I've been wanting to print off pics from our honeymoon, and thought 'hey, I should check the Walgreens website to see how much they are'.  During my investigation, I remembered that you can send your  pics to Walgreens online - I uploaded, edited, ordered, and tonight I stop by the Walgreens across the street from our apartment and pick them up.

I was SUPER excited to see that I chose to print those pics at the perfect time - while they're only 10CENTS each if you order 50 or more (definintely have more than 50 from the honeymoon).  I'm excited about going home and seeing them.

Which is why, by the way, if you come over anyway soon, our walls are going to seem like a tribute to Matthew and I - most of the pics we've kept out recently have been of each other b/c we missed each other, and now we're putting up honeymoon and wedding pics.  It's a little weird really, so if you have pics of yourself or us hanging out, send them our way!

A few things I've learned about communicating:

1)  The best way to get my husband to do something is to stop bothering him and just let him... do something.

2)  Telling my parents what Matthew thinks seems to be a generally bad idea.  Especially if I don't totally understand what he's thinking yet.  I end up half explaining what he thinks, the conversation takes a different turn, and I always wonder if my mom has been left thinking that Matthew has some crazy ideas about things - when really, he and I are largely thinking the same things, but he thinks about it differently.  Hopefully, they'll stop listening to me explain him, and I'll stop trying to explain him.

3)  I'm faster to express my needs/complaints/desires/etc. than my husband.  He doesn't plan out his evening until he gets there - by the time I'm walking out the door at work, I have a complete plan for what I need to do that night and when, and a back up plan in case that doesn't work out.  He comes home and doesn't know yet what he wants to do.  I assume that means he wants to do whatever I want to do - not really true.

4)  We haven't quite worked out the 'note on the table' thing yet.  I left a note - he saw that the table was cluttered, and ate his breakfast in the living room instead.  Never saw the note - that was cluttering the table (among other things, of course). 

5)  Lists are helpful for me.  They keep me sane, help me remember things without replaying them in my mind, and I get a little sense of accomplishment from crossing things off the list.  This works fine as long as I don't start giving Matthew a list.  He finds it overwhelming - but if I give him one thing, he takes care of that, and then we move on to the next thing, he's much happier. 

So, the short version of this post is: I talk less, and my husband is happier and more productive, especially if I'm listening too.

edit:  My husband just informed me that he doesn't mind lists themselves so much, as long as I just give him the list and leave him alone. 

After living in our new place for a few weeks, we've discovered a number of good and... less than great things abou the apartment.  I'll start with the quirks so I can end on a good note.

Quirks

1)  When we did the 'walk through' before we moved in, the leasing agent found three things wrong - broken garbage disposal, the bathroom fan sounded like it had a chipmunk in it, the back door caught

2)  While moving in, my friend Craig found a hole in the floor.  Not like, in the carpet, in the actual floor underneath the carpet.  There's now a big X in the brand new carpet where the maintenance guys had to cut it open to seal the hole.

3)  Within the first week of living there, Matthew discovered that the bathroom stopper couldn't be opened back up w/o going underneath the sink to pull on something

4)  By the second week, our water heater broke.

5)  In the process of getting us a new water heater, a cricket found it's way underneath our cabinets, and I now hear him singing in the corner of our kitchen - loudly

6)  Somehow the maintenance guys miscommunicated about our apartment and forgot to come finish the water heater job - we had hot water, but the cabinets weren't put back in (they had to pull them out to get to the water heater) all the way or sealed, and the old hot water heater was on our back balcony.  It stayed that way until I called Friday night and again Saturday morning to make sure they came over.  I wanted my kitchen back!

7)  There aren't sidewalks to anything outside our apartment complex, and there isn't a crosswalk to the restaurants and convenience store that are right across the street. 

Perks

1)  We're close to stuff!  And while we can't get there by foot, I don't have to feel to terrible for realizing I'm missing an ingredient and asking Matthew to stop at Marsh on his way home, I can run to Chase right before work or going somewhere on the weekend, and I can get my prescriptions right across the street.

2)  We're only 15-20 minutes from work!  Matthew's the closer of the two, but after  driving 45 minutes to and from work for the past two summers and most of this summer, it's a big relief.  Yay smooth communiting.

3)  Craig and Carol live close by!  We see them a lot, and it's really nice.  We just met Carol's cousin and new husband, so maybe we'll be friends with them too :)

4)  The maintenance guys (that we've seen kind of frequently) respond to our myriad of requests quickly, and they're very friendly.

5)  The people in this area seem to be very friendly - people in our apartment complex smile and wave, I started a conversation with someone at Aldi, the guy in the parking lot waved to me to go first - little things, but the happy polite things that make living somewhere nice.

6)  We just happened to move into one of the neighborhoods chosen by the Great Indy Neighborhoods Initiative, Binford Redevelopment and Growth (BRAG), and in mynon-profit community development world, this is a pretty big deal.  I'm volunteering with them now, and the first meeting is this Wednesday.

7)  We live super close to a farmer's market that's open Saturday mornings w/ lots of fresh goodies (the market happens to be part of BRAG's work!).  I went there last Saturday and the woman I met with to talk about volunteering introduced me to other people - they're excited about my help, and seem to think I know more than I really do.  This should be interesting.

8)  It feels like ours.  It's not quite what I'd like it to be yet, but I feel a very strong compulsion to decorate, buy the furniture we're missing, and make it feel like home.  :)  It's fun and exciting.  Of course, Matthew always very sweetly says "I'm home when I'm with you", so I probably don't need to try too hard.