House Hunting

House hunting is one of the most exciting, thrilling, exhausting, and frustrating thing you can go through. Jeff and I have began to look for "our first place". Being out here in Louisiana, it can be a little frustrating and depressing to realize how little you can get for your money. Being used to the market in Texas, it is eye-opening moving away; like the saying goes, "you never knew what you had until it's gone".

After a huge ordeal with one builder on the first house we loved (which is a story in itself) and fighting over Realtors, etc., we quickly came to realize this would be a tougher process than we thought. We found a wonderful Realtor, Jennifer with Keller Williams, who has been a "God send" to us in this process. If you ever need a Realtor, let me know, and I will send Jennifer your way. She has shown us countless of homes in different areas, price ranges, and styles. We finally found one that we love.

This house is going to be a "custom spec". This basically means that the floor plan is already planned out, but we get to pick the finishes. This is right down our alley. The house will take at least 9 months to build, once we meet with the builder and formulate the offer and details. This is perfect timing for us because Jeff still has a year left of school at LSU, which means less time he would have to commute to school at night, and we can take our time saving some more money and picking out everything we want. We can't wait to meet with the builder and agents to set up the start date on breaking ground! I can't believe I am going to be going through the home building process for myself! It can't come soon enough!

Here is link to the house that we will have built on another lot. Keep in mind that the floor plan will be the same, but the finishes and a few details (i.e. the hole over the fireplace for the TV and the awful tile) are subject to change.

Pottery Works

For all of you who know me, art is a huge part of my life. For those of you who are not aware of a place known as "Potteryworks" it is this amazing place where you can, long story short, paint pottery. I have always had a special place in my heart for these places, but recently become obsessed! I went with my friend Allyson yesterday to one here in Baton Rouge. I had to introduce her to this wonderful world of clay, paint, and little girl fascination. It sounds easy enough, but you quickly become overwhelmed by choices and your imagination begins to set into overload. After about hour 1 we finally decided what we would attempt, next, however, is to actually create this masterpiece we had built up in our heads. It is amazing how fast time flies when having fun! After the 3 hour mark, we got kicked out and had to go back today to finish. Allyson was able to finish 3 pieces in the time it took me to make my cookie jar! She made a Fleur-de-li platter, a bat for her friend she nicknames "batman" and an adorable tile with monkeys on it for another friend of hers. Needless to say our pieces turned out great and we can't wait to get them back after being fired! below are some pics of us creating our pieces today. I will post pictures of the final products as soon as they return.

Going blind from staring at the detail

Allyson working hard!

My cookie jar in the works


Allyson's monkeys "before" shot


Monkeys "after" shot... Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen??!!


Cookie Jar finished... front view


Cookie Jar... rear view (sexy, aint it?!)

Giving it a go...

Thanks to Allyson, I am going to attempt this whole "blog" thing. I am not much a writer, (as you will come to learn as you read my posts), and I know I will have countless grammar mistakes, so for all of you English "goo-roos", I ask for forgiveness in advance.

I guess I plan to use this blog as a way to keep all of you informed on what is going on in my life, because unfortunately, I am unable to keep up with all of my wonderful friends as often as I would like. So, I hope you all enjoy, and I promise I will try to keep it updated at all times with any new exciting news I may have.