Forward Motion

I look back to where I was about seven or so months ago and compare it to where I am now. What a difference! A positive difference!

With a lack of a great job (which I am absolutely loving by the way) and some emotional weights keeping me down, I was not in a great place. But now I have direction, I am moving forward, and I am living a carefree drama-free life.

And thank goodness we are getting out of Bedford! This town is no place for young people. So boring. And at times it has that small-town-never-left-high-school feel. Ew. We were definitely not meant to stay in this place forever. This city doesn't have much to offer, other than nostalgia. Can't wait to move into our next place and once again thrive in a great city.

You know, I've said this several times in previous posts (just look back into the 550+ entries I have piled up)... but I am so glad that my whole life is ahead of me. I have never been (and never will be, thank goodness) someone who peaked in high school. And I didn't peak in college either (thought I had some incredible memories with irreplaceable friends who I still hold dear to my heart). The best of me is still ahead. I am so thankful I am surrounded by people who feel the same.

I love having forward momentum!

Postponed News

So the news we're supposed to be hearing this week will be delayed another two weeks. Hmph.

I am not good about waiting things out.

Master Blogger?

I realized the other day that I am good at blogging.

Say what you will about my occasionally sporadic posting sprees. I know I was once a blogging machine and now I have slowed down. But I still crank out entries quite often. I mean, doesn't writing over 500 posts make you successful? Or perhaps it just means you ramble too much about nothing to readers you may never know exist. Meh.

This week we might get to hear good news. I love good news!


No bloggers. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, there will be no babies in our near future. Put those ideas back in your head and leave them there. We can hardly manage to take care of our wonderful puppy.


I will let all of you know as soon as I know. If it's good news, you will be one of the first to know. After all, I am a master blogger. Read the first paragraph for proof.

I promise to blog more. A promise I make every post, it feels like. Well. I seem to think one post a week is simply to infrequent. Especially since at the peak of wedding planning, I was cranking an entry out at least every two days. I need to get back on that bandwagon.

So here's my start with 2 entries in one day. Enjoy being spoiled.

This is Why I LOVE my Job

Cypress ECG Helps Save a Life

This district, Huffman ISD in the Houston area, is one of our "mandatory districts". Their school board decided to make screening mandatory and leased a machine from us to perform year-round testing. Our company occasionally helps with mass screening events, but for the most part, they are self-sufficient with our doctor interpreting the ECGs. Wouldn't it be great if all schools did this?

In Like a Lion. [Hopefully] Out Like a Lamb

March has been one awful month for the little Longs, and it hasn't let up yet.

It started with my father-in-law and I's procedures not going according to plan. For the first half of the month, we were all recovering and/or helping the recovering. It has been exhausting.

And then there's Murphy. Our sick puppy dog. We suddenly saw a pattern in his not-so-house-trained behavior. Plus, he's lost weight. So we took him to two different vets to get to the bottom of it. He has too much bad bacteria in his intestines, which causes his body to eliminate the accumulation sporadically. So we're having to keep him on a medication and prescription dog food routine for the next month. After that, we'll figure out if this is going to be a lifelong issue or if it was a one time thing.

Last night is rained for 16 hours straight and flooded the entire metroplex. Murphy's messy sickness combined with our living on the third floor with threat of storms caused us to be rained in at Phillip's parents. We didn't want to have to take Murphy up and down the stairs all night, and didn't want to transport a messy cage downstairs to clean if we needed to. So thankfully we were able to crash over there.

All of this makes us simply look at each other and say "Is March over yet?" It's only Tuesday and the week needs to hurry up and fast forward.

Starting the House Hunt

Nope. Not buying a house yet. Just renting. We haven't decided on an area yet, so we're going to start with renting. It gives us an opportunity to see what neighborhoods are best and what areas we use the most. It would be hard to relocate to a city, buy a house, and then realize you would rather live on the other side of town. So we're starting the renting search.

Frisco, here we come!

It'll be nice for Phillip to be way closer to work and since I work from home, all I really need is my own office. After we moved in, added all of our wonderful wedding gifts, and I moved into the office with Phillip, things have gotten pretty cramped. We have already outgrown our 2 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment. Plus, Murphy has been begging for a yard for quite some time now. The balcony is his favorite place in our apartment so we need to get him some green space of his own.

The search is already daunting. That area's real estate market moves so quickly. Properties are listed on the market for maybe 5 days before someone jumps on the opportunity. We're at the point now where as soon as we find a place we love, we're moving! If we don't love it, we'll hold off. Our lease is up on May 10th, so we have time to wait for the perfect one, but when we find the perfect one, we won't be able to wait. Does that make any sense?

I can't wait to be in a bigger house in a new city. I'm ready to get out of this city. I love that it's where I grew up. But I don't want to be that girl who never left town and stayed stuck in high school. I went off to college, have a great job, am married, and ready to start fresh in a new, young city with plenty of other people just like us.

With screenings at work starting up any day now, soccer season kicking off this week, and moving, there might not be much updating - and updates will likely be filled with lots of info. Our life is moving quickly right now and we could go from living here to moving at any point too. What a fun and crazy adventure. :)

Our Anniversary

You know me bloggers, I like to plan. So I’ve been planning our anniversary for a little while and I’m excited that it’s actually going to happen!

For our “big” trip, we are headed to Cabo with the family. It’ll be a few weeks after our anniversary, so I want to do something special for our actual one year anniversary. The idea of opening our custom bottle of wine (thank you Harkins!) and eating our year old cake at our kitchen table on a Tuesday night seems kind of anti-climactic for a big day. Therefore, I have decided that we will be heading out of town on a mini vacation for a few days.

One of my favorite parts of our honeymoon was how disconnected we were from the rest of the world. Don’t get me wrong, we missed our families and friends dearly, but I loved having so much quality alone time without the cell phones and computers and so many television shows. I loved “disconnecting” from the world and connecting with my husband. So I have decided that each year, regardless of how big or small we make our anniversary celebration, we will be “unplugging” while we spend time together.

I have been looking at several bed and breakfasts in Fredericksburg. We have selected a favorite, but will wait to get overly excited about it until we can for sure book it. It’s a little pricey and we will need to wait until April to reserve the room. We will drive down Sunday, June 10 (since we have a wedding the night before) and will return on Wednesday, June 13. A few days to relax together and really make eating old cake memorable.

Back to the special bottle of wine. For my wedding shower, the Harkins (who we absolutely love!) gave us a custom bottle of wine. It has our names and wedding date on it. I decided the second I opened it that we would enjoy it on our anniversary. So each time I clean our bar area, I look at this bottle and realize how much I’m looking forward to enjoying it with Phillip. We could have saved it for a special date night or another anniversary, but there isn’t a day quite as special as your one year anniversary. Can’t wait to uncork it and finally enjoy it after over a year of anticipation.

Yep. Already looking forward to our anniversary. I want to make each one special. Even if it’s simply dinner and a movie or night away from the (future) kids. That day was the best day of my entire life and I want to be able to relive it at least once a year for the rest of my life.

Cabo and Updated Blog

The whole family is officially going to Cabo! We're getting passport logistics out of the way now. But... we have all of our rooms and plane tickets booked! We're all going! We all made it happen! This is going to be one EPIC vacation for the whole family. It'll be a one-in-a-lifetime trip and we can't wait! It's so exciting. As soon as I get healed, I need to get my body ready to go. ;)

The blog layout is updated. Finally. The link/picture has been expired for a while. I took advantage of the work downtime to do some mindless updating. I think it looks pretty good.

Time for me to get back into blogging more. I feel like I have neglected the blogosphere this year. I want to change that.

Feeling a bit better today. As long as I get better each day, I think I'll be golden.

Finally Functioning (For Now)

Surgery Thursday was intense. Sorry for the lack of update...

It turns out, when they "got in" to take my gallbladder out, that my appendix looked weird. It had scar tissue on it, which concerned the doctor. He seems to think I had appendicitis at some point a while back and didn't know it. Scary, huh? So he decided to remove it too - two organs at once!

I had to stay overnight in the hospital on Thursday. Partly because he took more than planned, and partly because my appendix was backwards and hidden under my intestines - meaning he had to poke and prod more than desired to get it. And since then, recovery has been a challenge.

My goal was to be sitting up and back to a pseudo-normal by this morning. I wanted to be sitting at my desk working and ready to drive by tomorrow or Wednesday. That's not the case. Recovery over the weekend was awful and more painful than anyone ever mentioned. It also came with many more obstacles than anyone had said. I guess when you have an unexpected surgery on top of the predicted one, the outcomes change. My system was so confused.

So today I'm still in bed. I can't sit up for too long yet, and certainly not the whole day. I'm working a bit today by answering phone calls and emails but that's about it. Maybe tomorrow I'll be up for sitting at the desk. Today I'm still having to take it pretty easy. And I'm thinking driving won't be an option until at least Wednesday.

I hate being this dependent and needing everyone to do so much for me. And I hate that I'm just now able to eat solid foods. This has been one heck-of-a surgery. Didn't feel laproscopic at all.