Excitement!

So! I have something exciting to share with you all. Or well, perhaps I have a few differing things to share from you. ALl right, maybe three, but I think that's it!

The main two, are things to do with valentine's day. I made a previous post of what I was -planning- on doing for valentine's day. And as we all know, planning doesn't always work out precisely how we..well...planned it. But it was still a very fulfilling and exciting day! We both had a lot of fun, and in the end, resulted in being very proud of ourselves for what we had accomplished.

First of all, my mom and my husband and I had had a conversation the night prior about actually doing something about our bills. We are, as the average young couple, in a bit of a debt situation with bills, including medical bills and my student loans. No credit card debt, thank goodness, but still, it was a real shock to see such strong warnings from my student loans, since I'd hardly been out of school for more than a year. So, we decided that we were going to actually get started on fixing this problem with our tax return. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get started.

So, for the big excitement!

We got to pay off three accounts! We even still have money left over. But the important thing was that we actually started. Both of us were vaguely phobic about calling a company to start paying off bills, because it's like once you drop some blood in the water, all the sharks can find you again. But surprisingly, everyone we talked to was really really nice. First we paid off the last account my husband had left at the actual hospital, (the others had gone to their collection agency), and she kindly transferred us over to them, so we could talk about getting those paid off. I had only one account open, and she gave us 20% off the bill if we paid it in one lump sum. Since we had the money available, that is what we did, and so I have no bills at our local hospital! We also took the discount of what we saved with my bill, and paid off another one of my husband's accounts. Now he only has three open. And we have a payment plan set up to begin to pay it off monthly.

It may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but it was a really big deal for us. Especially since thus far we've lived our life in relative ignorance and chosen the route of ignore things for as long as possible. So to meet it head on was invigorating and empowering. We couldn't believe how good it felt to get some of those things taken care of.

The next thing we did, upon being so proud of our newfound adulthood, was decide that we'd splurge a little on a meal out on valentine's day since we'd just taken care of some bills and had some more tax return left over. So I got dressed up to the nine's. My cheery red pencil skirt, a white sweater with ruffles along the front from Khols, some ridiculously high red peep toes. Did my makeup. I looked very cute, and I was excited. (I might get some pictures up later of the outfit).

The bad thing is, we live in a small town, and apparently, valentine's day is one of the only days of the year where our restaurants get packed to the brim and then some. The new steakhouse, Brik, that opened, Applebees, everything was backed up to the point that we couldn't even fathom trying to wait.And frankly in our town, there's not that many options. And anything else we had was fancy enough to require reservations, and I knew that'd be a lost cause. So, we decided to go through the Dairy Queen drive in. And we had a lot of fun, laughing and joking about how great we looked going to the ol' DQ.

Want to know what's great? We both found it incredibly fun and romantic even with the way it turned out. We wouldn't have changed it any other way. I love that about my husband. We're both fairly easy going people, and we enjoy just being together, no matter what we're doing. (Excluding perhaps jail time).

And the last exciting thing! Speaking of that pencil skirt, that skirt was previously a failed project. GASP. I had crafted it myself, and then when I took it out on a test run, the slit split almost clear up to my backside. I was miserable to see it ruined, and it has set crumpled in a corner for a long time. But the exciting news, is that I have a post all about how I repaired it over on my sponsor's page! Check it out here!

I'd really appreciate if you went to go look at it, and here's a preview of how the skirt looked prior to my fixing!



So go visit Kate over at From the Guest Room and let me know what you think!

P.S. It's also entered into the CSI Project's Red Inspired Link Up. We'll see how well it fairs!

P.S.S.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Kate's guest post on her creative process!

Best wishes