Busy bee

I've had a bit of a busy week since my last post. We are on our third week at our new home and it is coming together little by little. We have planned our housewarming party for this weekend and trying to get a few things situated. Except our living room is pretty empty right now. Still no sofas, we are still sitting on our lawn chairs.

We are hoping to get a phone call from the furniture store to inform us that our sofas are in and ready to be delivered. Crossing fingers that tomorrow will be the day.

As for our dinning room, here is a picture of it with no decor.

I've bought a few items but we still need to paint. Leaning towards a burnt orange but that will happen some other day. I'm going for a vintage/rustic Tuscany theme throughout our kitchen and dinning room. We have taken a couple of trips to the antique stores and flea market (Pearland) to find items and have actually bought a few pieces. I will post pictures once I am finished with painting.

Other than house decorating & organizing, we had a good weekend with friends. Friday night we went over to a friends house and oh my god... we ate one of the best sandwiches ever. Mike and Roxxi really hit the spot with their grilled chicken three cheese sourdough sandwich. Need I say more?? They made their own sauces from scratch, some type of spread for the bread, spicey ketchup, and another hot sauce.

I can't wait to make it myself! Saturday, we woke up early in the morning and took a trip to the flea market. Later that evening, we headed out to our good friends Mike and Karina's baby shower. We had a great time full of laughter and so much food, thanks to our friends Juan Luis and Vegsady. Another night with tasty food. We had pork chops, brisket, sausage, chicken, ribs, dirty rice, mexican rice, potato salad and charro beans. Yes, ALL that food! We were so stuffed! We ended the night or should I say morning with LCR dice game. Such a fun night. We can't wait for Baby Jocelyn Odalys to arrive!

Sunday, we had another event. Our good friends Cynthia & Rigo were throwing a birthday party for the adorable 3 year old son Nathan. I loved the theme! It was at a Vintage Firehouse Station in Humble, TX. They had vintage fire trucks and took the children for rides. I took my niece Emily and nephew Noah. They had such a fun day and really enjoyed themselves.

We had a great weekend. We are exciting for the upcoming weekend, we are having our housewarming party. Our family and friends will all be here. We can't wait to have everyone over and host our first party. I'm hoping our neighbors are not too bothered with all the noise and traffic that day. Wish us well! That is all for now. Hope to post again with a post talking about a successful party and more decorating projects.

Buh-bye Blog readers! Until next blog.... XoXo, Judy 8A

We are FINALLY new homeowners!

How exciting! My husband and I have finally closed out on our house. We had started our house search before we got married in April 2011. So we had been searching for a little under a year already. It was a bit of an overwhelming experience. Once we got married my husband moved in with me at my parents house & we lived there for about nine months. After looking at so many houses and not being able to close out on any of them, I was starting to get anxious & lose hope. Once we found a house we liked, we placed a bid & was told there was many bidders & we would have to raise our bid. My husband & I didnt want to go any higher & thought to ourselves this house wasn't for us, so we continued our search. A few days later our realtor calls me to let me know the seller had accepted our bid (without having to raise our bid). Go figure! We went back to take a look at the house one last time & decided to move forward with the house. Time passed & we had to fill out a few other forms & ran into a few situations in between. Our house inspector gave us FREE service after my husband waited on him for about 4 hours after our appointment time. I was dissapointed & emailed them a not so nice email but our inspector was kind enough to take it upon himself and after he was done with the inspection told my husband there was no charge. SWEET! Then days later we were told the appraisal of the home was almost $10k less that the sell price. We panicked as the deal could go either way. The seller could either deny us & not want to sell the house at the appraisal value OR accept & we would be buying a home for a lot cheaper than we expected.

Well they accepted & we ended up signing our paperwork on January 5th, 2012. A great way to start off our new year! Once we signed our paperwork, we were called in less than an hour that it was a done deal & we could start moving in. It felt surreal! We immediately picked up the key, went to a furniture store to pick out our furniture, ran to my parents house to start loading up our vehicles. Luckily, we were prepared & had packed most of our belongings in boxes/bins. Good thing we had asked for a couple days off from work & then we had the weekend to get a chance to move in. It was an exhausting 4 days but we were extremely excited. The first few days it took us a while to settle in. By Monday, we had to return to work & that's when it hit us. Waking up in our bedroom, making breakfast & coffee before work, our new route to work & then coming back home to our new house to cook & clean. We loved it, despite the chores.

Were at our second week in our home and we couldn't be any happier. We are still trying to decorate & settle in. So far, our dinning room table/chairs and new TV & TV console have been delivered. For now we are having to sit on our elegant & comfortable lawn chairs. NOT! Were hoping to get our living room set soon to make our downstairs complete. Now the upstairs, will have to wait. I love to decorate, I have so many ideas of what I want to do but now that I have a home to decorate I feel overwhelmed. I get to make the decisions on what color will our rooms be, what room theme we will have in each room, what picture frames will go up, etc. Luckily, I have found an awesome website (Pinterest), that has helped me come up with a few DIY projects and decorating ideas for our home.

Now that we have made this huge step in our lives, what is next?? Some people say to get pregnant, others advise that we wait & enjoy our marriage. For now, we are living day by day. If God decides to bless us with a child, then so be it. I know what ever comes our way, we will accept it with arms wide open. God knows the best timing, just like he knew when was the best time for us to find our home. When I think back to all the dissapointments that we went through while we were house searching, it makes me realize it wasnt our time yet. Everything has fallen into place! So whether we end up pregnant in a couple of months OR decide to enjoy our marriage in our new home or to travel, we are living in the moment for now.

Sometimes I want to pinch myself because it feels so unreal. I never thought I would see the day I would be proposed to, my wedding day, or have a house of my own. Here I am, looking back at those moments that I never imagined. Let's see what God has in store for us next..... Cant wait for our Housewarming Party!!!

Thanks once again to my readers. Love, Judy 8A

New Year, New Me... but SAME Goals

My title might sound cheesy but for some reason we tend to feel as if a new year is a fresh start for us to come up with goals for ourselves that we didn't accomplish the year before. Just like every Monday is a fresh start to begin the diet we ruined in between the week. It's a mind game but we all fall for it and use it as an excuse.

So here is my New Year's resolutions as a start off for my first blog post EVER.

#1- Lose Weight: This is my all-time favorite & least favorite of my resolutions. It's a love and hate relationship. It's an amazing feeling to see the pounds shed & start fitting into those smaller jeans you never threw away because you would hope you could fit into them one day. But you hate it because you get stuck to a routine of eating habits & exercise. I've joined a running team with friends (Tutu Runners Club) and the plan is to train at least 3 times a week. My goal is to lose 50 lbs from now until summer time.

#2- Travel more: I can count the different vacations (outside of Texas) I've experienced in one hand in these 27 years of my life. Playa de Carmen, Mexico; Las Veg, Nevada; Cruise to Jamaica and Caymen Islands; Aloha/Portland, Oregon; Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas (parents hometown); Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Wait that might of been two hands, you get my drift. Anyways I have a few vacation spots on my list I would like to explore in 2012. Possibly Florida and Colorado.

#3- Photo a Day: I've decided to join the Program 2012 on Flickr to capture one photo a day with my Nikon D40 or my Android Revolution. I'm hoping to keep up with it & get a chance to reminisce the good moments that I was able to capture. Also when I can I will try my best to use my D40 to practice & improve my photography while I'm at it.

#4- Go to college: I took basics back in 2002-2003 but didn't finish and never returned. I'm undecided on a major and that holds me back from going back. Hopefully I can at least finish my basics for now.

#5- Get closer to God: I feel like I have fallen off the Godly path many years ago(to be exact about 10 years ago). I attended a retreat at my brother's church back in June 2011 and enjoyed it tremendously. It was a great experience and an eye opener. Both my husband and I attended, we started going to church every Sunday. I felt amazing but little by little we became lazy and came up with excuses not to go. I want to get back to it & have a closer relationship to God.

#6- Volunteer: I want to become a good samaritan to those in need. Especially those in my community. I dont have a lot of money to give but I can try my best to provide and give the little I do have. Even if it's my time.

#7+ - & Etc: Many more small goals that I want to accomplish but I'll be here forever picking at those smaller issues that.I want to improve in. That is all I have to say my blog readers. I hope I didn't bore you too much. I'm hoping to come up with new topics as much as I can. I'm not sure if my life will be interesting enough but it's my simple & normal life. Thank you for reading.

Sending Peace & Love, Judy 8A