we're moving y'all

regular readers of this blog have probably seen more annoying ambiguous allusions to our future move than anyone should be expected to endure.  as we finally have 99% of our ducks in order, we're at last ready to make the announcement to anyone who doesn't yet know.

we're moving to texas!  more specifically, houston!  yeehaw!

i've visited 39 states in my life so far and texas is one of the 11 i've never seen before (though steve has already been there a number of times between boy scout stuff and his job).  we're both completely excited to head out on brand new exploits and we're slightly overwhelmed that it's happening only a month from now (yes, that's 2 months BEFORE we get married in michigan).

both steve and i have lived our entire lives in michigan, and it's hard to believe in just a few weeks we'll be packing everything up and setting up house in the bayou city.  i can barely sit still writing about it.

in honor of our future home here's a short list of some exciting things:

1.  i can officially cross "live in a place with palm trees" off my bucket list.

2.  last minute cruise parties from galveston.

3.  brasserie 19, underbelly, and whataburger, grits everywhere.  fish tacos.  normal tacos.  omg food.

4.  it probably doesn't get below -30 degrees all that often.  the same cannot be said for ann arbor.

5.  having a legitimate museum district and theater district

6.  access to new orleans (another place i've never been)

7.  the gerald d. hines waterwall + parks galore

but most exciting to me is simply being plunked in a completely new place, with completely new surroundings, completely new people, and completely new experiences to start exploring.  it's a big adventure we've got on our hands.  wish us luck and come for a visit; we can't wait!

fantastical possibilities

first off, allow me to apologize to all the lovely bloggers whose posts i've been missing lately.  things have simply been too crazy for me to spend a lot of time frolicking through the blogosphere.  what "things" none of you ask?  allow me to present them in list form:

1.  three. digit. page count.  ok, i know i talked about this one already, but next time you write 106 possibly coherently connected pages i'll let you tell me to shut up about it.  i'm damn proud of myself (proud enough to swear on this blog, which i try not to do).  i'm not sure if i'm proud just for the quantity of content alone, or the fact that a tiny quiet little part of me thinks some of it is actually sorta good.

2.  i'm planning a wedding.  it's rough.

3.  we're going through the necessary steps to get steve's car replaced (we're very lucky that my parents have been nice enough to hold onto my dad's old SUV for us to buy on the cheap).  the '95 monte carlo named herman simply doesn't get our vote of confidence to make it through another winter.

4.  wait, where are we going to be living in 8-12 months?  seattle?  charleston?  houston?  wait... MAUI might be an option?  what?!  could we really stand to live on an island 1/80th the size of michigan with roughly 2500 miles between us and the mainland?  could we stand to live with ourselves if we passed up the opportunity to move to freaking maui?  hold up self, this opportunity doesn't really even exist yet, but still.  all this madness makes it pretty hard to try and plan a honeymoon.  i don't even know what airport we'd leave from.  ugh.  first world problems times twelve.

5.  work is difficult.  sometimes i am given tasks that require taking information at face value and completing them without understanding why.  i am a stressed out, nervous wreck when this happens because i have no confidence that i am completing a task correctly unless i have a concept of how it fits into the larger goal at hand.  it's actually a fairly serious liability sometimes.

hope everyone is still rocking away.  doing my best to keep checking in.  we're hanging in there dreading looking forward to the upcoming holiday season, winter weather, and a whole lot of changes heading our way.  if we could just fast forward to thanksgiving 2014, i think we might actually get another couple days to relax.  any advice for trying to get through it?

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the things we are doing

after weeks of wallowing in semi-stressful boredom and painfully oppressive routine, it suddenly feels like we're hitting the ground running with tons and tons of fun things to do and think about.  

past:

steve spent a couple days in pittsburgh for an orientation conference.  though he didn't need much orienting since he's been working for some time now, he did find out a lot more information about the future of his job.  we are definitely looking forward to all the things to come!

present:

right now the big move is occupying most of our thought-space.  today is the day we are moving me and bert into steve's for our temporary housing situation.  pros:  walk to work, amusing cat exploring new spaces... cons: walk to work in bad weather, filth.  mainly we just can't wait to get moved out of steve's and into OUR place.  note to self: go look at paint swatches.

near future:

the reality of my trip to san diego didn't really hit me when i booked the ticket, but now i am super super super excited to get on the plane and go!  can't wait to see my sister, play at the ocean, and let my parents spoil me rotten with brunch at the hotel del coronado!  thanks parents!  nom nom nom.

additionally, steve has a trip down to texas coming up for work  (can i come stevedore?  texas is one of the very few states i have not visited yet), and we just got our invitations in the mail for our lovely friends' wedding down in virginia!

oh and now that it's august, that means students are back in less than a month.  as an official townie these days (ugh what a horrific thing to identify as), i have a love-hate relationship with the masses of students, but on the whole i think their presence improves ann arbor immensely.  it also means my very own personal girl with a dragon tattoo, cha, will be back in les etats unis and we can finally have a raucous girl's night out.  hoorah!

happy thursday y'all!

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