Wow!

It's been nearly a month since I last updated! That's terrible, but at least I have a good excuse! I was totally swamped with schoolwork the past month, but now I'm completely finished.

That's right. I'm through with school. I've graduated, in fact. Saturday I walked across the stage and graduated Magna Cum Laude. I'm so excited! I'm also really glad that my husband, mom, and in laws got to watch it happen. They're all really proud of me, and so am I! The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, eating too much, and just enjoying each others' company. We also did a fair bit of Olympic spectating.

Today was spent looking for a job. I created my resume yesterday, and today I scoured Yahoo! HotJobs and CareerBuilder.com, plus applied for jobs at local school districts and a few retail places. All of my applications were done online, and I have one more job that I have to go apply to in person. I think I applied for about 16 jobs total. Luckily I'm still employed until I find something new, but I'm really itching to find something a little more permanent, so we can save more for buying a house and starting a family.

Other than those events, not much has been going on! I've been spending way too much time on the Nest message boards, which is always a fun time. I've also been busy hanging out with friends in between homework and reading for FUN, which has been great. I finally finished reading Pride and Prejudice (which I had started about three times before, and never made it past page 40), as well as John Eldredge's Wild at Heart and John and Stasi Eldredge's Captivating. Now I'm reading Searching for God Knows What, by Donald Miller. I can honestly recommend all of these books, especially if you're interested in Christian spirituality.

More updates to come!

Grad school?

I thought I should update, since it has been quite a while. I have been very busy with schoolwork lately, not to mention moving and getting unpacked, etc.

These classes I'm in are the core courses for the library science graduate program I'm supposed to start in the fall. I have not enjoyed them very much at all. They are far less interesting than I had hoped, and I do not enjoy the coursework at all. For this reason, I am strongly considering not starting school in the fall. I would love to take the semester off, and I'll probably find a different job, where I can work 20-30 hours a week. I think I need some time to reevaluate my life and decide what's best for me and my family in the long run. I've never felt very strongly about having a career, and I've never really, truly loved working anywhere. The thought of a normal 9-5 job does not entice me one bit, and I don't feel like that is what God is calling me to do. The only thing I know for sure that I am supposed to do in this life is to be a wife and a mother.

Keep me (and Tyler) in your thoughts and prayers, especially over these next few weeks as we try to decide what I will be doing after graduation. This is a really tough decision to make, and we are praying for God's guidance through all of this.

Hopefully I'll manage to update more regularly once I don't have schoolwork anymore. Only 3 more weeks!

Updated Nest bio!

Please check out my newly updated GooglePages bio for pictures of the new apartment. I can't make a longer post because summer school is swallowing me whole right now. I'll be done on August 8, so don't expect much posting before then!

So, visit the link below for my updated bio!
http://gnomesweetgnome527.googlepages.com

**Thanks to Mrs_mam for letting me know to fix the link. Hopefully it'll work better now!**

Still not done...

Sorry, but still no pictures of the house. We're *thisclose* to being done, but I've been swamped with school, and we're going out of town this weekend.

In other news, a new trend has hit the D&R board: Scrapblog! I've never been one for scrapbooking in real life, because I find that the supplies are super-expensive, I'm very indecisive, and I don't want to waste pictures and supplies only to be unhappy with the results. Digital scrapbooking is more instant, less permanent, and so easy to work with! Here's my first attempt:

Slack-a-thor

Sorry guys. I've been super, super busy with school and unpacking lately. This weekend (Sunday) I'll try to make sure the house is all put together and post some pictures. It's coming along really well, but my class schedule is just CRAZY right now! How's everyone else doing, in the meantime?

I got tagged again! There are questions to answer this time, so here I go!

1) What did you do 10 years ago?
Ten years ago, I was almost 12 years old. It was the summer between my 6th and 7th grade years, and I was excited about going to junior high! I played the flute in band, and my best friend lived one street over from me. I had no idea what the future held for me, but I'm very pleased with how it's turned out so far!

2) 5 Items on Your To-Do List for Today?
a) take a shower
b) eat lunch
c) go to the bank
d) meet JoyGotDots!
e) hang out with Tyler

3) Snacks I Enjoy:
There are really too many to list. I love any kind of sugary treat, from Mike N Ikes to cookies, cakes, pies, pastries of any kind. I recently fell in love with Jell-O rice pudding cups in Cinnamon, and I also love cottage cheese, puffy Cheetos, and ice cream!

4) What Would You Do if You Were a Billionaire?
I would first pay for the rest of my grad school, and then put a ton in savings for a baby someday. I would also buy a new car, the house of my dreams, and a new wardrobe. I'd donate to the church, travel around the world (lots of times!), buy my mom whatever she wanted, and hire a live-in masseuse. The rest would go in savings and investments for retirement and our children's future.

5) Places I Would Live
Colorado, Lubbock, Florida, California, Seattle, France, England, everywhere and anywhere that isn't freezing all the time.

I'm not going to pass this challenge on to anyone, because nearly all the Nesties have been tagged that I can think of, and those are the only people who read this! :-)

Fredericksburg is Fun!

OK, I'm finally getting around to writing that post I've been promising. Don't laugh, but I'm typing this as I listen to an hour-long lecture for one of my classes, while wearing a gaming headset. I'm also drinking some wine. ;-)

So, our trip was pretty awesome. We left EARLY on Saturday morning to drive down. We stopped about halfway to get some IHOP, and then continued on to Johnson City, where we checked out the LBJ Visitor's Center/Museum. It was pretty cool. Then we drove the last 30 minutes or so to Fredericksburg.

We couldn't check in to our B&B until 3PM, so we decided to grab some lunch. We went to the Auslander, which serves German food and also has an outdoor biergarten. We both got different sausage plates, and we were very pleased with the results! Tyler got the knockwurst (sausage with cheddar inside!), and I got Opa's sausage. While we were at lunch, a guy came up to the window we were seated next to and practically put his face on the glass to look inside. It was kind of funny and a little creepy.



After lunch, we decided to walk Main Street and see what was there. There are tons of cute shops, with everything from antiques to dog accessories. We walked for a really long time, seeing what was what. Then we decided to get a coffee, and then go to check in to our B&B. We walked down to the inn, but the owners weren't there, so we had to walk a LONG way to their antiques/home furnishings store. By this point I was already sunburned, but we got there finally and received our keys and instructions. Then we had to walk back down Main to get to the inn.

Once we got there, we unloaded our suitcase and other stuff from the car and went inside. Our room had its own entrance off the veranda, which was nice. We put our stuff away, and then decided to read a little while in the air conditioning. After that, we took a shower and then took a nap. All that walking in the high heat (probably 95) made us tired, not to mention getting up at 6AM on a Saturday.





After our nap, we walked down the street to the Fredericksburg Brewery for dinner. We ordered some beers while we waited, and then got down to the good stuff. I had jagersnitzel (breaded pork loin with mushroom sauce), and Tyler had the uberbacken scheinesnitzel (a baked porkchop with mushrooms, cheese, and other stuff on top. For dessert, we ordered the German chocolate cheesecake to go, since we were too full to eat it after our snitzels.




Later we walked back down Main to the B&B, where we met all of the other people staying there. We had 3 couples staying in the upstairs suite above us. All of the husbands knew each other growing up or from school. 2 of the couples had 8-month old twins, and the other couple had a 4-month old. All of the babies were present with the parents. They were all adorable and did NOT help my baby fever. The people were very nice, and we had a good time talking with them and drinking some more beer. We went to bed pretty early while listening to a really loud bullfrog in the fountain outside.

Sunday we woke up to the smells of breakfast cooking and coffee brewing. We went out into the dining room and greeted everyone, and then went through the buffet line. We got a little history of Fredericksburg from the owner, who also told us about some of the restaurants in the area. After that, we ventured back out onto Main Street to really check out the stores. First we headed to Der Kuchen Laden (The Kitchen Store). This was located in the old Keidel Memorial Hospital, which was in honor of the same people that originally built and owned the B&B we stayed in. This store was a-mazing! It was like the kitchen section of Bed, Bath, and Beyond times 10! They had every conceivable kitchen gadget you could think of or want. We got ourselves a few things: a tea infuser ball and some loose tea, a splatter screen for our skillet, a spoon rest for the top of the stove, and one of those measuring cups like Alton Brown uses:
From there, we continued down the street, checking out shops here and there, as well as taking frequent breaks to sit and rest. We really learned our lesson after the first day! We also found a store that had an awesome gnome lawn ornament with a built in solar lantern. Just like the one featured here on my website! Unfortunately, it cost $100, so we didn't buy it. I did find it online later for around $60, so it's on my wishlist for later! I did take a picture with the gnome, at least. I also took a picture with some local landmarks, one of which was necessary due to my job/schooling.


I also bought some lavender sachets for my dresser drawers and linen storage, so I'm pretty excited about using those at the new apartment! We ate lunch at a place called the Buffalo Nickel, where we both had salads. We needed something light since it was so hot. Mine was called the Pocahontas Salad, which was spinach with sliced strawberries, candied pecans, goat cheese crumbles, and raspberry vinaigrette on the side. It was AWESOME. DH had a club salad and a Blue Moon wheat beer, which was served properly (with an orange wedge!), and was very refreshing. :-) We wandered some more after lunch, stopped at the Fredericksburg Bakery for some pastries and candy, tasted some wine and bought a bottle, and then headed back for a shower and reading. For dinner we ate in the cellar of Der Kuchen Laden at a restaurant called Rathskeller. We ordered some spinach artichoke dip for dinner, which was the best we've ever had. My entree was excellent as well, it was a hollowed-out eggplant, which was then fried and filled with crab meat and shrimp and covered in white wine cream sauce and some cheese. Tyler got German food, but this was not the place for it, so he was kind of disappointed. After that, we returned to the veranda of the B&B and joined our upstairs neighbors for some drinks and conversation before turning in for the night.

That was the bulk of the trip. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast with everyone, and packed up our stuff. Then we took one last walk, stopping in at a store called Dogologie to pick out a new collar for Pongo and some bakery treats to bring home to him. I'll post a picture with his new collar once I get one! Then we headed to a hidden bakery/cafe I had read about on TripAdvisor. It was the best decision of the entire trip, I do believe! We both ordered sandwiches, which have since been declared the best sandwiches EVER. I don't normally like sandwiches for the most part, but mine was amazing! It was fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and tomato, with field greens on focaccia bread. Simply.amazing. We really wanted to buy a loaf of the bread, but they don't normally sell it until after lunch. The waitress took pity on us and asked anyway, but they had just started another batch in the oven and it wouldn't be done before we left town. :-( Maybe next time! They also had amazing looking pastries and desserts, but we were too full.

All in all, we had an amazing time. We definitely want to go back as soon as we get a chance! There are lots of places we want to stop at again, and more places we'd like to buy stuff when we have the extra cash.

That's all for the trip. I'll probably post some more fun pictures later on. Also, I'll update about what's happened since, and our moving adventures after this coming weekend! Stay tuned. :-D