so many blogs, so little time.

'Vacation' (in quotes due to the fact that I didn't really GET one) has been quite enjoyable, but now that we're back to Austin (in my case, after 3 weeks of being gone)...things seem a bit more frantic. Don't get me wrong - since our return on Saturday afternoon we've gotten quite a lot done and had plenty of fun (playing with Charlie, Emily and my beloved Brooker). That doesn't change the fact that the to-do list for tomorrow and the rest of the week is gigantic. But oh well. I guess I'll focus on that when the time comes. In the next day or two, you'll probably be reading a few blogs from us, hopefully with 'vacation' photos and the like. As we've warned you before, they might be long, but hopefully they'll be an enjoyable recap of our adventures.

For the time being, I thought I'd satiate your thirst with a project I started and completed today...one that may influence my future. (:

Emily (who you should all know by now) and I agreed to go 'fabric shopping' today for her nursery. Although we never really got around to it, we found some great materials on the interwebs...along with some accessories - and she came up with an idea for a 'theme' for her nursery. It all unfolded in less than an hours' time. Pretty impressive really. However, she was having a little trouble explaining it all to her mom, so I decided I'd put together an inspiration board (design board, mood board, whatever you want to call it) for little "Chigger's" (as I so lovingly call him) future nursery.

I've never put together one of these before, and I can't take 100% credit for this one (I DID find the background premade here). Despite my 'cheating', I'm pretty happy with it for my first time. And I'm thrilled that we found so many cool things for Em's baby's room. She seemed to like it too.

Here it is in all it's glory (click on the image to see it larger):


In the 3-4 hours it took me to pull this together (I'll admit, it's been so long since I've used photoshop that I'm kinda slow)...I realized that maybe THIS really IS what I want to do: design. Interior design. Decorating. Something along those lines. Now, the decision lies in whether I want/need to go back to school and whether I want to be licensed. Well, there are quite a few decisions that need to be made, but...you get the picture. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do! I CLEARLY need to get a better handle on photoshop again, and need to be educated somehow...but...

We shall see.

Oh. Also, Chance just found our future home. Not really, but this house is absolutely freaking amazing and I want it badly. Okay. So it's about 50sqft smaller than ours, and one less bedroom...but still, it's beautiful!!!

let there be light

Today was a first. We lit the house with lights. After Church, and then lunch with new friends and old friends we headed home to finish our Christmas decorations. It was the first time I have ever attempted to light the roof of a home, much less my home. Thanks to Claire's cousin Howie we were afforded the lights we needed to make our home the envy of the neighborhood.

After a surprisingly easy two hours of applying clips and snapping the lights on to shingles we were all set to go. The only hindrance was the 30 mph wind and cold gusts threatening to blow us off the roof. We prevailed in the end and now have all our Christmas decor done. Something strange ensues after Thanksgiving, every day off seems extraordinarily great. We made new friends, had a good time with old ones, put up decorations, ate some thanksgiving leftovers and topped it all off by relaxing out a local coffee shop and doing some reading.

We only have more of the same planned for tomorrow. Well that is if you exclude taking the jeep into the shop. Hopefully once we get whatever is wrong with it fixed, it will continue to be reliable for another good 5 or 6 years. We shall see. Anyways, just thought I would post a note on how great the days off have been lately. Hopefully they continue to be that way all the way up and through my vacation in January. Can't wait for that week off.