Brown Eyed Girl & Her Beau

Workin' Man

Today my wonderful husband starts his new job!! Yes, you read that right. After a long 4 months of unemployment, he has been offered a job! Hallelujah :)

I would be lying if I said this hasn't been a struggle for us but I feel like we've learned a lot about one another and how each of us handles things. I feel so blessed that God walked us through this little life lesson and that we made it! The one thing that amazed me is that Aaron never seemed to give up. He knew he would find a job. It just took longer than we expected.

We've got a lot of recovering to do now. Building our savings account back up, paying off my taxes, credit cards, etc. But we made it through the tough stuff and we will make it through this too!

Our family and friends have been amazing through out all of this. A special shout out to my parents. Could not have done it without them.

Below are some pics of the Mr's graduation day (2 1/2 years ago). He graduated on a Friday and started his work journey with his ex-company the following Monday. Now he is on to the next step in life :)

Love you honey!! Thank you for being such an amazing husband. I'm so proud to be your wife!

Lazy Saturday Mornings

This is one of the faces I wake up to on Saturday mornings. She is quite adorable, yes? We normally don't grant her bed access unless it's on the weekends, and even then, she's lucky if she makes it passed the warden...me

As you can see, she's quite tired. {yawn} or maybe bored.

"Why is this thing in my face at 8 in the morning??" "You know dad and I like to sleep in till at least 10!" And this is totally true. The dog gets irritated if she has to get out of bed before 9. As does Aaron who has come more than accustom to sleeping in late during this span of unemployment...

That's better.

Obviously he's not a fan of the camera either. Would this be the "talk to the hand (paw)" pose??

This is one tired pup. I don't quite know how he got on my bed to be honest. He's not allowed. Sheds way too much for my liking. That's why he's shedder chedder. But one look with those eyes and his daddy melts! Why this doesn't work for me I'll never know.

He's so ticked right here. I picture him saying so many colorful words that I can't post on this blog ;) And look, he's in my spot! How convenient. Oh Chedd!

What a life these kids have. Now how much sweeter would this be if it was two real kids?? Aww pretty sweet. But not nearly as quiet I bet.

Here's the big bear. He is in his deep slumber. Totally doesn't even realize that I'm taking this only to post it on my blog the next Monday. Oh the joys of a deep sleeper!

And yours truly. Gotta love the $5, 5 year old, Old Navy sleep tank

Mmm, breakfast. This is what Saturday mornings are all about. Fun times with the pups and a sleepy hubs!

Now, can someone please reassure me that we are not the only family that allows our pups on the beds occasionally?? I did tell A that they might be banned from our room after seeing how hairy our wood floors get! It's a non-stop cleaning process with these two. Especially the orange one. He looks cute but that dude sheds like no other.

I will now be back to regular posting! As you can see, my wonderful and amazing friend Lauren gave me a blog update :) She is just awesome. And fast to boot. She is really getting good with her Photoshop and has some extreme talent! She is such a sweet person and I am so thankful for our friendship. This pic was taken on her wedding day almost 3 years ago! Love ya Ski!

New Look, New Beginnings

Hi! This is Lauren over from Life with the Rudys and I am surprising my good friend Nicky T with a new look for her blog. She hasn't seen this design yet and doesn't exactly know that I was planning on writing a post for her so I hope she likes it and isn't mad :)

I wanted to give her something fun and bright for a few reasons. One, Nicole is such a happy person and needs a blog design that reflects her personality. Two, I'm hoping a new look will give her the motivation she needs to start posting more often. And lastly, because her and A have had a couple of hard months and I'm hoping this cheers up her and makes her smile :)

Here's to a new look and new beginnings with your blog and your life! Hope you like the new look :)

-Ski

Everthing happens for a reason

Those are 5 of the hardest words to hear. Most likely you've heard them when something bad has happened in your life. Your boyfriend breaks up with you, you lose a loved one, your car breaks down, the loan on your first home falls through, you or your spouse loses their job, etc. Those words are hard to swallow when you have gone through something painful. Sometimes they seem so nonchalant and to almost roll off someones tongue. We've all said it before and probably felt pretty good about ourselves after saying it. We feel like we've really helped out the person in need. As if we always have the right thing to say. But when you're on the receiving end it's a different story. You wonder if the person really understands the state you're in and just how discouraged you are. Not that you needed to hear something extremely profound, but "everything happens for a reason" doesn't exactly call for an immediate mood change.

My knee jerk reaction, as I'm sure most peoples knee jerk reaction, is to turn negative when I hit a bump in the road. I know better than to let my emotions get the best of me and think the worst but I still allow the worry and anger and fear set in. After 10 minutes or so I calm down and bring myself back to my "God has a plan" mantra. But those initial 10 minutes can be futile.

This is all stemming from Aaron's job situation. He has been working hard getting his resumes out and staying on top of any job openings for the last 3 months. He had one promising job but it was in Austin. And he has yet to hear a solid answer on it. You can imagine our excitement when last Thursday he received an email regarding a job interview at a different company here in Houston! It had been 3 months and he finally received a bite on something!! It was a happy day! Fast forward to this morning. The morning of said interview. He gets an email saying they will have to reschedule because the manager is not able to meet with him today due to jury duty. Is this for real? My automatic reaction was they must have found someone else and they are letting him down easy. They won't reschedule and the job search will have to continue! All negative, see? Now I do realize that jury duty is common and it does happen. It's just tough to accept another set back.

What's worse is I had told everyone, in my sheer excitement, about the interview (that wasn't) so now I would have to send word that it was not in fact happening today. Of course my emails, chats and calls weren't exuding positivity. I was down. But leave it to my momma to send me back a powerful email that really made me stop and think:

Wow...I am so sorry honey. When I saw the subject on my phone I thought this can't be good news. But it isn't bad either it's just a delay. Another opportunity to trust God that He will not forsake you and He won't. Jury duty happens (Hey, I think we should make a tee shirt that says that!) and it won't last forever. Maybe the guy will get sent home today and he can schedule it for Thursday. Think positive and thank God for another opportunity to trust in Him and remember God loves you and so does Robert Schuller! Love you!!

She's good, right? Kind of corny with her t-shirt comment, but she's good :) "another opportunity to trust God that He will not forsake you" I love that she put it that way. I never see the bad things in my life as an opportunity to trust God. In fact, sometimes I get angry at the big guy. But today, I am going to think of this as an opportunity to continue putting my faith in God and trusting that He knows what path we need to be on. Maybe the interview will be rescheduled, maybe it won't. I have no control over it. But the one thing I can control is my faith.

Thank you all for sticking through the last few mopey posts. I am in fact a fun person and not everything is gloom and doom! I just wanted to share a piece of my life on here so in three years when I am sitting at home taking care of our babies and Aaron is at work at his amazing job with a great company I can look back on this and smile :)

With a moo moo here....

Last weekend we were lucky enough to get invited to the farm. Lauren's in-laws farm to be exact! Nothing like a little country living :) We had so much fun! It was really nice to get away from all the highways and city living. We arrived on Saturday morning and the ladies loaded up and went antiquing while the men stayed behind and did manly things. I didn't really know what to expect while perusing the old artifacts but we actually ended up stumbling across some descent stuff. It wasn't antiques, but still good nonetheless.

When we got back to the barn, the cows were out and about. Now, I love me some farm animals! Love love! After a few rides on the gator (which by the way, Lauren is kind of a scary driver...) I took after the cows. Literally stalking them in the field. The dogs loved them too. The cows however were not quite as fond of the pups.

We ended the night playing a few rounds of cornhole and then had some steaks. Such a fun time!

I hope we're invited back again! I think the cows miss me :)

Privacy please

With Aaron's recent unemployment there have been many questions asked that I'm not sure how to answer. You know the questions where you feel like people might be overstepping their bounds a little. Money questions are never fun and it always throws me for a loop when asked. First came the unemployment questions: How much does he get? Can you all survive off your check and unemployment? Does unemployment cover what he was making at his prior job? Now I dont know if these questions are asked out of concern or nosiness, but how much information is too much to share? I was raised in a family where I knew nothing about how much either of my parents made. We just didn't discuss that. I knew we got by and I never went without and that's all that was really supposed to matter. Was I curious? Heck yeah I was. But I didn't dare go to my dad after dinner and ask him what he was bringing in on a monthly basis! I don't know if this was good or bad, but it's left me a little guarded when others ask me questions like that. I normally share everything, but Aaron would prefer I not. He doesn't like talking about how much we paid for our house, what our mortgage payment is a month, how much we make, what we tithe, bonuses, etc. And I completely agree and respect that. I know I have been one to open my mouth on more than one occasion on some of these points. It's hard not to sometimes and I'm not the type to say, none of your business.

When Aaron got offered the job in Austin, the questions started rolling in about how much they offered him. I think this is incredibly out of line personally but some people don't get it. What does it matter to anyone else how much he's getting paid? Is it so they can compare it to their own salary? My coworker does this to me a lot and I now see it as pure immaturity. She asked me on the spot how much I was making, has asked me how much my bonus/raise was, and most recently what my share is in a new deal my company is offering. I tell her it's personal or private and it's not something we need to disclose but she won't take that for an answer. Of course she found out what I made and it happened to be a little more than her and it was all down hill from there. That's why you don't discuss this stuff! It does nothing but cause problems. She now compares everything even our work ethic and I feel she thinks she does more than me and works harder, therefore she should be getting paid more. Some things are just meant to be private. I would NEVER ask someone how much they are making. If it's offered up, OK, fine. But to flat out ask someone about their salary or benefits is crazy to me. When I worked contract for my old company, if you were to discuss your date rate with your peers it was grounds for termination. You better believe that was something that was never discussed in our offices.

So I ask you, blog world, how do you handle questions like these? What is an appropriate answer, without sounding rude? Or maybe you are the type that doesn't see anything wrong with sharing this information? I'd love to know!

From my computer to yours

Just a few tid-bits from N&A.

I hope that one day I can look back on this part of our lives and laugh. A lot. Right now, not so much.

Aaron is still on the job hunt. He has been blowing and going getting his resumes out there - much like the little engine that could. I'm impressed that he hasn't torn all of his hair out sitting at home for the last 8 weeks (crap that's a long time). He's not want to revel in the fact that he's at home all day, as I might. He hates it in fact. But it has its perks. Like picking up my shoes from the shoe doctor, my prescriptions from the pharmacy, clean house, etc. The pay sucks though.

He did get a couple of job offers. One in Dallas. One in Austin. Where are all the Houston jobs, people?? The one in Austin is the only one we are considering. It's a great job and something he would love to do. We are still waiting to hear back from the company on a finalized start date but during the interview he was basically told the job is his if he wants it.

Great, right?? I mean, it is a job. But it's 2.5 hours away. And I can't leave my job for certain reasons. I'm kind of locked in on a deal that I can't really pass up right now. It's all great news on both ends, but it's a lot of decisions to make. Can I be apart from my husband M-F and see him on the weekends? I'm sure a lot of people would be OK with that. I even am when I go look at our bank account and get a big dose of reality.

BUT, Aaron is my bud, were like BFF's. He's who I lean on when I have a crappy day at work. I'm not necessarily close (distance) to my friends/family. I have some great neighbors, but I doubt they want to see me every single night. We did it in college, so I know we could do it again, but that's not to say it won't be rough. I've talked to everyone under the sun about this and gotten their advice on what they would do, but in the end it's our decision and we need to make sure it's what's best for the two of us.

Plus side to Austin job: Money!, We love it there, I'd be able to go shopping again, I could control the TV (alhough A would argue that I do this already) and I might lose a lb or 2 since I wouldn't be cooking manly meals. I could go on the Special K/Lean Cuisine diet like Lauren :)

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In other news:

We joined a small group a couple of weeks ago and so far it is amazing! We absolutely love it and our group is so much fun. We hosted at our house last Sunday. I had all sorts of nerves going on but it ended up going great and I am now realizing how important it is to have something like this in our lives. Why did we wait so long to do this?? Obviously we were a little scared to take that next step in being more involved in our church. It's slightly branching out of our comfort zone. We enjoyed going to church Sunday morning, worshiping with our amazing praise group, listening to the words of our pastor and then heading out the door for lunch. But with this group we are actually meeting people and forming relationships with couples that are in the same stages of their marriage as we are. Pretty exciting, indeed!

I love my pups. I seriously think after our latest addition, Mr. Chester, my baby fever has been cured. Can a dog really do that? I was all gung-ho to have a bambino and then we got our little cheeto and now my fevah is drained. I know I still want babies, but I really wanted them about 6 months ago. It better come back, I'm not getting any younger here!

Well, that's all I got. I'll quit boring you with randomness and let you get on with your lives. Hope everyone is having a fabulous week!