Tropical Depression

OK, we're slowly settling down into a nice vibe here in the Lowe household. The "Hurricane" has settled down now that everything is sparkling clean. I'd say she's more like an occasional "Tropical Depression" with occasional breaks of Sunshine.

Hehe well, overall it's kinda fun and interesting having to live with someone now. We're ok so far, we haven't felt like going for each other's necks yet at home. Occasionally we'd have fun trying to experiment with regular domestic life... we're actually COOKING at home once in a while and my fridge is actually stocked up with food now instead of just cases of juice and Gatorade.

Work is coming along. I know I haven't talked much about design lately. But it's been a little difficult getting into the design mindset in between checking a million visa forms, or having to vacuum the house at 11pm at night. But I'm getting there.

Luckily I think my planning before the wedding is slowly paying off. I have a few nice juicy projects coming in now which is perfect timing. It got a little scary there having a while month without work. Those of you with regular full time jobs and vacation pay better appreciate it. When you work on your own, you end up hoarding money when you have it, just so you can weather the dry spells.

I have some fun projects to get me in the spirit. 2 logos, a few business cards, 2 or 3 websites coming down the channel. Hopefully that will get me running full steam again. I still have a mission to eventually get enough regular business to justify actually opening up a shop somewhere and hiring one or 2 people... so I have to keep the business up rock solid. Now that the big wedding is behind us I think I can focus on that. Florence is a pretty bright cookie too...I think I'll have some extra help and support going forward. VERY NIIICE!!

Talk about Visas....we sent out another stack of paperwork and roughly another $1000 US in checks. I think overall, if you're looking to bring someone over from another country, count on spending about $2k on US forms alone. I heard just one of the forms we rushed out this week is going up from $300 to $1000 this coming month. So you'll need to spend even MORE. MMM Hmm...I'm not even going to start to mention how stupid I think it all is.

Ironically one of the forms we file is to show I can support the "alien" for a few months. (I occasionally call Florence my "alien" now for laughs; which promptly earns me a pretty mean looking stinkeye) You know why they need to know? Because it's going to literally take months before they let her work AND you've paid all that money so that they can check you. Fun eh?

ANYWAY, things are going good....

Photos

I've had some friends and relatives keep asking me, "So when are you going to put up some photos?"

I haven't had a lot of time lately folks I'm sorry...between trying to drum up some business again, I've been trying to help Florence try to finalize her visa here now that we're officially married. It's a long process and once again, it will cost another few hundred dollars.

Thanks Bush. How you figure...you do things legally, you have to jump a million hurdles and pay a few thousand dollars to become legal. Meanwhile these politicians want to make it easier for all the people who snuck in illegally and paid nothing? GRRRR. OK OK...I digress.

We've uploaded a bunch of photos.

Sorry I may not have much description there yet...but you'll get the gist of what our experiences were these past couple months. Enjoy.

Hurricane

Yet another fashion change. Crazy ain't it? This was a photo my uncle took of us off at Ko Olina side of the island. The wedding turned out perfect...the sunset was nice, the weather cooperated with us, and the groom managed not to fumble his lines or drop the ring.

It's certainly "back to reality" for us right now. As my best friend told me before the wedding, "real life won't start for you two until you get back on the 15th..." I think he was right.

The Missus (do I call her that now? it sounds kinda old doesn't it?) Hmm. I'll have to think of something better to call her. For now, I'll call her the "Hurricane"

I call her that because that's essentially what she's been doing with my whole apartment these past 3 or 4 days. If I'm not squeezing in some work time, I'm basically her gopher helping her clean out my closets and clean up my place.

Now I don't consider myself all that messy, but according to her I am. Let me tell you how a typical closet gets cleaned:

1. The Hurricane looks at my closet and shakes her head.
2. The Hurricane starts pulling each of my things out of the closet and promptly asks me "What is this?"
3. To avoid angering the Hurricane, I promptly throw whatever it is in the trash so I never get to hear "What is this?" again.

I've learned it's much faster just to throw things away then to stand there justifying why I still have a bottle of Tylenol in my medicine cabinet with an expiration date of 1999.

At this point I think I've thrown away 3/4th of my stuff.

Wedding Weight Loss

So it has passed...I'm now a taken man. It certainly feels strange. Not that life before and after I got this ring on my finger is any fundamentally different...but we both are kinda staring at the rings on our fingers and asking each other, "Wow? So that's it, we're married?"

It's kinda like you'd expect something magical to happen... like we'd be able to fly now or something. But I checked just now and my feet aren't any farther from the ground then the day before I was married unfortunately.

I AM 5 lbs lighter though. How'd that happen? As if my wife (that STILL feels weird to say) could get any lighter then she already was...she's about 4 lbs lighter as well. Weddings must be some kind of miracle weight loss program because we've eaten SO much over the last 3 weeks with all the functions and dinners we had to attend. If you want to lose weight...get yourself hitched. I suppose a few more wedding dinners like this I might just be able to float off the ground after all.

Overall, our wedding ceremony and dinners went off well. Everyone on both sides are happy and we're happy. But the experience was certainly eye opening in many ways. If someone were to ask me about my wedding impressions today...I'd tell them it's expensive, exhausting, confusing at the same time. The best feeling actually came AFTER it all ends actually. That's when you feel like everything is pau and you just throw down everything and relax.

My apartment is still looks like a hurricane passed through and I still have some relatives in town to meet up with before my honeymoon in a couple days. All is good though...