Segregating Friends.

Yubo is such an amazing and likable guy that it's easy to see how all my friends get along so well with him and like hanging out with him.

I wish I was like that.

Yubo mentioned to me that his best friend Joe and his wife Kellie weren't too keen on not being invited to Yubo's birthday party.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like them or anything. I just tend to prejudge in certain situations. I do this with my customers (only notifying some about a sale or something), and even with my own friends (who to tell that I'm coming home or what not, middle school friends, choir friends, etc). In that way, I suppose you could say it was a deliberate exclusion.....

With Yubo's birthday, all I was thinking was that I wanted to give him a chance to game at home with friends. Thus, I invited friends that didn't necessarily have kids to deal with and would be able and willing to stay out late.

I also tend to separate Yubo's life into what has to do with me and what doesn't necessarily. Not to sound rude, but I tend to feel that Joe and his family don't have a whole lot to do with me. This also applies to the life and friends that Yubo had before he met me. I kind of keep myself as an outsider when it comes to that part of Yubo's life. I'm not as sociable as Yubo is, so I can't integrate myself into his circle of friends like he can do with mine. With Joe specifically, I am convinced that he maintains a negative opinion of me, so in my head I'm making things easier by limiting interactions.

Please note, Joe has been the bigger person and has tried including me with his invitations to Yubo for hanging out at their house and bbq's and what not. Unfortunately, I usually can't bring myself to try to be there and get over the discomfort I have around him. I wanna say that living together has really gotten in the way of any really positive relationship we could have. Or, you know, this really could all be one-sided (on my side) and there really isn't a problem.

Now, had I just planned a simple dinner out like we've done before, I probably would have opted to just have dinner with Joe, Kellie, their kids, along with possibly Eric, Cara, and their little Brooklyn -- then I probably wouldn't have invited who I did for the gaming. So I invite by situation, and I'm realizing that isn't really fair at all.

I'm concerned that I really offended them, even though I really didn't mean to. Yubo told me that it wasn't as huge a deal as I thought it was -- he said they wouldn't really have been able to come over anyway, especially because Gavin (their son) is deathly allergic to cats. But that doesn't change the fact that I did neglect that his best friend (and family) might have wanted to be a part of his birthday celebration. :/

Name Change.

I've really been putting off legally changing my last name. Well, with Yubo's birthday came the expiration of his license. So we went off to the DMV yesterday to renew his license and get all the changes done to mine.

So I have officially begun the process of changing my name.

I have to order another copy or two of the official certificate or whatever because I have to mail in for a new SS card and my passport. I don't want to wait for them to mail it back to me, if they actually would mail it back.

Tomorrow I will see if I can order new bank cards, and contact whatever other companies I need to that might not require an official document to be mailed to them.

Ugh! What a hassle! Makes me wish I was ok with just keeping my name......

Yubo's Birthday.

Yikes. It's been a while since my last post. But nothing very eventful happened in that time.

Yubo turned 29 two days ago. Whenever I asked him what he wanted or what he wanted to do, he wouldn't give me any good answer. So I took it upon myself to do something fun for his last year in his 20's.

I really wanted to bake a cake for him -- more specifically, my chocolate kahlua cake. But I knew a cake would be too much for just the two of us, so I figured it'd be good to have friends over. A good excuse to have friends over for Yubo is..... GAMING. So I invited friends that I thought would be able to come and knew would want to play.

But first, the cake. I was so excited that I wanted to make it in time for him to have a slice right when it became his birthday. That didn't work out too well, and we ended up staying awake waaaay too long. But I did complete the cake:


We were so tired that we ended up missing church. So instead, we went out to a nice breakfast at a place in Seattle called Kona Kitchen.


When we got home, I finally framed our marriage certificate and put it on the wall. It didn't last very long up because I didn't use the supporting strips, but now hopefully it's up more securely.


Then I got to more baking. I got a box of Tastefully Simple Pumpkin Bread for Yubo, so I thought this would be a good occasion to finally make it and not have leftover bread, since I don't eat pumpkin anything.



It's good that Yubo gets along so well with the friends I've made up here. Albert and Musashi, who worked with me at Fry's, and Albert's gf came. Also, Andrew, who was in Yubo's small group from church retreat, was able to make it.

Albert brought his TV, XBox360, and some games. Setting things up was a little fussy. But it got done and gaming on two large televisions in our living room commenced.


People were still a little hungry, and although Yubo bought three large bags of Chex Mix, we opted for Tastefully Simple Cinnamon Muffin Melts. So yummy! Must get another box (or two, or five).


We ended up going out to buy another XBox controller (because we only have one since I never cared to play any XBox games) and Call of Duty: Black Ops. This enabled all four guys to play together.


Finally, it was getting late, so we ended the night with cake.


Yubo seemed to have a really good night, and I was so happy that he finally was able to game with guys that love gaming as much as he does. I also liked that he was playing with friends, and not strange people over the internet.

Overall, a successful 29th birthday.

New sofa. Cats. Framing.

New Sofa
Our LaZ-Boy recliner sofa arrives tomorrow morning!! Hooray!! They gave us a time block of 9am-12pm for deliver. Depending on when they actually arrive, I may have to miss another accounting class. I hope that doesn't happen. I think at the most I might be a little late, even if they come at 12pm. Since it's a 2hr class, I can at least make it for the second hour, I think. I think the dangerous part will be me wanting to relax on the sofa when it gets here instead of going to class. LoL.

Cats
Chiyo has peed outside the litter box a number of times. A few times next to the fridge before we put a litter box there, and once in front of the fireplace (right in front of me). I took her to the vet to rule out any medical issues. Health is good, so it was behavioral. The vet gaves us some suggestions on what to do, which we've only partially put into effect. One was take the cat tree away (she stays on the top tier, which keeps her in a dominant position), and the other was to separate them at night.

When we got back from the vet, she peed on the carpet next to the cat tree. So that led me to confine her in the bathroom for the majority of the day. I found a larger cat cage to get her, so we're using what we budgeted for a new cat tree for that cage instead. Yubo says I can order it after this Thursday. (I know I said we budgeted for it, but I think it was used for mortgage cuz we got really tight at a few points.)

Framing
I think I'm never going to order framing from Michael's ever again. I mentioned that we were going to have our red cloth from the wedding framed to put up on the wall. We spent a frustrating couple of hours getting it to look just the way we wanted. Got it set and ordered. It was a really pretty wood frame with flower carvings, a gold trim that reminded me of Cambodia, and gold and silver mats to border the cloth. Then there were some problems ordering the mats, so there was some delay to reorder them. After just over a month, they finally figured out that the problem was because the mats we wanted did not come oversized. Yeah, it took them a month to figure that out after trying to reorder them.

So we had to go back in to see if we could choose different mats. I was so frustrated just going in because I was remembering just how long it took us to do it the first time, and I felt we had exhausted all our options the first time. When we walked in there and asked about our order, the lady helping us still thought the mats were being reordered. I had to tell her that the manager had called me and told me those mats couldn't be used. So she checked the notes he had written down and confirmed what he had told me. Seriously?? Their staff doesn't even know what's going on with their orders. After another gruelling hour or so, we chose two different mats that worked. But then it became an issue of if we really wanted to give our money to them when they were being so unprofessional.

I took the cloth back so I could iron it, but we ended up deciding that we could use the money for better things.... like mortgage. The only things I regret are not having that gorgeous frame and not having our red cloth up on the wall.

Our funds have actually been quite tight, but nothing too much to complain about. God has kept us in a good place. He answered Yubo's prayer for bigger jobs. We know that we are so blessed that Yubo has a good job with good benefits (that's helping me get healthy) and that I have the ability to continue school without having to work. We have A LOT to be thankful for and we know it all comes from God.

Mission: Make Time for Each Other

Today was perhaps the longest day I've had in a very long time. Sporadically waking up throughout the previous night left me sleepy all day. Accounting was 12:30-2:40p with a teacher that I have mixed feelings about. Despite my original plans to stay on campus during my 5hr break between classes, I had to come home to drop off a gift basket I made for my boss. Spending the rest of the time at home allowed me to see Yubo for 20min before having to leave for class. Math from 7:50-10:00p. The teacher this time seems great. A little snag about textbooks, but not something that can't be solved.

I had to pick up gas on my way home, and ramps closed and the ridiculousness of Bellevue not having easy-to-find gas stations and the stupidity of my Magellen gps (I really really REALLY miss my Garmin... I'm going to have to harass Yubo's brother to send it back to me) already got me started.

The idea of having to pick up food before going home became an increasingly annoying chore. I started to really sympathize with Yubo during those nights when all I do is call him to see when he's coming home because I'm hungry. This experience inspires me to have chicken in the slow cooker at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that I don't have to worry about food when I get home after class.

Now that I have school, there's more for me to do without sitting around waiting for Yubo. Unfortunately, I think we're already handling this in a bad way.

Yubo is yet again consumed by StarCraft. When I was trying to talk to him, now that I still missed him during the day, his lack of response flared my irritation from before. He's apologized before, explaining that nearly every time I try to talk to him, he's in a big battle. I joked before that he needed to stop fighting. Love and peace.

Anyhow, it's beginning as I feared. He's busy with work and being consumed by games and television again. I have a full load of school on top of cat fights and trying to keep the house from getting any messier. Now it's not only him that won't seem to make time for me. Coming home tired from a late night math class and trying to talk to him when he's not responding makes me not want to interact with him either. So there he is on his laptop and headphones plugged in playing StarCraft, and here I am about 5ft away on my laptop blogging about how we're not spending any time together.

It's been that the only time I can get him away from that game is to ask him a favor (help me take out the trash, help me load this thing of laundry, help me with something), and even then it's, "Ok. Let me finish this battle."

I'm scared for us.

Thankfully, we are meeting with P.Wayne for a "6 month checkup." This idea came about when I talked with him about seeking a counselor for myself, and I ended up talking more about my concerns about our marriage. My new fear is that Yubo will get caught up in some ridiculous job and miss the meeting. But I'm trying to have faith that he won't let that happen, and that we'll have this checkup and it will be an intense eye-opener for both of us (because I'm not going to hold back, and I hope he doesn't either), and we can start on a more straight path towards a better marriage and life together.

Searching for Housewife 101

There were times when I was thankful that my parents didn't run me ragged as the house slave as some children became. However, as I got older, I realized that it really set me back that I didn't have house chores that I had to do or else. For instance, I am still quite embarrassed that I don't know how to properly clean a bathroom, and so that task usually left up to Yubo.

The other thing that I don't know how to do is shop for groceries to prepare meals for the entire week. On the rare occasion that I want to cook something, I go to the store for just those things to prepare that single meal that night. The extent of my preparing for the week is a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, aside from stocking up on Lean Cuisine and Lean Pockets and other frozen foods that just pop into the microwave.

In Eddie Izzard's Definite Article, he does this bit about fruit which is just about how I am in a market. I simply don't really know what I'm doing. (Eddie Izzard one of our favorite comedians, by the way. Love him.)

So I turned to the internet, Google in particular. I was hoping that some fabulous person has compiled a magnificent guide on how to be a good housewife that I could use as a reference. Perhaps it would include how to shop at the grocery to be prepared for all meals throughout the week, how to properly clean things (and not just turn to Windex for everything as I tend to do -- Yubo is happy that I have discovered the multipurpose Windex so that I won't damage the coffee table), or an example of a daily schedule that I might be able to follow until I get the hang of things.

Alas, such a guide was not to be found within that first page of results. In fact, the very first result I received was "Housewife 1 On 1 - Porn Review of Housewife 1On1." Um..... not quite, but thanks for that, Google.

Living Room Makeover: Phase I

The couches were successfully moved out of our place and into the home of my dear friends, Carol and George. Carol went to high school with me, and although we never really hung out with each other, we maintained a fairly good friendship. It was a huge surprise to find her married and living in Kent (at the time she found me on FB).

Anyhow, they were fabulous enough to save us the $40 removal fee that we were planning for the large couch. They got the couch and loveseat for the cost of renting a U-Haul, and we have an open living room to prep for our new recliner sofa (whenever that arrives).

I'm excited to have the living room mostly cleared so I can rearrange things into a more suitable layout. And Yubo is ridiculously excited to have a reclining sofa.

Unfortunately, although our salesguy told us that shipment was scheduled for 9/11, we haven't received any updates or calls yet. And he hasn't replied to any of my e-mails, so I think we'll have to call the distribution center and see what's going on. Luckily, the distribution center is down in Kent, so it's not like we have to wait for our sofa to travel across states.

Perhaps because the couches are gone, Yubo has gone back to playing Star Craft. The only seating we have out here now are a fitness ball (which I'm sitting on at the moment), a keyboard bench, and the chairs that go to the dining table -- none of which allow Yubo to lean back, which was the whole purpose of getting a recliner (because he's so darn stubborn about sitting properly).

I'm going to have Carol (and maybe George?) over again some time this week to help me clean up and rearrange this living room. My eyes are particularly on the perimeter of the room, where we've shoved that majority of our belongings to keep the center of the room clear.

A good thing is that the cats don't seem too lost without the couches. Perhaps the most fuss is coming from Tifa, but I can't tell if it's anything about the couches or if she's still worrying over Chiyo.

p.s. I've concluded that Tifa really does like Chiyo and just wants to play, while Chiyo still would rather have nothing to do with her. But it's only been 3 months.