and so it begins

Nursing school starts tomorrow!

I have waited so long for this day and have been so excited for it to come the entire summer, but now that it's here I am wondering what I got myself into. I don't know why I am so nervous and hesitant, I have always loved school and this has been what I've wanted for years now! The teachers and previous students at orientation just scared me a little talking about how much my life will change.
I am also really nervous about how I am going to make work and school work together. C's mom has bent over backwards to make sure I can stay working for them, even if only for a few hours a week on the very busy weeks, but I'm still wondering whether it will be able to all come together and work out.

I'm trying not to let myself stress though and just give it all to God and trust it will all be ok! One of our professors gave us what seems like it will be very helpful advice, to take it one week at a time. So I'm just going to try to make it through this week and then worry about the rest of it!

And some pictures to make this post a little less boring..

New Lilly planner to keep me organized! I love the print, and everyone who has seen it has asked me where to get one for themselves!

My wardrobe for the next 16 months :)

ps. I'm hoping to look back at this post next year when I'm almost done and laugh at myself for ever doubting I could do it ;)

busy busy busy

Oh goodness my life lately has been so busy and stressful!

I start school next week and have orientation tomorrow and Wednesday! I'm super excited but also nervous, mostly about trying to make my school and work schedule coordinate well. Also, the calendars for my classes were emailed this week and it is pretty overwhelming! By next week I have to read about 10-12 chapters in the textbook, countless articles, and watch lots of skills practice videos! Yikes!

Also, we are moving in one month and we get the keys to our new apartment in three weeks! A few weeks ago all my spare time was spent going through storage and preparing for the move...

Until now my newest stressor, I have to buy a new car! A week and a half ago my car wouldn't start so we took it to the shop and found out it needs $3000 worth of work to run again! My car is a 2007 and it had 25,000 miles on it when I bought it not even two years ago so this is super disappointing and unexpected. Again though, I am so blessed to have M's parents who are helping me get a new car (instead of putting so much money into one we don't trust). But because of this I have spent the last week scouring used car listings or driving all over the city to test drive cars (or more likely find out they've already been sold).

Prepping for school has totally been on the back burner and I haven't even been able to think about packing! I've been chauffeured around all week by M or one of his parents also so I haven't been able to run any errands and buy the things I need before school starts.

Goodness the stress level around here is crazy but I am so blessed to be starting a nursing program, to be moving into a beautiful apartment with M, and to have such amazing people in my life willing to help me purchase a car! Just have to keep reminding myself that through the next few weeks!


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new home

I've been busy decorating our new apartment in my mind lately, which is really just teasing myself since all my money will being going towards nursing school for the next 16 months of life...

But let's just pretend, shall we?

Here's what I have so far

I love the way these pillows look being all different. I want to do a big floral one, a solid, and then the same trellis pattern lumbar pillow as the picture (which I may be attempting to make myself...). I'm not sure what color I want the solid pillow to be. I love that I'll be able to draw off all the colors in the floral pillow for other things throughout the room! I also love the idea of the sofa table with two lamps, since I believe where we will be putting our couch it won't be backing up to a wall, so the table will help divide the room better.

I also want to make one of these! This one was made by painting a $40 Ikea rug. I'm not sure what color to go with yet, I was thinking something bright like an orangey red, but I may chicken out and fall back on my trusty favorite, navy.

That's all I have so far! I have been scouring Pinterest for further inspriation (where I found both of these of course!).

m.i.a.

Sorry I have been so terrible at updating lately! I will get back into it soon I promise!

Also sorry that the past two posts have had horrible looking pictures! For some reason the app I use to post from my phone makes them look like that, even though when you click on on them they are perfectly clear! I probably will just be blogging from the computer from now on because that drives me crazy!

cinema suites

Last night M and I went and saw the last Harry Potter movie (only because I was out of town when it came out, or we would have been at the midnight showing!) at AMC's new Cinema Suites. The AMC near us expanded last year to add new additions called Fork & Screen, which is like Studio Movie Grill or Movie Tavern where you can eat a meal while you watch the movie, and the Cinema Suites. Basically you sit in huge, amazingly comfortable recliners while you eat and watch the movie! It was so awesome, I never want to see a movie in the regular part of the theatre again!

We had already eaten dinner, so I can't say whether the food was good or not. They did bring us complimentary chocolate covered popcorn, a warm towel when the movie was almost over, and we got Ghirardelli mints as we left! And the best part, it's was only $12 per ticket, so not even $3 more than the regular theatre!!

Here's us before the movie, M wouldn't let me ask the waiter to take our picture together haha


 

(I don't know why my hair looks gray in this picture?)

We will definitely be back soon!

moving update

After a very stressful week, we finally have an apartment!!

I worried all weekend about how much it was going to cost and then we finally decided to go ahead and go for it, and by they had already leased the one we wanted! So then we were going to be stuck paying even more for someplace we liked less and I was back to stressing out!

A year is a really long time to commit, especially when our lives will likely be changing so much in the next year. Lord willing, M will be graduating and starting at the police academy in May. That means for almost five months he will be commuting pretty far, so I want us to at least like where we live if it's going to be so much trouble.

So we decided we should just pay even more on top of what the second choice would have been and get a bigger floorplan at our first choice! Of course I realize it worked out for the best now! (Though I'm still trying not to be anxious about the price!)

So here's some pictures of our new apartments from their website...



Ours will be the same as this model except we won't have wood floors in the living/dining area, only the kitchen.





We move in September 17th! I can't wait!

garage finds

So a little backstory is necessary...

My mom passed away suddenly and completely unexpectedly a little over a year and a half ago. Since I was so unprepared for something like this, I had no idea how much there would be to take care of after such a thing and how to do it all. I'm so blessed to have the most amazing brother-in-law who flew here from Florida for two weeks and helped me with all the things like funeral arrangements and packing up my mom's entire home. I didn't have time to go through everything, nor did I want to at the time, but since she was renting a house we had to get it all moved out as quickly as possible. She was blessed to have so many amazing friends, and people who barely knew her but had been touched by her life, who came and packed everything up for me, and moved it all across the metroplex in whatever trucks and trailers they could find. We stored all of her things in a garage at the apartment I lived in at the time, and it mostly sat untouched for a year until I moved and had movers bring it all to a new apartment garage (at M's apartment).

Finally, now that M and I are moving, I am starting to go through all of the boxes and sort through stuff. Sorry, this wasn't meant to be a sad post, I just wanted to share some of the things that I found! I'm happy that I will be able to incorporate my momma's things into M and I's new home :)

Lots of kitchen gadgets! I'm lucky to have a momma who loved all things for the kitchen (especially pampered chef!). This is just half a box worth.

Oil and vinegar containers that I turned into dish soap and hand soap dispensers! I saw a similar idea at a friend's house and thought it was so neat! Not only does it look way better than plastic bottles, you only get a small amount at a time so it wastes less.

I also found this hilarious note that I wrote to the tooth fairy when I was little. I think it's so sweet my momma kept it and it brightened my mood to find it while going through boxes :) My favorite part is "if you're not so busy..." haha!

I'm finally back!

Yikes sorry I've been terrible at blogging! Last week I was still pretty unhappy all week to be home from Florida, and really sad it will be another three months until I see my sister. I know I'll get super busy between now and then with school and other things though and it should go by quickly!

On Friday M and I went to the wedding of one of his fraternity brothers. It was really fun but I think that it made me realize I want a smaller wedding than I used to think haha.

While frantically shopping for my dress last minute (as in two hours before we needed to leave for the wedding), I discovered the wonders of the J. Crew and Banana Republic factory stores! We have an outlet mall near us (but an indoor one, more like a regular mall with outlet stores/other various attractions) and I have probably been there a million times and had never been in either one. My dress is from Banana Republic and was $25 marked down from $130! Both stores had so much cute and cheap stuff, I think I'll be returning for my fall wardrobe :)

Saturday M and I went apartment shopping! This was the surprise I was referring to in the previous post :) We found an apartment that we love (across the street from where he lives now) and have since gone back and forth on whether it's the right idea based on money reasons (on my part, my salary will be cut in half when school starts next month!). I think today I have finally decided we should do it and I will be able to make it work based on some news about my financial aid! I am so excited, we will probably sign the lease this week :) (Though we're signing the lease soon, we won't be moving in until mid/late September.) I am just praying everything works out money-wise and that everything that needs to fall together perfectly to make my life easier will do so!
(I'll post some pictures when it is for sure!)

After apartment shopping we went to dinner with M's parents and then back to their house to play some volleyball in the pool. I'm not the most athletic so I think my team was at a disadvantage, but it was really fun! I didn't take any pictures though :(
(I think I remind myself every day to be better at this!)

Yesterday M worked while I sat at home and crunched numbers and stressed about the apartment haha, and then we headed to a friends house to swim and grill hamburgers. The only picture I got...

Haha I had a tiny bit of meat left over so I made M a mini burger! I thought it looked so cute so I had to take a picture :)

Since M is finally on his way home from work, I'm off to warm up the dinner M's parents made for us so we can eat and watch last night's Trueblood! Have a good week :)

I'm back from Florida! I had so much fun spending time with my sister and playing with my nieces and nephew. I was really sad all day yesterday to be home :(
I was happy to see M of course but I just miss my sister so much already!!
More posts coming later this week, I have some news to share :)



(old picture obviously!)

oh happy day!

Linking up at Happy Home today with what's making me happy on this Friday!

Next week C and his family are going to the beach so I have the week off! I can't wait to get off at 5:30 and not have to work for nine whole days!!

Even more exciting, I'll be spending my week with these little loves!

My nieces and nephew :) I leave this weekend to spend the week with my sister in Ft. Lauderdale and I can't wait!

fourth of july weekend

I was so happy to have three days off work this past weekend and to not be going anywhere! We've had so much fun the past couple of weekends in Florida and at Lake Texoma, but I was so tired and ready to relax! That's exactly what I did all day Saturday and Sunday :)

On Monday M and I spent our day like this :)

After hanging out at the pool all day, we had Texas Roadhouse for dinner, yum.

We didn't go see any fireworks, but we did have fun with some sparklers at home!

haha we had so much fun taking these! It takes a lot of patience to make it work and we needed to be somewhere darker so we didn't look so ghostly.

Tuesday was my best friend's birthday so we went to On the Border for dinner and out for drinks afterwards! (She's the one in the flowery dress!)

(don't mind my eye looking crazy, it's the automatic red eye fix on iphoto and I'm too lazy to go fix it! haha)

I'm so excited the weekend is already almost here! Love four day weeks :)

friday randoms

Yay it's Friday! This post shall be super random and segue-less, as a warning. (I had to look up the proper spelling of segue, I don't think I've ever seen that word written. Not spelled like the two-wheeled things mall cops ride around on apparently haha.)

Blogger is not my friend right now. I know that changing my template before has not deleted all the blogs from the "blogs I read" widget so why are they gone this time?! I guess this is a lesson to actually press follow instead of just adding them to that list...

Also I am not happy with my plain layout like I thought I would be, unfortunately. Operation convince M to reteach me how to use Dreamweaver commences this weekend :)
A few things on Pinterest I am loving this week...

I made all these collages on picnik.com and it took like 10 minutes total! (I might be the last person realizing how awesome and easy picnik is.)

I am finally recieving a lot of correspondence from the nursing program with everything I need to get ready before school starts in August! Unfortunately they aren't telling us what books we need until we go to orientation the week before school starts! Everyone is annoyed because we all want to order our books online and try to get the best prices, since it's like over $1000 in books.

I also got some bad news regarding scrubs this week. Unfortunately they aren't going to let me wear the super cute ones I bought in May because they are considered "fashion" scrubs and we are only allowed to wear the plainest, most awkward fitting kind. Since I bought them so long ago, I can't return them either :(

This morning I had to go get some vaccinations for school and now my arm is swelled up like half a baseball size... Nursing school preparations are wearing on me this week haha. But I am still so happy and excited to be in a program, so that makes it not so bad!

I 'm so excited for the three day weekend! And I'm not even babysitting at all this weekend (not including tonight lol). And we aren't going out of town! I'm so happy to get to relax for three whole days :)

technical difficulties

I tried to change my layout to something plain because I was sick of the old one, and now all the blogs I read have disappeared! aghhhhh

also, what is this weird new footer?

weekend recap

This weekend was so fun but also really exhausting and I'm wishing I had a few more days off to recover!

On Friday night we headed to Lake Texoma. We planned on waiting until Saturday morning because M and the friend that was riding with use both had to work until 10 pm Friday, but we figured the lesser of two evils was staying up really late Friday versus waking up to leave at 6am on Saturday!

The cabin we stayed in was so adorable! Everything in it was miniature, it was like a little dollhouse.

Our tiny bedroom (with no room to walk).

Upstairs is a sleeping loft. Note how the stairs are twice as tall as normal stairs, which made getting to and from the sleeping loft quite dangerous haha.

I'm used to my DSLR now, I forgot how I ever took clear pictures on a point and shoot.

M's head wasn't far from the ceiling.

Tiny doorways that make me look like a giant.

I forgot to take a picture of the front, but here is one from Google. We were on the far right. Aren't they adorable?

Saturday we headed over to our friend's lake house to eat breakfast and load up the boats, then headed to the lake!

Putting the three boats in.

The one we rode on (M matches the boat with his bright yellow swim suit haha).

I couldn't get a good enough picture without getting in the water with my camera, but there were like 20 yachts all tied together. It was just like the country sond "Redneck Yacht Club" haha. The tiny (in comparison) speed boat in the front is another from our group.

We parked right off the island and just hung out in the water all day!

Saturday night we had planned to go to a bar called the The Island that sits right on top of the water, but everyone was so tired we just went to bed at like 9:30 instead!

We'll have to come earlier in the day on Friday next year so we'll have time to do it the night before.

Sunday we headed home pretty early in the morning because I wanted to be able to relax a bit before I had to work.
Sadly, C's grandma passed away a week ago and they were having a memorial get together type thing last night at her home, so I went along to help watch C. He was quite the party animal and kept me busy chasing him through the crowd all evening!

Afterwards, I headed home to watch the season premiere of Trueblood with M! They threw in a huge twist this season that I wasn't sure I would like, but it ending up being so good!


I'm so sleepy and sunburnt today, I'm ready for it to be the weekend again already!

oh happy day :)

Sorry (again) for the lack of posts lately! Our Florida trip was SO busy, and I've been trying to catch up on rest ever since (trying and failing that is haha). One day I'll put up the few pictures we did take when I get them off of both cameras/my phone and all in one place.

Today I'm linking up with Happy Home with all the things making me happy at the moment :)



I am so obsessed with Pinterest! I think I sat and pinned things for two hours when I got home from work yesterday. It's so neat and fun. I've always saved catalogs and taken screenshots on my phone of ideas, but this is so much easier and more organized!




My new Pandora charm bracelet from my sister and my first charm from M! It's a penguin :) I love penguins and they are kinda our thing (since penguins choose only one mate for their whole life of course!).




This picture of M playing with three of my nieces. I love that they love him too :)




That we will be spending our day here tomorrow! (the islands on Lake Texoma)




My new huge Vera Bradley tote that I got at the outlet in Orlando! It's so big and has so many pockets. I can't wait to use it for school in just over two months :)


And what's making me the happiest is that it is finally Friday and I get off work in an hour and a half! Even though I only worked four days this week, it has been THE longest week ever. C has decided not to nap at all, only sit in his crib and scream until he's hoarse instead. And then of course be terribly grumpy the entire day because he's exhausted. Hooray for Friday!