It's Ours!

Sorry for the lack of updating. I have been extremely busy lately with my mom and with the start of A&M. I've got to remind myself that this is my final semester! WHOOP! I can't wait to be done. It is very fulfilling to know that in just 4 short months, I will be graduating with my master's degree in early childhood education. I'm very glad that I went ahead and started grad school as soon as I finished undergrad because I know that I wouldn't want to go back at a later time.


As of Thursday, Alan and I are home owners! What should have taken about 30 minutes, though, took us over 2 1/2 hours. Got to love the government changing paperwork and being the guinea pigs with the new info. We sat with the previous owners for about half of the time. We learned a lot about the house (all good, thank goodness) and found out that she is an Aggie. How crazy is that? Apparently, a lot of Aggies live in our subdivision, with at least one of them being on our street. 


My mom has been a huge help this past week. She packed all of our china and crystal, so I didn't have to worry about messing it up. She is also helping clean tomorrow. Speaking of cleaning, I finally got the mop that I had been salivating over eying (does this word look funny, or is it just me?). We got the shark mop euro pro, which looks awesome. I'll be sure and let y'all know once I've actually used it, though.  I've also got some odds and ends for the house already, much to Alan's dismay. I just got so excited that I had to get a couple of things. 


I'll close with a picture of our new fridge, which is coming next Saturday. I've gotta get back to doing homework. Two assignments down, 1 to go.

(Our new LG, 25 cubic foot beauty!)

Jen

Elliptical

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that I am wanting to lose the weight that I have put on due to marriage and hormones. In order to do this, I have realized that I do have to work out, which I love loathe. I have tried Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred a couple of months ago, but my asthma just doesn't like it too much. I also have a Walk Away the Pounds DVD that I love, but it is over an hour. So, for now, I am using our elliptical machine that Alan and I bought over a year ago. I hate the elliptical machine, but I can watch TV at the same time, which makes me extremely happy. (I am a TV junkie... just ask Alan.) So for the past week, I've used it anywhere from 25-60 minutes a day, minus Monday. Combined with the cutback in calories, I can't wait to get on the scale on Saturday. I know that I won't see HUGE numbers, but I would be extremely happy with a 2 pound loss. Only 163 days until we go to Virgin Gorda, so if I lose 2 pounds a week, I will be at my goal weight with about 60 days to spare.

We've got home group tonight, which is a Bible study that we've gotten involved with through our church. They will be the people I miss most once we've moved. Alan and I have formed so many bonds with people of all ages and we are always looking forward to home group. It's so nice to be able to walk into a big church and know you will see people that are glad to see you. We have gone through a lot together in the past year and a half and I wish we could stay with these men and women for much longer. Hopefully we'll find something like this at our new church.

Today I put in an application to teach preschool at one of the local churches in Cypress. Everything about them seems to be a perfect fit with what I am already using in my classroom. Keep your fingers crossed that it will work out. Wouldn't that be an answer to prayers to only have to apply to one job? I'll keep everyone updated on how that goes, but I will be setting up an interview to take place in the next couple of weeks.

Jen

Lola and Ginny

Well, about a week ago, Alan and I went to Home Depot to order our new washer and dryer. And because he loves me because I begged, he let me pick out these two beauties that I have for some unknown reason decided to name Lola and Ginny. They are the LG SteamWasher and SteamDryer, and I can't wait to take them out for a spin. He even bought me the pedestals to go with them! What a great husband!



On another note, exactly 10 days from now we will be closing on our first house!! We got quite a bit of packing done yesterday, despite the stress of not knowing what to do or where to put the boxes, and I must say that even though there is still a lot to do, we're getting there!

Jen

Packing, packing, and more packing

We are currently in the middle of the arduous task of packing. We started as soon as we put an offer on the house and they accepted, but somewhere along the way, we have stalled with the packing process. Well, since both Alan and I have today off, we've resumed the packing expedition. We have accumulated so much stuff since we've moved in. I know a lot of it is due to the wedding gifts of china, crystal, Arthur Court, and Wilton Armetale, but we have a lot of junk. And I don't feel like sorting through it right now. I know it would probably be easier to do before we move, and I will sort through quite a bit even though I lack the motivation, but all of my teaching stuff is where I draw the line. Even though I have only been teaching for 1 1/2 years, I have bought/made/saved a lot of stuff to use in the "future," like, for instance, my 7 cardboard egg cartons. Why do I save those?  Well, I guess I'll continue to save those things until I get sick of storing them. Hah. Glad I'll have a whole room devoted to my junk, although whenever we start having kids, my teaching room will be the first to go. Guess I'll just move it to the study when that happens. :)

I've taken a long enough break... Gotta get back to the grind of packing.

Jen

Color Crisis Averted

I've decided how to avoid the crisis with red and green paint colors. Instead of having green paint in the living room, we're going to paint it a tan-ish color. In fact, the exact same color as my parent's living room (unless I decide it won't go with the couch). This way it'll look good with the furniture we have now and the furniture that I really want to get, which would be leather furniture and giraffe print area rug. I couldn't copy and paste a picture of the furniture, so I'll just have to leave you with a picture of the rug that I want. Boy how my tastes have changed. Needless to say, I'm super excited to have the red kitchen back on the agenda. :)

Now, on to dinner preparations (yummy Mexican Casserole) and a 3-day weekend full of packing, packing, and more packing.

Jen

House

So a couple of people have asked about pictures of the house. I don't really have any that I have taken, so I've gotten some from the internet to show. It's a four bedroom, two bathroom house with a kitchen, breakfast nook, dining room, and living room. 

front of the house

breakfast nook

kitchen (looking into the living room)

living room

master bedroom

master bathroom

I've always wanted a red kitchen, and when I say red, I don't mean red accents or a red wall, but the entire kitchen red. However, since we're also going to have a sage green(ish) living room (darker than what is already on the wall), I do not know how that will actually work. Red kitchen + green living room = too much Christmas. I might have to resign myself to having a red wall or red accents. I just don't know what to do yet. The master bedroom and bathroom will also be painted. Our comforter (and bath towels) are gray with red accents (I like red, can ya tell?) and the rooms are a creamish/yellowish white. Not so good. So I'm debating between a red-toned neutral and a blue-toned neutral. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Well, we still have time for me to decide, but not too much time. We close January 29 and can start moving in Sunday the 31 (the current owners are leasing it from us until Saturday at midnight). We'll clean all day Sunday and start bring stuff in a little at a time on Monday (like when Alan goes to work) and then officially  be in February 6th, unless we can't get our fridge by then. We've already got our washer and dryer waiting to be delivered. We're waiting on the fridge to see how big the doors are first.

In the meantime, you can find me packing and cleaning up our rent house... Yuck!

Jen

New Year, New Home =)

We had a wonderful Christmas break in both of our home towns! We got to spend a lot of time with our families and enjoyed doing all of the "Christmas-y" things that we normally do. We spent about 4 days with Alan's family and then 7 days with mine. We had a blast, but are definitely glad to be back at our own home. Alan and I got this fancy new camera for Christmas, so I'm going to be teaching myself how to use it over the next couple of months. I also want to get Photoshop while I'm still in school because I can save about $1400. It's still pretty expensive, but at $1400 less, I'm thinking it'll be worth it.

Before Christmas, we put an offer in on a home that we really liked, but nothing came from it. We didn't know much about short sales at the time and thought that we'd be able to negotiate terms with the seller. Much to our surprise, it wasn't like that. The bank is actually doing the selling and just picks the highest bidder. That definitely wasn't us... Haha. Well, at least it was a learning experience. We went again yesterday and I'm pretty sure we've got a home! It's still pending on the home inspection and the sellers signing the final contract, but I think it's safe to say that we'll be homeowners by February! Good-bye Alan's commute... Hello Jennifer's. :)

More pictures to come later... after I figure out how to upload pics from our new camera.