Investing in the nesting

Our friends and family were extraordinarily generous to us when Cowboy and I got married. Amongst the gifts were gift cards to a place I had never heard of before: Bed, Bath & Beyond.

"OH, I love Bed, Bath & Beyond!" my sister gasped. She usually has good knowledge about where to shop, so I grabbed my computer when we got home and went to scout out the website.

Well, goodness me, I nearly died of excitement.

I have spent the last three weeks - as Cowboy and I have been happily married for three whole weeks - agonising over what to spend these precious gift cards on. One cast iron trivet? Two cast iron trivets?? Turkey lifters? Maybe not turkey lifters... Wine glasses? No wine glasses. Wait, actually, wine glasses are essential. And seeing as it's a wedding gift, let's get red wine glasses and white wine glasses. Stemless wine glasses!

Let's get pillows. No, maybe not pillows, we can get a Le Creuset honey pot instead! And a lamp. I do love a nice lamp. Cowboy has been hankering for a coat rack, so we'll get a coat rack. Clearly I also need a butter dish, and a slow cooker.

In short, it was a spectacular shopping experience, and a glorious opportunity to nest into our little home. I had to remind myself not to feel guilty about getting the little luxuries, they're gifts from people who wanted us to have what we really wanted. I'm not planning on being eligible for wedding gifts again, so one ought to make the most of it.

The delivery should be some time next week. I'm beyond excited about finally being a grown up, with grown up things.

Pre-Visit Psychosis (PVP)

Just a few short days now stand between me and Cowboy. I've entered the phase which I like to call "the pre-visit psychosis" which means I can't remember anything, I do a great deal of faffing about, and I generally cease to function well.

I spent yesterday in the kitchen, using up all of my vegetables in soup. One of my creations was the fabulous Beetroot Haters' Soup which smelled and tasted quite divine. If I hadn't been suffering from pre-visit psychosis (PVP) I'd have taken a picture or two.

Today I need to finish a project that I started a few weeks ago, which seemed like such a good idea at the time.



Cowboy and I will have been together for a whole year when I go out there on Monday, which certainly defies my expectations. To mark our anniversary, I'm putting together a scrapbook of pictures from my trip when we met, and what we've been up to over the year. This is partly for my benefit too, as I don't want to forget how we came to be together when it's such a ridiculous story.

I have a few pages left to do, but with PVP they've become quite difficult. I only have a couple of days left to fill the remaining space in the book. It's been a lovely experience to sit and take time to look back at my photos, think back to our earliest conversations and interactions, and remember all over again why I fell so hard for him.

We had a curious coincidence of thoughts last night. I dreamt that he had turned up in England and surprised me. When I told him about it this morning, he paused and then said "That's weird. I actually thought a little while ago about what it would be like if I just showed up in England and surprised you. I imagined doing it."

More likely, we've both got seeing each other on the brain and it's inevitable that we think the same things at around the same time.

I'm pretty excited. One of the strangest things I'm excited about is seeing Cowboy's dog, Blue Dog.



I'm firmly a cat person. Or I used to be firmly a cat person. These days I'm not so sure. I made friends with a stranger's pitbull on the tube the other day, and played with my brother's dog while nobody was looking last weekend. I have an overwhelming urge to shove my face in Blue Dog's stinky, grubby fur and give him a big hug. He hasn't had a bath in goodness only knows how long. I can only blame the PVP. No rational person would want to go within three feet of him.

Apart from how he is blindly adoring and obedient (mostly), and just loves attention. He gets a whole double page spread in the scrapbook.