Where did the summer go, Grad School, and WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT IS ONLY 93 DEGREES OUTSIDE?!

Life is rushing past at a pretty rapid speed these days. This week is my first full week back at school, which means (gasp!) I have to work tomorrow and I have to stay all the way until 4:00 each day. It's pretty brutal. But my new boss started yesterday, and I think she is going to be a great addition to our team. So with some new changes around school, it feels almost like a whole new job. Which is nice and refreshing.

My grad school classes start in a few weeks, which is also going to be an exciting new change. I'm still meeting every few weeks with the head of our Lower School, who is serving as a mentor to me this year. She is such a great resource and is going to be such a valuable contact for me this next year. I am both excited and nervous-slash-borderline-nauseous at the idea of getting in the classroom sometime soon to teach some real, full day classes. Hooray!

Let's make this a totally random blog post and bounce around a lot, shall we? If you live in Dallas or Texas or anywhere in the entire middle of the country, you know that it's pretty hot outside. And I pretty much hate the heat with a passion larger than life. Well, I do LOVE going to the pool, but otherwise, I'll stay out of the heat thankyouverymuch. Well, I am a bit of a weather bug and like obsessively watch the local news every day to find out what the weather is going to be like each day (see also: Pete Delkus is my old(er) man crush). So I have gotten pretty into this whole When Will We Break the Record Streak of Most 100+ Days In A Row and Overtake the Dreaded Summer of 1980 (for which I was not even alive). And you guys, we are going to tie the record tomorrow and break it on Saturday! I've been watching this countdown play out on the news every morning, evening and night for the past 2 weeks! It is so! exciting! Every seven day forecast since like July 4 has been sure that we'll beat this record and go down in the books as the longest, hottest, most horrible summer in Dallas EVER and I was going to tell my kids and my grandkids and my great-grandkids that I lived through it.

But then. Out of nowhere. Clouds! We haven't seen clouds around here since May and they just blew in out of nowhere today and bam. We haven't hit 100 degrees yet today and it's not looking good that we'll get there at all. ONE DAY SHY of tying the record. Whahhhhhaat? We've suffered through 109 degree days and we can't even set a record?

Tragic.

Ok. The cat is bugging me to feed him and I've got dinner plans across town, so I'll end this rant for now. But, since you've read this far, I will sneak in a little surprise wedding photo, for no reason at all.

Just before making our big entrance in the Grand Centennial Hall of Lindsay, Texas. Holla!

Snapshots

366 Days Ago

Watching fireworks in Vail

Well, yesterday was our one year anniversary - holy scnhipeys! when did that happen? We spent pretty much the entire day driving home from Farmington, NM, which ended up taking right at 12 hours. It was the tail end of our summer road trip, during which we spent a week driving up into the mountains where, oh hey, it rains everyday! Everything was great though, and now as I sit here being lazy, I can literally see the piles of laundry that I need to start and then figure out how I am going to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow when my alarm goes off for work, after having spent the past 19 days sleeping in.

It's good to be home though, and I am even strangely looking forward to work tomorrow. I miss my friends up at my school, and our new Head of School officially started on July 1, so it will almost be like going back to a brand new place. Plus, I have no boss. And probably won't until at least August, so that should make for a stress-free work environment, right? I am excited about this school year though. I'm looking forward to starting my grad school classes (still currently "under department review," but whatevs) and getting some time in the classroom when I can. In fact, I am secretly hoping that one of the cute, young, married teachers in 2nd - 4th grade will get pregnant this fall and then I can take over as a long term sub for her classroom in the Spring. That could totally happen. Maybe.

But in the meantime, laundry. And then maybe at dinner tonight, toasting to 366 days ago.

Oh and. Because we like to have weddings every year in my family, check out my beautiful sister's beautiful wedding, which was on July 1, up in Oklahoma City. They had high's in the 104-ish range all week, but a true wedding miracle occurred when a big ol' cloud came out of nowhere and shaded the garden just in time for the ceremony. My ushering Husband was more than happy for a break in the heat as he escorted the guests and grandmas to their seats!

Awaiting Department Review

..... every time I check the status of my grad school application, it just says "Awaiting Department Review." Come on department! Review it already!

So I scrambled like crazy last week to take the admissions test, submit my application and get all the necessary documents submitted that I needed to officially apply. Now, how long will this department review take exactly?

Tomorrow we head to Oklahoma City for my sister's wedding. Whoa! That got here fast. We get back Saturday night and then leave for a road trip Sunday morning. So I'm packing for two different trips - one is an outdoor wedding on a day when the high is predicted to be 104 (ahhhh), and the other is a trip to the mountains where it gets down to 43 at night. So yeah. Pretty much everything is going in the suitcase at this point.

Last night we went to the summer concerts series at the Arboretum with some friends. It was 80's night and the Spazmatics were playing, so we decided to bust out some 80's poses ourselves.

All Work... and Some Play

Operation: Get the House Ready to Sell is well under way up in McKinney. We bought a new fridge about a month ago, which quickly gave our kitchen a whole new look. I was thinking that we would for sure have to put in new counter tops, but really, once that big, beautiful, shiny new fridge showed up, I don't even notice the laminate counters anymore! Next up on the To Do List was paint the exterior of the house. This was a chore I was more than happy to let Mark take over.


I took this picture while lounging on a lawn chair, sipping a cold drink and pretending I was sitting by the pool. And watching the painting occur. It was brutal, let me tell ya.

But it's not all work for the hubs. Don't feel too sorry for him. The very next day he was looking like this, as we were walking up to an actual pool.


The margaritas tasted good :)

Always There When You Don't Need It, Never Around When You Do

Ladies, I know you know all about this phenomenon/curse. It applies to all kinds of things - shoes, jewelry, books, jeans, bras, anything. For me, it is always the same thing. Dresses. If I am just strolling around the mall, perhaps looking for a gift or a new strapless bra or even tagging along with Mark while he shops for new work shirts, I will without a doubt find tons of cute dresses - sundresses, cocktail dresses, maxi dresses, formal dresses - and they will most likely be on sale for a decent price. Whenever I don't need them, have zero events planned that require a new dress or just plain can't justify spending the money, I am surrounded by many adorable little dresses. I'm not even seeking them out, I just find them. Sometimes I even try them on and ponder wistfully if I should buy them. There's always going to be something that comes up that needs a new dress, right? But, more often than not, if I don't have a reason or event or purpose for the dress, I just leave it and mentally remind myself to check that store the next time I need a new cute dress.

Well those days inevitably always come up, usually a lot quicker than you think they will. Weddings are the obvious events. I can always wear a dress in my closet to the many, many weddings I attend each year, but it's fun to get a new one every once in a while. Whenever I'm a bridesmaid (4 times so far, with 2 more on the calendar), I love to get a new dress for the rehearsal dinner, since it's my one chance during the weekend to wear my own sassy little number. Weddings are great excuses to buy yourself something new. So now that I'm the bride, I'm practically giddy with the idea of all the little splurges I get to make on myself this year.

Next month, my aunt and uncle are hosting an Engagement Party for Mark and me. We've invited everyone in our wedding party, as well as our closest friends and family. For the past couple weeks, once the invitations went out, I've been looking forward to shopping for a new dress to wear to the party. I've even been delaying it to an extent, because I didn't want to buy something too far before the party and then have the novelty of the new dress wear off before my big debut as the Bride to Be. But this past weekend, I could wait no longer. On the way home from the bridal show on Sunday, I stopped at the Galleria to hit up all my favorite spots: Nordstrom, JCrew, Zara, Banana, Macy's and any other stores that drew my attention. Well, I spent over two hours at the mall, going to EVERY SINGLE STORE and could find nothing. It's that weird time of year where, even though it's the middle of July and 105 degrees outside, all the stores are bringing in their fall sweaters. All the cute summer dresses were put on the clearance racks weeks ago with only slim pickings left. I grew more and more distraught as I left store after store without even a remote possibility of a winner.

That night I started to panic. What if there aren't any summer dresses out there anymore? I could wear one that's in my closet already, but that's no fun. And as the guest of honor (well, co-guest of honor) I wanted something really special. The party is a casual, backyard BBQ kind-of event (although we're serving Mexican and not BBQ) and we aren't expecting people to dress up (plus it will be August in Texas, still super hot!). I wanted a cute sundress or something short and summer-y. What if I couldn't find one?! I plotted to hit up all the little boutiques in town after work each afternoon, determined to leave no stone unturned.

Well fear not my friends. I did not only find the perfect dress, I found THREE perfect dresses. And I bought all three of them. Stay tuned.

Umm.. this seems to be a reoccurring theme around here.

Hi. It's me.. again. Being a bad blogger.. again. It's not that I've been busy (although I have) or that I don't have things to write about (because I do) or that I'm not spending much time on the Internet (because oh lord, I am). I have no excuse. So once again, straight from my laptop, here's what's been going on over here for the past, oh fourteen days.

Well, most recently, Michael Jackson died. Whoa. So strange. I am enjoying the Tribute To Michael that every radio station in DFW has been playing this afternoon and omg MTV is playing all his old music videos. It almost made me jump on Itunes and buy his greatest hits album. But then I remembered that I AM TRYING TO SAVE MONEY for this (kind of) big deal that I have coming up... you know, the wedding.

So since I officially brought it up, the wedding. It has and hasn't been consuming me. I go through waves where all I want to do it sit online and read wedding blogs and look at wedding photos and agonize over colors and dresses and flowers and decor and DJ's and more more more. Then I have days that go by where I don't want to look at a single bride magazine or even talk about it. We did set a date though, which I'm hoping will be the most difficult decision I have to make because lordy, it was a tough one. Spring? Summer? May? June? July? April? Soon? Far? Middle? Ahh. We have officially booked the church, the reception and the photographer. July 10, 2010. I want it to be less than a year away. I think then I will be able to really feel like its okay to start hard core planning. Because right now, I feel like every vendor who asks me "so when is your wedding date?" is rolling their eyes internally as i try to casually say "oh next summer."

I am so excited for our photographer. So. Excited. Check out his work at www.brooksblog.com. Mark and I are chipping in to cover the costs of the photos because its something we are so excited about and we want to have great photos, naturally. What I didn't want, was for my photographer to take up a substantial part of the budget, so we're taking on a large portion of the photo costs, which doesn't bother me in the least.

I took two days off this week and went to look at dresses with my mom and sisters. I wasn't too jazzed for it, because of the whole my-wedding-is-over-a-year-away thing. But once I started putting those dresses on and once they'd pin the veil in my hair, it got really fun, really fast. I have a good idea of what I'm looking for now. I even found a potential THE dress. But, I've got so much time on my side still, it's just going to sit in the back of my mind, burning a hole until I start looking again. I am taking off more time in mid-July and Mark's mom is going to come up to look with us too.

I also found some FABULOUS bridesmaid dresses that are exactly what I had in my mind. My sisters got to try them on and they looked adorable. The designer is offering a great deal for Summer 2010 brides, so I will likely jump on these pretty soon. But, that requires me PICKING A COLOR. This is all my mom talks about. Colors, colors, colors. We cannot do ANYTHING until we have our colors, according to her. I am really torn on the colors. I have some great options - but I'm afraid of committing to one and ordering dresses and then not being able to go back! One thing I know I want is naturals, greens and whites in my flowers. Green hydrangeas. White peonies. Bright green leaves. So I need colors that will match that. My two front runners are deep royal blues and rich plums/raisin colors. The cute bmaid dresses that I found come in both shades, so I'm weighing my options and trying to sell myself on either one.

Over the weekend, I started working on creating a wedding website. It was quite addictive. More to come, once it gets some more beef to it.

Mark found out this week that HE PASSED HIS PE TEST!!!!!!!! Huge news over here. Finally, he can relax and stop stressing about this stinking test. We went out last night to celebrate with dinner at Texas de Brazil. This was my first time at this place. Let's just say that by the time we left, I wouldn't even let Mark say the word "meat." I was beyond full. But it was Fabulous.

How on earth is the fourth next weekend?! We are heading up to the lake and I cannot wait. We haven't gotten up there even once yet this summer and Mark's brother will be home from Beijing and coming along with us. It's the first time we've seen him since we got engaged (or any of Mark's friends for that matter) so we get to celebrate.. yet again! My favorite part of the summer is going to the lake.. I'm glad it's finally time!

We went to my parents' house last weekend to meet with the priest at the church where we'll be getting married, and to take one last look at the reception site. While we were there, my mom and I did crafts while the boys branded the cattle. Yeah. Branded cattle. No one knew what they were doing. It was horrible and hilarious all at the same time. Mark was covered in mud and cow poop and he has an awesome farmer's tan to show for it too.

Work has been going really great and we've got some fun events coming up this fall. Plus the summer hours are completely spoiling me. When school starts again in August, it's going to be a rude awakening.

It's hot in Dallas. Like really hot. Argh. I am enjoying some quality time at the pool though. This summer is flying by, like always.

Fours

The lovely Sara unofficially tagged me on this little activity. And since she bought me a margarita last week, I figured I couldn't let her down. Here's what you do:

1. Go to where you keep your photos on your computer.
2. Pick the fourth folder.
3. Pick the fourth photo.
4. Share four things about the image (I added this one, to make this have four steps. Seemed fitting!)



1. This was taken in the summer of 2007, at the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. (in case you can't tell.. we chopped off poor Abe's entire body).
2. It's a pic of me and my three siblings (and a random tourist featured on the left).
3. This was on a night tour of the monuments around the city.
4. I secretly LOVE this photo because ohmygosh, look how tan I am!? Oh, summer. I can't wait.

Labor Day

Labor Day weekend was spent in Bartlesville, visiting Mark's parents. On Monday morning we made a quick trip to Stillwater, to surprise my sister. I called her boyfriend and coordinated with him so that me, Mark and his dogs showed up at her door for lunch. After some OK Mexican Food, we took all the dogs swimming at the lake. Mark's two labs learned to swim here when he was in college, and we were going to teach Wes's dog Finn to do the same.

Turns out Finn is a big baby! He can do all sorts of tricks, but he was too scared to ever jump off the dock into the water. He would wade in until he couldn't touch anymore, then he would turn back. After an hour of trying, we finally gave up! I guess he's just not meant to swim!

Take a look at the video I made that sums up our afternoon at the lake.


Swimming Lessons from Amanda on Vimeo.

Northwest

The fam took a trip to Oregon last week, to visit my brother up in Portland.  We made it all the way to the Pacific Ocean and took this windblown pic, which is a Christmas Card 2008 Hopeful.

We saw a lot of really pretty sites, like this beautiful waterfall up on the Oregon/Washington border.  My sister and I wandered away from the group to take in the scenery.  Her she is, drinking from the falls.

I decided to give it a try too...

Kelly decided to take a moment to wash her hair in the falls.

In Astoria, home of the Goonies, we realized she could also hold up boats as if they were sub sandwiches.  

It was a nice trip.  And it was a good 50 degrees cooler there than it is in Dallas.  Hello high of 106.

I Hate Packing

I finally made it.  As of 4:00 yesterday afternoon, I don't have to go work until July 7!  Yay vacation!  Tomorrow we leave for Galveston with my family to stay in this gem of a house on the water.  I can't wait to get there.  But before I do, I still have to do all this:

1. Pack.  Ugh.  My least favorite thing to do ever

2. Take a bridesmaid dress to get altered.

3.  Meet Mark for lunch (yay!)

4. Find this hair product somewhere.  I bought some in college and my little bottle just ran out.  It's perfect for the beach!  So far I've tried Wal-Mart, Ulta and Target and no luck. Does it not exist anymore?

5.  Play with Gus before leaving him for 5 days!  Poor little guy.

6. Clean.  I have leaving town with a dirty apartment!

This time tomorrow I'll be en route to the beach!  Which means, yet again, it will be a long time before I post again..

Last week I worked outside of the office.  Specifically from these two chairs on a white sand beach in Sarasota, FL.  It was fabulous.  Except for when the hotel concierge told us it would be a "short cab ride" to the beach and it actually ended up costing us $50 round trip!

Most of the time in our hotel room, we had this picture perfect view of the Sarasota Marina:

Except for when our view was this:

It seems they needed to do some painting outside, every single afternoon.

Disposable Cameras

Friends,

Do you even remember life before the digital camera? Remember when everyone would get a disposable camera and you would have to write your name with a sharpie on it so that you wouldn't get it mixed up with everyone else's? Last weekend I went to a Bachelorette Party for my good friend Stephanie. We went up to her parents' lake house near Gun Barrel City and spent three days working on our tans. I forgot to pack my digital camera, so I grabbed a disposable to document the weekend, like any good bridesmaid would. I had forgotten how much fun they are.

You can't take as many pictures as you want. You only get 24 chances and you can't review them to make sure the lighting was good and that no one got cropped out. You have to hold the little button to charge the flash for a few seconds before you snap your shot. You have to wind the film after each picture. The quote of the weekend was me yelling out "wait I have to wind my camera" every time I tried to take a pic. Everyone was forced to hold their poses for a little longer. Oh and there is no zoom. Well, actually there is. You walk a few steps closer.

There is also no instant gratification with disposable cameras. You have to take them to CVS, wait a few days, and then go pick up the prints. Who remembers life when it was like this? I am excited to get it developed though. There's that anticipation of all the pictures I get to see in a mere four days. I haven't felt that since I got my homecoming pictures developed back in 2000.

The B-ette party was a hit. We had an anatomically correct cake and a "surprise" lingerie shower. We played pin the pen15 on a poster with Mark's head taped to it (who all caught my reference to the Pen 15 club, circa 6th grade?). We spent hours laying on the dock with our swimsuits untied, all trying to avoid the strap lines for our dresses. We floated in the water on noodles that we unfortunately discovered were full of cockroaches (NOT cool!). We sat in the hot tub at night and talked about child birth entirely too often. We danced around to Whiteney Houston and sang all the songs from Moulin Rouge about seventeen times. We all got a little more excited for the wedding next month.

This, That and the Other

Summer is here!  We spent just over three hours at the pool today with Stephanie, Mark, Virginia and Roth.  We spent the time talking about everyone's plans for the near future and I'm so excited for my friends and all the exciting changes they have ahead of them.  The only bad part of the day is that I now look like a lobster.  Bright red and sunburned.  I've already mentally tried to plan what I can wear to work tomorrow that will make me look less than ridiculous.  I'm not coming up with much.

Speaking of work, we have a new Marketing Coordinator starting on Wednesday.  I am so excited to have a new face in the office!  On Friday, my coworker and I spent the entire workday rearranging our office furniture, cleaning out our desks and weeding through the files on our old Marketing girl's computer.  Today I went to Ikea and bought cute new lamps for our newly cleaned desks.  I hope it will really 'brighten' the place up.

Saturday Mark and I were in Muenster, helping my parents prepare for the graduation party next weekend.  Well, Mark really did the bulk of the help.  He and my dad spent eleven hours outside, creating a garden and leveling out the yard behind the house.  I watched a lot and brought them cold beers when they looked like they might die.  I also planned menus and decorations with my mom and made a few trips to Home Depot to buy flowers and supplies.  I think its going to be a great time next weekend!

Gus and I are watching HGTV, our usual pre-bed activity.  The weekend feels like it went by too fast, so I'm glad we have a long weekend ahead of us!  Best wishes to everyone for a speedy work week and a great Memorial Day!

May Day

How did it get to be May already? Working for a school, I still function on semester calendars, so I can't believe the "year" is almost over. I couldn't be more excited for summer to get here though. Here's a few things I have to look forward to:

1. Four day work weeks. Starting June 2, I get every Friday off during the entire summer. This could be the number one perk of my job. What do I plan to do with all those 3 day weekends you ask? Keep reading.

2. "Working" from the beach. My co-worker and I stated to get spring fever a month or so ago, so we searched for some conferences we could attend this summer in fun vacation spots. Well we just found out yesterday that our trip to Sarasota, Florida for a 3 day conference on fundraising was approved! We're working on going down a few days early to extend the trip and maybe even bring the boys along. Perhaps even a day trip to Orlando and.... Disney World? It's in the works.

3. Wedding fun. What would the summer be without some wedding festivities? I've got an engagement party at the end of May and a Bachelorette Weekend at a bride-to-be's lake house in June. Both should be fun times with friends I don't get to see that often.

4. More beach time. My parents have rented a beach house for a week in late June/early July. Hmm. Who's going to have the best tan ever this summer?

5. High School Graduation, Small Town Edition. My little sister is graduating Memorial Day weekend and my parents are planning a party to which they are inviting "half of Muenster." There's even guaranteed live music and all you can drink keg beer.

6. July 4th at the Lake. We're heading back to Lake Ten Killer this summer to spend the Fourth with Mark's college friends and their new boat/lots of fireworks. Once again, hellllo tan.

So that should get me through mid-July. Then perhaps some trips to visit all these girls who have moved away? I've been watching flights.. no steal-of-a-deals yet, but I'm keeping my eyes on the Ding Fares :)

Parrotheads

This weekend we are going to the Jimmy Buffet concert. No big deal, right? Wrong. Apparently this is some sort of cultural phenom that swarms of people flock to every summer, spending entire weekends tailgating in anticipation of J.B.'s arrival. Mark has been telling me for months that I need to get my act together and purchase my outfit for this occasion and I keep assuring him that I'll find something in my closet to wear. Yesterday he really started to put the pressure on, telling me I should Google Image what people wear to the concerts and then keep my eyes out for a good outfit. So I looked it up online and saw a bunch of Hawaiian print shirts, grass skits and flowered leis. OK fine. I'll get something new to wear, but I want it to at least be something I can wear again. I found this shirt online, which I think is going to be the winner:

We are hitting up the mall tomorrow after work to make our official purchases, but I promise we won't end up looking like these folks, courtesy of Google.

When I mentioned to my coworker our plans for the weekend, she gasped and said "Oh. I cannot wait to hear what you thought about it next week." She went to a Buffet concert in college with her then underage boyfriend and said swears she will never go again. I'm thinking it will be fun though, but the official report will come some time next week. Stay tuned.