534 miles

From our current home to our new home. And where is our new home you ask??

BEG and I are moving to LUBBOCK!

Yes, you read that correctly. BEG has applied and been accepted to the Petroleum Engineering Program at Texas Tech. We are super excited about this new adventure and can not wait to see what the Lord has in store for us. I will miss Shreveport terribly but am certain that our time out west will be wonderful. (I have never been to Lubbock so my opinion might change quickly from the stories I am told?!?!)

We are not planning on leaving until the summer so we still have time to get things straight in Shreveport. This is why the house is back on the market for those of you who were curious! Prayers please that the house sells quickly and smoothly.

Please pray for us as we embark on this journey. We are super excited! I'll leave you with the words of Kid Rock (slightly amended); "Well (we're) packing up (our) (bags), (We're) gonna head out west!!!"

CMG

Around the House

As of last Wednesday I am officially a stay at home housewife. It has been really nice being home all day but it is exhasuting!! Whoever thinks that it is relaxing not having a job outside of the home is sadly mistaken; taking care of the house is a job in itself (and we don't even have kids!!)

There is ALWAYS something that needs to be done around the house (laundry, cooking, vaccuming, yardwork, etc) and there is no excuse anymore for not getting it done. Even the pets are ready for me to get a job outside of the house again. They have never slept so well at night since I've been home all day long keeping them from napping!

We put the house back on the market a few weeks ago so it's nice that when they call for a showing, the house is already spotless and ready to show! No more freaking out and running home on a moments notice to vaccum up dog/cat hair, light candles, etc. It also allows me to take RHETT and George with me so they are not in the way while people look at the house. Hopefully someone will love it like BEG and I do and make an offer. We've got some irons in the fire that we will share with everyone later which will explain why we put the house back on the market but you must be patient!!

I went up to my old alma mater, Loyola, to put my name on the substitute list so I don't go completely insane being home by myself all the time. *It was so weird being back there. I haven't been back since graduation in 2002* This is only my 5th work day of not working and I am finding myself having conversations with RHETT and George b/c they are the only breathing things I come in contact with during the day (besides my sweet husband at lunch!) so getting out of the house a few times a week should be nice.

Please don't see any of this as complaining b/c like I said it is nice to have my days to do with as I please but since I am no longer getting a paycheck it's not like I can fill my days by shopping, etc. I don't sleep in, I have yet to take a nap, there's been no gormet meal for supper, heck I rarely even leave the house but somehow the day just flies by (and it feels like I got nothing done!) RHETT is really enjoying his daily runs (I was good about them before but sometimes they wouldn't happen if BEG and I overslept) and now there is no excuse for not exercising myself or him so hopefully we will both lose a few pounds!?! The house gets a daily vaccum so that's a plus as well!

So there is really nothing else to blog about b/c I haven't done ANYTHING except wash a load of dishes and bake banana bread!!

BEG and I are really looking forward to the next few weeks of doing NOTHING! It is so rare to look at our calendar and see nothing on the books (especially in the fall) but we are not complaining. We are having my folks over to celebrate my Dad's birthday which was last Friday while we were in NOLA on Friday for steaks and dove, yummy. Other than that, we are just watching the Texas-TTech game and hoping that the REBELS win their first SEC game (fingers crossed!)

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!

CMG

Re-doing NOLA as grown-ups

BEG and I headed to New Orleans this weekend for the OleMiss-Tulane football game Saturday night in the SuperDome! We met up with my best friends from college (Mandy, Mikki, Ellie and Whitney.) BEG/me and Whitney/Jake stayed with Ellie and had so much fun reminiscing our college days (especially our NOLA college days!) Even though the Rebels are the pits this year it was so fun to hangout with all my friends.

BEG and I can not go through Baton Rouge without stopping to eat at Tusnami. They have the best sushi and the best view hands down. Here we are on the rooftop of the restaurant with the Mighty Mississippi in the background.

We stopped at the airport on the way into NOLA and picked up Whitney and Jake. Once we got to Ellie's house we decided to head down the street to Superior for margaritas (and supper.)

We woke up Saturday morning and headed to the infamous Cafe du Monde for beignets. Ellie was in a kickball tournament so she couldn't join us. (Our photos are a little rough but remember we had Superior margaritas the night before!!)

Jake and Whitney

The game wasn't until 8pm so we got dressed for the day and headed downtown to the Quarter. BEG's favorite dining spot in NOLA is Acme Oyster house (and Jake had heard he needed to eat there) so we headed there for a late lunch. It was delicious as always! After lunch/supper we headed to Bar 12 where the NOLA OleMiss alumni were hosting a pre party. We ran into a few sorority sisters and drank a few toddies before heading to the Dome for the game.

These are the last pics I have b/c

I left my camera at the house so I

wouldn't have to carry it around all day

or loose it!!

Ellie, Whitney and me

Jake was our group photographer, so as soon as I get the "game" pictures from him I will post them! Or if anyone has a group photo (mandy, mikki, ellie, whitney and me) then please email it over.

So much fun girls!

Until next time.....

CMG

West Texas

BEG and I headed to Abilene Friday afternoon for the long weekend. His parent's birthdays are next weekend so we went to celebrate those and to hunt dove. I have never been dove hunting before (or hunting at all for that matter) so I was in for a treat.

We got in Friday evening and went to Casa, a Garrett favorite, for supper. I then suggested we go to the Cooper - Westlake game as I have never been to a west Texas friday night highschool football game (but I've seen lots of movies about them.) It was a lot of fun and a great game!

Saturday morning BEG and I woke up at 5:00 and headed to Sweetwater to meet up with Dan and the group we were hunting with. I had never been west of Dallas before meeting BEG and until Saturday had never been west of Abilene. I can honestly say that before Saturday I have never been able to see the engine and caboose of a train at the same time! It is sooooooo flat out there but I will say the sunrise/sunsets are beautiful!

For the morning hunt, I set up my chair and finished reading my book I started in the car on the way to Abilene Friday (it gets rather boring our there if you're not hunting.) The birds were few Saturday morning apparantly due to the thunderstorm they had Thursday night. Oh well, BEG still had fun and really loved being in "the field" again.

First bird of the day!!

We headed back to Abilene for lunch with his folks and to rest for about an hour and then were back on the road to Colorado City for an evening hunt. This time I picked up a 12 pack of Miller Lite and a new book and perched yet again. The boys had a little better luck in the evening so everyone was happy.

Looking for his bird he shot....

Found it, poor bird

After we finsihed up hunting, everyone headed to the Green's house (Dan's parents) in Sweetwater for a bbq. It was a lot of fun. All the guys that had hunted all weekend families (wives and children) were there so it was nice to meet new friends and visit with old ones. It was so nice of the Green's to have everyone to their home.

I couldn't get to sleep fast enough once we got home (I snuck a nap in the car ride back to Abilene). We woke up Sunday morning and headed to church with BEG's folks to meet the new preacher. We then went to the Country Club for brunch and then I headed home with Mary Lou to watch Lifetime movies and rest while BEG and Mike played golf. Once they finished golf, we headed to Buffalo Gap to met Papa and Mary for a birthday supper at Perini's.

Whew! I'm exhausted just from recapping the weekend! We had such a fun time but were ready to get home and sleep in our own bed! We've got a busy 3 days as we are on the rode to New Orleans this weekend to meet up with my college friends for the OleMiss-Tulane game in the Superdome.

Have a great week. Hotty Toddy!

CMG

Landscape Project

As my last post eluded to, the outside of our house is/has been in need of some lovin' and the time has come to finally give it some attention.

We (primarily BEG but RHETT, George and I helped some) worked all last weekend in the flower beds. We planted Indian Hawthorns in the front left flower bed to match the right one bed that we planted last year, moved the edging to make the flower beds smaller and appear less "empty" (they were just too big and always looked blah), and planted 4 Pear trees along the side of the house. Since the pine tree fell last year the side of the house has been pitiful looking. Some grass is finally starting to grow where the tree once was and in the surrounding areas.

Right Side Before (notice the cement edging)

Right Side After

(we moved the Sweet Olive tree and added "real" edging further back)

Side note: Another reason why the Garrett's and the previous owner's the Terry's would not be friends: it was brought to our attention by our neighbors that the Terry's dug up azaelas that had been there since the house was built and planted rose bushes!!! News flash: you do NOT rip up azaelas EVER but if you happen to have a moment of ignorance and do, you SURE do NOT replace them with rose bushes!

We went to a friend's house yesterday after work and took some pinestraw that we will put in the front flower beds and along the side of the house where the new trees are. As we have determined prior to this gardening endeavor, gardening is not my husband and I's strong point so we will leave our gardening to a few Indian Hawthorn shrubs, a hanging basket, 6 pots on the front porch and a red pepper plant! Hopefully we can keep these few things alive but I'm making no promises!

The beds really do look nice. I've posted some pics so you can see our work. I even remembered to take some before pictures!!

The pets helping, ha!

BEG digging up old azaela roots

What the left bed looked like before:

And the left bed after:

We are going to get some sod on Tuesday once we are back from Abilene to put where the edging used to be and to complete our exterior makeover.

Until next time.

CMG

Lovin' on the outside

I'm still trying to get used to the blogging world of taking before and after pictures of projects. Whenever we start a project I try to remember to take a before picture but I am failing miserably at that.

We decided a few weeks ago that we needed to side our garage/back of house. The paint was chipping/peeling so bad that it looked awful. We got a quote for scraping and painting it and one for siding it and we went with the siding. While they are siding the garage, Blake has been busy scraping and painting the other "pitches" and window seals around the house (Our house is brick but each side has a wood pitch up top.) They needed far less attention, just a little scrap and a fresh coat of paint so BEG decided to tackle this. What he has done so far looks FABULOUS!

There is/was a double window over the driveway in the back. When the people before us added a bathroom in the room above the garage they didn't bother to put mini blinds up before installing the shower nor shutters over the window after installing the shower so for the last I don't know how many years, all you saw were pipes and the outside of a shower, strange I know and quite the eye sore.

I don't think the people we bought our house from and the Garrett's could ever be friends. The longer we live in our house the more peculiar The Terry's become. Anyway, we had Leonard and his guys actually side over where the window was. It looks SO much better. I really wish I would have taken a before picture so you could really appreciate the importance of the siding job and just how tacky and tasteless the window was before.

They got all the "siding" installed today and they will start painting it tomorrow. In the meantime BEG and I are headed to Abilene for the long weekend to hangout with his family and friends and shoot some birds! This should be interesting as I have never even shot a gun before!! If this tells you anything, I went to Bass Pro and bought the cutest shirt to hunt in and already have my outfit picked out =)

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Labor Day weekend. Until next week.

CMG

Insomnia

is the pits! Here it is 3am and I am wide awake in the living room so I do not disturb my precious husband while he sleeps. RHETT is up with me and George is sacked out like his dad. I kept tossing and turning for about an hour or so, so I thought it would be best to get up before I awoke my "sleeping beauty!"

I slept great from about 10:30pm to 1:45am and I've been up ever since. I was waiting on Phil "the roommate" to come in because I felt certain RHETT would start barking when he heard the door beep and I didn't want to be woken up scared but RHETT didn't budge when Phil came in and I'm still awake.

One might ask what Phil was doing up so late on a random Tuesday night. Well, Phil and Will, our old roommate, were out celebrating tonight as they were transferred back to the Fort Worth office for Dale yesterday. They have to be back by Thursday. They are beside themselves but we sure will miss having Phil around, and RHETT sure will miss having Chloe to play with.

We will miss you Phil!

CMG