Byebye Appeal

So it has finally happened...I lost my motivation to be a grown up. More and more I find myself wishing and wanting to just go back home. I'm not sure whate brought on this latest case of homesickness but it seems to be sticking.

I used to come home and plan a lovely meal and get cooking, throw in some laundry, tidy up the place. Now, I come home and take a 2 hour nap because I'm so exhausted. And I still go to bed at 11:30-12ish. I'm not sure why I am just so tired all the time. Kunal is tired too..I think we both are worn out from New Jersey. It has yet to grow on either one of use and Kunal's at over 2 years and I'm approaching mine.

 To use a term I learn in my literature classes, I think we romanticized "playing house" and now that we are actually in a house with real situations, we realized maybe we weren't as ready as we thought. For example, transferring Kunal's car from SC to NJ. You'd think it would be a quick process since his name is on the title. But no, it's long and complicated and I just don't have the motivation to figure it out. I mean, I just now made a eye doctor appointment, when I was on my very last pair of contacts because I hate doing anything that ties me more to NJ than NC. I still have yet to think about making a dentist appointment. I miss my mom in times like these!

We haven't been out of NJ/the northeast since Christmas. Maybe it finally caught up to us. Missing the south and everything that comes with it, our families, friends, the food, just everything. I'm hopefully our summer of travelling and spending time with lots of family and friends will liven us up and give us our second wind. Don't get me wrong, we have family and friends up here, but it's just not the same as home. Everything is different back home, it's just more laid back, fun, familiar. What we really need right now is a big dose of home.

Right now life just isn't has fun. My biggest accomplishment this week was actually making dinner 4 nights in a row. Being homesick makes me not want to do anything...except crave my mom's food. It's weird to be homesick because I was always the type to never get homesick while in school. Although considering "home" was always a quick 30 minute drive always helped.

Grown up world : 3 Me: 0

Cutting the Cord

One less thing tying to me to my parents. One step closer to becoming self-sufficient. I finally purchased a NJ auto insurance policy. Now if you know me, of course I had to do go baby steps with it. Kunal, myself, and his car are on this policy and it's already a pretty penny! My car has to wait until we transfer the title from my father's name to mine. Can't imagine how expensive it will be then! The price was reasonable until I gave our license numbers and my fun little speeding ticket from September 2010 popped up and hiked it up. =(

Other than my car, the only thing my parents pay for is my cell phone bill....but I know those days are numbered too. As soon as my contract is up, I am definitely getting rid of Sprint and moving on to the bigger, better Verizon network. And I'm taking my dad with me! Figured he supported my phone habit for the past 9 years, the least I can do it pay for his phone now.

Being a grown up sucks right now. I feel like there is a constant stream of bills to pay and I can't just transfer a whole paycheck to my savings as often as I did before. My savings isn't growing as quickly as I would like and it is not cool. By the time I am done alloting one paycheck to bills and savings, I'm already thinking of what I can use the next one for! We have way too many things to pay off right now so I always think twice when I want to make frivolous purchases. There is still so much I want to do decorating-wise but feel like I need to wait until we have our money under more control. This is super hard becuase I want a lamp here, a bookself there, a storage cabinet in the garage and it all has to wait! My inner creativity is screaming at being held back.

Grown up world : 2 Me: 0

Dinner Parties

One of the things I was most looking forward to when we moved was hosting dinner parties. I absolutely love having people over, cooking a (hopefully) delicious meal, and playing the role of hostess. We are having our very first major party this Saturday and I am beyond excited for it. Last week, I decided to invite a couple of friends over for a pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving is my favorite time to eat and I was really missing the food. I made a turkey breast roast in my slow cooker, whipped up some spicy corn soup, made stuffing, and of course had string beans. I wish I could have made macaroni and mashed potatoes but I was working with a limited pantry of supplies. The meal turned out well, granted it was only for 4 people but baby steps in the right direction.

Then this past Friday, I invited my aunt, her family and a couple of friends over for dinner since my sister and brother-in-law were in town. I was very excited to grill or rather have Kunal grill the food I prepared. I went from 4 people to 10 people. It was a good time though. We made Mexican style shrimp and chicken kebabs as appetizer and fajitas for dinner. Definitely learned a few things but I feel pretty ready for having a mass quantity of people over this weekend. I realized that I cannot partake in the multiple glasses of margaritas as that will lead to being lazy when it comes to cleaning up. This makes for a not so fun morning when walking into a messy kitchen. I should also prepare everything possible the night before so I'm not stuck getting food ready while everyone else is socializing.

My biggest flaw in the kitchen is that I cannot bake/make any dessert items. I tried making a cookie cake once and it turned out harder than a brick! I guess now that I have everything else down to a science, I can concentrate on sweets so I don't have to feed my guests cake and ice cream from the store.