in to the fire department from a beach in Hawaii to say simply that he’s not coming back to work. Ever again. Now he just gets to spend his days playing with wood, and grandkids when they come along. I’ve enjoyed helping Anna and Frank build their wedding web site, and we’re both excited to hear about their developing plans for their April wedding. And we were thrilled that Amber moved to Korea so that she and Chris could both share in the unique experience of living and teaching English abroad, and exploring that part of the world (Anna and Frank will join them for a trip to China at the end of this month). All good things.
And speaking of exploring the world, Sarah and I are gearing up for our month-long honeymoon Dec. 17 – Jan. 14. We’ve been snapping up trekking equipment every time R.E.I. has a sale, and making reservations for the multi-day, 40 – 80 km tramps we’ll be taking into the New Zealand back country. Just last night we secured a reservation for the Kaikoura Coast Track (3 days, 37.3 km) — the last big hike we’ll do before coming home.
Thanks to my unemployment, we got to enjoy one another during the summer, and now that the hectic days of August-September have passed, we’re happily enjoying married life, still tickled by the idea of being a “husband” and a “wife” and how strange those grown up terms sound tripping off our tongues.
Jason
PS: Here’s a peak at the remodel work, so far.
And we did.
Sarah jumped right into the beginning of her fourth year in a row of full time work and school, and with the economy sucking and her energy flagging, it’s been a tough start this go around. But — it’s her last year! It seems like a long way off, but by the end of next summer she’ll be graduated.
Everything converged for us during the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September. To Sarah’s schedule I added my seven-course fall semester load (I’m also taking a California history class as part of an A.A. I’m working on). Any leftover time went to prepping for the move from Grandpa’s to our new home, which crammed tenting the house, scraping the popcorn off the ceilings, painting, and installing new flooring into a two week period (see slideshow below). The painting took twice as long as we expected … for various reasons. But everything looks great, and thanks to a little help from our friends, the move went smooth.
We lost two additional weeks spending our spare time looking for our lost cat, Belikin, who we’ve yet to find (see posts below). We did manage to bring home a similar, yet ultimately different cat, which we’ve taken to calling Maybe.
Those six weeks of busyness threw us fairly far behind in work and school, and we’re only now beginning to settle, catch our breath, and catch up. With a little tinkering here and there we’ll put Phase 1 of the remodel to bed — and with an eye toward June 25-26, 2009, we’ll take the first few tentative steps into Phase 2 of our massive project.
We’ve really enjoyed all the milestones of the past 100 days, both wedding related and not. We had a blast anticipating the arrival of our wedding pictures with everyone else who checked the Trailbrook blog by the hour, and then sharing those pictures. Following our wedding we got to celebrate the marriage of Sarah’s cousin, Melissa (She became a Williams, too, after tying the knot with fiancé Klay Williams). We were happy to congratulate my dad on his retirement coup, calling in to the fire department from a beach in Hawaii to say simply that he’s not coming back to work. Ever again. Now he just gets to spend his days playing with wood, and grandkids when they come along. I’ve enjoyed helping Anna and Frank build their wedding web site, and we’re both excited to hear about their developing plans for their April wedding. And we were thrilled that Amber moved to Korea so that she and Chris could both share in the unique experience of living and teaching English abroad, and exploring that part of the world (Anna and Frank will join them for a trip to China at the end of this month). All good things.
And speaking of exploring the world, Sarah and I are gearing up for our month-long honeymoon Dec. 17 – Jan. 14. We’ve been snapping up trekking equipment every time R.E.I. has a sale, and making reservations for the multi-day, 40 – 80 km tramps we’ll be taking into the New Zealand back country. Just last night we secured a reservation for the Kaikoura Coast Track (3 days, 37.3 km) — the last big hike we’ll do before coming home.
Thanks to my unemployment, we got to enjoy one another during the summer, and now that the hectic days of August-September have passed, we’re happily enjoying married life, still tickled by the idea of being a “husband” and a “wife” and how strange those grown up terms sound tripping off our tongues.
Jason
PS: Here’s a peak at the remodel work, so far.
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