Amazing Support aka Dress Shopping!

Its been a whirlwind week for me. Dan's been out of town since last Sunday-the longest we've been apart since we moved in together (1 year as of August 11th, isn't it crazy?!), which makes everything else both easier and harder. I've had an easier time getting stuff done, and by stuff I mean working seemingly nonstop. Its been an absolutely crazy week at work what with trying to coordinate testing for 100+ people and feeling other pieces of the project (you know, the part that I've been pretty much singularly working on for the past 13 months) slip through my fingers a little bit more each day. I ended up working from home two days this week just to maintain my cool. It was a pretty effective strategy except that Piper is MAKING ME NUTS!!! I'm pretty sure she's suffering from separation anxiety with Dan gone although she definitely didn't do this last time he was out of town. Sometimes its cute and she curls up next to me in bed-like literally make me move closer to the middle so she has room-but then she'll occasionally bite me for no reason and my allergies have been awful. She's also the pickiest former alley cat ever. She has to have canned food, and not just any canned food, but no longer eats pate or sliced meat, it has to be shredded. Ridiculous.

Enough about the cat, although look out for Facebook album titled "I have a problem with taking pictures of my cat" shortly because I need to delete them from my phone.

Bordering this hell-week was dress shopping!! Our first trip was to David's Bridal a week ago Monday. I figured it was a good place to start since I could easily browse everything online and had a wide selection. I brought my mom, Dan's mom, and my champ wedding-dress-picture-taking-bridesmaid Laura! Pretty surreal experience trying on a dress for the first time if I do say so myself, and I really liked the ones I found there. However, with the ridiculous amount of money going into this wedding I couldn't wrap my mind around buying a dress that cost just a little more than our per headcount cost for the reception so knew I'd keep looking.

Trip two was kind of last minute, but since I had to drive Dan down to work on Sunday to go on his little trip I made an appointment at Eva's Bridal in Oak Lawn. The first dress I came out in, my mom made a face and told me to take it off but it ended up being one of mine (and her) favorites. There was definitely a huge selection and we barely looked through half of it during our appointment time, but ended up finding 2 very different dresses that I adored! Buying on impulse/during an early shopping trip might work for some people, but I knew I wouldn't be prepared to purchase on just my second trip so we made another appointment to come back the following Sunday. So far Eva's was winning...

The appointment I was most excited about was today at a local wedding boutique in Lincoln Park. I've only heard great reviews about Weddings 826 and I pass by it all the time so to say that I was a little eager is definitely an understatement. They have a manageable selection of gowns and give you the opportunity to order or buy from the rack. It was exactly the experience I had been imagining-we were offered champagne, water, or tea and had a nice room with all the dresses and curtains that pulled together for the changing room. I was once again accompanied by my wedding-dress-picture-taking-and-editing-bridesmaid, my mom, and even dragged my sister into it by letting her spend time with Piper beforehand. Fell in love with another 2 dresses (my magic number) which were very similar in style but had subtle differences that I couldn't possibly decide between today.

After making a pit stop to browse invitations at All She Wrote (love shopping locally!!), hitting up the olive oil store, having lunch, and buying up half of Nordstrom Rack's junior's section (for my sister...I got some awesome new red heels, and a super cute dress that will probably be my shower dress for only $20!), we made it to Macy's bridal salon. Now, being a born and bred Chicagoan, I have a little bit of an issue with the whole Macy's buying out Marshall Field's situation but they do have dresses that aren't available in any other stores locally so thought I'd give it a shot. Have to say the experience was not as impressive considering what we'd been through in the morning. Less drink selections, multiple brides sharing the same mirror/viewing platform, could only see about 20 dresses displayed, but thankfully I had done my research and brought a large selection of pictures. Unfortunately, I guess a lot of the dresses I pulled are from the new season and they didn't have them in stock yet. Regardless, I did manage to find another 2 dresses, of course! They were actually similar to each other but different from the two similar ones I liked at Weddings 826. I think I actually managed to narrow it down to one, but its so hard to really know you like the dress when there are alterations in how I'd have it ordered. The one I really liked I'd be getting rid of some of the beading and ordering in a different color. Similarly, the ones I liked before I would be taking some of the poof out and one dress would be a different color.

So tomorrow will be repeat trip to Eva's Bridal. I was able to find all the dresses I liked today online (and took pics at the first salon) so I have a visual to compare to and Eva's might have the ones from Weddings 826 as well (although I'd rather buy at the place nearby just for convenience). The dresses I liked at Eva's last week are pretty dissimilar but each one is like one of the pairs I liked today. Hoping I can make a better decision on what I love tomorrow!

After the excitement of the day/in preparation for Dan coming home tomorrow I ended up staying in tonight which worked out perfectly since I finished the third book in a series my mom wants to borrow-yes, a real, live paperback book! I may have bought a few books (like 30ish) in the past week so gotta put those away before Dan comes home!

Really, the whole point of this post before I went on a really excited wedding dress tangent, was to talk about the unbelievable support we've gotten in the first 2 months of the planning process. We truly have the most amazing friends and family. I've been meaning to do this post for awhile with this picture-but I'm glad I procrastinated because we got 2 more cards this week!

Obviously I rearranged a little to get all of these in one picture, but our fridge is filling up with best wishes from the people who have waited just as long for this step as we have :) In case I don't say it enough-thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you! I'm thrilled that everyone accepted my invitation to be a part of our wedding party including the ringbearer and flowergirl I just asked last week! Well, technically my dad asked the ring bearer's mom but I got a very excited call from my aunt at 7:30 am last Monday and sent him some diving rings to "practice" with! My flowergirl totally made my day by emailing me saying that she's excited to be part of the wedding and loves her tank top! Even Dan's been awesome in helping make wedding decisions such as the colors, the photographer, the videographer, choosing a website design, and ruling out any dresses he won't marry me in! Now he's got a 5 item to-do list to complete before the 10 month mark so we'll see how that goes!

Special shout-out to everyone who's been hanging in there with me during this week. As much as I miss Dan and the fact that even a hug from him makes life a little bit more tolerable, I have such a great support circle! Laura, Dan L, and Kristen have been fielding text messages/gchats/lync messages from me the past few weeks that involve requests to drink, virtual screams, death threats,  and sometimes just strings of letters from me banging on my keyboard like this "hdoiaf;lksafds". I also had "date nights" with my second and third favorite Dans (although depending on the day, they might be in first place!) which were awesome and things I need to make time for more often. A phone convo with Melissa was long overdue and I know I have others to catch up with too! Would have given Erica anything she wanted for letting me sleep through the night/feeding Piper at 5:30 this morning even though I was a horrible Wedding Friday date. After lots of girly bonding time today, its date night with my dad tomorrow just before I get to see my Dan again! By the way, thanks parents of the late 80s/early 90s--they really all had to be Daniel didn't they?!

A New Transition

I've spent the last month or so trying to figure out what to do with this blog. Officially, the transition I started writing the blog about is complete and we've now moved onto a new one. I'd have to say our first transition was pretty successful. We managed to eliminate the remaining 700ish miles between us at the beginning of August and went from being separated by half the country to sharing a bed every night. Not that there haven't been plenty of bumps along the way-Dan didn't have a job when we signed the lease which was one of the scariest things I've ever done; the chore chart was doomed from the moment I hung it on the refrigerator; we've discovered annoying habits about each other like how particular Dan is about the way to hang toilet paper/paper towel rolls and my tendency to have up to 5 pairs of shoes lined up next to the bed instead of in the closet; I had more than one fit over not being engaged, and Dan put up with 2+ hour commutes on more than one occasion after working a 10-hour day just to live where I want to. 

Despite all of the craziness, we've learned so much about each other from living together for the past 11 months and I'm incredibly grateful that we made the leap. And, although I may or may not ever admit this to Dan, I lucked out with him not proposing soon enough to have my dream September 7th, 2013 wedding date seeing as my work project go-live is probably getting pushed back to September 9th...sometimes fate works out in our favor!

Now, the real fun begins! I attempted to take some time to enjoy the fact that we were [finally] engaged, but that probably only lasted about 3 days before I started cracking down more on wedding planning. Well, actually, I made my mom buy wedding magazines the day after Dan proposed so I can't really claim I waited that long but still, I tried. So we had the really fun conversation aka the budget talk with my parents just a few days later, which led into the next logical conversation-guest list!! Apparently my dad thought I was crazy as he just asked a fellow Ascension mom today if her daughter had requested a guest list within a week of the proposal. Anyways, guest list is what drives the expense and good thing we addressed it early on since my mom listed 64 people she wanted to invite to my 200 person wedding. And no, that did not include her or my siblings. So much for that suggested 20 people per parent limit....

As soon as I got that news, I knew I'd desperately need some saner people to help me get through the next year. First wedding DIY: bridesmaid ask gifts! After some thorough research (aka time spent on pinterest), I determined exactly how I wanted to ask them-as shown in pictures at the bottom! I got inspiration from a number of blogs and pins-for reference feel free to check my bridesmaids board, they're all on there!

Since half of my bridesmaids live out of state, they got their presents in some ugly boxes and I'm sure my attempt at wrapping everything nicely inside didn't make it during the trip to Nashville, Hilton Head, and Arlington. Sorry ladies! I also had to alter the margarita pouch/margarita glass for my sister since she's only 15 so she got her favorite Arizona Iced tea an some random yellow cup. Yes, I did attempt to match the scrapbook paper on the outside of the bags to the cup to the margaritas. My favorite part of the ask gifts though were the shirts. You can order these online for somewhere between $15-20 but I absolutely hate paying for shipping and I wanted them like now, so I decided to make them! It required trips to 2 different Michael's stores to purchase all the glittery letters they had (sorry to any other Chicago crafters who wanted iron-on silver glitter letters). Piper also found a new source of amusement through knocking the letters off the counter as I was trying to iron them on, I just found a B underneath our oven when I was cleaning yesterday. Its probably the B for my Bride tank top that I'm going to try to convince Allison-my amazing MOH-to make for me :)The backs of the shirts have the year I met each bridesmaid, which only Allison and Elizabeth guessed when the first saw them-good job :) Totally photo op for bachelorette party/wedding morning prep! I also wrote a note to everyone to include in the package. Half the group laughed and the other half cried when reading them, which is good because I'll definitely be needing some company to cry with me and make me laugh throughout this year and on the big day!

Anyways, clearly I'm really excited about the bridesmaid presents and procrastinating doing other things like working on my personal and my wedding budget now that we've got the prices for the church. So I'll leave you all with some pictures! And a warning-this will probably turn into a wedding progress blog so I would love to have you along for this next transition but I understand if its not your thing-thanks for reading!!

2,371 Days

Last week Dan told me were going out for dinner this past Thursday night. He refused to tell me where we were going or anything about it other than dinner is at 8 and I need to be ready by 7:15. I don't really do well with surprises, unless I don't know about them....if that makes any sense. So I kept trying to get more information out of him. I found out we could either take the el or drive there so I figured it must be in the city because 45 minutes wouldn't give us enough time to get to Evanston or Oak Park for dinner on the train. I also found out there was a dress code-only nice jeans and no gym shoes, that sort of thing.

Just to be prepared, I had to get my nails done on Wednesday night so I got my first ever no-chip manicure. I was pretty sure the big day was going to be sometime over the weekend and I needed to be prepared, obviously (my mom taught me well!)

By Thursday afternoon I had a pretty good guess of where we were going. Dan said he hadn't been there before and it wasn't a recommendation from someone else. I deduced it must be a pretty well known, dressy, place. I had picked out my outfit the night before, had just enough time (now that I'm working 7:30-4:30....) to go to muscle max and get ready by my 7:15 deadline. I was, astonishingly, only 2 minutes late. And I told Dan I would have been on time if he hadn't made me change the laundry. So I'm putting my coat on by the door, and see Dan tying his shoe. I kinda looked at him funny because every time he jokes about proposing to me he says he's going to be pretending to tie his shoe and just pull out a ring box. And that's pretty much what happened. "While I'm down here I may as well kill 2 birds with one stone, right?" After a little more chitchat and him convincing me I actually needed to walk down the hall so I wasn't just staring at him from the doorway, he said those magic words that I've been waiting to hear for, well, about 2,371 days "Sarah Breckinridge Wallace, will you marry me?". And he opened up the box of the EXACT ring I've been sending him links of for about the past year. Better yet, he caught it all on camera :)

I had this master plan of how/when I was going to tell everyone about our engagement, which of course didn't get followed. Somebody was too excited and got texts all through dinner asking him how it went. I didn't let him reply, so officially our waitress at the Signature Room (exactly where I thought we were going-Dan was kind of disappointed I guessed but I said its just proof of how well I know him) was the first person I told we were engaged....but I called my mom after dinner and my dad after that who was in the car with Danny and Erica and my grand plan generally went downhill from there.

So, now that everyone I need to tell by phone call, text, or in person (minus work...working from home on Friday got me out of that situation until Tuesday!) is complete-you, my wonderful and dedicated blog readers are next on the list! Facebook status will be changed shortly-the last step!

Surviving a Long Weekend Alone

A few days ago my friend Kelsey texted me asking for long-distance relationship advice. I think its probably hard to give advice that works for everyone, but I let her know what worked for Dan and me.

"Keep busy, stay in contact daily even if its just texts but don't make a set time commitment like you have to facetime at 9am every night for an hour or you'll feel trapped, at the same time have something you can count on like Dan and I always sent each other the same text every night before we went to sleep". (Can you tell I was rushing to get to a meeting as I wrote that? Total run on sentence)

Kelsey said it was the best advise she's heard so far, which is good because after 5 years I should be something of an expert :) It also helped that Dan and I reused some of those long-distance skills more recently when he took a trip to North Dakota for 5 days to visit friends still up in the tundra.

For me, keeping busy was key in college and still is. Thursday evening I did my mother's day shopping and went out to a UofR dinner. Just like at college, had to invite a friend since my "guest" was 600+ miles away. Thanks to Dan L for joining me for that event for the second year in a row! Friday I spent time with my friend Elizabeth who predates Dan by about 12 years. We participated in a club crawl which was a lot of fun, minus someone picking up her coat my mistake but that's all fixed now. That's definitely an event Dan wouldn't have wanted to go to had he been around, so it worked out okay. Plus with Friday night soccer starting again, I'm always left to fend for myself on Fridays. I spent Saturday at a church retreat which I regretted signing up for by the end of a busy week but I'm so glad I went! It was nice to have some time for reflection and I met some new people who I look forward to spending more time with at young adult Catholic events. Then came Mother's Day-my favorite day of the year (not) ! After spending last mother's day in North Dakota for Dan's graduation, the one before at my graduation, and the previous two working, it was nice to have some Wallace family bonding time. Let me tell you, I make an awesome asparagus goat cheese frittata even if it takes a couple hours....

Honestly by the time that whirlwind of a weekend was over, I didn't have a lot of time to miss Dan with few exceptions. I had to clean Piper's litter box for the first time so that was a new adventure-even used the vacuum to clean up her mess, not sure I've actually used our vacuum before. But, I am happy to say that both Piper and our two plants survived 5 days with just me. Piper may have gone about 16 hours between feedings once, and I accidentally flooded the plant which led to water spilling all over the bookcase, but those are minor details. It was also a shock to realize that throwing my tupperware in the sink after work didn't result in them magically moving to the dishwasher, and if I wanted laundry done I had to do it myself. Since our heat turned off May 1st, it was a little chilly at night without someone to cuddle with....but there was also no one to shut the blinds or windows when I wanted them open during the day. Dan, you'll be happy to know that I did not revert to leaving the lid on the toilet up, you've trained me well.

I did find us falling into old habits during our time apart. Dan's teddy bear was his co-pilot on the drive, and mine snuggled with me at night. We resumed our before-bed text but didn't stay committed to any other communication. Although I didn't want to interrupt his time with friends, I was a little disappointed to not get a phone call the whole weekend. I don't really remember calling him on my trip to Richmond though, so maybe I just got what was coming :)

Anyways, I was proud of myself for remembering how to live alone, haha, even if it wasn't super fun the whole time. To make up for it, we've got a busy weekend doing our spring cleaning this weekend and lots of social activities together next weekend! So excited that Dan's done working Saturday's for a few months!

Taking Suggestions

Yesterday was probably one of the best Friday nights I've had in awhile. Dan and I finally bit the bullet and decided to get cable (I convinced him to stay in our apartment another year which saves us anywhere from $200-$500 a month depending where we decided to move...so we splurged on $50 a month for cable). On Wednesday, Dan mentioned that if the weather was good he would be working late Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday this weekend so I decided he needed to get cable for me first since I had nothing else going on. So yesterday was the first Friday since college that I sat down and watched 3 straight hours of Friday Bride Day on TLC and it was amazing. Too bad the weather was crappy and Dan ended up being home and having to put up with it too....oh well. The only thing that might have made it better would be having Melissa sitting next to me and judging too.

I've gone back and forth over the past year with loving Say Yes to the Dress, Four Weddings, and etc...mainly depending how upset I am about the lack of engagement/delay in my life plan. I'm clearly in a good place right now, mainly because I'm about 90% certain there is a ring hiding somewhere in the 600 sq ft surrounding me as we speak.

Thankfully Dan and I are being good-natured about the pending engagement. His new favorite game is trying to get me to find the ring. The other night I fell asleep really early and when we were talking the next morning he commented "You know I was going to propose to you last night but you fell asleep too early". His coworkers are trying to convince him that the only way he'll be able to surprise me with an engagement is if he proposes while I'm in the bathroom. So, as a little bit of payback, I'd love to get my readers' opinions on the following:

1. Proposal suggestions for Dan that don't involve a toilet (they also need be better than him taking me flying for the first time on New Year's Eve to see the fireworks over the lakefront-he set the bar high for himself!

2. Suggestions as to where in my apartment the ring is (I'm not actively searching yet....but you never know when I'll get bored!)

3. Tips for Dan's conversation with my dad to ask his permission. He's (Dan) horrified at the prospect of this but he's got it pretty easy: my dad doesn't own a gun and hasn't shot one probably as long as I've been alive, Dan's taller than him and can definitely outrun him, and my dad will probably start crying so it can't be that bad, right? Although my dad will likely retell the story whenever the occasion arrives so that's a little scary!

Feel free to comment on here or find one of us on facebook to throw out your opinion :)

Our First Flight!

Our amazing New Years Eve celebration was the first time I ever flew with Dan, but the first commercial flight we ever took together was this recent trip to Boston. Its pretty crazy we've been dating for over 6 years and haven't flown together yet, but since all of our flights have been to visit each other or meet someplace there just hasn't been the opportunity. I like to think of our trip to Boston as our first vacation together, although that's not totally accurate. We met in Minneapolis over labor day in 2011, but I think of it as more a meeting point/middle ground than a vacation per say. We also spent a weekend in DC when Dan came to visit me once, but that seemed different too.

Dan's best friend from high school aka the reason we're dating (thanks Logan!) moved to Boston after graduating college and they haven't seen in each other in probably 3 or 4 years now. Its been awhile. I've been trying to think of a way for them to see each other for awhile, and unbelievably no one wants to go on spring break to Boston so it was a really cheap trip! Only cost about $600 for 2 flights and a hotel room for 3 nights!

This was also the first new state we've ever visited together, and there probably aren't too many more of them-besides the rest of the northeast. Dan's family tended to take outdoorsy vacations to places out west mainly whereas my family is definitely full of city/historical/internet-accessible dwellers so we stuck to the east coast where my dad's family is from or anything within driving distance of Chicago (read: Galena, Wisconsin Dells, or Door County almost every summer). In short story, we didn't overlap very much. After visiting Boston though, I can't believe it took me 24 years to get there-I fell in love. If only it were about 1000 miles southwest I would move there in a heartbeat.

Boston had everything I could dream of in someplace I'd want to live. It was walkable, had a train that went seemingly everywhere, lots of historical sights, a bustling downtown, and cute surrounding neighborhoods. Nothing I didn't like-except for maybe all the hills. Can't imagine I'd do a lot of running there after growing up in the midwest!

After an hour flight delay (which I was pretty annoyed with but by the time we were coming home seemed like no big deal) we met up Logan's sister-Steph-at the airport and then Logan came to get us. Saturday was spent pretty much aimlessly wandering the city before meeting Logan's friends for dinner. And his friends were so much fun! Yet another reason why I wish Boston were closer to Chicago-great people! 

On Sunday after church Logan took us over to meet the religious brothers he lives with which was a whole different side to this Chreaster kid I knew in high school, but we only shared a few embarrassing stories. We drove up the coast to Rockport, a small town that was definitely geared towards summer tourists but still had lots of cute shops for us to wander around and delicious New England clam chowder. We headed back to the city to tour Harvard Yard courtesy of my trip advisor travel guide app and then met up with another high school friend, Ellen, for dinner. Mini OPRF reunion! Too bad Ellen lives only 2.5 hours away from me in Madison but we had to go all the way to Boston (she happened to be there visiting her sister) in order to see each other for the first time in 9 months!

Monday was our big super tourist day since Logan went back to work. Freedom Trail aka hours of walking!! Maybe not the ideal thing to do when its 30 degrees and windy but whatever, we've from Chicago so we're pretty tough! Only major downside was that some of the attractions (Paul Revere's house, the USS Constitution) were closed on Mondays during the off season. We also stopped for lunch in the North End at this awesome little hole-in-the-wall pizza place recommended by my trip adviser app. It was delicious and cheap-what could be better? Logan met us over at the Prudential center after work and drove past Fenway which Dan majorly failed to take any pictures of. Pizza  (yes, more pizza) and beer/wine in the hotel room was the perfect ending to our second (and last) full day in the city.

Tuesday brought more adventures. There was a huge snow storm expected in Chicago, so I was on my phone almost the entire day refreshing our flight, making Dan look at airport weather, trying to figure out what to do. We went to the aquarium in the morning by Steph's request. I wasn't feeling to well and was stressed out about this flight thing so I'm sure I didn't exhibit the expected amount of enthusiasm (I also don't really like animals....) but I found some great gifts at the giftshop! I replaced a shark toy that Danny lost awhile ago. I called him to see what he wanted and shockingly enough he answered! I also bought this amazing Harry Otter shirt for Kelly which was pretty much the best thing ever since it combined her 2 favorite things. And I got a new key chain for myself. Its a penguin, which is kind of mine and Dan's animal mascot you could say after we saw them courting a few years ago at the Shedd aquarium and later discovered that they're one of the only animals who mates for life.

Around noon I started getting even more concerned about this flight situation. It still hadn't been cancelled which I couldn't believe so I tried calling American Airlines but my wait time was 30 minutes which just wasn't going to cut it. We decided to just head to the airport with Steph who had like a 5pm flight to our 8pm. I figured once we got to the airport we could probably hop on an earlier flight. When I asked the ticket person if we could change the flight he said it would cost $80 each because apparently they hadn't given the go-ahead to change flights due to weather yet. It was online so that was BS but whatever. Once we went through security I called AA and got through right away and was able to change to the 530pm flight home. We were only delayed about 15 minutes which astonished me given how many flights to O'Hare were cancelled. Boarded the plane, closed the door, and then an announcement saying O'Hare closed all but 1 runway and we're delayed for take-off until 9 or something. Everyone gets off the plane, they keep us updated with announcements every hour or so. We're able to board a little after 8, takeoff around 845 and land around 1030. Dan's mom was supposed to pick us up from the airport but I just told him that we'd take a cab and to let her know since our landing time was unpredictable at best. I'm sure that was the right move although spending the extra money after that horrible day didn't make things any better. I was beyond grateful to be sleeping in my own bed that night though, that's for sure.

So, our first real vacation together was overall a great experience. It was good to know that we could spend 4 days together without being apart longer than the time it took to shower. Dan also managed to keep me somewhat calmish all day Tuesday when I was caught between the stress of the flight situation and PMS. I'm sure that was one of his favorite days (sort of...) I also think I prefer the strategy of meeting Dan in our destination because he ALWAYS has bad luck with flights and I've only had a few instances despite flying (commercially) a lot more than he has. Pictures are on facebook!

Life is a game, play it.

Life has been one of my favorite games for a long time, and I'm just now remembering, its the game Dan and I played on our first date back on November 25th, 2006 (His one concession to forcing me to eat dinner with his family and watch USC crush Notre Dame that night).

The one thing I dislike about Life though, is that it frequently causes me to relive one of my fears-having children. Its not the idea of having kids of my own that scares me, I desperately want to have a family-a big one if possible. Its the reality of the actually having children that is more terrifying. I'm not talking about the being pregnant/giving birth thing (although after reading too many of my cousin's "things no one tells you about giving birth" pins on pinterest that whole ordeal is a lot scarier), its the actually being able to get pregnant and the aftermath that is more scary. It took my parents a long time to get pregnant with me, they were actually beginning to process of adoption when my mom found out she was pregnant-after about 3 years of trying. It was clearly easier with my brothers seeing as we're all the desired 2 years apart.  So the ability to get pregnant part is terrifying, but then I also start to think about the genes that I likely carry. Autism is undoubtedly genetically linked, but we don't know exactly how. One theory is that its through the father, but my dad and his sister both have autistic children so that's not necessarily true in our family. I definitely believe in the idea of a sliding scale of Autism, so its a matter of how severe whatever Autistic traits are in the genes I carry versus what Dan has (no history of Autism in his family so that's positive). Even scarier than Autism though is the history of mental illness that runs in both of our families. Honestly I think my parents will tell you its been harder to raise my non-Autistic brother over the last 15 years than it has my Autistic brother. There is a lot more uncertainty and lack of control I think with mental illness than with Autism, and uncertainty is number 2 on my things I'm afraid of list (number 1 being failure).

So back to our game. The first picture below is how I ended up retiring. I started off in college, became a salesperson earning 100K every payday, got married, was (un?)lucky enough to draw the mobile home card which was cheap, but I could have actually afforded something a little nicer this time. Just like in almost every game of life I play, I managed to skip over every single baby space save the first "baby girl" space. After my midlife crisis of becoming a teacher and taking an $80,000 pay cut (at least the mobile home made more sense), I retired at Millionaire Acres with $2.98 million after cashing in my life chips. Dan's life however, was pretty different. He graduated college and decided to become an accountant (ironic given my family's careers and the fact that I'm in charge of the bills here) who earns $60k, good starting salary-right Melissa?! Too bad promotions don't exist. He also got married and drew the very acceptable Log Cabin house card. And then the kids came....and kept coming....twin girls (his gender choice) followed by a girl and another girl and finally a boy (they just had to keep trying to get a boy!) He also retired at Millionaire Acres to try to give me a run for my money (haha), but only ended up with $1.905 million.

I won the game by a landslide...but did I really? If you ask me, I'd much rather have Dan's life.