Last post of the year

That's right..today is December 31st, Two Thousand and Six. Tomorrow will be the first day of Two Thousand and Seven! I am predicting the year will be a good one...
First thing is first, let me recap the holidays. Justin and I were in Houston..we did a lot of baking, cooking, eating, driving to and from my sisters house to my dad's house. We exchanged gifts, visited with various family members and watched a few movies, too. If you were thinking about seeing "Night at the Museum," Don't!!! It was awful!!! I finally saw "Little Miss Sunshine" and I thought it was pretty good. I think my expectations were high because I've wanted to see this movie for 4 or 5 months and I kept hearing great things about it. So now that I've finally watched it, I can say it was a good movie, too. We celebrated my dad's 60th birthday the night before last. My sisters, along with myself and his girlfriend have been planning the party for over a month now. I think he was surprised, and if he wasn't, he did a good job of faking it. He doesn't actually turn 60 until January 9th, but we wanted to have the party while everyone was going to be around for it(Daphne). So now the holidays are coming to an end...tonight we are going out with a bunch of friends to a bar to ring in the new year. I'm happy that I'm able to hang out with my friends, but I'm not that excited about dealing with the crowds and all that other fun stuff you have to deal with when going out, being social. Do I sound old? Next year I want to have a party. That way, we can be in our own home and not have to worry about driving anywhere, paying cover charges or ridiculous amounts of money for drinks. Lara and Brett are coming to town and will be staying with us tonight. Raquel and Miguel are here in town, too, staying with another friend, Karie. Julia, Ashley and Troy are also in town and will be meeting us out tonight, too. Shannon, Quinn, Alan, Jenna, Lynn, and possibly Matt and Reagan are also in tonight's group. And I'm sure there will be some others joining in on the fun that I don't know about yet. Tomorrow, everyone wants to watch football. I just want to eat and hang out since Tuesday will be the start of my workout and eating better routine. I lost a little bit of weight when we were in Virginia, but nothing too significant. My plan is to lose the little bit of weight that I lost and have since gained back and then some. After a few months of that, I have to maintain my working out and eating right, which is always the hard part. I have eaten so much chocolate in the last month or so... my body might freak out!
Right now we are set to close on the house on February 28th, but I've been out to the house a few times in the last few weeks and there hasn't been any progress. So, I'm not sure if they are still on schedule..meaning, I don't know if these last few weeks are part of the plan or if they are now behind. Whatever the case is, I want to see some results soon! All of this affects everything tremendously. First of all, our apartment lease ends on March 15th now. We don't get any money back if we get out early, but we don't want to extend our stay here and pay more if we can't be in the house by March 15th. We also have not locked in our mortgage rate. We will be penalized if we lock next week and the closing date is pushed back because it doesn't fall into the 60 days window that we need for locking in the rate. Soooo, knowing what is going on over there would be good information to us.
I'm also going to start working soon. I don't have a job yet, but the plan is to start temping while I still look for something more permanent. I need benefits and a paycheck! I am going to set up some appointments with a few agencies this week, so hopefully that I will have some temp work lined up shortly after getting set up. I've already applied for A LOT of administrative positions...this area seems to be particularly competitive for the good paying ones. I've seen really only a handful of jobs that pay above 30K, so I might just have to suck it up and take what I can get so that I'm at least making something. Our closing costs are going to be 5-7k, and we still need to pay off the moving expenses and then we'll need furniture and various other things for the house. Though, the furniture will be all big purchase items that will take some time to get, and we have what we need for now so I'm not putting any furniture at the top of the list. Justin's already made a list of his priorities, with the home entertainment sound system at the top of his. I really want to paint and decorate. :) I'm just so thankful to have the house and so much more, I really am so lucky. Now, I've just got to get a good job.
Happy 2007 to everybody....be safe! I hope to see everyone I couldn't see last year a little more this year. To all my scattered friends that are reading...I miss you guys! Have a safe and happy New Year, xxoo. and remember to eat your black eyed peas tomorrow!

Tis' Tuesday

It's been reported that the average readership of most blogs is a grand total of ONE! So, you write your blog, then you read it. Count equals ONE. Awesome.

I've just been introduced to a new blog. Yes, I read strangers blogs. I bookmark them and often go back to be updated if I find what they write to be of interest. The blog that I have recently been introduced to is written by a guy named Matt Dentler. He is a producer for the conference and festival, FILM portion of South By Southwest here in Austin. His blog is pretty interesting..he writes of SXSW (obviously), music, travel, cool stuff, events in Austin and other random things.

I have a tracker/counter at the bottom of my page so that I can see tables and graphs of my frequent and not so frequent readers-when they log in, how long they stay and where they are located, etc. It's pretty much pointless information because I don't care who reads my blog. But at the time that I set this up, I signed up for it also.

So, if you came here to actually read about me and what's going on in my life...I wish I had more to say. I'm still looking for a job, Brooklyn is doing great, Justin is just fine and everything seems to be alright else wise, too. We are going to New York the day after tomorrow. I've been checking the weather and I don't think we're going to see any snow while we're there, but at least it will be cold-ish (50s) while we are checking out the holiday sights. I LOVE this festive season and what better place to see it all than NEW YORK CITY! and I am going to make Justin ice skate with me! Photos will definitely be taken and posted.

Thanks to my wonderful friend, Abbey, we will not have to board Brooklyn. Abbey is going to puppy sit for us while we are away. Thanks, Abbey!

After we return from New York, we will have about a week here in Austin to finish up the rest of our Christmas shopping and then we are headed to Houston for family Christmas time. Hard to believe it's really this time of year. Hard to believe it's going to be 2007, as well. Speaking of...we are unsure of our plans for celebrating New Year's Eve, but something will get planned here soon. Shannon, Lara and Brett are going to be in town and probably a few others. Going out is definitely on the agenda, but the place is to be determined.

I can't believe I forgot to mention that we did buy a house. I guess that because everyone I know already knows, I just didn't feel like it was news. Justin blogged about it already, too. So in my mind, this is already old news. Regardless, we are very excited...still! It's a three bedroom, two bath one story in South Austin. We found a realtor, who surprisingly without knowing first, has turned out to be quite nice and helpful. We weren't even planning on "building," we had come to the conclusion a few days prior that we would look for an existing home in our budget because building just seemed out of our price range. BUT once we met with our realtor, he informed us that he could show us some developments in our desired area where we could afford a new home. Long story, short, he did show us a development we hadn't seen yet (it's kind of hidden) called Bauerle Ranch. We were presented with several floorplans and we decided on the one we liked. Then we found a spec home with that floorplan, with the exact exterior that we wanted, a great location in the neighborhood and a perfect finishing date (tentatively March 1st). So while we weren't expecting for this all to happen so soon, the house and the price just seemed too good to pass on. I've already posted some pictures on Flickr. I'll update more as the house progresses.

That's it for now. Nitey Nite.

December is here!

Can you believe there are only 30 days left in the year of 2006? Christmas decorations have come out. We got our tree, it's been trimmed, lighted and decorated. We only need a skirt and some presents to go under it now. I'm looking for our stockings and a few other things, but for this year's holiday deco we've pretty much completed what we want to do. It will be more fun to decorate a house, so we'll have that to look forward to next year when we are hopefully in our new house. Which brings me to an update on that. We've decided while it would be nice to buy and build a new home, it might be better if we start out with a cheaper, existing home instead. I'm sure that once we start looking, we can find something we both like in a good area, for a price that we will be able to afford. Then a little further down the road, after we've settled here a little longer, we'll think about whether or not we want to sell our house in exchange for something new. What we need is some time to save money to make things easier when it's time to put in the down payment. Apartment life isn't so bad, and I don't mind doing this for a while longer. Justin is more eager to get out of here and into a house. So we will be in a house by this time next year, it's just more than likely going to be an existing home. I like house hunting, so much that I tivo HGTV's "House Hunters" everyday. I love it! Even when I was younger I can remember riding bikes with my family in the neighborhood. We would stop at model homes and walk through them. Pretending like the house was going to be ours was what my sisters and I did with every house we looked at. We would choose our rooms and of course there was usually a fight. Anyway, I'm anxious and looking forward, however I'm fine with waiting a little while longer to find our new home. Maybe it's because I need a break from moving? ;)
Brooklyn is a lot of fun right now. She keeps me laughing. I'm completely attached..it's been about three weeks and I'm smitten. Getting to know her personality and spend so much time with her has been wonderful. It's going to be tough once I start working and don't get to spend all these hours with her..probably tougher for me than it will be for her. But work has to begin. I'm getting nervous about finding something I enjoy doing for 40 hours a week. I'm not so nervous about finding a job, because I'm confident I can find something. I just don't want to take any job. I'm hoping to connect with the creator of SXSW to see what might be available and/or to see if he has any contacts in the city that might also be helpful in my job search. My friend, Season, is working on getting us in touch with each other. She met him at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this year. By the way, Season has gone out on her own now, professionally. She is officially working independently as a Music Supervisor. I'm really proud of her and can't wait to see her accomplishments.
We are flying to New York in a few weeks to do the NYC Holiday thing. I'm looking forward to seeing the tree, the lights, the cold weather and just being there while all of it is going on around me. It's been a wish of mine to see New York at Christmas time and I'm finally going! We had planned on driving up when we were living in Virginia. But now that we are in Texas, we are flying, obviously. Luckily, this will be somewhat of an inexpensive weekend, thanks to Daphne's hospitality and for cheap air travel. And this will be my 4th trip to NY this year! I am so lucky lucky. Since we are not flying back East this year to spend the holidays with Justin's family, we are also luckily going to see his mom and sister while we're in New York. They are driving up to spend a night and a day with us in the city. Daphne is probably sick of touring the sights, but she is getting a long christmas break in Houston, so she can rest then! Daphne is coming to Houston on the 19th and will be there until the 30th. Justin and I are planning on going to Houston on the 23rd to spend christmas with my family and we are staying until the night of the 26th. We're heading back then so he can go back to work on the 27th, 28th and 29th. But then we are driving back to Houston on the 29th to have a family holiday dinner at Candace and Eric's. Going back to Austin the following day because my friend, Shannon will be in town for New Years. I'm not sure what we are doing yet, but other friends will be in town, as well. Justin's cousins, Aaron and Shane are also going to be in town sometime then, too.
Just after the New Year, Justin's mom is tentatively planning to visit for a long weekend. I would like to spend some time making our second bedroom more of a guest room before she gets here, but I'm not certain that is going to happen in time. Hopefully, little by little we'll get what we need. But with money being spent on paying off our moving debts, our dog, the TV and me not working yet...it might be a little while longer before we can do some furnishing. Which is OK with me, but I hope it is OK with our guests :)
I could go on and keep writing about some really boring and uninteresting things but I'll save us all some time. Happy Holidays!!!!