Your Blog: Win a Complete Blog Makeover | kevin & amanda { blog }

Your Blog: Win a Complete Blog Makeover | kevin & amanda { blog }

I'm hoping I win this! I love what I've done with my blog... but it seems like there is always something better!

While searching for a job...

Beggars can't be choosers!

William is being offered a job at Halliburton. We don't know all the details yet... but the above wisdom is our motto right now!

So about that post...

Everyone is asking me who I'm mad at. I'm not mad at anyone. I'm just opening up about how I feel. That's just me... I'm kind of opinionated... in case you didn't know.

If I hear one more time....

If some says any of the following comments to me again, I might react badly:

• You are so young, you are only 22.
• Why would you want to graduate early?
• Don't rush to have kids. 
• Slow down, enjoy life.

So to all of those people who think these things about me.

• I'm motivated. If you don't like it... it's probably because you AREN'T. That's really not my problem. And if you think that I'm about to stop being motivated because I'm passing you up in life, well sorry. That's not who I was raised to be.
• School isn't hard for me. Treating kids, doing my job, participating in the balancing act of life... is challenging for me. I like to be challenged. So if you want to know why I will have my master's before I turn 23, know that it's because I can't wait for the real challenges. Not to mention school is expensive... enough said.
• About kids. Just stop. Stop judging me for wanting to have a baby. Stop acting like I need to wait until I'm 30. If you are reading this and you have kids... how many of you actually waited until 30? And if you still think I'm crazy, how many of you have MULTIPLE chronic disorders that cause miscarriage.  How would you like to have that weighing on your heart? My guess is, not many of you. And if you do, you probably didn't know about them prior to having kids. So stop judging me. It's our decision. William's and mine. And when we are ready we will. But don't tell me your advice like "you know how I feel"or "you have been in my shoes". I work with children with heart wrenching developmental disorders. And I have finally seen what an immense blessing that they are. However, as part of my education I an immensely informed about prevention of these disorders. You can bet I'm going to be aware of those things when thinking about my future family. Just because kids are world-changing, life-altering, money-consuming beings doesn't mean you should put them off. 
• As a culmination of all of the above and response to "slow down, enjoy life.' I ENJOY MY LIFE. I LOVE IT. It's not easy. It's not all roses and butterflies. But honestly I wouldn't change it. I'm learning to embrace the unknown and be informed but not controlling. Life is a whirlwind. And you know what... life is short. 

So when my life starts to fall apart... I'll let you know. But for now... I'm a 22 year old that is 3 months from a master's degree, married to a wonderful man, living with several chronic medical conditions and not afraid to stare motherhood in the face when the time is right. What is so wrong with that?

Life with the Harrison's

Direct quote....

While Hayden(a very gregarious 4-year old) was being "made" to clean his room....
Hayden: I don't want to clean up my room.
Taylor (Hayden's dad): You have to.
Hayden: No I don't.
Taylor: Yes you do. Because I'm your father and I said you do.
Hayden: You are NOT my father.
Taylor: Well then please tell me who is so that I can yell at him.

Of course this story is not meant to outshine the following story.
As we are driving home from dinner, Hayden and I had the following conversation. He had decided to "squish" into Reagan's car seat so he could ride home with me. He was convinced that we were police that were engaged in car chase that involved his father (who was in the car in front of us).
Hayden: Peyton, you better catch up, he(Taylor) is getting away.
Me: Hayden, he's going a little over the speed limit and that's not safe. Plus, the roads are wet.
Hayden: Well don't you have lights on top of your car? That means we could arrest him.
Me: Nope, no lights on the top of the car.
Hayden: Darn it. I'm calling the cheif.
(Under his breath, while talking into a pretend radio): Chief, we have to call off the chase because the roads are wet and our officers are in danger. We'll let him get away this time.

Ha. Love them.

Big city left with no bookstore

Big city left with no bookstore - CNN.com

This is seriously appalling! Laredo doesn't have a single bookstore within 150 miles of it. I would hate to be the head of reading intervention in those public schools. Pathetic! I'm not sure who is to blame... but someone needs to do something!

Job Updates

Okay, so this information is probably slowly trickling through our friends and family, but I thought I would offer an official update.

William had an interview this past Saturday with MicroCenter in Dallas.  It is a computer/electronics and parts store. He also had an interview for Halliburton in Oklahoma City on Tuesday. Both interviews went very well. The MicroCenter job is for a part time (with a possible full time option) job in sales. The Halliburton job is for a field engineer position in the MidContinent Region. He would be working 14 days in the field and 7 days at home. The pay is supposedly good and benefits equally as good!  This obviously wouldn't be our absolute favorite job but we are excited about it nonetheless.  There is also a possibility of us staying in Dallas and William traveling to the job sites which would be best for me!

Today William was offered the job at MicroCenter. He is planning on accepting it because they are requiring an answer by Thursday at the end of the day. However, we are still VERY interested in the options that might be at Halliburton. He will find out about that job on Monday!

Check back for updates! He's going to officially accept the MicroCenter job tomorrow!

Not Me Monday

>So over at MckMama's blog she hosts this event on Mondays. I think it's a solid blogging event! So here I go....
I would never check my wedding photographer's client gallery every 2 hours to see if she had created our's yet... NOOO not me! 
My dog would NEVER drink out of my bedside water glass... never, not MY dog. 
I would never be happy to have my bed to myself again for one night (tonight) after I counted down to my wedding day for 250 days... not me. 
I would never make up a crazy story to tell Reagan (the little girl I nanny for) just so that she would do what I wanted. Like "Bugs will make nests and live in your hair if you don't let me brush it".... nope. not me. 
This is absolutely NOT written by

Cheap Textbooks!

Textbook Price Comparison Helps You Find the Cheapest Textbooks - Education - Lifehacker

To the students out there that read my blog... this is a really sweet tool for getting the best price on your textbooks!

Check it out!

Textbook Price Comparison

Harrowing account of Haiti quake

Harrowing account of Haiti quake from West Des Moines student | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register

This girl was in my sorority at Baylor. She was in Haiti with a student group from Columbia University. She has always had a heart for Haiti. I'm praying that she is safe until she is able to be airlifted out of there.

Here is a picture that she posted on her facebook.  She has received a crash course in medicine and is doing what she can to help the 2 doctors in her UN compound.

UPDATE:
I got news via Facebook late last night (1/16) that Megan is safe in New York.

Big Spring Elementary

Yesterday was my first day of practicum. I'm doing my internship at Big Springs Elementary in Richardson Independent School District.  Yesterday was an Assessment and ARD day.  My supervisor has one day a week that basically all she deals with is referrals and ARD's for existing students. So all I did yesterday was follow her around to meetings and watch her give the DIBELs which is a reading monitoring assessment.  I actually did a ton of research on the DIBELs last semester in my learning disorders class.  It was interesting seeing it in action. Anyways today is my only day of class.  Normally I'll go to practicum in the morning and then class in the afternoon/evenings but my supervisor was giving more (non SLP) assessments today so I skipped out.

Forgot One Picture!

Lucy loves her new jungle gym in our living room. She even has her own piece of furniture! Last night she decided to watch Funniest Home Videos (the dog segment duh) from her perch right in front of the tv! I tired to get a picture of her standing and trying to climb onto the entertainment center, but as soon as she saw my camera she had to pose instead!

William and I will be reenrolling her in puppy school soon hopefully! She's a little bit of a daddy's girl... and he needs to learn how to impart some structure in her life. She walks all over him... literally!

Our Home!

So tonight is the night that our apartment makes it's blog debut! We may not both be living here much longer... so it's good that it makes it's debut now! (More on that later though.)

Without further ado... Our Apartment!

When you walk in the front door... our living room!

New TV! The other side of the living room!

Dining room complete with diplomas

Dining room, cross collection, and my desk! Ignore the pile of jackets (it's super cold)!

Diplomas

Bathroom with beautiful new shower curtain!

Our cookbook collection!

Kitchen

Our room! It's cozy.

William's desk and my shoe holder... yea i have a few shoes!

We also have two dressers... due to space issues!

Our bed... it's still a work in progress... I would like to have some throw pillows, but everyone I find is goose down and William's allergic!

And one VERY VERY full closet! Thus the reason for two dressers!

I know that was a lot of pictures... I was trying to make it look bigger! hahha! Anyways we are very cozy and happy here. But today William got a job interview with Halliburton in Oklahoma City. The opening is for a field engineer and would be a very good job for William to get into the oil and gas engineering business! They are paying for him to go up there for the day on January 19th! He also has some interest from Total in Houston. This would be for a gas controller job.  More of the business side of pipeline operations. We are really excited about both opportunities! So who knows, maybe in a few months I'll be all by myself again :(. But at least we might have an income!

Tomorrow is take your husband to work day. In other words, William is going to help me "nanny" for the evening. The Shippey's are going to the Dallas Stars game (hockey) and I said I'd pick up the kids from school and stay until they got home. I also enjoy chances to "expose" William to kids! He's already a pro at putting the carseats in my car. A little scary isn't it? Anyways, Reagan is enamored with him and she can't wait for him to pick her up from school!

Stay Warm!

(Not So) Creamy Chicken and Noodles

I cooked in our slow cooker again today.  I made "Creamy Chicken and Noodles".  Ours should have been called Not so Creamy Chicken and Noodles Rice.  It was basically homemade chicken noodle soup.  For some reason ours was not so creamy though. We ran out of noodles so we made rice instead! William gave it 2 stars. But Monday's dinner received 4 stars on leftovers night! It was way better the second night.  


Yesterday I got my Richardson ISD name badge! I'm all official! I met up with my supervisor as well.  She's probably only a few years older than me and seems really cool! I'm going to be working at Big Springs Elementary Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday until about 1pm, and Thursday.  I should get a lot of hours and experience.  Most of my kids will be receiving articulation therapy or language therapy.  I will also have a few kids doing social skills therapy.  There are also some kids using augmentative devices and kids with auditory impairment that I will be seeing occasionally! I will also be getting to experience ARDs (which stands for Assessment, Review, Dismissal) and the school assessment process! I'm taking 4 classes also this semester. Two are in school classes. Two are "independent study" classes. So on Wednesdays I'll be sitting in class for 6 hours. But that's the only day I have to show up at school. Kinda sweet! Then I have 22 articles to read for my independent studies. I have to take quizzes on each one... but once I do all of them, that's it! Also nice!


Tomorrow I'm going to post some pictures of our "new" apartment! Anyone interested? We had to get a 5X5 storage unit because everything wouldn't fit! 


Anyways, I'm off to make sure Lucy and William haven't froze to death yet. They've been outside on a walk for a little while! We are supposed to get subzero temps until Saturday. Brrrr! 

"So how's married life", you ask.

So many people have been asking us this question.  To be honest, it doesn't feel all that different yet.  We spent 4 weeks running around Texas and Vegas with the holidays and everything.  So that basically meant we were at one of our parent's houses or completely checked out of normal life that entire time.  Now that we are home we are getting settled in. But there's still no routine yet because I'm not in school yet and William's still without a job.  So here's the play by play on married life:
Closet space: down
Money: down
Food bill: way up!
Bed space: down
Cell phone minutes used: down
Nights spent alone in front of the TV: down
Good company: way up!

Does that sound about right to everyone?

Anyways, I cooked last night. I made something in our new slow cooker! I put it on around noon and it was ready when I got home from work!

Here's the recipe:

Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce (from the better homes and garden cookbook)

• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/4 cup of butter or margarine
• 1 0.7oz package Italian salad dressing mix
• 1 10.75 oz can condensed golden mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 of an 8oz tub of cream cheese with chives and onion 
• Hot cooked pasta (optional)

1. Place the chicken in a 3.5 or 4 quart slow cooker. In a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in dressing mix. Stir in mushroom soup, wine, and cream cheese until combined. Pour over the chicken in cooker. 

2. Cover and cook on low heat setting for 4 to 5 hours. Serve chicken with sauce over the pasta!

William gave it 3 stars. We decided it wasn't very creamy even though the title claimed it was going to be. Next time maybe we will throw in the whole thing of cream cheese. I think it was a good first attempt.  I did it all by myself. William tried to help make the pasta, but apparently that's one thing I can do better than him.

I'm off to go get my picture ID for Richardson ISD.  This semester I will be doing my practicum there.  I'm basically working full time so it should be a lot of fun and a good experience. I also have a meeting with my supervisor today. She just wants to get together and talk about everything before next week.

If anyone has any good slow cooker recipes, send them my way!

New Year, New Blog, New Life

So this is the beginning, okay technically the middle of my life... but it seems NEW. Being married at the beginning of a new year is like starting over.  I decided that's okay.  It means I can do some things differently this year.  So I guess you could say I'm making a few resolutions promises pacts "goals".  I know that most people don't keep their resolutions, but that's why I'm calling them "goals".  I really don't want to feel defeated if I don't accomplish each and every one of them every day.  But I want them to be overall themes, projects, attitudes for the next year. So here we go:

• Make church and Christian fellowship a priority
• William and I started the new year out right by starting our search for a new church home.  Since we would like to stay in Dallas, we obviously won't be able to go to Tallowood much.  This mean we have to find somewhere that fits us in Dallas.  Our requirements are close to home, good pastor, newlywed sunday school class, and places to give back (think youth group, volunteer and mission opportunities). We visited Wilshire Baptist Church this morning.  We liked it for the most part but we will see how it compares later in the process. 
• Cooking
• Most people know I don't really know how to cook.  And what I do cook I generally excel at fail miserably at. So basically I'm going to start trying to learn.  I'm planning on cooking something new around 2 to 3 nights a week.  Hopefully William will appreciate my attempts... even if they lead to a few burnt meals small fires. 
• Make healthy decisions
• I know, I know... it's a lame "goal".  It's everyone's goal right? But I guess I really need to start taking this seriously.  I feel like everyday my clock starts ticking a little faster.  I've learned that each visit to my doctor tends to bring bad news. Most recently I was told I have beta 1 glycoprotein 2 antibodies in my blood.  These are related to your bloods coagulating agents.  I'm apparently quite susceptible to blood clots. Anyways, long story short, I need to get in shape. You never know what could happen tomorrow... and if I got a blood clot, I can bet recovery (if I got that chance) would be way worse if I was overweight. 
• Give back
• This goes right with the church thing.  I've been blessed my entire life by mentors in my church families that really affected who I am today. I really hope that I can have that affect on someone else. So I'm going to get plugged in. I refuse to be a bottom in a pew each week.  I have more to give than that. 
• Try to control my temper and impatience Be nice
• It has been pointed out to me by my husband (directly) and by some friends (indirectly) that I can be mean.  It's funny because I don't think I'm a mean person. I do however have very high expectations for other people.  Which I guess leads me to be a little grouchy when they don't meet up with them. So I'm going to practice some patience and compassion.  I mean if I can do it with my clients, then why not with my peers, friends, husband and strangers?
• Last but not least.... Blog!
• I LIKE blogging. I just forget to. That or I think my life is too lame to read about. Which it probably is. So anyways, even if only my mom and dad ever read this (and it gets emailed to them) I'm going to try to blog every day. If you stop by, leave a comment! Please! I'm begging you! Moral support is fabulous! Maybe Mom and Dad can even make it to my REAL site and see my beautiful new layout! 

So did you make any "goals" this new year?  I'd love to hear about them... maybe we can keep each other accountable!

2009: In a nutshell!

Well 2009 was a very eventful year! Here is a recap!

In January I started graduate school at UTDallas. I began my first practicum experience in the Early CLASS program where I worked one on one with a child with autism. My first week of school in Dallas it snowed... then froze. Two day of school were canceled but oh well!

I hung out a TON with my cousin Megan and her family... Look at how tiny Colin was when I first moved up to Dallas.

In February Megan's son Hayden turned 4 and Colton (my younger brother) and I helped Megan run his rodeo birthday party. It was quite exciting.

I also drove to Waco for Big Sister Reveal for my sorority. My little got TWINS! I love these girls and while I don't talk to them a ton... I think about them often!

In March, William and I were lucky enough to have the same spring break. We did some heavy duty wedding planning and also went to the Rodeo TWICE! We LOVE the RODEO! Hopefully in the future we can be on Rodeo committees and help my dad with the Rodeo cook-off!

William also turned 22 on March 25. We had to celebrate his birthday apart this year, but I called and ordered a bunch of pizza for the ChemE's to eat for lunch at school that day.

In April, William dunked his Aggie Ring! It was a great few days celebrating with friends!

I also finished up final for my first semester of graduate school!

May was a GREAT month! William finished his last semester in the Corps. He moved out of the dorms and had his FINAL review! It was bitter sweet watching his last pass across the review field, but it was kinda of exciting to not have to stay for the second pass (in which the corps marched with only 3 classes of cadets). After 4 LONG years in the corps we were ready for it to be over.

I also celebrated my birthday on May 19. My dad threw me a party on the 19th with lots of friends and family. Then, we went out for Fondue a few days later with my mom, brother, grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins! It was delicious.

My best friend Jonna got married on May 30. We had a ton of fun with them that weekend!