And I've learned so much already

I've only been to work 8 days now and I feel like I've learned so much. Not necessarily about the job but lots about Houston. Here are some fun facts.

1. Baylor College of Medicine is NOT a part of Baylor College
2. There are two, yes two, fabulous-amazing looking cupcake stores less than a mile from my office - what are they trying to do here?? 




Image from Celebrity Cupcake - right down the street.


3. My office is on a major thoroughfare in Houston so I also have the best tex-mex place in Houston across the street (or so says the new boss), and all the shopping a girl could want less than a mile from my office - again, really? Do you know how much I love tex-mex AND shopping?
4. I left the house at 6am my first day to make sure I got to orientation by 8am. I arrived at 7am. I left the next day at 6am in the pouring rain and arrived by 6:45am. Traffic is strange here and a bit finnicky.
5. Shadow (we named our foster dog) should have the name Houdini - each of the first two days I worked I came home to her outside of her crate, where I put her before I left - she's really talented. The third day I put her in the laundry room and she destroyed it - now need to replace the door, molding, and ironing board cover.
6. Gracie felt left out of the fun of destruction and ate our bathroom door which will have to have pieces replaced. Lesson here - the dogs are less destructive together.
7. There are something like 6 or 7 hospitals in the Texas Medical Center - about a mile from my office. See the large complex below. (It includes Texas Children's Hospital where Jen Arnold works - she's on the Little Couple on TLC - yes, I like the show, mainly b/c she's in Houston!)



From http://www.north-houston.com/developers/healthcare.html


Ok, that's all for now - I'll update about other busy things going on in our lives later in the week.

A job? What's a job?

In preparation for starting my new job on Monday (eeks), I've decided to share some random tidbits with you. Thanks to being in school for the last 21 out of 23 years of my life, I have an interesting job history. (Yep, I know this dates me - I'm sort of like a tree with a lot of circles). My last full time job ended in 2005 so although I've worked my hiney off for the last however many years I haven't actually gone to one job every day in 5 years. I sort of feel like its the first day of school all over again! I'm excited and nervous and worried (its hereditary) and hopeful and really excited!

Oh yeah, my last job was at NC State - and they won last night!

On another note, I'm introducing our foster who is feeling so well these days that she's turned into quite the handful. She's slowly getting used to things around here and we are slowly getting used to her crazy level of energy! We are having trouble with names, primarily b/c the husband is ridiculous when it comes to naming dogs - I've come up with multiple lists of dog names and he responds with 'no' to all of them. Since its becoming harder to try to teach/train, etc a dog with no name, she will be named today. We'll keep you posted!

Hope y'all have a great weekend!!

Weekend fun

This past weekend was surreal in a lot of ways. We did things we haven't in a long time - like watch NC State football with people from NC State, who we've gone to games with, who we've lived with. We also cooked for our friends - something we both love doing. I went to Ikea with a really good friend, and not the husband (he was especially happy about this one). We talked and hung out with friends and it was easy because we're friends who've known each other since college. And wow, it was pretty amazing. We needed it. I miss these moments that we had so often before and have so rarely now. I would give a lot for a little moment with about 100 people right now - all of whom live in Alabama or further east. Love you all!

And for the fun of it - some pics of our visitors (not from the weekend b/c we are terrible at remembering to take pictures).

Hope your week is starting off well!!

Labor Day Weekend Part II

Here's what we did the other days of this past weekend! We will not be doing that much this coming weekend - no worries! :)

Saturday - Got up early again to head back to the Humane Society with Grace-face for the dreaded meet and greet. Lets face it, Gracie is a B when it comes to meeting dogs and I really dread all that nonsense. Anyways - we'll save you this info for later. Came back and got to work!

The plan for the day had been to paint the trim in the family room. After attempting to cut the trim by hand I gave up - trim is a beast to paint. I moved on to taping out all the trim and two hours later the room was taped. That was right about the time the game started so I painted some of the trim while the husband watched football. Did I mention painting trim is a beast? When the game was over, the husband joined in and we finally finished the two coats of trim around 11pm. Another trend of our weekend.

The newly painted den!

Sunday - Um, dead tired and sore and feeling like behind. Plan was to go to store and have a nice somewhat relaxing day. Got a call about fostering a dog, so got ready, got the room for the dog ready, and drove to the Humane Society for the third day in a row - its approximately 48 minutes from our house. Waited a very long time for them to bring the dog to us - like an hour. That nice little trip took the WHOLE afternoon. But we came home with another foster. Update from yesterday - took her to the vet, not sure about her health. We are majorly hopeful she'll be ok but certain not-to-be-named problems "cannot be ruled out." So keep her in your thoughts over the next week please.

Can't remember what else we did that day b/c I was out of it. Oh yeah - the husband finished painting the last coat of chalkboard paint around 11pm and I did some dinner related stuff and really, who knows what else.

The finished chalkboard - we're hanging it soon!

Monday - husband went to play golf at a crazy early time. Got up a little later and did the morning med routine with the foster. Then got started on the nailhead trim for the headboard. Um, yeah. Please see this post for a partial explanation of what this is like. Again - extremely hard and a big pain, literally and figuratively (I have the injuries to prove it!). I wanted to yell at myself for deciding to do this. It took off and on half the day and to be honest some yelling did occur. In the middle of that I had a dissertation meeting via phone with my dissertation chair and did some work on that.

The headboard with trim - lots to still be done but looking better!

The husband came home, went to the grocery store, and we actually ate at 7:30 - amazing. Then we relaxed some while watching Swamp Men (yes, this is a show about alligator hunters and I really like it - why? because I like their accents and that they live off the land and do their own thing and one guy even makes boats - who wouldn't love it?)

For this weekend we have some light cleaning and at least one visitor! We're excited!  Happy weekend!