looking forward to 2007

It's been such a nice, relaxing week. I've been at Rick's all week (and he's still not sick of me yet). He's had to work all week long, and I opted to work from home -- his place. I got a bee in my bonnet on Thursday and just went gangbusters on cleaning and organizing his place. He was really surprised to see what I had done when he got home.

We've been pretty mellow this weekend, just taking our time, and not really doing much of anything. But it was a monumental weekend, in some ways...

His lease is up at the condo in September (still 8 months away), and he's been told by his landlord that the rent will be going up. A couple of times he's mentioned that he needs to start thinking about the next place he's going to live because he's not going to pay that much. While I've been thinking about it, I hadn't yet said anything to him about whether at some point, we'd not need to have two separate places.

So when he brought it up yesteday, I finally opened that door, and he was very receptive. So while there's no immediate plans for him to move in, it's definitely where we're going. With that conversation, we also talked about "the future" and where we see ourselves. It was so nice to be able to be open about the M-word and all of the things that goes with it. And before you get too excited....no, we're not engaged, but we both are on the same page about moving in that direction.

But instead of delving into those details, we spent the rest of the weekend talking about our one to two year plan for getting a house together. Likely keep my townhouse and eventually rent it out, and in the meantime, thinking about where we'd like to live. He's drawn to the country and having land for the doggies to run around, free from the close proximity of neighbors.

So we took a field trip to the Snoqualmie Valley yesterday, driving through Duvall, Carnation, Fall City, Snoqualmie and North Bend. I've lived in North Bend before and really liked it there. Rick was enamored. My friend Becky has been telling me about these homes that are based on Yurt designs. We had a great time looking through land listings and imaging the kind of home we'd like to build out there, surrounded by several acres of land.

Janya, we definitely want to talk to you guys about what you're doing with your place in Carnation to see if that's something we want to work toward.

And to further the commitment to our relationship, I bought a set of women's golf clubs so Rick can teach me to play with him. He's an avid golfer and hoping to get more time out on the green this year. Hopefully I'll get to spend time with him there as well. :)

As the New Year rang in last night, we stayed home with the dogs (Beaux was sick) and watched the fireworks at the Space Needle across the lake from Rick's window. It's the first day of the year, and I'm so excited for what the next 12 months will bring.

Hope you all had a wonderful new year!