ATX

Well, we're here. After two days of driving, two days of apartment hunting, two days of moving in, it's now Sunday afternoon and we've been out of Virginia for almost a week now. All is well here. I've already made a trip to Target and Kohls, and the Redskins won today. So, all is more than well here! I don't have much to say about the recent roadtrip. We both drove our own cars and tried to make it to Texas as quickly as possible. Because we only stopped for gas, food and sleep, I don't have any exciting roadtrip stories. The drive was pretty boring...but my ipod, my cell phone and my walkie talkie helped some.
After one day of driving around Austin looking for our new home and not finding anything we liked, we went to "Austin Cool Properties," where JC helped us locate our new apartment. He took us to two properties in South Austin. The first one was OK and it was in a good location, but we wanted to see some others before making a final decision. The second property he showed us was in a great location, very nice and cheaper than the first one. Without going any further, we decided it was the one we wanted. The floorplan layout, it being on the first floor, and the right price were our top priorities and this apartment met all of those requirements. There was no need to look any further. We signed the lease on Friday and moved in on Saturday. Upon our arrival to Texas, we stopped in Houston for a night and stored our things at my dads house, while we were looking for our place in Austin. Saturday morning, my dad, Candace, Eric and Ginger drove up here with all of our stuff (plus a couch from my dad that is on loan). And with all of their help, the move went really well. I wish we had had their help when moving our stuff out of apartment in Virginia. Justin and I moved everything down from the fourth floor on the morning of our move. It was tiresome and the kind of work I no longer plan to do in my life ever again. We have both decided that from now on, our moves will be handled by a moving company. It might be more expensive, but it will be worth every penny.

Justin bought a new TV the other day. He has been looking, researching, and contemplating buying it for a while now. It almost drove me crazy because he spent so much time looking at TVs but never bought actually bought one. Finally, we went to circuit city and he bought it. Originally, he was looking at a 37inch LCD, but when we got some help from the good salesman, Billy, he decided on the Hitachi 42inch Plasma. It was a good deal and circuit city through in some other special cable discounts and gift cards for purchasing it there. Here is a picture of Justin with his new TV.


This week I plan on finishing the unpacking and getting more into my job search. I have a puppy to buy and I need to figure out how I'm going to pay for him! He's not cheap! There is a breeder in Dallas that has three male fawn colored French Bulldogs right now. She is going to have one more litter ready before Christmas and of that litter, there will be two available puppies for sale. One of them is the highest price I've seen thus far for a Frenchie, but she says the little guy is made from a mix of her two *best* Frenchies. I don't care about all of that. I don't plan on becoming a show dog family and I don't plan on breeding my little guy either. I do care about his coloring though. I want the fawn color and I would like to get a boy, but if she's a girl, that'll be OK. Am I a freak or what?

I'm still getting sleepy on East coast time and I'm also waking up as if I were on the East coast. I haven't been very social since I got here either. This week I plan to make some calls to catch up with my friends that I've neglected, as well as make some plans to see some of the ones who are in the area. The cable guy is coming tomorrow and our washer and dryer rental is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. I also plan to go to the grocery store to get back on track as far as eating healthy goes. We've been eating so much junk lately! By this weekend, we should be close to being settled. We'll need to get some more furniture, but there's not a lot that we need asap, so that stuff can wait a little while longer.

Unfortunately I have some terrible news regarding Justin's family. On November 3rd, his sister's recently born premature baby, Christopher, died of kidney failure. From the day he was born, he had a number of things working against him but he kept fighting and he made improvements over the course of a month's time. But there were just too many negatives against him for his size and age, from a health perspective. I honestly thought that he was going to make it though. I can't imagine what Krista and Eric are feeling right now..it has to be one of the hardest things to ever go through. I do know what it's like to be given hope and then it be taken away when watching a loved one critically fight for their life. You hope and try your hardest to believe that the doctors who are giving you the information really do know what they are talking about. You want them to tell you the medical truth but you want to hear that the person will be OK, no matter what. Once the outcome you never wanted to believe could happen becomes a reality it's a tough place to be when you're still hoping. It's a lot of things...a lot of emotions I never knew existed within myself. I can only guess that they are discovering those kinds of emotions right now. Please keep them and their family in your thoughts.