I have been finding this house-buying thing rather stressful. This is the norm, or so I hear, which has made me feel a little better, and yes, there are indeed far more trying things in the world than the two stomach-churning weeks one is in escrow---every time I say we're in escrow I feel like I'm writing a postcard; "we're in Escrow! Weather's great, wish you were here!"---and yet still: I have been waking up every morning feeling like I've finished a marathon and then been run over immediately afterwards by a forklift truck.

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So hi, what have you been up to? Me, I've just been flirting with two mortgage companies. Did you know you could do that? I had no idea! Turns out if you decide to go with one mortgage company because it's a better deal and you call the other mortgage company to break up with them, the other mortgage company will suddenly get all macho on you, flex its muscles above its head, and say, in its deepest voice, "I WILL MATCH THAT. HEAR ME ROAR." And then, hey, what do you know, suddenly the other mortgage company is the better deal.

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Internet, sometimes something so wonderful happens that I cannot stop myself from sharing it with you immediately. I'm not talking about getting engaged or buying a house or any of that big life stuff. I'm talking simply about this magnificent email my sister forwarded me from the halls of residence administration at her university.

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You guys, I love bagels. I love bagels so much. One of my interests on Facebook is even "bagels," that's how much I love bagels. I think it has something to do with being bagel-starved for the first fifteen years of my life---England, though I love it, is not so much the hotbed of bagel-making---and then desperately trying to make up for that bagel deprivation with a rampant and steady consumption of bagels since my move to the U.S.

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Here's the second video in the Putting It All Together series. This one features Susan and Michelle chatting it up at the Pioneer Woman's ranch, the topic du jour being how to give back. I'm getting more and more nervous that next month's video is going to feature ME.

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I've become obsessed with bedbugs. I blithely followed a link on Twitter the other day (thanks a lot, METALIA) that led me to this horrifying article---honestly, try reading that without itching for three days afterwards---and now I can't stop thinking about them. There are far more pleasant things to think about, I know, and yet I cannot train my brain to think about them (cupcakes, sparkles, Jordan Catalano in a plaid shirt, COME ON BRAIN DO IT).

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Buying a house is so weird. It's not like buying a car, which is the second-largest thing I've ever bought in my life. It's not like buying anything. It's basically like signing a bunch of paper and then waiting and then signing some more paper and then waiting and then signing some more paper and then waiting. Right now, we are on round seventeen of the waiting, but I'm pretty sure there's going to be some more paper-signing coming up soon if past patterns are anything to go by. Meanwhile, my signature is getting awesome. Super curly and fancy. You should see it.

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We were the people who turned down the wedding album option from our photographers. Partly we did it to save money but also we did it because it seemed like it might be kind of a fun project to take on ourselves.

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You know that game you play on long car journeys where you list five living famous people you'd have over for a dinner party because they're people you like or admire? Let's play that right now. But only with men. Here are some men I'd like to meet:

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I think we can all agree that there are certain characteristics one looks for when choosing a partner, can we not? Some of those characteristics may come and go a little with age---for the latter half of the 1990s, my own personal list was amended to include "eyebrow piercing" and "knowledge of the oeuvre of Jim Morrison"---but the main things we look for in a mate rarely change, I think. I've always been drawn towards artsy boys, for instance, and in college I went through a short-lived phase of dating people whose last names began with H. (Although that was pretty much just coincidence, I think, and not a matter of me going up to men on the street and saying "You're nice-looking, but what's your last name? Smith, you say? Oh, forget it then, never mind.")

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I would like to preface this by saying that in the last 32 hours, I have had approximately one hour of sleep, and I think I am being generous when I round it up to one. This hour of sleep was broken up across two different airplanes anyway, so it doesn't really count. However, I am not hallucinating---though you would be forgiven for suspecting it---when I tell you I'm sitting in my room on the eighth floor of a hotel in London. I'm really here! At least I think I am.

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