Our Wedding: Group Shots

What does everyone do with the dozens of group photos you get of your wedding party? The selection here is but a fraction of the group photos we received, and they're all good! 

LOTS more photos after the jump!

Our Wedding: The Reveal

It was important to Tim and I that we do the reveal before the ceremony. We wanted to be able to go straight from the ceremony to hanging out with our guests. While many people choose to go the traditional route and have a pause for photographs after the ceremony, Tim and I really aren't the traditional types. I don't know if it's as special as having your husband see you for the first time walking down the aisle, but it worked really well for us. It just streamlined the timing so much to do the reveal and bridal party shots before the ceremony, which definitely decreased the stress of the day! 

More photos after the jump!

Sunday Walk: Peterborough Water Tower

Tim and I wound up with some time to kill on Sunday, in between breakfast with Angel, running errands, and dinner at Dean and Wendy's for Christopher's 25th birthday. I've always been curious about the hiking trails (I'm using "hiking" extremely liberally here) around the west end water tower. There are actually more trails there than I thought, although it's really a small area. Very pretty in the gorgeous fall weather. We spent a half hour wandering around with Tim reminiscing about playing around there as a child.

On our way back to the car we found an apple tree that had sweet apples on it, so Tim picked as many as my scarf would hold and we'll try making apple sauce or something similar out of them later this week!

Our Wedding: Casablanca by Blue by Enzoani Wedding Dress

I will admit that I never had a "This is my dress" mental moment like they show on TV. When I saw myself in the mirror, I did think that I had never known that a dress could make me look like that. I did think that Tim would love it and that it was perfect for the vibe we were going for with our wedding. But I didn't have a crying-as-I-stared-in-the-mirror moment. Blaire did and my mother-in-law Wendy did. But I have absolutely zero regrets. I loved the dress, which is the Casablanca model by Blue by Enzoani.

I bought my dress at the first salon I went to. It was even the first dress I tried on. When I called Antoinette's Bridal Boutique to set up an appointment, I talked to Sevda, who I believe is the owner. I told her that we were having a barn wedding and that I wanted lace. That Tim had told me no poufiness and that I wanted something romantic. Almost right away she said that she thought she had the right dress. That she would have to see me first to know, but that she was pretty sure. When I walked through the doors of the salon the morning of my apointment and introduced myself, she said that she was right - she had my dress. Sure enough, she pulled the Casablanca, which was what I wound up buying. 

It wasn't originally what I thought I wanted - I was sure I wanted straps of some kind, maybe backless. But although I tried on nine dresses, none of the other ones fit as well or was as flattering. Plus I fit the size 6 in the Casablanca perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. I could have used a little butt padding. I blame my flat butt on my Dad, though. I bought the dress that day and cancelled all the other salon appointments I had set up. I will admit it was  a pain to wear. There's a photo in here of Sarah helping me up off the couch. The inner sheath of the dress is very tight, I'm guessing to keep the silhouette of the dress. But it doesn't allow for deep bending. Putting on shoes, picking things up, sitting too deeply - none of that was really possible. I could sit, but it had to be on the edge of the chair. Bonus points, though: I went to the bathroom by myself all night in this dress. Leave me your e-mail address below if you've bought yourself a similar dress and want to know how!

Sarah did an amazing job doing up my dress. I did send her a link to a Youtube how-to video, I'm hoping it helped somewhat. It definitely was not a quick process. 

Lots more photos after the jump!

Our Wedding: Lunches at Dancing Blueberries and St. Veronus

Tim and I both wanted to make it a priority to have time for lunch with our respective wedding parties before heading over to the barn for photos and the ceremony. All of the wedding tips I read said to be sure to eat regularly and drink WATER throughout the day. Given how long the day was, I'm really glad I followed that advice! 

I wanted to go somewhere girly that we could get cute pictures at, but the options for that in Peterborough are more limited than you'd expect. My first choice was the The Magic Rolling Pin Tea Room, but I was extremely disappointed to hear that their summer hours don't include Saturdays. We went to Dancing Blueberries instead. The food was delicious and really reasonably priced, plus the service was very quick. 

More photos after the jump!

Dinner Tonight - Tomatillo Braised Chicken

Tim and I have been doing better this summer than last at finishing up our By the Bushel veggies. However, that isn't to say some things don't stump us (especially not since Tim threw out a bag of unidentifiable green goo - it might have once been lettuce - and a particularly rotted bag of tomatoes tonight). Tomatillos looked to be going that way until I stumbled across BevCooks' Braised Chicken in a Tomatillo Sauce. Part of the allure here was that I had everything to make it already in the kitchen, with a few adjustments.

Bev uses canned tomatillos. I'm not sure one could find canned tomatillos in Lakefield, plus I had a whole bag of them on my counter just waiting to mould. She also uses hominy. While she says that it is delicious (and I have no reason not to trust her), I don't know the first thing about it, including where to get it. Plus that would negate me making this from things I already had on hand. Crucial, given our newly tightened "Let's buy a house" budget.

The chicken is great - I love using chicken legs for braises like this. Perfect portion sizes and really cheap. The sauce is amazing. I could eat tonnes of this over rice. It has a little spice to it (although that will on some level depend on the heat of your jalapeno, they do vary) and a really great acidic sourness. Very different from anything I've had before and I really enjoyed it. 

Tomatillo Braised Chicken

Ingredients:
A dozen ripe tomatillos - make sure they fill the husks
1 small jalapeno pepper
Olive oil
2 chicken legs
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 large red onion, diced
2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
Lime juice, mine was from a squeeze bottle, I will not be ashamed
1 cup jasmine rice, uncooked
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to broil on high. Cover a baking sheet or dish with aluminum foil, making sure it comes up the sides. The tomatillos will release quite a bit of juice as they cook, and you want that juice for your sauce. Remove the husks from your tomatillos. The fruit inside is quite disagreeably sticky. You'll want to rinse that off, I don't really know how. I washed mine in a bowl with lukewarm water and white vinegar and they were still kind of sticky. I don't like it. However, get over your (my) aversion and put them stem side down in your prepared baking dish. While you're at it, wash your jalapeno and throw it in the baking dish as well. Put the dish under the broiler for a few minutes until everything blackens. Take out the dish and turn each item over. Put back under the broiler and wait until that side blackens. I do not recommend leaving your kitchen for this stage. Every time I leave the room when something is under the broiler, it is instantly charred past the point of no return. I don't understand the physics to this, but it's true.

Once everything is nicely charred, remove from the oven. Pull the stem out of the jalapeno. If you don't like heat, a) you maybe shouldn't have used the jalapeno, or b) slice it open and remove the seeds. I just left the seeds in because Tim and I both like a little bit of heat. Transfer the jalapeno, the tomatillos, and all liquid in the dish to a blender. Puree it until there aren't any chunks. I did all of this the day before and threw it into the fridge, but at this point it's ready to use.

Cook your rice according to your favourite method or the instructions on the bag. 

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a deep-sided heavy frying pan (that you have a lid for) over medium-high heat. Add a bit of butter if you want your chicken to brown really nicely. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, and a bit of cayenne for more heat. Obviously skip the cayenne if you are not into spicy. Brown the chicken on both sides in the frying pan. It should take a few minutes per side. Remove the chicken to a plate and add the onions and garlic to the frying pan. Stir them around and let them cook down a little bit, maybe another five minutes. Pour in the tomatillo puree and add the chicken back in, then season with salt and pepper. Put the lid on and turn the temperature down to medium-low. Let this cook for about 25-30 minutes. When that's done, toss in the cilantro and a couple of tablespoons of lime juice. Serve over rice.

Makes two portions.

Our Wedding: The Boys' Leisurely Morning

While the girls were rushing to make it to the salon for 8:00 a.m., the guys got to relax a bit. Not as much goes into getting men ready. They picked up coffee at the Silver Bean, then went and had more coffee at Dean and Wendy's. They even called their half of our photography team, Carlie, to tell her to move her timeline back. She did warn us that men were always running later than the women would. 

Go past the jump for more photos.

Our Wedding: Hair and Makeup at Bloodline Parlour

I'm not sure how most brides go about finding their salon. Mine just kind of fell into place. I was getting my hair cut with Becca at Catalina Salon at the beginning of February and asked Becca if she would do it. I guess I just assumed your regular hair stylist would. But she immediately responded with, "You need to go talk to Jess at Bloodline Parlour." Becca said that not only did she not have the manpower, but that doing updos wasn't her specialty. Plus she added that Jess at Bloodline was the best in town for doing very quick updos and for specializing in fine, thin hair. Which I have been cursed with. I went straight to Bloodline from that appointment and booked the day. Luckily they still had our date open.

Coincidentally (which happens often in Peterborough), I had actually met Jess before at a Halloween party at a mutual friend's house. I had really liked her then and it wasn't any different now that we were both sober. Jess has a really dry sense of humour and a very open, very honest personality. She will neither stand for nor give you any bullshit. I wound up doing two hair trials with Jess because she didn't like the way the first one had turned out. I had just had my hair cut and washed beforehand and it turned out a little flat. I also did a makeup trial with Alex there and absolutely loved chatting with her about makeup and product. It was an easy decision to have my wedding morning start there.

LOTS more photos after the jump.

Buying our first home: Part 1

I'm sure some people - those organized, responsible people who have their shit together - enjoy the process of buying property. It's certainly exhilarating. There are moments of excitement and happiness. But so far, mostly what I've been is exhausted. Tim and I weren't planning on buying a place, or even looking really, until next spring. We just got through the wedding, which was so expensive. But we were out for a Sunday walk and saw a house for sale only a block from where we're living now. We thought we would check it out on MLS.ca just to see what the market in the area was. Only to find out it has a woodshop - a seriously nice woodshop. So we had to go look at it in person, right? I called the realtor listed and set up an appointment. Tim got in touch with an acquaintance who had offered to represent us when we did start looking to buy.

Lesson 1: The seller and the buyer don't usually have separate realtors.

What we should have done was call our guy and ask him to show us the house. He would have gotten in touch the the seller and set up the appointment. I had assumed both the buyer and seller had realtors, but when the two of them realized our mistake, it got awkward. They were both trying to be polite and offered to just let the other person show it, but it was obvious we had stepped on a few toes. We wound up seeing the seller's realtor and having him show us the house. I'm still not sure this was the best decision. While he seems like a really nice guy, he doesn't seem that motivated to answer the specific questions we've asked about the house, like closing date and actual cost. I guess I was expecting it to be more like the shows on HGTV, where your realtor tells you what he thinks the place is actually worth and gives you tips on getting the cost down. This guy priced the house to begin with, so he's giving us very little assistance in that regard. 

We did go to check it out, though, and there's more than a little case of puppy love. The woodshop is incredible. It takes up about half of the three car garage, but there's more storage in a shed out back. It has a wood-drying kiln. The shop itself is heated and ventilated. The whole garage is insulated. The house itself is a weird layout, but it's the right size for us at approximately 1,350 sq ft. The work that's been done inside is gorgeous. Some hardwood floors, great paint jobs, beautiful baseboard and crown moulding, a gorgeous custom kitchen. The lot is big, really nice, and in a great neighbourhood close to work.

Under the advice of friends, we ran numbers like crazy. The asking price is $259,900. We hope we could get them down to at least $250,000. I took the standard mortgage rates for a $250,000 mortgage and did all the calculations. 5% down would be $12,500. Okay, we could get that together. At a five-year fixed term rate of 3.59%, the monthly mortgage payment would be $1,131.49. We've been paying $1,100 per month in rent, so that doesn't really change anything. The mortgage insurance and property tax amounts would go on top of that, say another $300 per month. That's doable for us without any real stretch of the imagination. We would have to be a bit more responsible, but we're pretty irresponsible now, so there's room. So we went in to the mortgage meeting at the bank feeling pretty calm - our income can support the purchase and ongoing payments on a home like that.

Lesson 2: Your income only counts for so much. Your debt counts for just as much.

We have quite a bit of debt. To get a mortgage, your debt payments - including what your mortgage payments would be, because that is a debt payment - have to be less than 43% of your after-tax earnings. You get a little bit of wiggle room, but they'd prefer you be under 43. With both of our cars, our loans, our lines of credits, and Tim's student loan, we were around 45%. Oh - and here's another kicker. If you have a line of credit, they calculate your debt payment as the total you would have to pay if you maxed out your line of credit - not the payment you currently make. It's because you could spend everything out of that tomorrow if you liked. So annoying bank man, who told me years ago that it didn't matter whether he gave me a high approval limit or not? You lied, you jerk. It matters.

So we started making adjustments to get that number down. We can consolidate my loan and Tim's loan together. It's smart anyways to start combining our finances. We paid off Tim's line of credit with mine and cancelled his. We're going to drop the limit on mine. That dropped us a bit, but not enough to make the bank comfortable. The only other place that could give was to sell my car. It's been an option on the table since we moved to Lakefield to get our finances in a better place, but I was resisting because I'm used to the sense of independence that having my own car gives me. Unfortunately, sacrifices have to be made. I'm not making them gracefully, though. I try to catch myself, but selling my car instead of Tim's kind of gives me a bit of a "Why me?" complex. I need to get over it. Better decisions!! We don't really need two cars, anyways. I walk to work most days and Tim can drive me most of the time when I don't. We go in to Peterborough a lot, but we don't really need to and probably shouldn't. So I started the ball rolling to sell the car.

It's a 2008 Pontiac G6 GT coupe and I love it. It's pretty, it drives great. It's had a bit of a knocking in the front end that I've been ignoring for a while because my mechanic told me that it was probably the grease redistributing weirdly in the steering column. Apparently it's a problem in Pontiacs, and my Dad confirmed that their G6 also has some front end noise that they've deemed to be harmless. But it had a recall out on it for the shift lever anyways, so I took it in to the GM dealer in Peterborough to have the recall done, the fluids changed, and the safety and e-test done.

Lesson 3: The safety expires after 30 days. Don't get one done until you have a buyer.

I didn't really expect there to be any problems with the safety. However, what I think isn't always the case, unfortunately. I just heard back from the mechanic and there are multiple problems. Both upper strut mounts need to be replaced, as well as the right side lower arm bushing. That work, plus the necessary alignment afterwards, has been quoted at $1,162.06 plus tax. Apparently (and weirdly) it needs a new windshield due to sand blasting damage. No clue what would have caused that, but they're saying that's around another $350. Add the cost of the safety at $94 and the oil change and fluids at $39.95, and you have a total bill around $1,900. Ugh. Makes my stomach drop. We're supposed to be saving money to buy a house - not spending it! I've sent a message out to a mechanic friend of mine, I'm hoping that he can do the work for less than that. Sometimes dealers can be priced high. Until I hear back from him, I'm just stewing and stressing. Large financial decisions are not fun.