Bits and Pieces

Life has been a bit on the busy side lately between making major life decisions, getting Preston ready to graduate, working on the house, and Cohen starting to get more mobile. It's a good kind of busy but I will be glad when Preston is officially done with school and we can have more time for fun.

A lot of people have been wondering what our plans are after graduation so here is the scoop. Preston really wants to go to grad school at the University of Texas in Austin. It has the exact program he wants, a great reputation, lower tuition than most grad schools, and it is in a good area with a low cost of living. We have been praying about it for months now and we feel really good about moving to that area, at least temporarily. Unfortunately, because of the bad economy, the engineering program had an unusually high 1,100 applicants for less than 200 open slots and they had to turn away tons of qualified people that would have otherwise been selected. We were one of them. We were really disappointed and not sure what to do but after more consideration and discussion and prayer, we decided that for whatever reason, we still feel good about moving to Austin. We love Colorado and we have always talked about going back but for some reason it just doesn't feel quite right to do it right now. Hopefully someday. So the plan is to look for jobs in the Austin area and when/if Preston gets hired we will move down there. We will establish Texas residency and try again for grad school at UT next year. His second choice school is Texas A&M so if he doesn't get into UT and gets accepted there, it would be an easy move and we would still have in-state tuition. I guess we will see what happens. I have always mocked all things Texan, (including people, I admit) so it is odd that I am so excited about this.

So basically, we still don't have any definite plans. If he finds a job there it could be next month or six months or next year. He still has a job here as a backup, thank goodness, so there is really no huge rush to get down there. In the meantime, we have decided that we are going to sell the house when we move. We thought about renting it out but we would really rather not deal with that if we don't have to. We are slowly trying to fix things up around the house here and there before we put it on the market. A lot of it is just cosmetic, but hopefully it will compete well with other houses like ours when people walk through it. With Preston working and finishing up school, I have been doing most of the work so far...which is fine by me. Anyone who knows me knows I love to do stuff like that. Plus, a lot of the stuff I have been doing has involved being crafty and finding frugal ways to make our house look nicer and more updated.

PS. just a little disclosure (as in, don't have a heart attack when you read this)....I, Amber Hennrich, actually SEWED. Yes, you read that right. I sewed. As in, sat down with a sewing machine (I had to learn how to use it first) and sewed. I, along with most people, never thought that would actually happen, but it has and I have to admit I actually kinda like it. Well, I get really frustrated with it too sometimes, but for the most part, it has been fun learning something new.

I don't have any of the rooms completely done but when I do I will show you before and after shots because I LOVE the changes. But for now, here are some snippets of what I've been up to.

Kitchen Wall and Window Before

Kitchen Window After

Kitchen Wall After (made this from stuff laying around the house)

Other Kitchen Window Before

Other Kitchen Window After

I even made the tie-backs. I love them!

New Curtains I Made for the Living Room-anything beats the black ones I had there before. What was I thinking??? Oh, and I made these out of canvas drop cloths from Lowe's for $9 ($4,50 per window actually)

Fireplace Screen Before-(Please ignore the trash waiting to burned, how embarrassing!

Fireplace Screen After

Amazing what you can do with a little black spray paint and some wire hangers!

Area Rug Before (The black spots are from tank walking on it with black paint on his paws...long story). And yes, that's March Madness basketball on the TV. :)

Area Rug After-Yep, I painted it

Mantle Before

Mantle After-Still a work in progress but at least it has more color

None of these things is really a huge deal but sometimes it's nice to have a change. Once you see the whole room before and after shots of the upstairs kitchen, downstairs kitchen, and living room, it will all come together more. Today I am refinishing a desk (which I am sooo excited about-I'm going bold!) and attempting to slipcover our couch (yeah, I know, good luck right?)

Oh, and just in case this post isn't long enough already, here are a couple pics of Cohen, just cuz he's cute. :)

Isn't he getting so big!?! He's 8 months already!

PS. I dropped our camera in the tub after this shot. Talented, I know.

He can scoot around in circles and go backwards but hasn't figured out forward crawling yet.

He can't crawl but he can pull himself into standing position with no problem and he loves it!

Okay, well that's our life for now. More to come soon!