How would you like to hear something interesting for a change?

Ryan and I discussed marriage this weekend, in a pretty specific, non-abstract way. While we're not engaged, it is highly probable that we will get married within the next 3 years. The main reason it isn't sooner is financial: it seems all the more clear after house-hunting yesterday that we'll be putting a lot of money and energy into a house soon, so other major life events will have to wait a bit. That's fine with me, because I mainly wanted to know if marriage (to me) was something he was interested in, because I feel that way about him. He's my favorite.

As for more house-hunting updates, we went to 4 open houses yesterday. After gaining more info, we're probably not going to get a townhouse/condo, because paying monthly association fees, although cheaper than apartment rent, is basically throwing money away instead of building equity. Also, since it's likely we'll be moving within 5 years, if we want to come out ahead buying versus renting, we will probably have to buy something fairly inexpensive. I guess our ideal house (within our limitations) would be a 3 bedroom (ours, office, guest room), 1.5 bath that's in need of a lot of cosmetic repairs but is structurally sound. Then we'll repaint, refinish wood floors, landscape, and make easy repairs to help increase the resale value. We need a constructive hobby anyway, and this hobby should pay for itself. Unlike weddings, which are ridiculously overpriced.

Wedding things I'm looking forward to:
Foxy dress
Cake (mmm, cake)
Open bar
Getting all our friends together at the same time and place with an open bar
Presents
Jibblies as the ring bearer (kidding, folks. we'd of course need a tuxedo cat for that job)

Wedding things I'm not looking forward to:
Family-related awkwardness
Ridiculously overpriced everything
Planning-related hassles