Thursday, May 21, 2009

Hello Kansas!

Move in Day! Hopefully (fingers-crossed as I am auto-posting this) the trip went great and we are moving into our new location today! Think of us as we are lugging boxes up stairs and down stairs and wondering why of why we have so much stuff!

Hopefully I will be back soon with stories to tell...stay tuned as we get settled in to our new home.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Goodbye Florida!

We are now on the road - hopefully aleast half way or so - just wanted to say one last goodbye to Florida and its white sandy beaches, Disney world theme parks, alligators, lovebugs, lizards, palm trees...

...But most importantly a big goodbye to all of the wonderful friends we made while we were here. We will miss each of you and we will cherish all the memories that we made!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Moving Day!!!

Well, we are off on our new adventure! Goodbye Florida! Hello Kansas City!!!

Monday, May 18, 2009

The loading of the truck....

I thought this was hilarious! We are renting from budget so I hope our truck has a funny saying on it too!

Today is the day we are loading everything up, we are leaving early tomorrow morning and then the adventure will really begin. Kyle gets back from his trip to Los Angeles this morning and he will have no time to rest as we load up the truck! Kyle is fretting about my back and how it will hold up with this many hours in the car...but, I think it will be fine! I have my lil' back pillow and some meds if need be! Let's get this show on the road! Kansas here we come!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

It's 5 o'clock somewhere.

On my first day of vacation unemployment I am just sitting here in my delicious hammock sipping on a pina colada...
Oh wait! I am moving - not on vacation! Out of the hammock! Alright now - last minute doctor's visits, oil change, medical records and such and such errands, packing, packing and more packing..oh yeah, dinner plans, more packing, phone calls, checking things off the list (oh yeah baby! you bet there is quite a list going...you know about me and lists!)
So my blissful hammock picture really looks a lot more like this:


Well, I came about my unemployment voluntarily because my hubby and I are relocating for his job - but it still makes me cringe a bit (okay a bunch) to not know when I will be bringing in any income. So I am now on the hunt for work. I mean I need a JOB...like yesterday!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Momentous Days

Today is my last day at my job. Hopefully it won't be too long before I find a new place to work that feels safe and relaxed. I will miss this place and while not having to come to work tommorrow feels like I am going on vacation...I know that when I leave today I will be sad. I will miss the sweet and funny people and the caring and considerate bosses I have been blessed with. I will always cherish the education I received while working here and will always appreciate what they taught me...whether or not it all benefits me in the future. I hope that I won't work somewhere that requires me to draw roof details, or site and plumbing plans - but, if they do you can be sure that I will be prepared!

Maybe I won't find another place with Trapper Keeper 70's wall graphics and crazy Blue and Yellow accent walls. Perhaps I will choose finishes under one type of fluorescent lighting instead of a cool and warm combo. Maybe I will have to pay for my root beer instead of having a stocked fridge and all the peanut butter and crackers you can snack on available to me. I will miss the astronomical amount of diet coke that is drank here daily and I will miss The Biggest Loser rehash sessions with on Wednesdays. I will miss the singing and drumming that happens in the afternoons and no one at my new work will put the Christmas Hippo song over the intercom during the holidays...and somtime's not during the holidays...

Will my new work lower my drafting height desk to my exact measurements and buy me a special chair for my 89 year old back? Will they worry excessively about my chocolate allergy?

I don't know where I will be working or what I will be doing. All I know is that I am leaving a wonderful job and I will miss the people. I am on to new and exciting things and hope to find out exactly what my niche will be in this industry.
So, farewell Florida you have been good to me...aside from the health problems, car accidents and chaos. I fell in love here, got married here, grew up here in more ways than one and you know what? I even became an interior designer here. Thanks Florida and thanks SCMH I will always have you in my heart and in my mind when I am trying to remember the correct way to draw something.
Thanks.

Tuesdays Unwrapped...and my 400th post!

Today is my 400th post. I can't believe I have found that much to say....oh, wait..yeah I can..I can be super chatty. Well, I am celebrating this momentous occasion by playing along with Emily at Chatting at the Sky's Tuesday's Unwrapped. Here is what she asks; "Include a story or a photo documenting your messy, lovely, unexpected gifts of the small and ordinary nature."

While we are going through this big life change at the moment of moving cross country and starting over in a new place with new jobs, etc. I remembered this picture of my and my husband, we were having photos made for Christmas card a few years ago and this wasn't so much a pose as it was a special sweet moment between me and my special guy.

I love this photo for how it reminds me to slow down (even amidst chaos) and just enjoy this amazing man that I love. So, today (in this moment) I am unwrapping those priceless moments even when there is packing to do, and schedules to follow and people to call....for this moment babe - it's just you and me (and well, all my readers...wink wink).

Monday, May 11, 2009

Some Mondays don't feel like Mondays...

Today is my next to last day at work. The fabulous and amazing people that I work with have decided that if I must leave then we must have food to commemorate the event. They have ordered Macaroni Grill catered food in and a cake for us all to have today at lunch as a little going away party for MOI!

I was so touched to hear about the plan and now today my stomach is growling and I can't wait for the food to get here. I heart Macaroni Grill so this was a great idea. I have been really blessed to work with such a great company and such lovely people. It has a very professional atmosphere at the same time that we are able to have fun and joke around as well. Sometimes people play funny music over the intercom and other times some singing/ drumming can be heard from one bay to the other... It has been a great place to work and I will definitely miss everyone when I leave. I am still a little in shock that that day will be tomorrow. My things are boxed up and my desk is empty...as excited as I am to move, it is really hard to think that after tomorrow I won't have this secure and safe job and I will be out there looking for another job.

The Garage Sale?

It went really well. We got up at 6:30 (yes, 6:30 on a Saturday) and went to put up our signs. Then we started setting up for the sale and we had people there looking before we knew it!

We kept it going until 2 and then we called it a day, counted our gains and took the rest to goodwill. We did pretty well overall and really got rid of almost everything. We had a small box of miscellaneous and a decent sized bag of clothes leftover and we were happy to see them gone soon after. Now we can get to work on packing all the junk that we want to keep!
Happy Monday!

Friday, May 08, 2009

One man's trash...is another man's treasure!

Well, I wouldn't call our garage sale items "trash" persay, just the product of the insatiable American way - TOO MUCH STUFF. We have been overwhelmed at how much stuff we have kept but neglected to use - NOW is the time to clean it out and get it out the door!
We continued our packing and sorting rampage last night and I have to say that we are still doing quite well ( cross my fingers we might avoid the chaotic throwing stuff in a box cuz we don't care anymore routine that normally happens ). We are packing and sorting simultaneously and the living room is quick becoming a storage room of sorts - at least until tomorrow's big sale.

Tonight we are sorting and pricing and setting up the sale in the garage so we can get it ready to go bright and early (cuz that is just how we roll....well, not normally to be honest :))
I am excited and hope that we have a lot of people stop by and peruse our cast offs.

I personally like to go to Yard Sales. I love to scout for furniture that can be repurposed or refinished to be like new. I have done that a lot and furnished a lot of my home on a meager budget and a lot of hard work and black spray paint. I like to get out there and see what someone is getting rid of that I might be able to make work perfect for me. I am a scanner though! I don't stop unless I see furniture or something that looks like a Moi Project waiting to happen.

Have a Happy Friday and hopefully I will have a good report on Monday for you!
My work is throwing me a going away lunch on Monday ala' Macaroni Grill and I am really excited! Tuesday is my last day and then it is all packing and no looking back!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Thursday, May 07, 2009

The Moving. The Junk. Whose stuff is this?

Well, we went into the major moving and sorting phase last night after some delish free grilled chicken ala' Oprah. We are starting in the back of the house and working forward - although our complete plan of finishing both rooms was not realized last night, we did make some serious headway and our garage sale pile continues to grow by leaps and bounds! We really have A. LOT. OF. JUNK.

We sorted through papers and boxes just full of STUFF that we hadn't seen in a year (or needed for a year for that matter), and went through pile after pile of clothes. I have a feeling that one garage sale alone won't make a big enough dent in the stack - the rest will go to goodwill or something as we don't have the time to allow for garage sale number 2 and that junk definitely is not coming back inside once it hits the garage!
Tonight we are hoping to finish those rooms up and maybe start to creep our progress through the rest of the house - at least sorting-wise. Tomorrow we will be setting up the garage for the big sale and continuing our packing as it is our last weekend to pack as Kyle will be busy next weekend. Thankfully we have next week to throw it together - hopefully "throwing" it in an organized and easy to unpack fashion.

The best thing about this move is that my Mom will be meeting us in K.C. to unload and move us into our new casa. This is great because my Mom is the best mover ever. EVER. She is best at the unloading because she starts whipping things out of boxes and putting them away immediately - while I just stare at the boxes and decide how to live around them until I need something from them. K and I are the worst movers - it takes us FOREVER to get resettled, we just get overwhelmed by all the stuff (pretty much how we are right now as we are packing said stuff). To put it in perspective - we moved into our current house in July and didn't have company over until Halloween - it is that serious. She will have our kitchen organized and done before she leaves - I just know it! She will probably have pictures on the walls. If we can get things unpacked or at least organized - I will feel less overwhelmed and be ready to start the design and fluffy part where I get everything decorated and organized just how I want it.
I already have some great ideas for the new place (I can imagine my husbands frustrated sigh as he reads that line). I don't have a lot to do today at work so I have been sketching out some layout ideas and leafing through the new Ballard Designs catalog I received this morning (it is already chock full of cyan post-its!). I don't plan to purchase things necessarily from the catalog as I don't have the mullah that is needed - but they are a great source for inspiration especially for things that i might be able to do myself with a little scrappyness and a great yard sale find. Thanks to all the lovely design blogging gals that I know - I will get my ideas ironed out easily. Plus the bonus is that I will get to share my new decorating adventures with all my devoted readers (wink!)

Here are some of the MUST HAVES/ must figure out how to re-create stuff that I found.
These are not the colors of the fabric I would choose - but I love the little banquette seating for a casual kitchen corner.In the new house there is a little kitchen island with an overhang - I think a couple of these stools would look super cute (p.s. they match my kitchen chairs!)I adore this office - I might actually want to go in there if it was this cute (minus the rug)!

So excited to figure this out - maybe I will even post a sketch tomorrow if I come up with something I like. Happy Thursday!

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Moving...on.


I used to joke that in every semester of college I was someone different. I was still me of course but, every different semester posed so many new discoveries, challenges, environments, friends and dramas that looking back I feel that in almost every situation I was reinvented.


As a freshman I was a theatre major. I wore yoga pants to class because we had kineseology exercises (not to mention it was at 8am), I lived with my best friend, I was immersed in theatre and discovering all the newness that college brings. I also had a great crush... The next semester I switched to design, lived alone, and dressed up for class everyday (I also didnt have a class before 11 am). The next two were not insanely different but were definitely a departure from the first year as I lived with 3 other girls and the main focus of life was passing the entrance exams to the professional level for design and well of course...blowing off class to go to The City. I had a major family dsyfunction, 4 potent crushes and maybe even a bit-o-love. The next year I was recovering from my bit-o-love and was completely reinvented almost to being unrecognizable, worked insanely at both my job and school, barely slept, had a enormous year long falling out with my best friend and then almost with my other best friend and really ended the year not knowing what my future would look like upon my return. The next two are a little blurry..or slurry but they are by far the most important. There was a lot more love and the rekindling of friendships, a lot of leadership responsibilities and the biggest life change of all - Kyle.


All of this to say that with all those things that were going on in my life I was often almost a different person in each moment as I was learning so many different things about myself through each adventure. By the time I moved to Florida I thought I knew myself inside and out. And I did - as a single girl; but what I have learned in my time since college is who I am in a relationship and who I am in love. It was shocking at times, fulfilling, sometimes scary, and amazingly wonderful and is a time that will always be stored in a sacred chamber of my heart. I will cherish these years here because they are when I fell in love, became an adult, got married and began to learn what it means to share a life with someone.


I am so anxious to see what this next chapter holds for me, in what ways will I grow and reinvent in this new place? What new memories are there to make there and how far away will these years in Florida soon seem to me?


As we pack up our home, cancel cable, forward mail, and plan for this ever nearing life change what can we do to preserve this time in our hearts forever?


We have pictures, friendships and most importantly our memories but, as all things fade with time I hope that we take something with us deeply internal that will stick with us and hold these first years together unmoved and unfading so that we might take them out from time to time and just lounge around with them in our pj's.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

And so it begins!

Last night we started packing. It always starts out easy and lighthearted and then...as you open the next closet full to the brim with junk you start to slowly lose your mind - I personally start throwing stuff away and muttering about how we don't need this junk and how I wish we could just move somewhere and buy all new stuff so we wouldn't have to pack.

Well, we aren't to that stage yet but we have officially started the packing adventure. Last night we started going through clothes and organizing stuff for our garage sale this weekend. We are trying to really go through things well and to really stay organized with the move as we have to fit it all in one big Uhaul.

The two worst things for me to pack are the kitchen and all my home accents. The kitchen because I am wrapping everything carefully and worried about things being broken when we arrive at the new house and home accents because I always want to take them down very last. As soon as you take down pictures and curtains and knick knacks everything starts to feel so empty so I like to take those things down as late as possible so that things feel as normal as possible before we are ready to leave the house.

Things are getting ironed out though and we are making our lists of everything we need to do before the big departure - Can you believe it is two weeks from today?!?! Even typing that makes me really really nervous.

This weekend is our yard sale and then the next weekend Kyle's Dad will be here to help us load up and drive to Kansas. Time is just flying by! And next Tuesday is my last day at my job - now that is a whole other blog all together...

Happy Tuesday!

Monday, May 04, 2009

A place to call home...

We headed off into the great unknown last Thursday (the great unknown being Kansas) to spend the weekend searching for a rental home for our move in a few weeks.

We had about 10 places lined up to see over Thursday and Friday and we ended up looking at about 10 extra besides those! We had a pretty rough time overall as we kept hoping that we would walk into the perfect place and just KNOW that it was the right one for us.

By Friday night we were mixed on our top places and had yet to find one that we both totally agreed on and that really met our needs - by Saturday morning we got desperate and started heading back through the lists online to see if we missed any and also driving through a few more neighborhoods and calling the numbers on rental signs (we found quite a few to look at that way and the owners almost always met us within the hour). We were leaving at about 6 am on Sunday so Saturday was really our deadline.

We managed to go see one more place and when we walked in the door we finally felt the first shining moments of victory. The place was amazing and had everything we wanted and was in a great neighborhood to top it off! We called immediately only to find out that there was another lease pending on the home. AHH! terror! We knew we had to have it so the agent told us to go back to the hotel and fill out the online applications and then come to their office and sign a lease and put down a deposit and we could go into a little leasing war for the place. We were exhausted from our search and we designated a fall back place just in case and then we set off to try to get our application in!

So, we actually had to leave on Sunday without knowing if we got the place we wanted or if we were going to take our second choice whose location was not ideal. And then this morning we got a call and WE GOT IT!!! We are so excited and totally shocked that we got picked! I can't believe we will be there in just three weeks!

While we were there we also got to have lunch with all of Kyle's new co-workers and I got a tour of his amazing new office! And that same night (Friday) his boss and boss's wife took us out to Bonefish for dinner. It was great to get to know them and I am really excited for Kyle getting to work at such a great firm. Now, I just have to find something....

I actually got a few cards for design firms while we were there as well as meeting the designer who did Kyle's employers home. It was great to make a contact while I was there.
Yesterday we flew home and picked up our little furry guy from his puppy-sitters and were so relieved to be home. Home for now I guess.....I told Kyle that home for me is where he is so soon our home will be in Kansas. It is so nice to know that we have a place picked out to call home.

Happy Monday!