I passed!

So it turns out, if you get your drivers license before you are 21, it expires in 5 years. Who knew? Obviously not me, who waited two hours in line at the DMV to be told that her license had expired YESTERDAY and there was nothing they could do to help me. I would just have to take the test again. Yes, just like a 16 yr old.



So I read the book and memorized how long it takes your car to stop if you are driving at different speeds, so I could taken the written test (so unneccessary, but I couldn't help myself), then went back again and took the practical. Apparently my parallel parking isn't too great (I'm going to maintain that that was a product of the stress i was feeling after having to line up at 5am that morning to get a drive time) but other than that I'm good to go!



That's 4 driving tests I've taken now. 4. That makes me the most qualified driver ever, right?

For the Record:

TJ would like it known that he was actually doing real work (ie. he wasn't just posing) when I decided to take pictures of our house for the blog.

Too many pictures?

I still haven't managed to put anything on the walls or decorate much, but let's be honest, it could be years before that happens. So here's the tour of our new place:

Here's the front yard / porch...

The front door opens into the living room....

The master bedroom is behind the living room...

Then the living room leads through to the dining room...

That door leads to the front room which we're using as a study where TJ works ever so hard while I do important things like take pictures for our blog...

The dining room is connected to the kitchen...(and yes, those orange lamps are first on my list of things to go!)

Which leads into a hallway with our washing machine, a 2nd bath and the 3rd bedroom...

Then we can step out the door into our back garden...

This last one is from round the side of the house. These steps lead into our bedroom...



That's it!

sad story

I just got my first ticket, ever! and the annoying thing is that it wasn't even for anything cool. 55 in a 45. I'm not even sure I was doing that. This guy had it in for me though -- no amount of eye-lash-batting-blonde-hair-flipping-thick-as-i-could-manage-english-accent was going to get me out of this one. Not only did I get a ticket for speeding, I also got cited for having a car inspection that was out of date (UT doesn't count), for not displaying a Texas Driver's License (again, UT doesn't count), and here's the best one: For not having a 'window tint label'.

A window tint label? Who's ever even heard of a window tint label?? Better go check yours right now - you can thank me later.

Where's my landlord?!

So we bought a house a couple weeks ago (pictures to follow v. soon), which we love, but also which keeps having problems that have to get fixed. First we had pest issues (thanks to our trusty pest-guy we're currently pest free)....then there was the leak under the sink and accompanying panic when we didn't know how far it had spread (turned out to be minimal damage) ....Ok, so I can handle that. Fixing it all added up to the equivalent of a few new shirts, but I'm ok. And everyone has stories about the things that went wrong as soon as they moved into their first house, right? We needed the leak and the insects so that we could be in the club.

So this weekend with all disasters averted and almost every room unpacked, we're feeling pretty good about things. Until TJ looks under the house.

There's a lake under there!

Admittedly it was there before we bought the house too, but we made sure the seller took care of it and our inspector ok'd the work and it was all 'taken care of'. After our discovery I called the company that did the work and find out that the seller did a little more than fudge in the name of getting it done w/o having to spend, and was all too aware that a month later we'd be back in the same situation.

Now we're pretty ticked, but we're putting on a brave face - how much can it cost to get some kids to push some dirt around under our house??

Let's just say I'm not giving up t-shirts anymore. My summer vacation just turned into three trailers full of dirt!

"Wouldn't it be nice if we were older"

oh wait....they are!

Last weekend we went to the Mitt Romney campaign reunion. Usually when TJ tells me we're going to spend friday night at a political event I'm less than excited - but once I found out the Beach Boys were going to be there I was the one pushing him out the door.

Everyone loves crawfish

As the youngest and newest addition to the office, TJ got to dress up like a giant crawfish for the firm's annual crawfish boil a couple weeks ago and take pictures with all the kids. I tried to eat some, but couldn't get past the first claw. All those legs and anntenae...