First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day back for the students here at the university and it's already been a drastic change around campus. In the morning, parking seemed just a bit fuller but I was still able to snatch a spot one or two spaces down from usual. However, I decided to be productive and drive to HomeGoods just a few minutes away to replace the pillows that didn't match our couch. Luckily I made the trip nice and short with 30 minutes of my lunch break left because it seriously took that long before I found a spot on the other side of campus! Needless to say, I was agitated trying to look for a spot with all the other students and professors doing the same.

All in all, it's been great seeing an increase of students on campus and I love it when students are wandering around aimlessly, looking at maps and asking strangers for directions. My entire first week in Austin consisted of carrying around a campus map! I suck at directions.

I'm also loving all the e-mails I'm getting from my previous high schoolers, letting me know how their first days in college are going. I can't wait to see all the amazing things they'll be able to achieve in the future. I couldn't have been more fortunate with that job.

The Big Move

The move this weekend has been the most intense move of the past month. Bright and early Saturday morning we took the Megabus to Houston and got there in a short four hours. This was the first time we had taken the Megabus and all in all it's a good deal and you can take a nap and not worry about the long drive! Alex's parents brought us to the bus stop and his mom even packed us some snacks for the trip. After my mom picked us up in Houston, we went and got some delicious Chinese food for lunch (which I'm always craving now).

All that was the good part of trip... we went and helped my sister and her fiance move out of their apartment in the rented U-Haul on a hot hot afternoon. Since they're moving into my mom's place, we had to pack up all of my belongings and move everything onto the U-Haul. Yesterday morning we jumped into the U-Haul and drove 300+ miles to Dallas! So glad all of that is done and now I can focus on unpacking all of my clothes and even trashing the stuff I don't need anymore.

Restaurant Week

In a few days, Alex and I will have been together for six and a half years. It also just so happened that Dallas's Restaurant Week is taking place this month and our beloved Fogo de Chao was on the list! We went on Sunday since we'll be out of town this upcoming weekend to move more stuff from Houston. My favorite thing about Fogo is their cheese bread... and okay their service is pretty good too! We're hoping that we'll be able to travel for our actual seven year anniversary! I've been thinking about Mt. Whistler a lot lately... ;)

Frustrating

I'm having so many issues with the financial aid and bursar's office this summer! No one at the campus seems to be friendly or helpful. I've been printing off the conversations that I've had with the financial aid representative as well just in case my money doesn't go through. Alex says it wouldn't be the worst thing if I took a semester off, which I agree with but if possible I'd like to keep going through. I guess we'll see if my money gets disbursed and if it the fiscal services actually return my e-mail.

Passion

I'm often finding myself bouncing off walls, wanting to distract my mind with two or more things at once and ready to get things done. Yeah, this has proven to be both good and bad. I get a lot accomplished, but even sitting down for a movie or just watching TV takes a bit of winding down before I can really focus (oh and when I finally do, I tend to fall asleep). The same dilemma can be said about my emotions too though, I tend to love people and things to the point where if it sometimes doesn't work out, I get super disappointed. This is a work in progress though! I'm not going to apologize for being passionate about things because it hasn't left me astray, which is why I particularly love the quote above that I found on Apartment 34's blog. 

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Goals for Today

I'm going to have a lot of daily, weekly, and monthly goals because of everything that's going on but there's so much fun feeling a bit more accomplished!

Today:

Continue stripping wallpaper, ugh, I haven't been able to paint my nails for a while because I know they'll just get destroyed by this project. I don't remember the last time I didn't have some type of nail polish on.

Get the bathroom mats into the master bath and start setting up my vanity area. I would really just love some type of pink flower arrangement in that area too! There's such great storage space throughout the whole house so I have to do it justice my keeping it organized. Maybe I could do something like this to the drawer:

Remodeling

Everyday is so exhausting with the house but we finally have TV and internet! It took the AT&T rep. four long hours to get it all hooked up, which I felt really bad about since it was so hot yesterday and he had to jump between the attic and garage all afternoon. During that time though, I was able to get some more wallpaper off and line the pantry shelves.

Before

After

First Home

So we did it; we got the keys to our first home! It's got great curb appeal and an even luckier street number to go with it (which is very important to my mom). We moved in on Friday night and began tearing down wallpaper and prepping around the fridge area. This was our first time doing something like this so we ended up messing up and digging all the way through what was a layer of sheetrock. Alex had to get joint compost the next day to smooth it all out - how is he so good at that?!

Luckily, we had Kevin help us on Saturday morning with all the heavy lifting. Jeez, U-Hauls can add up so fast! Now that we have some of the furniture in the house, it's really coming together. I can't wait to get some color and bath mats up in this place though. Here's some before pictures of the kitchen:

Closed

It's official - we closed on our house this past Wednesday and are now homeowners! We get to move into the place tonight so this weekend will consist of TONS of unpacking, painting, and getting situated but we're so excited. We loved our mortgage broker and realtor; they really worked great as a team and made the whole process pretty smooth for us. 

Alexis and Heather gave us congratulations/thank you cards along with gifts at our closing meeting <3

Celebrating our closing with street tacos! 

 

We're thinking about using Dolphin Fin by Behr in the kitchen and maybe Silver Drop in the living room and bedroom

Einstein

We finally brought this little guy to live with us once again. He used to be the whiniest, most hyper and stubborn puppy but now he's calmed down and has been much easier to crate train. We keep him on a leash while he hangs out with us so he doesn't get a chance to wander around the house and leave marks. Hopefully in just a couple days, he will have his new home and amazing yard to run around in.

Wedding Festivities

My sister and her fiance are getting married less than a year from now. We went wedding dress shopping this past weekend and she looked fantastic in all of the dresses. My mom came along with us and my sister finally decided on the one.

Obviously this is not the dress she chose, but I'm loving all the tulle! 

Oops

So you would think that since my job revolves around making students accountable and responsible for their college business, my financial aid business with my graduate program should be flawless. Think again; today was apparently the last day to pay for summer courses (what? you can pay after you take classes?) and apparently my financial aid disbursement never kicked in. What a shock to me! After having to listen to the bursar's office lady give me a lecture of being irresponsible, I just wanted to tell her to cool it on her attitude because there's actual students who don't know what the heck they're doing. I know and I even told her I'm fully aware of any consequences that come along with my careless mind this summer. Anyways, the moral of all of this is that as a higher education professional, I'm always going to try to be gentle with my approach with students. It's a stressful and crazy time, you don't need everyone else badgering you!

We made it back from Houston this weekend! I got my fair share of peking duck and dim sum, delicious! We also went with my mom to pick out the laminate color and even brought back several packages of the flooring so we can cut our next trip by a bit. We can't wait to get laminate flooring in our dining room and living rooms. Tomorrow we'll be going with the Realtor for our walkthrough before we close on Wednesday. I'm always so excited to be able to see our house. We're also meeting our mortgage broker face-to-face for the first time at closing, she's been tremendously helpful, I'd recommend her to anyone!

New Name

I've always wanted to keep a consistent blog, but for a while I lacked anything worthy of blogging. Yes, it's fun when there's dinners with friends or I see a movie, but let's face it, I love reading entries by others that I can relate to or better myself with. All things DIY are amazing to me, I just hope that Alex trusts that I won't revert to my half-ass tendencies and leave him with any projects I start. (:

I told my sister that I was in the market for a new title for my blog and threw "The Shirls Edition" at her. She began to spew out other words that rhyme with my name (other words that I've been scarred for life throughout elementary school)! "The Whirlwind Down". Hmm... well I've always felt like my life has been chaotic but somehow we always put the pieces back together and move on.

Since Alex and I have been saving anywhere we can for the home expenses, it crossed our minds to sell the DSLR since we're honestly both too lazy to lug it around places and sometimes too shy to bust that beauty out. However, my sister asked if I could bring it down to Houston this weekend to her engagement party. What a good idea! Maybe it won't be sold after all ;)