As some of you might know, I moved to Omaha after college in the summer of '02 because I was drawn to the local music scene and what was happening here with Saddle Creek Records. I found a girl that needed a roommate and so I packed up all my stuff and my dad and I trucked it all out to Omaha. He helped me assemble all my new Ikea furniture and get settled in before returning back home to Chicago.
Within a week I had found out that my new roommate was A) crazy and B) getting evicted for not having paid rent in months. So I unassembled all my new furniture and moved myself into a one bedroom apartment where it was promptly reassembled. I'm sure at this point my parents were wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into and I was actually questioning the same thing. I got a miserable job at a call center that I despised and spent the next couple months trying to make friends and keep my head above water.
I was pretty darn close to hitting my breaking point and admitting to my parents that they were right and I wanted to come home when I landed a job with Ameritrade. And not even two weeks after starting there, I met my future husband through some mutual friends and Saddle Creek Record's webboard. Six and a half years later, I'm still working at Ameritrade (well, TD Ameritrade if you want to be picky about it) and Matt and I are still together. Who'd have thunk? I might not have had the best start in Omaha, but clearly I was meant to move here to meet the love of my life and I'm so glad I didn't give up before I did.
Well hello there you curious friend and/or family member (and/or creepy person I don't know)! How's it going? Well, I am doing even better. Why you ask? Because I am getting married of course! Why yes! I would absolutely love to tell you how it all started.
Do you remember 2002? I do too because I actually met my lovely fiancé in the winter of that year. At the time, I was working my first job out of college as a web designer. One day, while perusing the webboard of a local record label, I started talking to a very nice, funny and all-around interesting girl named Kelly. Soon after we had our first date then later, our first apartment, first house, first dog, and so on.
Kelly is my best friend and I can't even explain how incredibly lucky I've been finding her and I am so thankful she'll be by my side on our wedding day and beyond!
So the date was October 29, 2007 and it was Matt's birthday. I had already bought him presents and had hid them in the basement earlier in the week. I decided to leave work a little early so I could get home and wrap them before he got home from work. So I drive home and park in the garage which comes into the house through the basement. I go to find his presents and while I'm digging them out from where I hid them, I hear someone moving around upstairs. I instantly froze assuming we were being robbed. I crouched there for what felt like forever listening for another sound.
I decided to be brave and try to peek upstairs. I start to head toward the stairs and I find that the basement door is closed and I know it was open when I left for work in the morning. More panic and I consider running out of the house and calling the cops. I slowly start to open the door despite my fear and I hear music. I start thinking to myself, "people don't listen to music while they rob people, do they?" and then I saw the candles on our kitchen countertop.
I realize now that no one is robbing us and I walk into the living room to find Matt sitting on the couch with candles everywhere and fresh flowers on the table. I can't remember exactly what he said because it was all kind of a blur, but it was something to the effect of, "I decided to give myself the best birthday present I could ask for.." The funniest part for me was that most of the candles didn't get lit because he hadn't quite gotten to that part yet....he hadn't been expecting me to be home for another 20 minutes or so! I guess that was what I heard from the basement, Matt running around trying to light candles.
I gave him grief about the fact that he went to all that effort to make it romantic, but was still just wearing jeans and an Elliott Smith t-shirt. In retrospect that's exactly the way it should have been as that's the Matt I know and love.