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!