applications..ugh.

Not much going on in Buckland..just working and trying to finish up our applications! I have currently finished my applications to:
Univ. of Minnesota, UC Santa Barbara, Rochester, Stony Brook, and UC Irvine.
I am working on my applications to:
UT Austin Psychology, UT Austin HDFS, Univ of Houston, and Univ of Massachusetts

Notice there is no Northwestern in the mix. That is because I am an IDIOT and wrote down that the due date was December 31. It was definitely the 1st. I have mixed feelings about the mix-up..it was my own personal #2 choice. I would love to work under Eli Finkel there. HOWEVER, he said he might not take a student this coming year unless they were exceptional (years of experiences, GRE in the 1500s-1600s..what a prick, right?), plus there is nothing for Ed in Chicago. It was one of my..I'm applying anyway in case the worst happens and you don't get in anywhere, dear..schools. BAH. Ed is rolling through his applications too. We should both be done come mid-January, and then as Ivy said, it's the waiting game!

We went to my grandfather's house for the day for Thanksgiving (pictures on fb) which was an alright trip. No one told us it was a lunch instead of dinner, so we got there after everyone else had already eaten. It was alright though...we came back to Austin shortly after and watched the game together. Good evening.

I put up my christmas decorations! The night of Thanksgiving!! Ed insisted that I wait until the next day, but I was done waiting.

We're pretty much almost done with christmas shopping..we're going to be cutting it close just to cover everyday things after we pay off our credit card with all of our grad school stuff on it, so we're going light this year. Wedding scrapbooks for the parentals, new hoodie for the bro, books for Campbell, and sipping chocolate for the sis. Ed's family is doing a white elephant gift exchange, but that should be easy.

Monday is Lonestars formal..weird to not be going, right?? It's also the last girl's night that Catherine will probably be able to attend before she moves to Dallas to start her grad school career..SO SAD!! We met in ASL and she has been such a fantastic friend. Now who will watch Grease 2 with me? This is also the time of year that most of you lovely ladies packed up and moved on to bigger things..I love the holidays, but it all seems so dreary.

I am also starting a second job tomorrow. Alissa Sherry (professor at UT) needs someone to help her in her private practice, so I'll be helping her to get and stay organized as she transitions to a new office. I've pretty much got this sort of thing nailed by now, so it should be easy-breezy.

Juli comes home on the 19th..should be interesting. Things have been a bit easier with her overseas, but it will be nice to hear her laugh again. Maybe she'll watch Grease 2 with me!

I hope you are all doing well. Ivy- I still need to hear the rest of the engagement story! Call me when you're done with finals! Laura- How the world are you?!? Shivonne- thanks for posting love! I'm super excited for all of the things you have coming up in the next couple of months! Heather- see you tomorrow!

you will not stop my jingle bell ROCK

Because I'm a holiday rock star.

I will admit that I was one of the many who became slightly irritated at Hobby Lobby when they began putting their christmas decorations up in JULY. However. It is November, and even if Thanksgiving has not come and gone, I still say we should spread the Holiday cheer :)

My mom has always been a big fan of holiday decorations. It's one of my favorite parts about going home each year..to see what new little houses she has added to her holiday village, or to see if she got her LIFE SIZE dancing Santa a new wifey friend yet. I love the holidays, and with holidays comes lots of food, cheer, and decorations.

Ed will not let me put up my decorations until Thanksgiving is over. Hmph. This is my silent retaliation against him...he can't change my blog :)

Ed and I still aren't sure where we will be spending TG this year..my family always goes to Seguin to see my grandparents..which has since become grandfather. It's pretty depressing..especially seeing as how I now think he's a bit of an a-hole. There's no real cheer there. My mom goes because it's her dad, and my dad goes to support my mom. Juli is still abroad, so no sibling support from her this go round, and who knows where David will be..I doubt he even realizes that TG is coming up.

Ed's family always goes to his grandparents house..who happen to live on the street over from my parents. Holidays there are far less depressing than those at my grandfather's, but his grandma isn't doing so hot these days. I'm pretty sure she's stuck in time, about 10 years ago. She still knows who she is and who we are, but the stories she tells as if they were yesterday all happened a good 10, 15 years ago.

Hmmph. This will not stop my jingle bell rock. Ed and I are a new family now, and we will celebrate the hell out of these holidays. Of course it might end up in me celebrating them enough for the both of us. He's a bit of a scrooooge.

I hope you all are getting excited for food and football! HOOK 'EM!

Happy Halloween!

Nothing major to report really...Ed suggested a new title for the blog..it's fitting.

Right now we're both still working and trying to get grad school apps ready. I was able to send out packets to all of my recommendation letter people this past week, which is definitely a weight off. I can handle doing my own things last minute, but it looks a bit unprofessional to ask them to do the same.

Ed has almost finished a story that he's been working on for the past couple of months. He's a little frustrated and is trying to make all of the pieces come together so people can review it, but I'm excited! He's worked really hard on it and I can't wait for him to hear from other people (besides his ever-loving, always-impressed wife) that it's good.

This past week for ladies night we had pumpkin carving! I have only carved a pumpkin once before (my mom was always real big on the holiday decorations, so we never really needed to carve our own pumpkin) so it was quite the experience. I bought a fairytale pumpkin because I thought it looked whimsical, but apparently it is not ideal for pumpkin carving. The walls were so thick, I ended up having to use a steak knife to carve the whole thing! I carved a Bevo, and I think I did him justice. I also made special Halloween treats for the occassion! -dirt cake (pudding, really) complete with worms in little Halloween containers :)

Ed and I haven't made any plans for the festive evening..I've always wanted to try downtown, but I know I'll hate how crowded it is. Ed has had to work on Halloween before and I've had to pick him up...it is the most ridiculous time for downtown! I hope you all have fun whatever your plans are!

PS Miss Dudney! I had to tell you that I finished my first mexican martini all by myself! It reminded me of you and the many martinis you had to help me finish :) I love you! Call me soon!

GRAD SCHOOL

DUN DUN DUN!!!!

Ever since my last post, Ed and I have been GRAD SCHOOL go go go go go!

Turns out, we suck. They didn't allow you to sign up for the GRE subject tests until September, so when we were finally able to, we both did. Without ever double checking our schools to make sure they still require them. Ugh. Turns out, every school except ONE (UCLA) dropped that requirement. NONE OF OUR OTHER SCHOOLS REQUIRE IT. Talk about a waste of money, not to mention TIME invested in studying for that stupid thing. It's so super frustrating, I cannot even articulate. Not only frustration with the schools, who realize now how stupid it is to think a test like that is any true reflection of your knowledge (they should take the hint on the general GRE too!) but frustration with ourselves, for not double checking.

Other than that, the process has been going great! We each have a list of about 15 schools now (the number has gone up as we've been forced to realize that the likelihood of BOTH of us getting in to the same school is not so great). We both have our rec letters secured and only need now to get our materials to them. Ed is finally almost finished with the rough draft of the story he wants to submit. After that it's workshop, workshop, workshop! I don't have anything like that, but need to update my personal statement from last year (add in all my super-cool lab tricks that i've learned!) and essays for each institution.

We're super confident that the application process this year will go much more smoothly than last year. We pulled out papers from our grad school planning sessions last year, and they were covered in wedding notes! What were we thinking.

And we've been super great lately. Our schedules work out really well and we've been making a lot of time for each other. CRAZIEST THING! Turns out, he thought Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were the same fairy tale!!!! He had no idea there were separate stories. BLASPHEMY, I KNOW. How can he be married to such a romantic and not know these things? Never fear though ladies, thanks to Disney and I, he is now educated. "You know, your Enchanted movie didn't help," ...I guess he never caught on that it was supposed to be a combination of fairy tales. Oh my.

The family is good! Campbell is still not walking..which I think is odd, since she turned 1 in August. Ed's dad was in town for a conference this week, so we went out to dinner last night and we made dinner tonight. He brought me a bottle of wine (which I drank..by myself:)). I like him. He's a very relaxed, likable guy that likes to laugh.

Ed works a double on Friday and then we're driving up to Dallas Saturday morning for the game! We're going to spend a lot of time with Zac, an all-time favorite of both of ours that has been begging us to come see him in Dallas for the longest time. Zac was Ed's roommate for 2.5 years, played the guitar at the wedding, and obnoxiously caught the garter.

The Peacock is still here! Turns out, the thing climbs up into the trees to sleep at night! My grandparents raised peacocks when I was younger, so I know that they're mean little things that make a lot of racket..but I like this one. He gives off sort of a Fonzie vibe :)

Not sure if you guys can see it, but that's it up in a tree. In the center of the picture.

Another note on animals. The Dr. I work for decided the office didn't have enough "life" in it. And since we are a place of healing, we should have life. Somehow, that translated into her putting frogs in our waiting room. Creepy.



This is the fat guy. He likes to sneak up near the lid...hoping we'll open it and he can escape to freedom. You should see him attack a cricket.

on that note, love you all!

a lot of going ons

Writer David Foster Wallace found dead

Ed read DFW's Infinite Jest his junior year of college..and it changed his life. Before that, he had been frantically struggling with who he was, where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do with his life. After he read Infinite Jest, his entire world view changed. He spent all of his free time reading his novels, essays and short stories. He wants to be a writer, now, because of Wallace. No one has had a greater impact on his life than DFW (and I don't say that lightly).

When he heard the news, he spent hours pouring over every article he could find online. He was distraught..in shock. The person who inspired him to be what he is and do what he is doing today has taken his own life. Horribly, taken his own life. He thought and spoke frantically for several days, trying desperatley to figure it out. He thinks it means big changes for him, for his own life. His world seems like a dimmer place, less valuable, less worthwhile.

I was at a loss for words for a long time. He is doing much better now, though, and has used it as a way to push himself to write more. He has been speaking to a writing professor he had, who has helped him a great, great deal.

“Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master. This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth,” he said. “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger."

-DFW, 2005

Hurricane Ike

Austin never saw a drop. Not even a cloud, a little wind, but nothing that even resembles a light shower. Tomball, like most of south Texas, did not escape so unscathed. My dad sleeps with ear plugs in, so was completely unaware when the storm rolled in. My mom, however, a worry-wort and light sleeper, said it sounded like a war zone. They had lost power that night before the storm even arrived, so were sleeping with their windows open. My mom finally woke my dad up around 3am so they could move away from the windows and into the safety area under the stairs.

They woke the next morning and told me over the phone that only a few branches had fallen. LIARS. We have pine trees all throughout our yard, 10 stories tall at least. SIX of these snapped in half, one falling on our neighbors garage, ruining the carport and fence. Another tree landed less than a foot away from our own garage. If it had fallen the other way, it would have landed on my sister's bedroom, with my parents' bedroom below it. And they just redid the bathrooms!

A tree cutter was there THAT day handing out his card, and my mom called him that afternoon. They were afraid the trees that had snapped might fall and cause more damage, so they went ahead and cut them all down. THAT day, a tree stump remover was handing out HIS card. So the yard now looks perfectly normal, minus a lot of trees and branches. It took 14 empty dump trucks just to haul away the stuff from my parents' house.

My parents STILL do not have power. They lost everything in the storage freezer (my dad is a deer hunter, a lot of meat was wasted). My dad was unable to go to work for about a week, because all of the windows on one side of his building were blown out. Thank GOODNESS his office was spared. It was a crazy time for him though..he does risk assessment for the entire Chase bank company, and did not have access to the internet, cell phone (charged it in his car) or land phone for days..all during the stock market ups and downs of last week. He drove in to work at the end of last week anyway, and was able to get some work done. Good for him.

My mom refused to let me have her camera to post pictures..she wants to keep it around in case the insurance people ever actually show up. She stood in line for 3 hours yesterday to wash clothes at the washateria. She is really bored.

Happy Graduation to Me!

Even with all of their own drama, my parents were still able to get me a new car for graduation! We've been on a waiting list since July, and it finally arrived last weekend! Ed and I made a trip home to pick up it, and help my parents finish up some of the yard work. It was sorda like a camp out :) The car is a 2009 honda fit. I absolutely love it!

Peacock?

Random, I know, by there is a peacock roaming our apartment complex! Ed thinks it's all rather mysterous, I think it's just a bird looking to snack on all of our neighbors' plants.

Grad School Applications

Are due beginning Dec 1. Ed and I have both signed up to take our respective GRE subject test (mine is Nov 8!). We're both excited about applying and where it might take us. I think we're both secretly hoping for Houston, so cross your fingers!

Married Life

Is fabulous :) I love him and love every day we have together. He's still my all-time favorite person. I love life.

all good here

The move was a success! And the brother is G-O-N-E! Love him to death, but OMG I hope I never have to do that again! We're still living out of boxes, so no Lauraesque tour, but maybe soon...if we ever get to unpacking :)

We're both super busy! Somehow he still manages to find time for golf, which I don't understand. Work is nuts, and I begin running participants M-TH in the Sex Lab next week! I'm still not sure how that's going to work out with the work schedule, but we'll see.

The study I'm working on is called "Fashion Magazine" --it is essentially trying to determine if induced body dissatisfaction (having girls rate their bodies against models) has an effect on sexual response, as measured by the vaginal photoplethysmograph and self ratings. It's a rather lengthy experiment, 2 sessions of about 2 hours each. And in between sessions I have the lovely privilege of cleaning the probe, eww. Just cleaning it takes about an hour- it's the same stuff your dentist or orthodontist use, and your gynecologist. There are only 6 labs in the country that have this equipment though, so I'm super excited to be able to put it on my resume for grad school! Here is a link with more info on the photoplethysmograph!

The depression lab is still going, too. It's still depressing. And so boring. But, another thing to put on the apps. Speaking of which, we've started researching again and I'll be turning in my applications in December (for most of them). Most of Ed's aren't due until early next year...wish us luck in getting everything completed this time around!

i hope you are all doing well..I'll be thinking of all of you at the first football game this weekend. From the ALUMNI center, woot! Who's excited for AC?!?!

MOOving!

On Saturday! I cannot even explain how excited I am. For over a year now I've felt like I didn't really have a place, a home. Sure, all of my stuff was at mine and Carra's apartment, but my Earnest, my life, was at Ed's apartment with all of that gross boy furniture and dirty dishes. There is my parents' house in Tomball, but as soon as I moved out my mom redid my room and it hasn't really felt like home for a while. Before the wedding I moved most of my stuff into storage and a few things (mmmostly clothes :)) into Ed's apartment. This is where we have been living, with our brothers, since May 21. Granted, his younger brother is now back in Tomball, so it's just David, but he's a horrible roommate. I'm a bit of a neat freak and get an unhealthy kick out of organizing and recreating my own personal spaces, and it has seriously impacted my quality of life to not have things...my way... That sounds horrible. We also thought it would just be the two of us once we moved..turns out Dave might be staying with us until he moves in to his apartment (Longhorn Landing) on the 23rd. I KNOW IT'S ONLY A COUPLE OF WEEKS...but AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Ed is having a hard time too. He lives to write and hasn't been able to do anything productive since before the wedding. He'll have early mornings here and there when there's no one awake to distract him, but not having the privacy and appropriate environment to write in is stifling him, he feels frustrated and angry. HE can't wait for us to have our own space too.

The apartment is small, with no washer and dryer connection.. SAD FACE. But, it will do, and it will allow us to put money in savings each week that we will desperately need when it's time to apply to grad school..and BE in grad school. If that even works out, omgeeee.

As Heather's blog says, we went dress shopping! She's going to be so gorgeous..I can't believe we have to wait 2 years! Sigh.

Work has been pretty nuts. Right before the wedding the Dr. I work for fired the Office Manager (not doing her job and I'm pretty sure some personal stuff was involved) so the other office lady gal (Frances) and I have been bustin' our boooooties to catch up on everything that she didn't do. We're redoing insurance claims from TWO YEARS AGO. The Dr. has hundreds of thousands of dollars that are owed to her by insurance companies that we're having to go back and try and get. I could not even imagine having that much money owed to me. We got a check in the mail today for $15, 865 from ONE insurance company.. so Frances and I were feeling pretty good about ourselves today :)

The labs I'm working in are also going well. The lab on depression is, go figure, pretty depressing, but it's good experience. The sexuality lab is flipping fun and I can't wait to start running participants in the Fall. WOOT!

Currently Reading: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Word on the street is that she's a writer every feminist should be familiar with. She was married to the poet Ted Hughes and is also known for her own poetry. The book started off great..very witty and entertaining. HOWEVER, Syliva died at the age of 32(?) after she killed herself, and the book is supposed to be pretty spot on in recounting Sylvia's own attempted suicides. Right now the main character is spiraling downwards through a major depression..and she's depressing me. I'm having a difficult time finishing it, but my next book is The Optimists, so at least there will be an uplifting book to follow it with.

IVY- ED SAID TO READ THE BOOK HE GAVE YOU ASAP SO YOU CAN TELL HIM HOW MUCH YOU LIKED IT AND HOW GREAT HE IS FOR RECOMMENDING IT. As if you didn't have enough to do already :)

I love you all deeearly!