Saturday, September 19, 2009

My Secret Identity as a Video Game Nerd


When I met my husband in Iraq 6&1/2 years ago, I was not someone who played video games at all. Growing up, my sister and I had a Nintendo and years later a PlayStation. I also had a GameBoy when they first came out - yes, the big brick one! Most of these systems I hardly played myself, usually my dad or my sister played on them while I would prefer to read a book or watch TV. My husband on the other hand, grew up playing video games. He had more systems than I care to name. He and his siblings and friends would spend hours playing video games, and the amount of time played didn't change as he grew older. After we met, he tried to get me to play games with him, and sometimes I would, but I would never call myself a gamer.

After we got married in 2004 and we moved from North Carolina to Arizona, I was feeling very lonely since I was so far away from my family and had no friends. One of the hubby's friends kept talking about how Halo 2 was coming out. I had played the first Halo once at a friends house and actually liked it a lot. My husband asked me if I was going to get Halo 2, but I of course said no, I didn't play video games afterall. The day the game was released, I had this sudden urge to go buy it - and I did. I became so hooked on this game, it's not even funny. I would play it for hours when my husband was at work. This was around the time when XBox Live first came out, and I found myself making friends with these people on a game. They gave me companionship when I felt so alone and without friends.

A few months later, my husbands coworker introduced him to a new game - only this one wasn't a console game, it was a MMO (mass multiplayer online) game for the PC called World of Warcraft, or WoW for short. My husband was often play this game while I would play Halo 2 -talk about a couple of nerds! He tried relentlessly to get me to play this game too, but I had no desire. I thought it looked confusing with a million buttons. But one day he convinced me to sit down and watch him play. That lead to me making my own character and learning how to play. Again, I was hooked. When my husband deployed a few months later, WoW, school, and XBox Live kept me occupied, since we had again moved and I had no friends.

It's so funny to me that I play video games, especially since I used to hate them. In fact, it's killing me that we don't have our XBox right now and Halo 3: ODST comes out soon. I hate that I don't have my desktop and I have to play WoW on this not-made-for-games laptop. So yes, it's true. I am a girl gamer - and I never thought I would be.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Where Have I Been?

Well, nowhere really, but I did take a slight blogging hiatus. Things have calmed down since my last post, thank God. And we did end up finding a house we both really like! It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2.5 car garage, carpet & tile, and a huge backyard. I think my favorite features are the granite counter tops in the kitchen and that the master bath has a jetted tub and a separate standing shower. Anyways, on day two of our home search, we put in an offer on this home, which of course was counter offered, to which we accepted. We did a 60 day contract which puts us in the house by Oct 14th. We've done pretty much everything required - inspection (which the owners agreed to fix everything), termite inspection (came back good), and appraisal (still waiting for the report from the appraiser). We got pre-approved for our loan with an awesome interest rate (5.375%) and now we're just waiting for my husband to get a months worth of pay to finish the loan process, and then we'll be in the home! We thought we might be able to be in there by the end of the month, but when my husband started his job, it was in the middle of a pay period, not the beginning of one like we thought. So he'll get paid on the 18th and again on October 2nd, and then it's just a week or so after that (I hope).

It's really exciting and even though time is going faster since my husband started his job, it still feels like forever until we'll be in there. I never in a million years thought I'd be getting a home like this for my first one, but here we are. I think I am really excited that it's also move-in ready. I might paint one room, but other than that, nothing needs to be done. It's going to be weird being a homeowner, but also really amazing, I think.

Only sucky part - my bff Kelsey is coming out on the 14th and we might not have our personal belongings from the Army yet. So if it's really boring, I apologize in advance. Bring your new MacBook since we'll at least have internet, haha.

Anyway, sorry for not blogging for so long. I will try to be better. I'm actually going to head to bed here now, so I will catch up on everyones blogs in the morning.