Delightful Ramblings

Gonna try not to embarrass Spencer too much...

2011-08-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

So tonight I'm going to the Mack Brown Women's Clinic at UT. We've been trying the last four years to get me tickets, but they always sell-out right away. This year I happened to remember that it was happening soon and googled to see when it would take place. The tickets had gone on sale the day before, so I was sure it would be sold out. I was going to register a friend and myself, but it only let me do one and I kid you not, I literally got the last spot. That's right, I want to go badly enough that I'm willing to go alone.

Basically this thing was started to help get women more excited about the game and to learn more of the rules. I thought it would be great if I came up with some questions and excitedly told Spencer about my first idea. He looked at me like a deer in headlights and begged me not to ask that question in person. Ever since he keeps asking me if I have any questions about football that I might want to ask him in hopes that I don't embarrass him - HA! These include...

What should I be looking at besides the Quarterback?
Do you have a team Mom? If not, can I do it? If so, can I still please bake cookies for the team?
How do you make a fake-out work so well? I totally lose the ball sometimes...

OK... so I guess I can only think of 3 questions that I've come up with at this point that are kinda embarrassing. And don't worry, I won't be asking any of these questions. Honestly, I doubt I'll have the chance to ask anything at all. And me and my pregnant self are not going to get there before the doors open because this girl won't stand in the heat. No really... last night I had to stand in the house with the garage door open while Spencer was taking some measurements of the spot we're going to put an extra refrigerator so we could talk about it. I seriously couldn't handle standing in the heat. It's getting bad. So since I'm going to be showing up right as the doors open, I doubt I'll get a great seat. But that's OK, I really don't mind. It's going to be super fun and hopefully I'll learn a thing or two so I don't cheer at the wrong time while watching the game. Yes, that still occasionally happens, but way less than it used to.

And yes, this post was actually written by me. Aliens have not taken over my body and I actually like and watch football... well, mostly just the Longhorns and Colt McCoy. You can all thank me for hell now being frozen over.

So much to catch up on...

2011-08-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

Here's what's been happening in our world as of late...

* I think most everyone who reads this blog is friends with me on Facebook, so this is old news, but we're having a GIRL! To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was so convinced it was a boy, but nope, it's a girl! Spencer's world is going to be rocked, but I totally know what to do with a girl! :-) I'm very excited for all the bows. Not just any bows, I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to bows and ribbons. I'm not a big fan of the headbands, mesh things and large flowers.... but I LOVE the classic ribbons that I remember wearing as a little girl. So far I've been able to refrain myself from buying clothing and such, after all... that's what the grandparents and Aunt are for!

* We've made all kinds of decisions in the last month
that took me about my entire pregnancy to make:

- We picked out a stroller! No small feat I'll tell you. Holy cow there is so much crap out there when it comes to babies and kids. And of course everyone has an opinion on what you HAVE to buy. We wanted a stroller that would work the longest for everything we might need and landed on the Bumbleride Indie. Since I don't jog or go hiking on trails on a regular basis now, I figured I probably won't be starting with the new baby. So I felt like a Bob was a little more than we needed. Plus we'll be taking this sucker when we travel so I wanted something a little more slender. So there we go, decision made!

- We also ordered our crib. I like the wall color we already have in the nursery and didn't want to change it, but that room reads a little dark so I wanted to go with white furniture. (BTW... picture to the right is one I found online, it's not our nursery) Now to decide on the bedding. I want to find something that is pink and orange, but am SUPER picky. I'm not into all the animals and overly cutesy stuff that I've seen in stores. I found some stuff that I love at Layla Grace and added it to my pinterest and everything. Then I looked at the price. $400 for a skirt, bumper and crib sheet. What the what???? I don't think so. That's just ridiculous. So I think I'm going to have some bedding made which means I now need to find some good fabric stores and make a decision there. Have I mentioned that making decisions isn't my strong suit when it comes to this kind of thing? Poor Spencer.

- We also braved Ikea on a Saturday afternoon and got a dresser for the nursery. I wasn't finding anything I liked on Craigslist that was white and was completely unwilling to spend much money on a kid's dresser (that will double as the changing table), so Ikea it is. We even put it together in about 2 hours without fighting... I think our marriage will stand the test of time.

- As we made all these decisions, we also registered. Ummm... so not as fun as registering for wedding stuff. I've babysat a ton over the years, but I've never had a child of my own and considering I don't know what she'll like, I spent much of the time staring at the aisles full of choices just guessing. My favorite was when the worker at Buy Buy Baby (who looked to be like 16 years old) very seriously gave us this massive list of items we HAD to have as a minimum to bring the baby home. Uh, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to take care of my baby even if we don't have a wipe warmer. Oh yeah, and we definitely didn't register for the whirlpool baby bath. I don't think so.

So that's mostly what's going on for us. Just trying to enjoy our weekends of sleeping in, going to movies whenever we want and getting stuff prepped as well. Oh, and this HEAT! Oh my goodness, I officially quit summer this week, but apparently that doesn't make the 100+ degree weather go away. Man, it's been brutal. But hey, if I can survive being pregnant during the hottest summer in Texas on record, than I can survive anything. Maybe. :-)

Boy or Girl?

2011-06-21T13:52:00.001-05:00

Thursday's the big day... we find out what this little baby is going to be. Of course that's provided the baby cooperates.

So... will our baby be wearing this:

Or this?

Have any guesses? I feel like it's a boy and Spencer thinks it's a girl. One of us will be right! :-)

Can you guess which role I play in my marriage?

2011-06-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

What the what???

2011-06-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

Umm... I'm pretty sure our baby will not need a whirlpool tub. Just a guess.

One of the most overwhelming places EVER

2011-06-07T14:44:00.001-05:00

We've now been into Buy, Buy Baby and Babies R Us once. Just wanted to scope things out and see what items will be taking over our house for the next couple of years. Buy, Buy Baby is the Bed, Bath and Beyond version of baby stores. Let me just say I like it WAY more than Babies R US. It's cleaner, seems to have a wider and better selection and was overall a more pleasant experience.

But one thing was the same at both stores... I nearly had a panic attack in the stroller/car seat section. Seriously, one of the most overwhelming places ever. There are so many options. And it's not like you can just pick the one that's the prettiest. Nope, you have to think about safety, tires, cup holders, handles, how well it collapses, etc... And forget about being able to figure out how to work the thing on your own. It took us a good 5 minutes to figure out how to get one of the car seats out of it's base.

Even my husband who is a research genius is overwhelmed by the whole thing. After our first trip to this section, I looked at him and said "You're just going to have to research all this because I'm completely overwhelmed. I have to get out of here." Well, he started researching but found that everything is clearly influenced by the manufacturers and everyone has a different opinion. Here's the system we like the best thus far:

It's a Baby Trend and the things we liked? The handle is adjustable and it has that triangle thing on the car seat that will make carrying the thing a bit easier. Side note: I'm going to the gym today and telling my trainer that we seriously need to work on my upper body strength. The car seat alone seemed kinda heavy. I think I'm in trouble.

But seeing as I've never needed a stroller before, I don't know what the heck I need or want. So I'm asking all you Moms what you needed/wanted in your stroller. Let me clarify a few things: I am not a runner and don't have any plans to become one, but I would like to go on walks. I'm guessing we'll mostly be using the stroller when shopping, traveling, and going other places where you'll want to push the baby instead of carry it. And I already carry a big purse, so I'm guessing between me and the baby we're going to need something that will hold a good size bag.

So... what should I look for in a stroller? In other words, HELP!!!!!

Let the hormones begin

2011-06-03T11:07:00.000-05:00

3/25/2011

Had my first full-on pregnancy meltdown last night. We were happily watching my favorite show, The Office, and it got to the end where Michael proposed to Holly. That of course made me teary and then it hit me that Steve Carrell will be leaving the show. We're talking full-on heaving, snot-filled sobbing. Meanwhile Spencer is laughing hysterically and trying to comfort me all at the same time. I literally told him that I don't want to live in a world where "that's what she said" isn't around anymore. He promised we would keep it going.

Looking at the clip today I don't have nearly the reaction as I did last night. But hey, Spencer got a good story out of it. He said it's like every movie and tv show about pregnant women that he's ever seen. Glad I'm not disappointing him.

**UPDATE** Since I originally wrote this post, there have been many hormonal break-downs. I cried saying goodbye to one of my doctors who released me, sobbed during the last two Michael Scott episodes of The Office, and have cried during several other insignificant tv shows, movies and commercials. Doesn't take much to get the waterworks going these days. Poor Spencer. He's routinely asking me if I'm crying. :-)

Morning sickness is weird

2011-05-31T21:15:00.000-05:00

3/20/2011

I'll be 5 weeks tomorrow, so who knows if my "morning sickness" is going to get worse, but for now it's mid-day sickness. I feel great when I wake up which is a HUGE blessing. Makes it a lot easier to get up and going each day. Then around 10:30 the heartburn and nausea begins and I feel like I'm hitting a wall and am so tired. But then around 3:30 I start feeling normal again which is something I'm also thankful for. I'm exhausted by the end of the day, but I usually feel better. It's just so weird feeling sick for a part of the day and then have it go away (for the most part).

Today I took a nap and here's Gucci after Spencer scolded him for scratching on our bedroom door trying to find me:

A grainy pic, but so funny. Little does he know how rocked his world is going to be come November!

**UPDATE** The whole feeling great in the morning did NOT last. My "morning" sickness has been super inconsistent. Everything from being really sick all day and throwing up, to only small portions of the afternoon or evening. Never know what what the next day (or hour) will bring. I'm 15 weeks now and it seems like maybe I'm starting to feel better, but I'm not celebrating quite yet. Praying for an energetic 2nd trimester so I can start tackling some of those nesting projects I want to get to around the house!

WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!!!!!

2011-05-31T11:45:00.000-05:00

March 17, 2011

I cannot even believe this is happening! When you finally read this post, I will actually be in my second trimester. But since this is my first pregnancy and we found out so early, we're not making the "public" declaration until now. I find myself wanting to tell everyone. If you know me, you know I like to talk and I like to share what's going on in my life and hear what's going on for others. So you can only imagine how hard it is to not stop strangers and tell them that I'm pregnant. I mean, I'd be excited if some random person told me something like that. But I digress...

We've been trying to get pregnant for awhile and turned to an amazing fertility specialist last October to begin treatments. I ended up having surgery in January to roto-rooter out some endometriosis and other fun things that were going on. Basically nothing was as it should be... kinda makes sense that I couldn't get pregnant! After the surgery, we decided to try just 2-3 rounds of IUI before moving onto adoption. A little less than two weeks after the IUI, I had convinced myself that it hadn't worked. In fact, I spent several hours that Saturday afternoon crying. Spencer came home from SXSW to find me laying on the bed in my pink robe, a role of toilet paper by my side being used as tissues while watching the Notebook.

I'll let that image sink in.

Quite the sight I tell you. Well, the next morning I decided to take another home pregnancy test. As I was waiting and guessing if 3 minutes had past, I thought I saw a faint second line on my cheap dollar store test. I was sure I was seeing things, but decided to try a digital test. As I waited, I kept telling myself that it was going to be negative. And then Pregnant popped on the screen. (I should back up the story and add that the night before after my meltdown, I was in our guest room putting the duvet cover back on in preparation for a house guest. We had the window cracked and I swore that I heard someone whisper "hello Sarah." That send me screaming into the kitchen yelling that I heard a voice. Spencer went to investigate, saw that it was nothing and came back in the house, gave me a hug and told me I should take some Tylenol PM and go to bed. HA!) After seeing the positive test, I ran out the door much like I had the night before yelling "Oh my gosh, I'm pregnant!" over and over again. At first Spencer thought I had just heard something again. Makes me laugh just thinking about it.

We took two more tests that morning to just to be sure and were SO excited. I had my blood drawn the next morning and once that was confirmed we were really over the moon. The doctor has been watching me closely and so far, so good. My levels have been climbing and everything looks good. I actually started having some heartburn almost immediately after the IUI, but thought there couldn't be a correlation. It's still early, so I'm still feeling pretty good. I'm really tired and seem to have morning sickness in the afternoon. Just heartburn and some light nausea, nothing too bad. I've had a bad stomach for so long, I have a pretty high tolerance for that kind of thing. But if I start throwing up all the time, I may change my tune.

It is not lost on us how incredibly blessed and fortunate that this worked so quickly for us. Fertility is a painful experience and there are many amazing couples who have been through so much more than us. I'm grateful for every amount of discomfort that indicates the baby is growing and hope that I keep that perspective as the months (and symptoms!) go on.

I just bought this swimsuit for Kate's new baby girl and can't wait to start shopping for clothes for our baby!:

(When I showed Spencer the picture of this swimsuit that I had ordered for baby Nora, he promptly asked me why I had bought a costume for a baby. HA! I've got a lot to teach him about babies and clothes. :-))

Gonna be a busy week!

2010-11-22T10:59:00.000-06:00

I'm half posting this to keep me accountable to work instead of watching a movie or reading - HA! Ready or not, here I go!

Monday
* Deep clean both bathrooms
* Vacuum and clean baseboards
* Clean all doors in the interior of the house (something that's needed to be done since moving in, just haven't taken the time to do so)
* Touch-up paint? (Not sure I'll have time or energy to do this today)

Tuesday
* Laundry (guest sheets and towels, kitchen towels)
* Dust
* Iron curtains that were washed and hung to dry on Monday
* Clean all floors (a serious proposition with our hardwoods)
* Finish buying Christmas presents for the in-laws (we're doing our Christmas this weekend since we'll be in Seattle for the holiday)

Wednesday
* Bake - pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread and Kentucky derby pie. I'll try to post pics and recipes when I'm finished.
* Wrap presents

OK... I better get off of here and actually start working on this. Happy Thanksgiving week everyone!

Big Change

2010-11-01T10:09:00.000-05:00

Well, three years after getting married, moving to Austin and almost immediately starting to work for our church, my last day was on Friday. Since everything you put on the internet is a permanent record, I'm not going to go into the details of why I quit. But I will say that it was most definitely time and we really felt like this was the right move for lots of reasons.

Tomorrow I start my new job and I'm SO excited. I'm going to work for a software company doing HR staffing coordination. When I worked at KPMG, I loved the recruiting aspect and often thought I would love to do that for a company. I got connected with this job through a former co-worker and low and behold, I'll be working with the recruiting team. They're a growing company that is going to be doing a ton of hiring which means if I do well, I should have lots of opportunity for growth. I'm very thankful for God's provision and perfect timing in bringing this role right now. I'll definitely miss all my coworkers at the church, but am super excited for something new.

A lot of what I've been thinking about and processing the last couple of years has been in relation to my job and I just haven't felt it was appropriate to talk about it on here. I'm hoping with this change that means I'll be blogging more, but that remains to be seen.

On the list today before I start the job? Work-out, costco, grocery store and cook dinner. I better get going. I'll leave you with a picture of Gucci waiting for more trick or treators last night. He couldn't understand why the kids weren't coming in to play. When they would come up to the door, he would jump up and look at them through the window with intense excitement. That dog is so ridiculously cute...

Weekend full of labor

2010-09-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

Was labor day intended for labor or for rest? Either way, we got a ton accomplished this last weekend. Saturday was our huge kick-off for Longhorn football. Celebrations included Spencer smoking a brisket for 14 hours overnight. Ummm yeah, it was awesome. That's what you could get if you come visit us in Austin! So much fun to be wearing burnt orange again and having football on the TV. Yes, I did say I'm excited about football. Without the actual fall weather down here, it's kind of my only cue that it's actually fall. That and the Yankee Autumn Leaves candle Bed Bath and Beyond sells this time of year and I burn incessantly.

But the really big news is our living room is 98% finished!!!! What a relief. I've been so stressed about it because I just didn't know where to start. I slowly started wrapping my head around it and fanatically looking at this blog. They are an adorable couple with an awesome house that they've totally re-done top to bottom. I'm in complete awe... I don't think I could ever undertake such a project. At any rate, here's what we did:

If you really want to see some before shots, I'll link them throughout... otherwise this post will be crazy long. And sorry for the quality of my "after" pictures. It was late and I really didn't care about taking the time to make sure they looked good. Hopefully Jeremy or Deena Leffel aren't reading this. The former owners had the living room really cluttered... it was beautiful, but really busy. And here's the living room a couple of months ago:

And here's our work as of 9pm last night:

So we moved the big leather chair in front of thewindows. It's crazy comfortable and that's a better viewing angle for the TV (and yes, that's football on the screen... the Boise/Virginia Tech game in fact).

We also got this awesome coffee table that is surprisingly made by Paula Dean. I never thought in a million years that I would buy Paula Dean furniture. But the best feature is it raises up which functionally is awesome (I've come a long way in picking things for functionality AND style).

And my very favorite part of the room is our new chair, throw, pillow and lamp shade... I love how it brings in some other colors and different lines. We got the chair, throw and pillow at West Elm (oh my goodness... how have I not shopped there before?!?!?!? Spencer says I became a different person after walking in. Everything was so beautiful and just feels like home. That's the thing about decorating, it's not about getting stuff, it's about creating an atmosphere. I love how this room finally feels homey.) We got the lamp shade at Target. Gucci was skeptical at first, but he's happily adapted. I still need something on this wall and to tweak the mantle, but that will come in time.

Lastly, my champ of a husband hung this shelving unit that we also got from West Elm. All of our furniture is dark and beautiful, but I just couldn't stand the thought of putting another dark, heavy piece in the room. We got the idea to put white shelves up during an Ikea trip awhile ago, but liked these from West Elm a lot better. No big shocker that I liked the thing that was more expensive. It's totally a curse. I'm fairly happy with the styling which I'm shocked about because normally it takes me forever to get the knick knacks right. But so far, so good...

I still want to get a white floor vase (that I have my eye on at West Elm) for in front of the mirror. And I'm not sure where to put Gucci's bed... it's not perfect anywhere, but so far I like this spot the best.

I also did some work in the kitchen, but frankly I feel like it's far from complete. Here's the view of the kitchen from the living room:

I'm not sure what design the kitchen was before we moved in, but here was the breakfast nook up until this past weekend:

I happy got rid of the straw valances, but I cannot for the life of me decide on curtains. I've narrowed it down (I think) to these two:

So here are my thoughts... I LOVE the pattern and the sheerness of the curtains on the left, but I'm afraid that with four panels along the three bay windows it will feel like too much and too dark. And too much of the same thing/look/style. You know what I mean? And I also love the circles curtain, but they are a much heavier curtain and I'm afraid it'll just be too much by the time I get all four panels up.

Thoughts? I seriously need some help on this one.

And then I mostly styled the hutch and the wall it's on, but I'm not sold on what I've got going on yet. I just can't get the right configuration for the top of the hutch. Again, thoughts would be appreciated:

So there you have it. Sorry for the really long post again, but I'm really pleased with our progress thus far. Now onto the bonus room and bedroom. But first we need to sell some furniture and save up some money.

Coveting...

2010-08-09T13:54:00.000-05:00

I love everything about this Crate and Barrel room... so beautiful! For my house, I really want the couch and the paintings for our bonus room that is right off the main hallway. I think the gray and yellow will be an awesome contrast to the beautiful red piece of furniture that's in the hallway just outside the french doors into the bonus room:

Sorry... not a great pic, but you get the idea.

Trouble with this vision? The sofa costs $1,600 and the paintings are $250 a pop. Why am I not surprised? I have a knack for picking the most expensive items in a store and falling head over heels for them... all before I see the price tag.

Sorry Spencer...

Flip this house...

2010-04-16T12:46:00.000-05:00

OK... so that's a little melodramatic, but we have made a ton of changes to the house and I finally took some pictures the other night before we had some friends over. I love having company... forces me to get the house clean. :-)

Now, before you look at the pictures I have a HUGE disclaimer: the house has not been decorated at all. We've painted and bought some new furniture, but there are still things that need to be replaced. Kate is going to come in July and help me actually decorate, but for now it works. And oh yeah, I ended up feeding my Pottery Barn addiction by getting a rug there. HA! But I love it, so I'm OK with it.

Lets start in my favorite room so far, our bedroom. I LOVE how it's turned out... even without it being decorated and being a little matchy-matchy with the furniture. I want to get some different bedside tables, lamps and such. But that will all come in time.

Master bedroom before:

Master mid-way through changes:

I love the drama of the brown and blue... I can't wait to get some more color and accesories in here. Goodness... looking at the before and after pictures makes me realize how much more there really is to do with adding pictures and such.

Living room before:

Living room mid-way through changes:

OK... so the Texas flag is NOT staying above the mantel. It's there right now because Spencer loves it and I'm giving him the chance to enjoy it until I find something else... HA!

And the throw pillows are from our old furniture that was a beige color. And the coffee table is going as well. So this definitely doesn't look how I want it to look yet, but at least you get an idea of the color and the couch and chair that we've purchased. You can't totally tell in these pictures, but we darkened the walls quite a bit with a color called Burnt Almond by Behr paint. Their paint is AWESOME btw.

And a picture of Gucci posing on the rug. He LOVES the rug and tries not to walk on the hard woods unless he has to. I'm not kidding. And he loves to pose for pictures. It's unbelievable.

I'm super happy with how the rug turned out. And I can't wait to actually decorate the room!

Kitchen before:

Kitchen mid-way through changes:

As you can see, we lightened the yellow. In fact, the color looks different in the breakfast nook area vs the kitchen itself. We also got rid of the light fixture above the table and added track lighting in the kitchen. It was one of those ugly box fluorescent light things. (Ignore the mess, we were cooking for the party)

And one of my favorite additions to the kitchen, we replaced the stained/messed up white porcelein sink with a new stainless steel one that matches the rest of the appliances:

Guest bedroom before:

I actually love the pink curtains in this room, but both Spencer and Kate vetoed me on keeping them. They said I have to have a little girl first before I can put something like that up. hahaha But the paint was not in good condition at all and the room really needed a fresh coat and new carpet.

Guest bedroom mid-way through changes:

Guest bathroom before:

For the life of me, I can't figure out why they would pick such a dark, muddy color for such a small space. I couldn't wait to change the color in the guest bath.

Guest bathroom mid-way through changes:

And on to the thing we're discovering needs the most work... the backyard. We've found out that the in-ground sprinkler system is messed up. When they originally moved the hot tub from the deck to the yard, they broke one of the pipes and rather than investigating it and fixing it, they just turned off that zone and another zone where the sprinkler heads were buried under 6 inches of packed dirt. So we have to get a specialist in here to figure out what's going on. And since the sprinkler heads were turned off in certain zones and they had two large dogs, the yard is completely jacked up. So we have to figure out what we'll be able to do to fix everything. And given the fact that neither one of my thumbs are green, I can use all the help I can get. But here's the progress we've made so far.

Backyard before:

Backyard mid-way through changes:

We built out the deck to and around the hot tub and moved the gazebo-thing over the hot tub. I can't believe how much bigger the deck looks. I can't wait to power wash it and stain it. For now we have to wait until we have the lawn figured out.

One of my favorite things about the house:

And one of Spencer's favorite things about the house:

So, that's what we've got so far. I can't wait to decorate and tie everything together. I just can't get over that this is our house. God is so good!

It's only a rug...

2010-03-31T14:11:00.002-05:00

How in the heck is it so difficult to find a rug? We have beautiful Brazilian cherry hardwood floors in our living area that were put in about 2-3 years ago and I LOVE them, but we desperately need a rug to help warm things up. And if nothing else, it'll help Gucci get on the couch better. I'm actually being serious here. He just can't get his footing on the slippery floor which means he can't get enough momentum to jump on the couch sometimes. What else can you expect from a dog named Gucci?

At any rate, I'm having such a hard time picking something out. We have a lot of earth tones in the room right now with the floors, our dark leather couch and chair and then the burnt orange curtains. I KNOW! The house came with burnt orange curtains, can you believe it?!?!? So perfect for Longhorn fans, it was meant to be! But now we need some color in the room. We're thinking a blue of some sort, but everything I find is either way too traditional:

OR way too modern:

I just can't find anything that has enough color that goes well with our design aesthetic. I did find a rug that I like at Pottery Barn, but there are two problems with it.

1. I'm trying to break my Pottery Barn addiction and make my house more "funky." Last time I was looking for a "funky" accessory, I googled "funky clocks" and then finally ended up buying one from Pottery Barn. HA!
2. I feel like it is too "earth-toned." It is lighter colors which is fabulous... here, I'll add some pictures. What do you all think?

Decisions, decisions... it's any wonder I made the decisions on the paint colors and fixtures as quickly as I did. When I was buying 10 different samples of paint at once, the guy did not believe me when I told him I was actually being quite decisive. He actually laughed. Little did he know that I returned about 8 different throw pillows before landing on the ones that I kept. I have a very patient husband.

I am so in love...

2010-03-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

I can't believe two posts ago I was writing about the house that we had a back-up offer on. Bad, bad blogger.

At any rate, we have purchased a new and even better house and we are so ecstatic. I just love everything about living in a house: driving into my garage, taking the trash to the curb (not the smelly dumpster at the apartment complex), letting Gucci out into the backyard, cleaning up the kitchen, having SPACE in the kitchen, grilling (one of the first purchases we've made since moving in), making my bed, organizing the closet, etc... It's all fabulous because it's all ours! I'm not just wasting my time, I'm protecting our investment! I just love it and feel so overwhelmed by how blessed we are.

The week after closing was INSANE!!! Here's our crazy list of what we decided to do in one week's time:
* We painted the master bedroom which has a chair rail so that means two colors in there, and painted the master closet
* Painted the living room and kitchen, the living room has tall ceilings which were made easier to paint by the scafolding our good friend and contractor Jason brought in
* Painted the guest bedroom and guest bathroom. This bedroom has a chair rail as well so we also put two colors in there
* Touch up paint in all of the other rooms which included entry hallway, bonus room, bedroom hallway, 3rd bedroom, master bathroom and all of the closets.
* Replaced all of the light fixtures and ceiling fans
* Replaced all the hardware (the woman before us had SPRAY PAINTED all of the brass doorknobs a pewter color and they were chipping off... yuck)
* Put a new kitchen sink in
* Installed track lighting in the kitchen
* Replaced all the carpeting
* Built out the deck and moved the gazebo-like structure that was on the deck over the hot tub. Yes, we have a hot tub... so in love with that!

I'm tired just thinking about it all. Thankfully we had both my wonderful father-in-law and Jason who tirelessly labored over the house that entire week even when we were gone to work. And then my awesome parents and mother-in-law came into town and cleaned and organized like it was nobody's business. The house was really dirty... my Mom even found dog hair in the refrigerator. SO gross! And we had a window cleaner come who said he thought the windows hadn't been cleaned in 5-10 years. Good grief. Jan got all the liners into all the drawers and cabinets and even worked on my closet - scary for her! And my Dad went crazy in the yard weeding and trimming hedges. Seriously, I can't even imagine what we would have done without all of them!

And of course I haven't taken one picture... totally lame of me. I was so busy working that I didn't even think to get some shots of us working on the house. I think maybe Ron has some... I'll have to check with him. And I haven't taken any after pictures of the house since making all of the changes because we really haven't decorated yet. We have some furniture coming in the next week or two and my dear friend and interior designer Kate is going to come this summer to help me put it all together. When we get the new furniture that we've already ordered, I'll take some pictures. For now I'll post the pictures from when they were selling the house... so really it looks quite a bit different now:

Front of the house:

Entry way/hall

Immediately to the right is a hallway that leads to the guest bedroom:

Guest bedroom... windows face the front yard

Guest bathroom (such a funky color that just made that room feel SO small)

Bedroom #3 also off that hallway

Off the main entry way/hallway, there's a bonus room that could really be any number of things. It has french doors into the entry way as well as french doors leading into the kitchen.

The main entry way/hallway leads into the living room area

You can see the kitchen counter in that last picture on the right... the living room opens up into the kitchen

Off the right of the living room is the door to the Master bed. We did NOT keep the red color and it looks amazingly different

As you can see, the doors in the above picture lead into our huge master bath which I just love

And that door above leads into our "L" shaped master closet that actually fits both Spencer AND my clothing. It's a miracle. :-)

And here is the back yard. It by far needs the most work. It was neglected and had they had two huge dogs that tore up the yard. Along with a broken sprinkler system that they didn't tell us about.

You can't really tell by looking at it, but we built out the deck so it wraps around the hot tub and we moved that tent thing over the hot tub. It really looks amazing and made that whole area look so much bigger. I can't wait until we can fix the grass and get some beds in there... it's going to be amazing. But I'm worried about plants. I don't have a good track record with plants. They usually die when left in my care. But I want to do better, I really do!

Well, there's a really long post for you after hardly any in the last few months. I'm feeling the bug to blog again... we'll see how long it lasts.

2010-01-14T21:41:00.000-06:00

Sarah: I feel the need to battle
Spencer: Baby, I don't want to battle dance with you
Sarah: Why?
Spencer: Because I don't battle dance

Old Dentist

2009-09-15T17:03:00.001-05:00

I just got an email from my old dentist with the following link (I couldn't bear to actually put the youtube video on my blog). This is the same guy that is most likely responsible for the fact that I had to have a root canal on the only filling I have in my mouth.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AustinDentalSpa

Are you really that surprised that I've found a new dentist?

HOME SWEET HOME?

2009-09-14T16:27:00.000-05:00

(I know, two posts within three days. Please don't die of shock)

Last week we put in a back-up offer on a house. SO exciting!!! We really had no intention of moving this quickly on a house, but things have just seemed to fall into place.

About a month ago we started looking at houses knowing that we would more than likely buy something next year. Two weeks ago we decided to talk to our broker and get some concrete details on what kind of mortgage we'll be able to get. The following weekend (Labor day weekend) we were driving Ron and Jan (my in-laws) around the neighborhood that we are most interested in. Spencer was looking at the zillow application on his iphone and found this house (pictured above). It's in our price range and the pictures of the inside were AMAZING. The house had just gone on the market that Thursday and we were eager to take a look. We called the seller's Realtor and never heard anything. The next day (Labor day), we called the Realtor again and still didn't hear anything. We went to lunch with Ron and Jan and decided to drive by the house one last time before they left to go back to Dallas. As we turned onto the street, we saw the owners pull into their driveway. I KNOW!!!! Spencer got out and they agreed to let us come back in 30 minutes and see the house. Needless to say, we loved it. I mean, just look at this picture:

So the seller's Realtor finally called us that night, but didn't really give us much info. We called our broker on Tuesday and he put us in touch with a Realtor who started working on an offer. Well, when he called the seller's Realtor he found out that there was an offer on Saturday and they went under contract on Monday or Tuesday. No-one told us this info. Kind of weird. But they said they would accept back-up offers. We decided to put in an offer of what we could afford thinking it wouldn't really be competitive and just let God do what He was going to do. We found out that it was a competitive bid and after a counter from the seller's we have an agreed-upon back-up contract.

At this point we're thinking we have less than 50% chance of getting the house. After talking with our Realtor on Friday we found out that the buyers who are under contract right now may have some issues getting a loan. Apparently they may need their parents to co-sign, but we're hearing that pretty much no one is giving out co-signed mortgages these days. So maybe there's a little more than 50% chance. We won't hear anything until mid-October, but it's exciting either way!

We're not letting ourselves get emotionally attached to this house. If it works out, awesome. If it doesn't, awesome. We just want a clear sign from God that we're doing the right thing. About the last thing we want is to be in a house we're not supposed to be in. They don't let you return houses like you can return throw pillows. (Took me eight returns before I finally settled on our current throw pillows on our couch) I'm loving the process even if we don't get this house. It's so much fun to dream and figure out what kind of house we want to be in. I will definitely keep everyone posted!

(PS... if you made it to the end and missed the link to the better pictures of the house earlier in the post, go here to get a better idea of how things look: http://vt.realtour.biz/?P=56016&T=NOTIDX)

2009-09-12T23:19:00.003-05:00

So I realize that I haven't blogged in over two months. Shameful... absolutely shameful. But I think I'm starting to get a vision of how I want my blog to look going forward... more to come (I hope).

Fall is upon us and I couldn't be happier. I somehow managed to survive the 68 days of 100+ degree weather this summer. Had we made it to 70 days we would have broken the record. Kinda of a bummer that we didn't, although I'm also happy to not have had those last two days.

100+ degree weather (often with humidity)... I don't think I fully understood that before moving here. It's oppressive. It's beyond oppressive. I hate to sweat, so the fact that you are guaranteed to sweat everyday just going to and from your car is kind of lame. But this summer I just realized that this is our winter. We can't go outside (unless you are in water of some sort or crazy enough to be outside in this weather), so we go from one air conditioned place to another. And then the other 8-9 months of the year are pretty amazing here. Sun almost everyday. Cold, but not too cold. Really quite amazing. I don't know if I could do the dark, gloomy weather again.

Despite the heat, this has been a really good summer. We got to go to Florida to visit my sister and some really good family friends. She has a new gig there and you can read about it here. While there we visited Epcot which was so much fun. I'm a total sucker for the Disney thing... completely magical in my opinion! I feel like we did a lot of other things, but I can't think of any of them right now. But my memory of the summer is good, so I guess we had fun! :-)

And now football is upon us and honestly I have been SO excited. I can't even believe that I get excited about football. But I do. And it is so much fun. But I honestly wonder if I would ever have been like this if it was anything other than Texas football - there's something amazing about it. Or maybe it has more to do with the amazing guy I married and how much he loves the game and how patient he has been to teach me everything. He also appreciates my enthusiasm which has made a huge difference. And our quarterback loves Jesus which further endears me to him and the team.

So that's a quick summary of things going on at this point. We've started looking at houses and actually put a back-up offer on a place that is AMAZING. It's quite the story that I'll have to share... maybe I'll even post it tomorrow!

Congrats on getting to the end. I think I'm ready to be a blogger again.

So sad...

2009-06-30T14:56:00.003-05:00

Just canceled my t-mobile account which permanently gets rid of my "425" phone number. :-(

But I have this to console me:

My current status: MELTING!!!

2009-06-25T13:59:00.001-05:00

10-Day Forecast

NEW: Larger Radar Maps & No Ads

		High / Low (°F)	Precip. %
Today Jun 25	Mostly Sunny	105°/79°	10 %
Fri Jun 26	Sunny	104°/79°	10 %
Sat Jun 27	Sunny	103°/78°	0 %
Sun Jun 28	Partly Cloudy	102°/80°	20 %
Mon Jun 29	Partly Cloudy	101°/79°	10 %
Tue Jun 30	Mostly Sunny	101°/79°	10 %
Wed Jul 01	Partly Cloudy	101°/77°	10 %
Thu Jul 02	Partly Cloudy	100°/77°	0 %
Fri Jul 03	Sunny	100°/78°	0 %
Sat Jul 04	Mostly Sunny	101°/78°	0 %
Last Updated Jun 25 12:18 p.m. CT

Gucci scared during a thunder storm:

2009-06-11T21:40:00.002-05:00

But it's in my heart!

2009-04-30T12:16:00.002-05:00

I have several things that I do not have a lot of talent for, but have in my heart. The biggest ones would be gardening and dancing. Dancing has to be at the top of my list. Oh how I long to move gracefully, but even this little girl has more moves than I do. Last night we were watching American Idol and groaning about how people cry when they get kicked off because "I want this so much" and "I've worked so hard for this!" Well, the reality is that even when you work really hard or want something really badly, you still may not be able to do it. I launched into this whole speech about this last night about how sometimes parents do a disservice to their kids because you can't always do everything you want to do. Spencer's response? "Yeah, like dancing." Harumph.

I also have it on my heart to garden. And I've killed all but one plant that I've brought into our house. I feel like this is something I need to conquer before we get a house. Like maybe I need to get a couple of plants for our patio to get me used to the idea. I just have no idea where to start. Spencer keeps trying to talk me into silk plants, but I have it in my heart to have real ones!!!!

So I'm going to be a hypocrite and keep dancing and trying to garden. :-)

Can anyone help??????

Still clumsy

2009-03-20T13:02:00.003-05:00

Today I was doing a work-out at home and feeling all proud of myself. There were glimpses of my ab muscles returning and overall I was pleased with my ability and coordination.

Then as I was stretching my legs on the floor with one of those rubber cords (laying on my back with my leg in the air), it slipped off my shoe and snapped me in the eye. My instant verbal response? "Aww man... and I was feeling all coordinated today."

It was just an illusion. Great stuff for the blog, but confirmation that my body does not move the way I wish it would.

Hope I don't have a black eye later...