So there's this novel I've been working on since my last semester of college when a bunch of girls in my writing workshop class told me that they loved one of my short stories and wanted more. At the end of last year, I made the resolution to finally finish the first draft of that novel in 2015.
Today is the last day of 2015, and while I did finish the first draft of a novel this year (for the first time), it was for a completely unrelated story that I started and finished during the month of November for NaNoWriMo.
While I admit it's a huge bummer to not have a draft done of that college story yet, I'm proud of what I have accomplished in writing this year. I've written a 50,000 word novel from beginning to end, gotten a freelance job writing for a video game that I truly believe in, and am so incredibly close to finishing that college story that I can taste it!
And now, everything else 2015
This year, I've also been making more friends of coworkers than I thought I would, purchased a house along with my lovely wife, adopted the most adorable and fun dog on the planet, and continued to try eating more vegetables.
As far as my hobbies go, I've read several books (The Girl on the Train, Orange is the New Black, The Black Echo, The Girl with All The Gifts, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Survivor, etc.), seen countless movies (Mad Max, Star Wars, Ex Machina, Nightcrawler, Inside Out, Brooklyn, It Follows, Whiplash, The Guest, John Wick, and so many more), listened to a hell of a lot of music (Halsey, Grimes, The Weeknd, Panic! At The Disco, Melody Gardot, Purity Ring, Nero, and holy crap so much more), but played mostly one video game (Xcom: Enemy Unknown).
So, what about next year?
More. More of everything. More novel drafts, more freelance opportunities, more fun at work, more projects on the house, more playtime with my dog, more books to read, more movies to watch, more music to thrive on, more Xcom (the sequel comes out soon), and - of course - much more time with my amazing, caring, fun, can't-survive-without-her wife!
Maybe not as many more vegetables, though. We're starting to get down to the really weird ones.
Oh yeah, and a million times more Tactical Laser Tag. It has seriously been too long since I did that.
While the interior of our new home was completely redone to the latest and greatest appliances, cabinets, etc, the exterior was not so lucky. My wife and I have already done some work on the front lawn for curb appeal, but the back yard was quite a larger task. Not only was a patio completely absent from the house-flipper's redesign, but speaking with a neighbor revealed that a previously-existing patio was completely destroyed when the basement walls had to be reinforced, causing the back yard to look a little something like this:
My wife and I really wanted a completed patio, especially since we wanted to throw our incoming housewarming party outside. Luckily, we'd planned for such renovations when saving money for the house, so all we had to do was pick a brick style, stock up on it and other essentials, and enlist the help of family and friends.
Once the supplies were purchased, we picked a weekend and got to work. My wife got her hands dirty by tilling the soil.
And my father-in-law leveled the area with a mixture of rocks, then got to work setting all the stones in place. Henna kept watch.
We lined the stones with a frame of the very same dirt from the earlier tilling, and made sure to pack it down to prevent any shifting.
Henna got first honors of eating off the patio; she loves chewing on ice cubes so much that I gave her a whole bowl to enjoy!
After two full days of work, the last stone was finally set. All that remained was to fill in the cracks with sand and furnish the area with patio furniture, flowers, and other outdoor decorations.
We decorated both corners furthest from the house with large flower pots and wire-constructed rabbit decorations, got one hell of a deal on a beautiful table and chair set with cushions included (cushions not pictured), got a large fire pit and chairs for those chilly and/or beautiful nights when I want smores, and planted calla lilies interspersed with decorative leafy plants along the house. The only other things not pictured below would be the grill, which would go in the same place as it is pictured above, and the umbrella for the table, which matches the aqua and blue color theme of everything else.
Everything was in place by the time the housewarming party finally rolled around. Sadly we had to set up some additional canopies in case of occasional rainfall rather than use the single table umbrella (and didn't get to fully utilize the patio for serving food and drinks), but after all was said and done we had a beautiful house with a beautiful new patio to go with it!
Making our own patio allows us not only to have the final say in exactly where it is, how large it is, and what it looks like, but also gives us the pride in being able to tell our future children that we made it ourselves (with lots of help, of course), with them in mind.
That beautiful dog up there is Henna; the latest addition to the Matejka family. She's presumed to be a mixture of a corgi and a cattle dog, which is why she's so adorably short and short-haired.
The Story of Her Adoption
The story of her adoption is a funny one. It all started three weeks ago on a Monday when my dog-starved wife told me that she'd decided that adopting a dog wouldn't be ideal this early in our home-ownership since it would increase monthly cost and decrease free time, both of which are necessary to complete the finishing touches on our home such as installing a patio in the back yard and finishing the basement. Then, on Tuesday morning, she was browsing the local Humane Society website and found this adorable dog that she told me we just HAD to adopt, partially because it's a mix of her favorite breed (corgi) and mine (cattle dog) and partially because the dog was two years old and would thus likely need little-to-no training. I scoffed at the idea at first since I assumed she was being impulsive or making a joke, but she convinced me to use my break at work to drive to the Humane Society, see the dog, and report back to her for possible adoption later that night.
You see, while the Humane Society that this particular little dog was at happens to be about an hour away from our house, it's only about fifteen minutes away from my job, and I get an hour-long lunch break. I cleared the break with my boss, recruited a fellow coworker to come with me for added perspective, and at noon we drove together all the way to the Humane Society only to find out that it did not open until 2pm.
I reported this back to my wife, who was determined to get to this dog before anyone else. She gets off of work half an hour before I do (and lives much closer to our home/further from the Humane Society), and proclaimed that she would drive to see the dog herself after work and I could meet her there to discuss possible adoption.
So I get out of work and, for the second time that day, drive over to see the dog that may or may not become our future pet. I get to the shelter, find my wife, and guess what she tells me?
"They won't let us be with her," she says, a tremble in her voice. Though I do detect sadness in her tone, it is overwhelmed with anger and annoyance.
"What do you mean?" I ask, worried that all this has been for naught.
"She's going to be on Fox news tomorrow, and they won't let anyone near her until they open tomorrow at 2pm."
"So we can't even play with her to see if she's a good fit for us before wasting our time with another trip tomorrow?"
"Right."
"So they're using her to promote adoption, but they won't let anyone genuinely interested in adopting her get close to her?"
"Yeah."
"So they're turning it into a game. They're turning the adoption of a dog in need into a show and a contest."
"Basically."
"I'm calling Fox."
It turned out that the Fox offices were "closed" for the day, and we had to settle for talking to the woman (a volunteer) at the front desk. She explained that, because Henna would be on the news the next morning, there might be people waiting as early as 20 minutes before the place opens to adopt her. She advised that I arrive 30 minutes early to be first.
So I decided to arrive 40 minutes early in case she suggested 30 minutes to anyone else. After arriving 40 minutes early (thanks to an understanding boss who allowed me to take off early for the day and make up the missed time later), I was let into the building by a volunteer, but other people who came after me weren't so lucky. I got to gleefully watch them try the locked door, see that the building was closed, and leave. One mother arrived and stayed early with their kids, and it turned out they wanted to check out Henna as well. Luckily the Humane Society is very strict about their first-come-first-serve policy, so I got to see her, play with her, and adopt her without any of the kids even getting close.
She rode shotgun all the way home.
Henna's Demeanor
Henna is the type of dog who's almost always ready and willing to play (especially with toys that make noise) while also being comfortable with relaxing for a bit instead. She's very polite, friendly, and outgoing.
She's also doesn't respond to any commands, did her "business" inside the house for the first few days (and occasionally still does), and is terrified of getting into vehicles. The Humane Society didn't know anything about her except that she was from Kentucky, so we don't know if she had any training or even if she had an owner. Luckily she's a quick learner, so while my wife and I have had to train her more than we'd expected of a two-year-old dog, we've had to be less vigilant about it than we would have to be for a new puppy.
Here's a video of her madly squeaking a toy:
It's been a few weeks, and she's making progress in her training. We're also working very carefully with her to get her comfortable with riding in cars, which is very important since she'll be taking a five-hour car ride with us when we go vacationing up north in a few weekends. As a bonus, I managed to get my hand on the footage of her on the news from the day we adopted her!
Henna is already providing many more laughs, "awes," and much more love to the Matejka house, and my wife and I are proud to give her a forever home.
The move into our new house went wonderfully, easily, and quickly thanks to lots of help from our family and friends! Thankfully, the furnishings that my wife and I picked out (separately from each other) work really, really well together to fill out and breathe life into the space.
Of course, a homeowner's work is never done. So while the inside looks marvelous, the lawn is plagued by giant patches of dirt on every side (due to the tremendous renovations by the previous owner, including reinforcing all of the basement walls). While I didn't have the foresight to take any proper photos for a "before and after" segment (and the photos from the listing were taken during the winter with heavy snowfall that hid the lawn), I think you'll get the idea when you see this picture I snapped during move-in day:
I promise you that there's a lawn somewhere in this photo.
While the previous homeowner did his best to plant grass seed before winter hit, we didn't have much faith that all of the seeds survived the freeze. There's also the small matter of the house looking terribly boring at a glance.
So, in line with our goal to create some massive curb appeal, we set out purchasing several bags of topsoil, grass seed, decorative bricks, some potted flowers and bulbs, borrowed a few tools from our parents, and got to work the very next weekend after moving in.
Looks pretty easy and straightforward when you see it like that, doesn't it? In truth, everything did not go as perfectly (or quickly) as we'd hoped, and we ended up scrambling to finish with the grass seed before a thunderstorm rolled in. This was mostly due to a completely embarrassing miscalculation of how much topsoil, how many bricks, and how big of a yard waste bin would be needed to finish the task. We made a few unplanned trips back to the home and garden stores just to get it all done, and at the end of the day we felt completely drained and sunburned ... because it turns out that sunburn doesn't care what season it is or what the temperature is.
The toughest task was, by far, aerating the dirt patches. With only some basic hand-tools to work with (some of which broke during use) and so much dried, hard dirt to break up, we ended up taking turns having at it just to get a break from the annoyingly difficult task.
I'll update you with some photos of the results as soon as I get to it, but right now my hands are quite full since we also just adopted a beautiful new dog ... but more on that later.
-Ryan
Fantastic news! Today is the last day I'm not a homeowner!
My wife and I will be getting the keys to our first home together tomorrow evening, moving everything in on Saturday, sorting it all out on Sunday, and hopefully enjoying a relaxing day off of work on Monday.
Living in an apartment has been alright, but we've watched way too much HGTV to really enjoy it anymore. Three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, a medium-sized kitchen, a dining room, two-car garage, a large yard, and unfinished basement (which we, of course, intend to finish into an awesome den) await us in our new home. What's better is that, though we were willing to purchase something cheaper that could use some updating (so we could customize it to our wants and have a smaller mortgage), this place was not only in our budget, but had been recently "flipped" to include all new kitchen appliances, beautiful refinished original wood floors throughout, and basement walls that won't be shifting anytime soon.
While my wife is all excited about decking out the interior (and exterior, to add "curb appeal" as she puts it), I'm perhaps most excited to start practicing my recent interest in gardening. The biggest thing missing from being apartment-dwellers, after all, has been a yard to take care of, and the idea of little seeds producing edible food is like magic to me! Taking care of a peace lily in our apartment has been surprisingly fun, and I cannot wait to be able to grow even more plants!
Oh yeah, and until we start popping out children, which is a part of the long-term plan that this house gets us one step closer to, I get to have my very own office at home in which to write!
It feels a bit surreal that I'm already married and moving into a house, but I couldn't be more excited! After all, I'm fairly certain that I said I wanted to be "married and living in a house" in the ten-year goal I filled out in 8th grade (ten years ago) - or was it a five-year goal and I've just always been really, really eager?
Maybe I'll start blogging about my garden, or the patio we're going to build ASAP for the combined house warming/anniversary party we plan to throw, or other home-related things!
