working hard

so i've been up to not much in the last month, i guess this blog is kind of pointless for now because i can't talk about work and i don't do anything but work it seems like. i'm still liking my job though i don't think i'll do it forever. We've been both working hard and looking forward to the holidays.

I've also been working on commissioning paperwork. i'll be ready to send it all off in the next week or two hopefully so I'm ready to get it done and out of my hands. I have to think of something to do for a celebration. i've been working on them for at least three months and i'm glad that it's almost over!!

ok that's the short update from me!

julia

this past month!

Of course i could write a ton about everything that has happened in the last few weeks. We went to GA to see my new niece, I went to a baby shower for one of my best friends (soon to deliver) and went again to GA for Halloween to see Audie's family.

The rest of the time I've been just working at work and working on commissioning paperwork. I just have two things left to work on and I'll be finishing one this weekend. I have to write a bible study. I'm doing it on Ruth, and I'm pretty excited about it. Hopefully it will be fairly easy to write up and i can get it done without spending the whole weekend on it.

I also am leading a worship workshop in a few weeks so i'll have to work on that as well next weekend, then hopefully i'll get to hang out and relax over thanksgiving break with my family and then do the workshop and spend december working on paperwork. I'm so ready for it to be done!! And then all i'll have to worry about is making it past the interviews in March! eek!

Ok so that's not a great update for those of you that are following my blog, but that's all i got.

hope all is well with you and yours!

julia

doing everything and nothing at the same time!

I feel like I have been running around like crazy for the last month or so, oh wait i have!! I feel bad for not posting more but every time i think of something to post about i have not much to talk about. I have been enjoying my evenings of doing very little, after long days at work.

This week I have a bunch going on though, monday is a baby shower for a good friend of mine, so excited to see her for the first time in a really long time. then Tuesday night i'm hosting a mary kay party, going to be a small but fun event. Any of you guys want to come you are more than invited!! Thursday I'm working all night because i'm on-call and hopefully it will be an ok night.

Ok now i have to go finish cooking dinner and getting ready for my busy week!!

hope you have a great week!

julia

DWTS

Finally i have some new TV to talk about! I loved last night's premiere of DWTS!! I was really glad that derek and jennifer grey (from my fav. movie dirty dancing!!!) did the best! I thought they were wonderful!! and it was really fun to see who was good and who sucked!! that's the best part of the new season!!

Ok I have no play by play or time to write it all up really, but things are good around here and i hope that they are around you too

Julia

busy busy

I am so loving my job, but I'm not loving the schedule! having to work all day stinks! not really that badly actually it's pretty great! BUT i haven't been able to post nearly as much as i have been able to. then when it's the weekend I have time to post but we've been doing so little that i don't have much to post about!

it's the catch 22 of blogging, my life is too busy to post, but too boring to post about too.

julia

results

we had a great weekend!! I got some great gifts, including a cute scarf and two cds. I also got to go out with some friends to a movie last night. I also got to work some on my commissioning paperwork, what a big step in the right direction.

By the way I feel like I write a lot all day at work, so blogging is the last thing on my mind, hence the shorter posts. But I'm really excited because this week Survivor starts and other good tv gets going!!

ok that's all i have for now.

julia

my birthday weekend!!

today is my birthday and I'm really excited about getting to spend some time tonight with my hubby!! i also have a little stack of gifts/cards on my table that are calling my name!! tomorrow we're going to chill out and then go out with some friends! then monday night we're going out to michael dean's!! my fav. restaurant around here for sure!!

that's all i have for now but i'll be sure to tell what the results of the gift giving is!!

Julia

labor day

my labor day was really a labor day because i was working all day. I could have stayed home but if i want a day off when my sister goes into labor then i worked today! It wasn't too bad for sure.

Audie however got off work at noonish and then when i got home i took a nap and audie went to the REI labor day sale and bought nothing. then we went and ate five guys, because you have to eat a good hamburger on labor day and went for a walk. Tonight i'm going to watch some good reality tv, like keeping up with the kardashians and bachleor pad. You know, the kind i live for!

k that's all for now!

Julia

exhausted, but better

Last night i arrived home and was totally exhausted after my week. Apparently my work has a strict no blogging policy so we'll not be talking about it all anymore. boo hoo because that will be my life this year.

But for Labor Day weekend Audie and I have NO plans! He's working today until 2 so after that there will be very little that is done. I'm also going to get organized with all my new found information and make folders and notebooks and stuff for my job. a bunch of sleep and also church tomorrow with some laundry mixed in will be great too. I'm also getting together with a friend i haven't seen in a few weeks to just chill out and catch up. Always fun.

After the week i have had it will be a great change of pace, now i know why all you working people look forward to the weekend!

julia

in contrast!

department orientation was pretty great today, i feel better about where things are in the hospital, i feel more confident that i'll know what to do when it becomes my turn to do an on-call, and I'm hoping that i didn't come across as a complete idiot while asking a gabillion questions.

that's all i have for now because i'm still exhausted and my feet hurt from walking around all day.

julia

system orientation

equals BORING!!!! I mean really BOOORRRING!! But i got paid to sit there which will be nice and I did learn a bit of new things. Overall i don't want to do that again for sure! I now face three days of department orientation. those might be slightly repetitive, but at least they will be important to my actual job.

I did get to know the folks i'll be working with and they were all pretty great from the get go, which is a good sign. Today I also got to see the on-call schedule until mid December. And it works out great all around, I have no worries about getting thanksgiving off to be with family, AND I will be able to go see our niece or nephew this month sometime! So I'm really happy with the outcome for now.

ok the other thing that I have learned is that I get tired out after a full day of work, so i'm going to not spend a ton of time blogging right now, so that i can just chill out after all that information!!!

julia

weekend o' fun!

Ya'll I had a really fun weekend with my friends James and Jessica, even though we did very little! I just enjoy getting caught up and seeing my good friends and seeing them for a long time at once. They are the last friends that have not come up to visit us in NC so it was so nice to have them here. We don't get to see our friends nearly enough because of the distance and we're so busy. James and Jessica requested a quiet weekend so that he could grade papers and we could all enjoy each other's company, so we did that exactly!

Another reason that we did very little this weekend is so that i would have a good last weekend before going to start work this week. Tomorrow I begin orientation!! It promises to be pretty boring i'm sure, but at least I'll get to get paid to sit and listen to policies and procedures! I'm taking a snack just in case i get really bored and need a pick me up. After two days of orientation with the hospital then I get to have three days in the department for orientation, that's a lot of sitting and listening. But then we start right away with on-calls and working the floors, possibly even doing education stuff, all of which is a part of my job as a chaplain.

so after a great weekend I'm looking forward to a week of getting oriented in my new job. we'll see how much fun or how boring that is, either way it will be great to get into a routine and get started! Hope you had a great weekend too, and are looking forward to something you get to do this week, even if it's not a new job!

Julia

last day of summer!

Today is the last day that i have to enjoy being at home and to chill out! Audie has the day off and I'm just happy to get to spend the day at home with him. Even out doing errands and chilling out is fun when i'm with my hubby!!

Also this weekend my bff Jessica and her hubby are coming up to visit and we have no real plans except to have dinner and a movie with some people up here Saturday night. Other than that I'm going to just enjoy hanging out with my friends and visiting. Including chatting up the most recent gossip and chatting about what's up with both of us! That's my favorite thing to do for sure!

I'm so excited for what these couple of days will be like, hopefully pretty relaxing and fun. Because Monday I start my new job!! I have two days of orientation with the hospital and then 3 days with the spiritual care department, and then we'll be getting started pretty quickly into doing on-calls and pastoral care with patients. As well as those things we'll be doing educational time during the day as well. I'm hoping that I won't get too overwhelmed with all the information in orientation, and that i'll be able to maintain some 'me time' while in the midst of all that.

Also this week i began my ordination papers, for those of you that don't know, In the United Methodist Church you can't just get ordained you have to go through a huge paperwork and interview process! I'll be writing around 70-100 pages in the next few months to proove and ask that i be given the chance to be ordained by the UMC. Here's hoping that goes well too!

but for now- it's a day and weekend of relaxation!

Julia

disappointed

Audie had to switch days off with someone, so he's off tomorrow instead of today. I know it's basically the same thing but i'm really disappointed. I had plans to make him do errands with me, so i wouldn't have to drive myself around town.

So i guess we have to do our errands tomorrow, which is not the end of the world, i realize. BUT now the question is what will i do today?? so far a whole lot of nothing and that has been kind of boring! we'll see if it changes up at all. probably not!

hope your day is more exciting than mine.

julia

wow Wednesday

How is it already wednesday?? I usually feel like the week really crawls by but apparently this week has flown by. Probably because it's my last week of 'summer' before starting work next week. This week has been a lot of fun so far, it's kind of 'busy' as much my summer weeks have been. Monday we had some great friends of ours over for dinner! what's kind of funny is that several alumni of my beloved college are now in the area going to school at Duke or just working around here, so we decided to have everyone over for dinner. It was a lot of fun and we had good food, played fun games and just hung out for a while. So monday was spent getting ready for that and enjoying hanging out with friends!

Tuesday I had a dr. appointment, so getting out of the house was nice and the dr. appointment went well too. it was a nice day of just hanging out at home besides that, but when Audie came home we went out to eat and to get some stuff from target. always nice not to fix dinner and to get to look at cute stuff at target!

Today i had to go get some bloodwork done (ordered by my dr. yesterday) so i got up and went and got that done, and only had to wait about 15 minutes. NICE, right? and i found out i might have a latex allergy, ok how did i go so long and not know that?? well now i know i guess. The nurse called it more of a 'latex sensitivity'. so i guess it's not too serious, but still. Later today laundry is on the agenda!

tomorrow Audie has the day off and we're going to do a ton of errands to get ready for when James and Jessica come to see us!!!

yay for an awesome last week of summer where i have plenty to do but also have time to chill out!

Julia

lazy weekend!

This weekend in contrast to last weekend was pretty low key. Audie and I ate dinner at home Friday night then went grocery shopping, it's always nice to get out of the house and do anything together and going to the store on Saturday is always kind of exhausting! We then came on home and did pretty much nothing.

Saturday we were supposed to clean house because we're hosting a dinner party on Monday evening, but for some reason we couldn't get motivated to do that. We decided to go run some errands and go to a movie and dinner instead. We watched 'The Switch' and really enjoyed it. It wasn't your typical romantic comedy so don't expect that really, but it did have funny moments and very romantic and real moments too. I would recommend it for sure. It was really funny but in a real life kind of way, and was really sweet, and the little kid in it was so cute!! After that i was getting kind of tired so we went and got Wendy's and watched some tv shows on Netflix online. that was a nice quiet weekend evening.

Today we went back to the church that we have settled on for now. We again liked the service and were very welcomed by everyone. We decided to keep going and are really excited about getting involved in some things and at least going to sunday school once we get in our groove of new schedule of me working. It also hopefully will be a place where I can do some things for ordination as well. We'll see if they will let me do some short term ministry things. I'm getting really excited about going to church there for the next year. This afternoon I had planned to go have a pool day with my friend but she called and canceled. After not sleeping well last night I was ok with that because i wanted to have a chill afternoon for sure. we're just planning on hanging out the rest of the night especially since we'll be having a few friends over tomorrow night.

hope you have had the kind of weekend that you wanted and needed too!!

Julia

update:

The shadowing was not as hectic as i expected, but still very informative and fun! It really made me ready to start my new job!! I got to meat some of the folks doing my job now and they were all really nice and encouraging, though they said that orientation is a beast to get through (that's what i have to do in a week) oh well, then hopefully it will get fun/exciting. they didn't seem like it killed them, so it probably won't kill me either!! at least here's hoping!!

i also passed my drug test and now have to work on getting a copy of my vaccine records. let's see if i should do that today or wait until monday or so. i think wait!!

hope you have a great weekend

julia

new job stuff

Yesterday I got an unexpected phone call in the middle of my shopping trip to BJ's. It was the Human Resources dept. at the hospital where I'm going to begin work next monday! The woman was calling to officially offer me the job!! so even though i knew i had the job it was fun to get that phone call for sure. She also told me about the salary (more than expected!) and that i needed to fill out paperwork and do a drug test. SO I'm going in today to do all those things! so excited about having something to do today, even if it's just running over to my new job to pee in a cup!

In similar news the supervisor that i'm going to have at this job has been in communication with us all that are starting together and advised us to go in an shadow the on-call chaplain for a few hours if possible this week or next. so I'm also going to call and see if they have time for me to shadow today while I'm at the hospital already.

All this means however that my plans of grocery shopping today are out the window until later tonight or tomorrow, oh well!!

Julia

counting down the days

I've begun counting down the days until i begin work and I'm getting really excited about starting at the hospital. I'm also savoring those last few days of summer. My friend Hannah will come over for a pool day tomorrow and we're going to have lunch and then just chill out.

I haven't been up to much this week, just reading a lot of fun books before i get into work and can't do that as much. relaxation is the name of the game for now! got dinner in the oven for now and when Audie gets home we'll be watching some TV and just doing nothing after an evening walk. I know my life is just so exciting!! This weekend is going to be a slow one, then we're having a dinner party monday and some friends coming next weekend, and then work begins!! a week and 1/2 of freedom still left and counting.

hope you all are enjoying your summer too, i know i have!

Julia

what a weekend!

whew, that was a really long weekend with a lot going on. I loved every minute! we were totally exhausted after a lot of coming and going, so today was a more low key day for both of us, at least it was for me, Audie had to go to work.

Friday night we just went and got lost a little bit in raleigh on purpose to learn our way around. that was fun and then Saturday we went couch hunting. BUT we didn't get one because we decided to save our pennies a bit more and hopefully get something nice later on. then we went and saw my friend hannah as she moved in. I'm really excited to have some good friends in this area again, after most of our friends got done with school it's been kind of lonely.

Sunday we went to a new church and really liked it. It had a young adult class and relaxed worship at 11:00 but it was still very traditional. it was a lot of what we were looking for. We're definitely going back next week to see how we like it the second time. I'm excited because since we've been up here it was hard for us to find a church that we could go to and get involved in.

After church i got to have a pool afternoon with a great friend of mine and then dinner with a couple that we really enjoy hanging out with. It was a really nice weekend of fun and interesting stuff, not boring at all and fun was had by all.

Ok I hope you guys have had an awesome weekend too!

- Julia

ready for the weekend!

I'm so ready for the weekend! one thing that I hate about being so at home all the time is that i get really bored sometimes! SO i live for the weekend too, just like you working folks!! I don't think that people at work see how hard it is to stay home sometimes (especially you moms/dads out there, i don't know how you work from home, or who keep kids and stuff going!!) Anyway, this weekend Audie and I are going to be doing LOTS!!!

Tonight: dinner out together, which we haven't done in a really long time, i'm so excited!! Then we're going to Michael's to see what craft supplies that i can get for the next two weeks to occupy my time.

Tomorrow: looking at couches, we're sort of in the market for a couch. We're looking for one that is brown to replace my grandma's old and busted green couch, we'll see if we find one that satisfies both of us and our budget. Mostly this weekend we're just looking for a bargain if we can find it because there are a lot of sales going on. Also we're headed over to Durham because my friend hannah is moving up and we're going to be available if they need anything from someone that kind of knows the area more.

Sunday: we're trying another new church, then lunch out and then my friend Meridith is coming by to walk and talk with me! and then we might just go to the pool too! well we might have to skip the walking and just go straight to the pool for the relaxation. then James and Sarah are coming for dinner!

lots are people are coming and we are going more than usual so that meant that today i went to the grocery store. I spent a TON of money (well more than we usually do by a lot) but i saved almost 30 dollars off our bill, so exciting! That's always a good day!

so i hope you have a blast this weekend! I'm excited for a weekend where we have some plans but not too much going on!

julia

A Day in the Life

Since I'm a stay at home person right now and day in the life posts are kind of interesting no matter who you are or what your day is like, let's all do one!!

9:00 wake up. (I'm waking up 1 hour earlier each week so that in a few weeks I can get up at 7 comfortably)
breakfast and watch some things off of DVR.
shower and blowdry hair (maybe get in Pj's maybe in stretchy pants, maybe in real clothes depending on what the rest of the day holds)
do some crafting or errands
12:00 lunch - watch more dvr'd shows if any.
1:00 talk to Audie on his lunch break. (he generally calls when he gets to go to lunch)
more crafts or errands, watching a movie or maybe cleaning/picking up the house depending on how cluttered it's looking or if people are coming to visit.
4:00-5:30 Judge Judy. I have this as my guilty pleasure during the day. I love how she settles the cases with such snappy comments to the folks that deserve it!!
5:20-6:20 Cooking dinner
6:30 - Audie is home and we eat dinner and then clean up the dishes
7:15 - Audie and I go for a walk around the neighborhood or in the gym of our apartment complex, if it's inclement weather.
7:45 - done 'working out' and we get home to shower/ clean up and watch TV that evening, either stuff that is dvr'd or stuff that is on live.
10:00 - get ready and get in bed. i'm basically a small child, I can go to sleep early and wake up late, which is why i'm working on it!!


after I begin work at the hospital maybe I'll do another one and we can compare how my day has changed. SO now I challenge you to do the same!! day in the life posts by everyone!!

hope you have fun on this thursday and are as excited for the weekend as I am! and if this post as boring as it may be, my days are pretty boring too, so now you really get the essence of my days as well.

-Julia

nothing going on!

I realized that I hadn't posted since Saturday and that feels weird to me, mostly because i posted so much about projects last week. but not much has been going on around here, i mean i went to Walgreen's today to pick up a prescription and went to the bank to cash two checks... not too exciting, even though my life is so boring right now that it made it a big day for me! haha.

Well in other news I'm also excited because a good friend of mine is moving up here this weekend, maybe that will mean that I'll have some stuff to do by helping her move in her new place. In two and a 1/2 weeks I get to start work for real, a welcome change from doing nothing, but a worry for sure to how i'm going to adjust to a new schedule. I'm starting to try and get up earlier and earlier so that I'm ready for getting up for the day and not being able to sleep in and nap all day! that doesn't usually work with a day of work to do.

ok that's about all i can write for now, that's everything i have for now!!

-julia

small things

I know that most people have some things that they can't live without, and the biggest things in their life are their most prized possessions, but I've always been more of a small things kind of person.

Audie and I spent our night last night just hanging out with each other, we went to Target, Walmart and Home Depot. Then we came home and ate popcorn and watched a movie. So simple and small.

today was grocery shopping and laundry, including an awesome nap and a phone call from my mom.

Tomorrow we have planned to finally get around to trying out a new church in our area and then Zaxby's for lunch and dinner with my good friend, while Audie hangs out at home. That's a great weekend in my book for sure. Unless the church winds up being really not what we're looking for because we're so picky!! Everyone cross your fingers that it's a good one!!

hope you have a lazy weekend with all the small things, (and maybe some big things, like a great husband to share them with) you need!!

Julia

My t-shirt blanket!!

This week I finally finished my t-shirt blanket!! IT was quite a headache because my machine didn't like dealing with that much knit fabric for whatever reason. So that means that the blanket turned out kind of different, and not perfect, but it did get finished!

Here is side one:


And side two:


50 t-shirts all cut up and sewed together make a pretty cute blanket, but it was such a headache that i don't think i'll be making another one in the near future!!

Julia

Dresses

In M's box o cute clothes that i made and sent her also were three dresses. They were actually some of the easiest things to sew. I know that sounds like 'yeah right!!" but they weren't too bad. Now they were my first ones and i had a bit of issues with my machine, but for the most part it was really easy. The first two were basically tshirts that i bought at target and added a skirt to. I cut the white t-shirt so it would have more of an empire waist to the dress.





The last one was a pillowcase dress and very easy, but all from scratch!! I'm pretty impressed with my own ability. Basically though you just cute out two pieces of fabric in the shape that you need, there are patterns online.


Then I turned under the edge of the sleeves and the top, sewing a long ribbon in the casing for the top.


Then you sew the two pieces together and press and sew an even hem along the bottom.


ALL DONE!! SO easy!! The hardest part of sewing is learning to thread the machine (well and getting a sewing machine).

Hope you enjoyed looking at my projects this week. Hopefully I'll be finishing my t-shirt quilt this week and you can see the results of it.

Julia

Couple Extras

Here are a few extras that were put in M's box of fabulous gifts!! I wanted to completely give her a bunch of outfits to mix and match with and some fun stuff that she can put on for just those fun days at home!

So first I made a tutu! I have seen Tutus that go for pretty expensive online, and this was my chance to make one that was cheap and hopefully you can then make one (for yourself or a kid near you) They are really fun!

so basically i took some black elastic and made a loop about the size of my niece's waist. I sewed the elastic together with my machine, but you could also hand sew it if you wanted.


Then I took two colors of meshy fabric, tulle, and cute strips that we only about 6 inches across and twice as long as i wanted the skirt of the tutu to be.


Then I took each strip and tied a knot onto the loop of elastic. I alternated each color so that it would be a bit different. the knotting the tulle is the hardest part, and it's pretty easy!


then you just have to spread the knots around the loop of elastic so that the tutu is even.


Other extras that i put in the box were a headband with a bow and some black pants with a ruffle around the bottom. I know you're surprised that i have included more bows and ruffles!!



Hope that you think that these are cute!! go and make a tutu, you could just chill out and wear a tutu!! maybe i'll make one for myself!!

Julia

M's new onesies!!

Here goes my first post this week about my projects. I'm going to break down the big box i sent to them into a few posts so that you can enjoy them and not being tired of looking at all those photos at once!! SO i began with some onesies that i purchased at target. I wanted to just basically personalize each one in a way that they can be worn with some of the other stuff i made. I was working with a bright blue and black and white print in the other stuff i made so that's where that came from.

The first one I did with black ruffles around the neckline and across the bottom! I love a ruffle on ANYTHING, but especially across the hind end of a baby's outfit!!




The next ones that I did I basically took a ribbon and tied a bow and then sewed a button on the front to make a detail. Very simple, but pretty cute in my opinion.





The next one was another ruffly one, with a big ruffle down the front and five blue buttons down the middle of the ruffle!




The last one was pretty simple too, basically a black patch of fabric with buttons that are sewed in the shape of M's monogram.

Hope you guys think that they are as cute as I do!! I heard from M's mom (my sister-in-law) and she loved them, and i guess that's what really matters!! Hope you like it and if you need tutorials for this stuff check out at Make it and Love it because she kind of gave me all the great ideas!

Julia

my wonderful weekend!!

This weekend was awesome because my BFF came and visited Audie and I! We all had a blast, but i think especially Amber and I enjoyed hanging out a ton! It was just so nice doing nothing with another person around (if that makes any sense at all!) We played cards, and we went to a concert (really fun!!) and enjoyed the fact that is wasn't 100 degrees all weekend!! It was actually down in to 77 today at some point. I'm exhausted from our weekend so I'm going to be headed to bed early tonight. Coming attractions this week include:

- pictures of my surprise projects for my niece!!

- pictures of my t-shirt quilt!! (still in progress)

So check back this week for some really cute stuff that I made. I'm actually sort of not speaking to my sewing machine right now because it's being super frustrating (we had a fight, but after talking to my sewing machine guru (my mom) I think it was because I was sewing too much t-shirt material!!! ) BUt we're still not speaking until i can get sorted out/ spend money on some interfacing!

ok hope you all had great weekends i know i did!!

Julia

Productive day!

So I had an incredibly productive day today!! I got up and went to run some errands. I found a GCF (or Goodwill) the other day when I went to the post office that was near our house so i wanted to check it out for some supplies for my next project. I am still working on my t-shirt quilt, and it's not too bad, but a friend of mine is having a baby soon so I wanted to make them something too. I had planned to make a mini blanket out of t-shirt scraps but the knit/t-shirt material is kind of hard to work with, so i was sort of discouraged about that idea.

BUT then I remembered THIS post that Ashley at Make it and Love it did. It is about making a bow tie from an old neck tie. So at goodwill today I found a boys tie (with a velcro closure) and two ties that actually looked pretty cute. I got some velcro and used some thread i already had to make these awesome bow ties for my friend's husband (something he's always talking about) and one for their new son!!



I think that they turned out really cute!! What do you think?? But that wasn't all that i did today, I also cleaned our house a bit for the guests we have coming for dinner and also for the weekend. The cable guy came by and fixed our internet/cable. I ran some other errands while out this morning and still managed to have some 'me time' in the form of a nap and some DVR'd tv.

It was a good day so far and james and sarah are still coming for dinner tonight so there's still that to look forward to!!

Julia

waiting!!

I hate waiting! I'm the most impatient person ever really and I have to wait for a lot of stuff this week. Mostly since I mailed off a box to someone I have to wait for it to get to them. AND I have to wait for my friends amber to get here for the weekend! AND I have a unsettled feeling because I'm spending a lot of time waiting on my job to start!

I feel like for the last few years I have been waiting for my life to start, and now that i have graduated i thought it would be now, but It still feels like i'm waiting!!! ugh that's not fun. Fortunately (or unfortunately) i have little to do to occupy that time while i'm waiting. I'm trying to find projects to do.( like my chair, my sewing fun stuff) Now I'm working on a t-shirt quilt/blanket.

ANY TIPS?? I have already cut out squares of fabric and am sewing them together but you fellow crafters do you have any idea what other things I should look out for. I'm hoping to make a little quilt for a friend that is having a baby soon and some other fun stuff for my sister who is preggers also this summer. Well see if I have the patience to wait for the next craft to be able to be done (i.e. us to have the money to buy the supplies) the Patience to work with my old and busted machine that is mean to me sometimes, and the patience to wait for others to get the gifts!!

Hope you get whatever it is that you are waiting on!!

-Julia

project time!

So i know i have been kind of ambiguous about my projects recently. Mostly it was because I was waiting to finish one of them and then mail it to the person that it goes to. It got put in the mail today. Here is a preview of all my supplies before I started for a sneak peak!!



But after my trip to GA and getting some heirlooms from my mom's house I got another quick project to do. I had a corner of our living room that seemed pretty blank still and i wasn't quite sure what to put there, but Now i have it;



ALL of those heirlooms look pretty chic if you ask me! It's a dictionary and stand, my grandmother's old suitcase, my dad's highchair from when he was little (which i spray painted the legs 'cause they were a little rusty) and my dad's old GI Joe from when he was a boy. I am loving my new corner of decor! and it matches pretty well the rest of the living room if you ask me!

Hope you guys are having a great day!!

Julia

Still standing!

So I am finally back in my 'routine' again after an awesome visit with family. I worked a great weekend (got sick halfway through, but the first half was great!) spent a few days being totally sick, but then recovered in time to have lunch with a great friend, see my mom and give my sister two great baby gifts. One was to use my new found sewing skills to put a new lining into a basket. It was really easy because the basket came with a liner already so i just cut that one up and used it as a pattern and spray painted the basket to match the nursery that she is getting ready for her new baby. (it's a surprise if it's a boy or girl or I would say my niece or nephew) She's due on the 16th of September. so we have some time left before the baby arrives, so she's getting down to business in making things ready for the new arrival.

I also made them three different recipes of food and packaged them into frozen meals for to eat after the baby came. I think that once the baby arrives it will be nice because they just have to pick one, cook it and then be able to eat dinner seven different times with three different recipes. Sorry that I haven't posted too much more, I've just been getting back in the groove and getting back to my regular routine! I missed being with Audie so much, so I'm really glad to be back home for good for a while.

Ok I'm getting pretty sleepy already today, so I'm going to go on to sleep!!
Hope you enjoyed your few weeks while i was out of commission - I loved being more 'unconnected' for a while, so i may not post everyday but I'll still be here for those few that read!!
Julia

family time!!

I'm so excited because I'm in my hometown tonight with my family!! I'm working a retreat (my two sisters are working too, more family time!) this weekend from thursday night until Sunday night and then i get 3 days or so with my family and friends from back home! so exciting even though i just saw my folks at the beach about 2 weeks ago! What have i been up to since sunday?

A friend of mine came into town on Monday morning (she missed her connection flight (which was the last one of the night on Sunday night so she came the next morning) and we just hung out all day monday, and then on tuesday we went to her house in Durham to open it up and make sure it was ready for the movers to come and pack all thier boxes into the truck to go to Florida! Then this morning both of us flew to ATL, me to go see my folks, and her on to Tampa to go to her (and her hubby's) new parsonage (where he is the pastor) It was really good to have someone to hang out with for a few days, and we didn't do much, but it didn't leave time to sit down and write a post. I'll probably be out of pocket the next week or so while i'm at home, so don't worry, but hopefully i'll be back soon with some pictures of my cute projects I made this weekend. I have a couple more to do and then I'll be ready with a whole week or so of posts of my projects!!

hope you have a fantabulastic week!!

Julia

lazy week and weekend!

So i know what you're thinking: Where has Julia been??? Maybe you aren't thinking that But it makes me feel better that some people might have missed me!! Anyway, We have been doing very little. I've really just been doing so little that i haven't had anything to blog about!! This week we hosted our friends Amber and Derek for a night while they went to DC. It was really nice to see them, but we wish we had more time together! After that things calmed WAY down and we haven't done much at ALL!! I've just been playing video games and chilling out most days!

This weekend we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. It was actually Wednesday, but we decided to go out on Saturday since Audie wouldn't have work and stuff that day. We were really celebrating Annifestabuel (rhymes with fuel) because we had been dating 4 years on Thursday too. And we have a kind of accidental tradition of going out for a nice dinner one year and then just getting each other gifts the next year, and i love years that we don't get gifts 'cause i'm the WORST gift giver ever!!! Anyway - So saturday we did a lot of errands- craft store to buy supplies for my next few projects (i'm really excited about these things, but i'm not going to ruin the surprise!) target to get a few things, the post office (only to figure out that it was closed at noon! not cool!) and then to the grocery store.

And taking a page out of Jessica's book I went to a new grocery store. Well new to me, because we have always shopped at food Lion, but a Lowe's food is right down the street from our new place. and while i love food lion, they don't have a great coupon policy (they take them and they give you plenty, but that's about it) I had been meaning to try out Lowe's food and it was on our way home from the post office, so we went in to do our weekly shopping. I'm pretty sure that lowe's food doesn't exist everywhere because i've only seen them in NC, but it is a LOT like publix, because it has plenty of organic stuff and has a pretty extensive meat area and good selection. It was organized a little different so it took us a while to find what we needed/wanted, but i think that it makes more sense the way they had it too. Audie hated the fact that it was really crowded, but it was a saturday at 2 pm, as well as a holiday weekend, and they were restocking some of the areas all of which could be cured by not going at a peak time or on a holiday weekend. So when i got to the register I asked about their coupon policy. they double coupons automatically up to 99 cents, they take competitor's coupons, and they have a value card program that gives you money back pretty frequently, and when you get to 5 dollars it automatically gives you a five dollar off coupon of any purchase. (we earned 75 cents towards our reward cash on a 35 dollar grocery bill and saved 4.75 with sales and coupons. not jessica worthy, but it wasn't too bad.) Another thing that they do, but not all grocery stores do is that if something is marked by one get one free or whatever they give you the sale price no matter how many you buy. I appreciate that a lot because we don't have a lot of cabinet space for food, so we can't really buy four things of pasta or whatever. I'm going to sign up to get emailed deals from them too, so that will help us save money some too!

OK sorry for the rabbit trail about grocery shopping, but anytime you can save some money it's a good thing in my mine!! Audie and I then went out to eat at a wonderful restaurant in Raleigh called Michael Deans! It was SO good!!! they have specials every night so I got a 5 dollar martini and it was so yummy, it was all strawberry and had a big piece of pineapple garnish and i loved every sip! We also both got a side caesar salad, which was really yummy and almost sweet tasting. They also had really good bread, kind of like carraba's but they sauce that you dipped it in was tomato based, so it tasted like eating pizza, sounds weird, but it was really good. We each ate steak and I got veggies on the side, and a bleu cheese potato cake. Audie got two potato cakes. Now i need to tell you about these things because literally it was the best thing i have ever eaten in a restaurant!
SO it was basically garlic mashed potatos with bleu cheese crumbles mixed in that was then breaded in panko bread crumbs and fried!! It was so yummy!!! audie brought one of his home and i'm so excited to eat it again!! After dinner we did order desert, the chocolate platter, which had a ton of different things on it, and all were delicious, and our waitress brought us two glasses of strawberry and champagne on the hosue since we told them it was our anniversary!! It was so yummy! So the best part is that it is kind of a fancy pants kind of place (not too bad, like not tie required, but just nice) and in looking at the specials on Monday they have a dinner for 2 menu for 40 dollars! it includes a choice of two entrees, two salads, a bottle of wine (not sure we'd care too much about that, but it's nice if you do care) and a desert or appetizer to split. we're definitely going there next time we have something to celebrate!!

Ok this has been the longest post ever! hope you guys are all having a great holiday weekend we have for sure!

Julia

Lazy but fun day!

I had a good day of catching up on my dvr'd shows from last week, the problem now is that as I watch them, I also had the episode from this week. So I can watch last weeks show and then I don't even have to wait for the next week, 'cause i have it right there!! I also went and got a new video game (Lego Harry Potter 1-4) I'm a fan of all the Lego video games and so far i like this one too.

I also finished another sewing project today! There are no pictures again, because it didn't really go well with being photographed. I once had a pair of capris that I LOVED and wore them everywhere. I think that everyone had a pair of them a few years ago, they were the ones that looked like they were just jeans rolled up a bit. Well recently mine got a HUGE hole in them, in a not good spot (hence no photos of the 'before') but i decided to transform some jeans that i had into an identical set.

SO i just turned up the legs of the jeans 6 inches, and hand sewed them around the edge so that they were capris. Not too exciting, and again no pictures which makes it not too exciting for you guys, 'cause you don't even get to wear them or anything, like me!!

Ok that was my whole day, i know I'm really exciting.

Julia

First project down!!

So something that has been bugging me for a while has been my curtains, and when i started thinking of things that i could do with my new sewing skills they immediately!! So in our living room we have long brown silk curtains and when we moved to our new place we added a valance to the top on a second curtain rod to add length to the top so they would cover the vertical blinds on our door to the back that we never use (and don't really want to) See Picture:



well of course there wasn't a kind of curtains at target that would reach the whole way across, so we bought 3 panels for the long curtains and the valence and hoped that the extra fullness would hide the split in between. Well usually it did, but occasionally the crack would show, which is my pet peeve!!! and since my machine was already loaded with brown thread from my lessons (we used contrasting thread so i could figure it out) I decided to just sew the panels together so that they would blend a lot better! though I did have some issues with my machine, a quick google search for 'sewing machine troubleshooting' helped out a LOT!!

Ashley over at Make it, Love it would be proud of my first real project, though she would have made them from scratch, and I didn't do so well at taking photos of every step like she does!! I'm going to try to be better next time!

I have to go and get to the grocery store (forgot something yesterday!! I hate when i do that!!) so I can make dinner for Amber and Derek when they get here tonight for their visit!!

Julia

Inspired!

So now that I am armed with my new sewing powers, I'm looking for cute/easy projects to spend some time on. (pretty much I'm not too great at sewing yet, but the best way to get good is to practice. Most of what I made this week at the beach look like a left handed monkey made them - things that i made include 1 'pillow' that doesn't match anything in my house and so will not get stuffed (though if you are in a need for an orange/goldish pillow let me know and I'll finish it!) and 2 simple drawstring bags with ribbon drawstrings) I have a goal to do a t-shirt quilt this summer before I start work in September, we'll see if I can do it and it not look too bad!! I was looking online at some stuff and found a great new blog!!!

My friend Abbey has it on her blog reel, but I have just discovered it! It's called Make it and Love it. The author Ashley is really creative and a good sewer/decorator. She makes kids clothes all the time and has an etsy shop if you want to buy some of her stuff, but posts tutorials for most of her crafts on her blog!! she recently added a 'make a cake' post a week that is guest authored by a woman named Britney who teaches you how to decorate cakes!!! I'm trying one of her cakes for fourth of july since we have some friends coming into town (don't peak buh, just get ready for a awesome surprise!!! )

And I have spent ALL day (after grocery shopping) looking through the archives, which is what i do when i find a new blog, and loving all her pretty crafts! I hope I can have time/motivation to get some of these things done, we'll see what happens!

check it out ya'll, especially you crafty people 'cause i know you'll love it!

Julia

Great week at the beach!

We had such a good time at the beach, I couldn't post at all!! We stayed at an awesome house/ set of houses on Saint Simon's Island. Our family has 17 people in it, so we're all about trying to find a place to house us all. These two houses were right next to each other and there was a pool! Audie and I are not big fans of the beach, because of all the sand and waves and stuff, but i love a pool!!

While there we also spent an afternoon at Epworth by the Sea and brushed up on our Methodist history. we shopped some, ate a lot of good food, and enjoyed hanging out with our family. We got to see some good friends a few times too! Also while we were there my mom gave me sewing lessons. I can now make a drawstring bag!! I know big accomplishment right? Well basically what happened was that I inherited a sewing machine from my grandma, and I knew how to sew straight lines ( as in I have done it before, and know how to push the foot peddle. But my mom had to teach me how to thread the machine, wind the bobbin, and she gave me some good pointers on some things, like how ironing helps a ton!!! I have a few projects that i want to do now, especially a t-shirt quilt, so if you have any pointers or ideas, let me know!!

after we drove back today we ate mexican food and are now catching up on some Dvr'd shows from this past week!

Ok i hope you have had a great week too, I'm really excited about seeing our good friends, amber and derek this week (twice!!) they are coming to stay with us on their way to and from DC to look at apartments!

julia

pictures of the new place!

Ok I finally got the pictures taken and uploaded of our new place, now with furniture and stuff everywhere!!! hope you enjoy looking through all of them!!

The entry way (not a big change here but a new key holder and mat for the floor)


The view of the kitchen from the entry way, again not big changes here except that we have our stuff on and in the cabinets, in and apartment there is little to no design decisions that we can make!


The view of the kitchen from the dining room, basically we put up some curtains and that's about it! notice that we have these open shelves/bins for our pantry because we don't have any other place to put that stuff.


The dining room, with our table and chairs we got off craigslist a few years ago. It opens out to seat 8 people, so it's nice that we have some extra room for it to expand. We also have some wedding photos on the wall with a big platter in a plate hanger.


The living room: on this side you can see our new dresser that Audie put together and some great pictures and a lovely painting that i love!! I got it at an art auction for charity in college and i love that it works so well with our living room! We will be getting a sewing machine table this week while we're at the beach (my mom's bringing it to me) and that will go either between the dining table and the dresser or on that back wall under the mirror. I also love the curtains taking up the whole wall basically! Of course my grandma's green sofa is awesome!


The other side of the living room. I love that through using a few bookshelves and the table that the TV is on it looks a little like a built in.


The downstairs half bathroom, we kind of have a nautical/beach theme in here, and the blue matches the dining room and kitchen. I put the faux tulips in the pitcher because it wouldn't fit in any of our cabinets or the dresser!! and i love my new picture holder that Abbey sent me!!


Now we made our way upstairs, and we have our bedroom! I love our bedroom colors, it's light but not to pale, and we recently got the darker blue sheets to add a little bit more variety!


This is the other view of the bedroom and you can see our curtains, and my dresser. Audie does have a dresser too, and we have double closets that are huge, but that's not too interesting to make it to the picture!


This is our bathroom it's tiny but hasn't been too bad in all honesty. we can't both really be in the bathroom at the same time, but we don't need to be in there at the same time most of the time. It will be interesting when we get to the time when we are both getting ready for work at the same time.


the shower side of the bathroom:


The Laundry area upstairs, I really like having the laundry right near the bedroom, It's so easy to get the laundry in and out and put away, rather than letting it pile up in the hamper and stay there forever before it gets hung up and away. Also since there is not really a linen closet in the whole apartment we stored our extra linens and towels up on the shelf in big baskets that we already had!


The guest bath room: with our new stuff in it!! We had a hard time finding stuff that we liked but that went together and was cheap enough. we settled on this because it matched the stuff in the guest room / office, but i was worried that the room itself didn't really mesh well together, but as we were packing i found this painting (again from the art auction! ) that i had that coordinated perfectly! It's a painting of the main building on campus of the college i went to. The painting was actually done by the president at the time that i was there, Stuart Gulley! It was a great purchase at the auction, and i'm glad it finally made it to the wall!


This is the storage solution that i got for these shelves, it makes the clutter go away, which is awesome!!!


The guest room and office. Audie's art table gives him a place to work and draw, and the futon gives us a place to put our guests up for the visit!


The other side of the office is wall to wall bookshelves! After 7 years of school through college and seminary I have way too many books!! Audie also has a ton comic books and other stuff that he has collected.



Thanks for looking through the whole house! I'm loving our new area and how much more space we have in the new place! I do sometimes wish we had the money and ability to buy a house and paint and all that but it's not too bad living in the apartment for now!

Hope you enjoy, we're off to the beach for a week, and hopefully i'll be able to post some while we're there. But if not hope you guys are having a good week too!!

Julia

I'm running out of ways to say I've been doing nothing!

i tried to title this blog several ways, but all of them I have used before, that's not a good sign! My life is probably pretty boring i guess, but for those few who care to read what we've been up to I'll let you know!

I've officially finished unpacking! I got all the pictures on the wall, which was really the last thing that i had left to do. Audie still has to get the office all settled, but hopefully tomorrow I'll have some photos for you!! Mostly he just has to put stuff in the closet so that it's not in the middle of the floor anymore!

I heard back from the manager from our old apartment. He looked over the photos from our place and the other information and decided that the charges were a bit excessive. While he's not giving it all back to us, he is sending us 60 dollars back! Which is good enough in my book. He was willing to see it from our perspective of how ridiculous it was to charge us 150 dollars to clean the apartments. I told him he needed to tell the folks of our old apartment to do the same.

We're still gearing up to go to the beach this weekend. We went to the store to get a few things, and wound up coming home with a ton of stuff!! isn't that how it always works??

today the exterminator came and i went and tried out the workout room of our new complex. pretty nice in my opinion. i'm hoping to get in the habit of using it for stress relief in once i start work.

In other news I'm loving my kindle!! I got it for graduation if you remember, and i got a cover and book light this week so i can read after audie goes to bed. I downloaded two anthologies of the classics, so i have 100 classic books to read! I started with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and it was pretty good! I have never read it or seen the movie so i had no idea what to expect and it caught my attention and made me want to keep sitting down to it. there are some moments that were a bit boring, but it was nice to read a book that is such a classic and now i can say that I enjoyed it too! yesterday I started The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, it is also really good!! each chapter is a separate story of an adventure which makes it easy to sit down and read an adventure and then come back for another one. I'm almost done with it already! I'm not sure what is next but I'll keep you updated. But i really love reading on the kindle itself, it doesn't have a back light so it doesn't strain your eyes and it is really easy to use and you can download books in seconds! I love to read, and this makes it really easy to have a ton of books at your fingertips no matter where you are! I'm really excited to try it out at the beach to see if you can use it outside easily as well.

Ok there's the update, not much going on around here, except how very not busy we have been.

-Julia

Update!

So I finally spoke with an assistant manager at our old apartment complex. Unfortunately it was not an easy conversation and she wasn't very helpful. I was just really frustrated because apparently they feel like what i would call normal wear and tear they feel like it is damage to the apartment. She said that the apartment wasn't clean enough, like the drip pans on the stove weren't clean (whose are is my question?) and the area around the sink was dirty, as well as there was mildew in the bathroom upstairs (all of this was pretty much like this when we moved in but we didn't list it on our initial inspection when we moved in so she is counting it as damage. AND all these little things cost 150 dollars??? i don't think so! Even if you consider this stuff damage and not normal wear and tear (which they can't count against our security deposit according to state law) it wouldn't cost them 150 dollars to fix those few small things, and if they did pay someone to fix them we shouldn't be charged for anything more than for them to clean the 'damages'.

I have in the last few days been stewing about this whole thing, and looked up the state law as well as my options for appealing all this. I also made a call to the Corporate office in Virginia to ask them about it, but they said i should talk to the regional manager. He was out of the office this morning, and of course i left him a NICE message asking him to call me back! (really it was!) After he got back in the office i talked with him late this afternoon and he was much more courteous than the assistant manager at our complex! He's going to look over the material and photos from the office and see what he thinks and will be getting back to me later this week! So overall i'm much happier with him just even listening to what i had to say, the other person didn't even seem to care that i was upset about all this stuff!!

Ok so we're hoping that we could hear back a decision sometime this week, and now that i feel like some of my concerns about our management folks at the old place was helpful so i'm not sure that if we don't get a refund i'll probably not pursue it any further because i'm not that worried about the money.

In other news, there is no other news!! We enjoyed our weekend of doing very little, we went to Bj's wholesale store to get some stuff and target for some new curtains (pictures to come soon!) We're going to the beach this week and i want to have pictures to show my family of the new place, and you get to see them too!! The only thing we really have left is to hang pictures on the walls! That's not a big deal though, so hopefully we can do some of that tonight/ this week while getting ready for the beach!!

ttfn,

Julia

Great night

I'm so excited about the weekend being here!! the last three weekends we have had tons going on and this weekend we're doing NOTHING!!! Audie does have to work tomorrow until 2 but that's all, which is awesome! We will probably also make a trip to Target for some extra things for the new apartment, but that's it.

Tonight we had some great friends of ours, James and Sarah (hi!), over for dinner. They are settling into their new lives in NC, and we love having them so close, unfortunately we don't see them as often as we would love to! They just came over for dinner and then watched an episode of west wing, but even more we just got caught up on what's going on since we had seen them last.

Well that's about all that is going on around here, We did get a letter from our old apartment and they kept some of our security deposit to clean the apartment, which bothers me a bit, so I'm going to call and see if we can get some more of the rest of it back! i just don't think that they should charge against my security deposit in order to clean the apartment, if they had to fix a hole in the wall or something that's one thing, and they charged us 150 bucks!! is that unreasonable to anyone else?? Have you ever had to call and get some deposit money back? Any tips??

Ugh, I'm going to just call and see what they can do, and if they don't give anything back, then i guess there isn't much that we can do and we'll just deal with it, but dang if i'm not going to at least try and get it back!!

Wish me good luck, i hope i get someone reasonable on the phone tomorrow AM!!

Julia

New driver

Today Audie was off today because he is working on Saturday. So much for a weekend of nothing. However when Audie works on Saturdays its just from 9 until 2 so it's not as bad as him working all day during the week. So we went and did some stuff that had to be done.

The biggest thing was we went to the driver's license office to get our licenses. Audie got an NC license about 2 years ago (after being stopped with an expired one from GA) so he just had to switch to our new address. But NC makes you take the driving test if you have never had a NC license before. So i had to take the test, and it was really hard!!! it was a computerized test, so each question you answered it showed you if you got it correct or not before it asked you the next question. in the beginning it told you that you would have to answer 25 questions, and you could get five wrong and still pass. It was the most stressful thing i have done in a long time. I spent about an hour last night looking over the material, but i decided that if i didn't pass then i would study harder and come back. But thank goodness i did pass, though i was sweating bullets when i had five questions to go and could only miss one!!! But thankfully i passed because i don't think i could have gone back. It also wasn't a long trip out there, especially since we were both able to get stuff done, we were there only about an hour. Though we did go to the DMV in a smaller town about 15 minutes away rather than going to the big one in Raleigh, hoping that it would be faster, and i think it was.

Then we went shopping and I got a baby gift for my sister and we got a printer cord for our printer, i think ours got lost in the move or put in to the yard sale/donate pile.

Well i know that isn't a hugely exciting day around here, but at least we did something! Hope you had a productive day.

Julia

whata weekend!!

we had such a great weekend in Charlotte with our friends Danny and Amber! After audie got off work we drove to Durham and went to their house. We ate dinner at Cracker Barrell, yummy, carb city!! So good, then we were on the road to Charlotte, about a 2.5 hour car ride, so we were there around 11. We stayed at an amazing hotel!! A friend of Amber's was a former employee of this company so we got a friends/family discount and got this amazing hotel for cheaper than less nice ones around. I was really impressed which probably points out that i'm a total hick that hasn't ever stayed in a 4 star hotel before. It was just super nice, we got turn down service, a minibar (super expensive, so we didn't partake of that), robes and a great view of the downtown area. We loved staying there and loved the great deal we got.

Saturday morning Danny and Audie walked down for the comic convention and Amber and I slept in a bit more. Danny and Amber's room actually had worn out towels in it (a maid or someone accidentally left the cleaning towels rather than the clean towels) so they got a coupon for a free breakfast for two in the hotel restaurant. The boys went to get bagels at another local place, but we got a great breakfast buffet, so YUMMY!! (best part it was like a 18 dollar meal each, but we got it free!) Then we set out for IKEA!!! I was SO excited!!! I had never been and wasn't really looking for anything in a real way, but just wanted to look at everything and experience the store!

It was so much fun!! We went through the show room part first, and looked at all the set up rooms and ways that the furniture can be customized and used together to make the rooms and stuff! SO GREAT!! It was really neat to see the 'complete' ikea look. but really my style is just way more traditional than the majority of the furniture. Even though i didn't want most of it in my house it was still an awesome thing to behold, and i love it all so much!! i found a sofa, some chairs, closet customization stuff, and an amazing kitchen that i want in my future house, but wound up not buying anything. But we looked all around upstairs, broke for lunch and then went through the downstairs marketplace where you can fill up your bag/buggy! Overall i think we were there for like 4 hours!

After that we went back to the hotel and flipped through the ikea catalogs we picked up when we were going out the door and just lazed around, the boys came back and we all took some naps and showered after our long shopping/walking/conventioning days. We then saw a good friend of mine from High School, Jessica and her husband who just moved to Charlotte. It was so good to see an old friend and get to meet her hubby. We went to dinner and walked around downtown and wound up at a lounge type place and had some drinks and just visited and hung out. we wound up closing down the place around 11 and went back to the hotel lobby to sit and visit some more.

This morning we came on back to durham after sleeping in. we made it all the way back to durham without stopping for lunch because we had such late breakfasts, so we went for Mellow Mushroom for lunch and have gotten back to Raleigh all safe and sound.

This week is going to be a lot quieter and chill, because we don't have a ton going on, we're going to just be hopefully unpacking and settling in more, it seems crazy that we have that much more to get put up, but we still do have a lot of work to do. I think that this weekend we might go and get our new driver's licenses, let's hope that i don't fail the driving test or something!!

alrighty, that's about all for now!

julia

200th

Wow, 200th post!! Woo hoo!!

I wish i could tell you that this was going to be a really amazing post (as if any of mine actually are!!!) Our house has quieted down a bunch since this weekend and last being crazy with moving and yard sales! Monday Audie had to work but he got off early because things were really slow. He came home around lunchtime and we went and ate together and then went to grocery shop. We're loving the new area that we live in, it's much less congested than the area where we were in Durham. There are a ton of places to eat/shop which is really nice! The Food Lion in our new area is so much nicer than the other one we were shopping in.

We also went and checked out BJ's Wholesale store. We have really enjoyed shopping at Sam's in Durham, just for like TP and stuff. But the Sam's in raleigh is in a really congested area in raleigh, and the BJ's is a lot closer so we went and got a membership, and It was really awesome because they gave us a whole bunch of coupons, and you can use manufacturer's coupons too! Jessica would be so proud!! So we got some stuff we had been needing and some good deals that were awesome with the coupons!

the rest of this week we've been doing hardly anything except for unpacking and working on getting stuff done around here. Our bedroom and the bathrooms are finally settled, and the kitchen has been done for a while, but we're still working on the living/dining room and office.

This weekend we won't be working though, we're going on a trip!! Audie found a comic convention that he wanted to go to and our friends Danny and Amber were interested in going too so we're all heading out for the weekend. The boys are actually going to the convention, and Amber and I are going to spend the whole day at IKEA!!! I'm pretty excited about just looking all day, because there isn't much that i need, but i'm really excited to get to go. We're all driving together to Charlotte and spending the weekend in an awesome hotel that we got a great deal on!!

Ok I'll certainly give you guys an update after the weekend and see how things went! but you all have a fabulous weekend!!

Julia

Finally Done!!

We finally turned in our keys and are officially moved out of our old apartment in Durham!!! After a crazy weekend we ended it by going to our old apartment to clean it up, which meant sweeping and mopping the floors as well as cleaning out the food from the fridge and doing the bathrooms! After about an hour or so we were done which was nice. We also took some pictures of the place so that if they for some reason decided to stiff us our security deposit we could figure out why and see if we had recourse. We'll see what happens.

Of course our awful apartment complex wouldn't have felt like home if it didn't come with some frustration today! We were supposed to turn in our keys by noon on Monday, which is officially when our lease is up, but since it was a holiday (and Audie and i didn't want to make a special trip tomorrow when we were done today) i called on Friday to see if they were closed and if we could turn in our keys on Sunday. The lady said that they were closed on Sunday too, but that we could put them all in an envelope and put them in the drop box whenever we wanted before tuesday morning. Ok sounds like a plan right?? well we get there all ready to turn in our keys and there's no drop box!! Of course!!!

SO we called the emergency maintenance number, which is the only way that you can talk to an actually human when the office is closed. The guy said that we could leave it in the mail box beside the door or wait 45 minutes for him to get there. I looked at the mail box and said "you mean the one that says: free brochures take one??" you want me to leave an envelope with 3 keys to our apartment with a label on it to what place it goes to for anyone to come on and get it and go into our property??? " Yeah that's not a great idea friend!!! Well after i put it that way he said that we could put it in the mail slot in the maintenance shed. Ok much better.

So we'll see if they burn us on this after the fact. we left them a message in the office so that they would know that is what we did with them and we'll see if they like that solution or not.

So after all that drama : i took a 3 hour nap and started dinner - steak, baked potatoes and salad - yummy!!

Hope you have a great weekend and holiday tomorrow. Audie has to work tomorrow but hopefully will be able to come home early if things are really slow, which they should be.

Julia