like

I just want to say that I love this quote from Meredith Vierra about empty-nesters :

"We did our job, as my husband points out repeatedly. You're supposed to give your children roots and wings, and their roots are firmly planted in the ground and they have a sense of themselves and of place and purpose. They have the ability to fly away from home and to test those wings and to start their own lives separate from us"

While it is SO great to feel loved by our families, we also get a lot of slack for moving away, not coming home enough, not living close enough to home, not spending every holiday with the family, and being 27 and still without kids.

SO, this quote makes me feel good as I hope this would be Josh and I's philosophy when we do have kids. Yes, that feeling could change once we became empty-nesters, but I would hope to parent with this mindset.

My little bitty cubby

I'm so blessed that I am able to work from home so I'm not complaining at all. Rather, I'm very thankful! And, I've been told I get to keep my job until at least April of next year. PTL! But, this move has definitely taught me a lesson on being organized. Not only have we moved from an 1800 sq. ft house to an 1100 sq ft house. We also only have 2 out of the 3 bedrooms available. Josh and I are now sharing an office. I went from a desk about 3x this size at work, to a desk about a foot wider than my chair!

The other bedroom is our storage unit! The military wouldn't reimburse us for storing everything so we took matters into our own hands :)

Getting used to calling this place home. I just unpacked my suitcase from moving. Yea, it's been about a month. Can you say attachment issues??

How to save money on a camera, NOW

I must preface this by saying that this is a Christmas gift and I'm not allowed to even touch the camera until then. It's even hidden from me so I can't find it. Sigh...
I just wanted to share this while the deal was still going on.

So, I've wanted a nicer camera for quite sometime now. So after researching, I wanted the Canon Rebel T1i ($554). But was easily persuaded into a small upgrade. We ended up getting the T2i ($589), just to have something to grow into I guess. Plus, Josh found an amazing deal on Adorama.com. So here is what we did.

We bought a package deal for $999. This included the camera, lens, canon printer (worth $200), a calculator ($10), and tons of software (worth about $400).

Because we purchased the camera AND the printer, we got a $400 rebate. So that puts us at a grand total of $599. Sounds like a good enough deal already right?

Well, we didn't really need the printer or the calculator. So, within one week, we sold them both on amazon.com, taking another $210 off the total.

Thus, making our $589 camera, actually $389. Now, if I really wanted to, I could sell the software, but I haven't had the chance to look at that yet so maybe later :)

Now, I just have to countdown the days til I get to open it and learn how to use it!

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Thank you, JP!!! Thank you, thank you!

love

There are many reasons why I adore my husband. He's everything I wanted in a man; strong faith, good personality, great eyes, great smile, sexy, great hair, great sense of humor, great job and he keeps me grounded. I love him more now than I did crushing on him many many years ago. But, last weekend he did something unexpected. He willingly took me to the Nutcracker Ballet and it was his idea. He also stayed awake through the entire thing. His brother was shocked, and even his mom said, "Man, he is in LOVE!" Apparently, Josh doing this is similar to those Dr. Pepper "I will do anything for love" commercials. I didn't think anything abnormal because he does have a very strong sweet and sentimental side to him. Boy, do I have some stories and love emails to prove it!

Every year I always talk about how much I loved the Nutcracker at Christmas time. He remembered. It is a fond childhood memory of mine when my grandma, Marj, would take us girls to see it at Notre Dame. It reminds me of simpler times when I had a semi-non dysfunctional family and how awesome that felt. Anyways, I had loved the ballet so much, I purchased the soundtrack back then and played it all the time. Last weekend, while the first half was a little fuzzy, I recalled the whole second half of the ballet in order thanks to that soundtrack! The ballet was absolutely beautiful. Such a great way to spend our first weekend on the Riverwalk as temporary San Antonians.


This is the view of the stage from the top balcony. We had much better seats than this, but the people downstairs were pretty adamant about no pictures so we snuck one from upstairs. Theatre was amazing!!!



Did you know? San Antonio was ranked the the 8th best destination in the U.S. for Christmas lights? It was very pretty and neat to see. But lights, without snow, you better make them big and bold! No offense San Antonio, but we have houses back home that have more lights than your whole Riverwalk. But thanks for trying to make it feel Christmasy!