That one time when a gingerbread house taught me a lesson...

I promise this blog won't always be used as a vehicle to list happy thoughts, recap weekends, and hold me accountable to bucket lists, but I do have some more winter progress to report.

Friday night, I watched the Pacers beat the Bobcats and improve their record to an NBA-best 20-3. Ridiculous.

Saturday, Wheat and I headed downtown for City Sidewalks, a Christmas festival held on Georgia Street. Unfortunately, it was cold and drizzling rain, so many of the vendors didn't show up and we didn't exactly feel like casually strolling through the booths. We did, however, enjoy looking at all the Christmas trees set up along the street and the live nativity outside of St. John's.

Wheat with the Pacers' tree. Me with the Colts' tree.

Spoiler alert: That's a fake baby Jesus.

In an effort to escape the cold, we had dinner at Johnny Rocket's and walked around the mall for a bit before leaving for Pan Am Plaza. Our original reason for attending the festival was the promise of free ice skating, but when we got there, there was over an hour-long wait and half the line was outside. Instead, much to Wheat's horror, we opted to get our picture taken with Santa himself. I'll post it here when it's online.

Sunday, before the Bengals' implosion game, we decided to build and decorate a gingerbread house. I had never done it before and I'm here to tell you - it is frustrating. Maybe I'm a perfectionist (okay, I'm definitely a perfectionist), maybe I have little patience (I definitely struggle with patience), but there was a distinct moment when trying to apply green fondant to the door that I contemplated smashing our little masterpiece and stuffing the roof in my mouth.

Such focus.

Luckily, I had Wheat there to talk me off the proverbial ledge (as usual) and coax me into putting icing icicles on the gutters instead. 20 minutes later, we had this to show for our hard work.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is supposed to be a snowman.

Hours later, as we sat on the couch watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I couldn't help admiring our sugary little domicile and thinking about how perfectly it mirrors our apartment and life together.

As was the case with our tiny gingerbread house from Target, our apartment has slowly developed from a combination of several things: my borderline-OCD perfectionism and Wheat's loving patience, my constant need to clean and his desire to have a place that feels comfortable, my meaningless meltdowns and his remarkable ability to soothe me while putting it all in perspective.

While staring at our little creation, I realized something. Over the last few months, the perfect combination of our imperfect personalities has created a place that just feels right to me. With my constant scrubbing and sweeping, I've been building a house, but Wheat, with his nightly dances, serenades, and kisses, has been creating a home...and as I held his hand and looked at my carefully piped icicles and his whimsical candy windowsills, I could clearly see both.

...I just wish our apartment had the same smell as the gingerbread house. I'm looking at you, smelly neighbors.