a hodge podge of thoughts

While I wait for a more interesting blog to post, I thought it was about time for another brain dump.

* I'm still a little burned up about that Elizabeth Becton thing from the last post.

* I am working on putting together a blog for you nice folks that I think you're going to really like. It will probably be my next post, but I didn't really have the time or energy to put into it today.

* I have recently begun a love affair with a store called HomeGoods.

* I wouldn't exactly say I'm an accomplished chef yet, but I definitely feel that married life is allowing me the opportunity to become a much better cook than I was before.

* I secretly wish that I was a ballerina.

* If I could go back, I would have gotten into ballet as a kid and not cheerleading. All cheerleading ever got me was lots of bruises, bad wrists, and flexibility that I lost years ago.

*While letting my ipod play on shuffle the other day, a christmas song popped up, which now has me counting down the days until Christmas.

* 3/4 of my excitement over Christmas is the thought of getting to put up our own tree this year.

* The other 1/4 is excitement over getting to wrap presents, listen to Christmas music, sip hot chocolate and be with my husband and family on Christmas day.

* I am now a little depressed that it's still unbearably hot outside and Christmas is months away.

* It has been over 100 degrees in San Antonio for 51 days straight, and this one is looking to be number 52.

* The hotter it gets in Texas this summer, the more Maurice can get away with talking about schools in insanely cold cities. Right now, we are giving serious consideration to Denver, Chicago and Minneapolis. I'm not even making that up.

I think that's enough for today. Until next time!

A Word on Human Decency... an open letter to Elizabeth Becton

There are some pretty ridiculous stories in the news today.  (Insert obvious joke about how Obama's healthcare plan is the most ridiculous of them all)  But today, I read a story that gave me a particular disdain for people who lack common human decency.  

We live in an age of political correctness... of walking on eggshells so as not to offend any particular group who might take any particular offense to any particular thing that anyone might have said without knowing that any particular individual or group finds it particularly offensive.  It's exhausting.  And I understand that writing business emails can often be a tricky business, because there is a definite etiquette to follow.  I also understand that some people don't like to be addressed by nicknames.  

That being said... a woman named Elizabeth Becton, one of those people who you'd be ill-advised to refer to by a nickname, recently took it a step further and crossed the line from correcting someone's improper email etiquette right into a blatant and offensive  and unrelenting middle-school-drama-style attack on an unexpecting and misinformed executive assistant.  

You may have read this story already, but here is an article that will walk you through the email exchange between Elizabeth Becton and her unfortunate victim who mistakenly called her "Liz" in a simple business email.

Upon a basic internet investigation, I was unable to find any evidence of Elizabeth Becton being corrected by her employer for her behavior which clearly crossed the line, or of her being let go from her position as a result of her actions... nor have I found any evidence of Elizabeth Becton apologizing after this story was picked up by nearly every major media outlet in America.  I did, however, find a website that posted other scathing emails from Elizabeth Becton.

At what point, Ms. Becton, do we set aside our convictions about political correctness and proper etiquette and simply treat someone's honest mistake with kindness and forgiveness?

so long, hair

So around the time Maurice and I got engaged... I got the urge to cut my hair.  It had been really long for a really long time, but I didn't want to cut it before the wedding, because I wanted it to be long for the wedding, and everyone else wanted me to leave it long.  So I promised that I would wait until after the wedding to cut it.

Well now the wedding has come and gone, we went on our honeymoon, and the week we came back, I had myself an appointment with my favorite hair lady, and off the hair came.  I cut almost 10 inches off my hair, and donated it to a good cause.  I absolutely love it, and I hope you do too!

hello my long lost friends

So I know that I've been a terrible blog updater lately... in the sense that I haven't been a blog updater at all.  My excuse is that we've been pretty busy getting married, honeymooning, and getting settled into married life.  I've been meaning to post honeymoon pictures for a long time, but for whatever reason, this thing has just been taking forever to download pictures, so I've decided to take one of life's little shortcuts and just re-direct you to them.  If you missed that... go back, it was a link to a whole album of pictures on Facebook :)  

We had the MOST amazing honeymoon!  And I like to think that it was partly thanks to the swine flu.  While there was a time that I thought it might ruin our honeymooning plans, it actually turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.  When we arrived at the beautiful resort where we were staying, they were so happy that we had kept our reservations, that they spent the entire week giving us free stuff.  We felt intensely spoiled for the duration of our stay, and there were probably only 20 or so other couples staying there at the time, so that made for a great week of peace and quiet, lots of sun, lots of great food and lots of champagne.

We did have sort of a hell-ish ordeal coming home.  It's a very long story, but it ends with us getting to extend our honeymoon one night and stay at a great hotel in Miami for free :)  

The week we got back, I chopped my hair off, so one day soon, I will download the pictures of that to show you all.  

At long last

Maurice and I had such a wonderful time at the wedding, and for those of you who were there, we hope you did too.  There are too many wedding pictures to possibly show them all, but here are some of the highlights.  Enjoy!

honeymoon pictures coming soon...

And the winner is...

San Antonio.

That's right, after much thought, prayer and consideration, Maurice and I decided that spending another year in San Antonio and getting on our feet was the best option.  The decision not to go to Philadelphia was a tremendously difficult one for both of us.  It was hard for Maurice especially, to close the door on such a wonderful opportunity.  We really loved it there, and I still get a little sad when I think about not moving there... but at the end of the day, we are still totally confident that we made the right decision.  We both have great jobs here and we just got a fantastic first apartment, which Maurice will be moving into in a few days.  And! the wedding is just a WEEK away!  I truthfully have no idea where the time has gone, I felt like I blinked my eyes and it was here.  

There have been a few disappointments in our lives lately, that we didn't expect, but that is life.  We are SO excited that the wedding is almost here, we are counting down the days to our honeymoon, we're ready and anxious to start our life together, and we have not lost sight of the fact that God has blessed us beyond what we deserve.  

Since this next week will be so wild, I will likely not be back to blogging until after the wedding/honeymoon.  For those of you who are coming to the wedding, we can't wait to see you very soon! and for those of you who can't, there will of course be pictures up soon of the wedding and honeymoon... all that good stuff.  

Hope you all have a lovely week!

no... we still do not know

OK folks... so as some of you know by now, the last few weeks have been extremely stressful for maurice and myself.  Not only is the wedding less than a month away now, but we STILL do not know where we're going to be living.  A few weeks ago, our options seemed to be Philadelphia and Houston (you may remember them as option #1 and option #2).  Well for reasons beyond our control, I am sad to inform you supporters of the latter that Houston is no longer on the table o' consideration.  

That left Philadelphia.  As soon as we found out that Houston was out of the running, we booked the next 2 flights out to Philadelphia, because there was much work to be done.  To give you a little background, here is the dilemma:  Maurice was accepted into the Master of Architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania. The catch is... they want him in their 3 year program. But UPenn is an ivy league school, and those ivy leaguers sure are proud of their schools, and they do charge accordingly.  Translation: UPenn is ungodly amounts of expensive.  As honored as Maurice was to be accepted, and as wonderful an opportunity as it would be for him... the loans for 3 years of grad school would be a tremendous burden for us... and we aren't sure that we want our first official act as a married couple to be taking out school loans in an amount that would buy us a reasonably nice home in many areas.  

So long story short, we are weighing our options right now with Philadelphia.  The chair of the architecture department is also reviewing Maurice's portfolio, to see if he can be admitted into the 2 year program.  We are hoping to hear something very very soon.  If we do not go to Philadelphia, we have decided to stay in San Antonio for another year, before we decide where would be best for us.  

We DID get the opportunity to visit Philadelphia, and we absolutely fell in love with it.  I think we'd both heard mixed reviews on the city and weren't entirely sure what to expect, but we were both pleasantly surprised.  It's such a beautiful city, it's extremely rich in history, it seems like they have the most beautiful parks every few blocks, and the UPenn campus is indescribable.  We packed a lot of sight-seeing, campus-visiting, and apartment-hunting into our few days there, and we had a great time.  

So until we have some news about where we are or are not moving, here are some pictures from our trip to hold you over!

This is us in the park behind independence hall, on a very chilly afternoon.

Independence Hall... the birthplace of America.

Oh look, another beautiful park.  Rittenhouse square.

the UPenn campus

And of course.... Anthropologie.