Construction Update!

A couple of months ago, Kevin and I decided to build a new home. Since that time, we've chewed our fingernails down waiting and watching the progress as our house came to life. I've been terrible about posting updates on the progress (which, really, I'm not sure if anyone is even interested - but humor me if you aren't, ok? :D ). So I've decided to post some pictures that will bring you to where it stands today.

First, our lot was cleared of trees and debris:

A few weeks later, the form was laid and plumbing was installed:

Two weeks ago, the house was framed up (This was probably the most exciting part, because we could actually see our house. And we knew that everything would go quicker from that point on!):

Today we drove by to check the progress, and here's what we saw:

Of course, we had to get out of the car and go walk through it! Now that there are exterior walls up, my fear of falling out of the second story to the ground outside was minimalized. Notice that I'm not saying my fear's gone, though - surely if anyone were to fall through a wall of an unfinished house, it would be me. The inside of the house is still mostly just studs, but there is a sturdy foundation of plywood on the second story so we were able to walk through the entire house. I'll post more pictures once the sheetrock is up and rooms are actually visible. Right now it just looks like a random maze of studs for anyone that doesn't know the floorplan.

For me, however, it's a dream come true. When I look at it, I already see each room finished and decorated. I see friends over - the guys in the gameroom playing pool and the girls sitting around the kitchen island drinking wine. I can't wait! Home sweet home, we're just a few months away now!

Airport Ponderings

Sitting in the airport in Charleston, WV, and here are a few of my random thoughts at the moment (mostly travel-related, as that seems to encompass my life lately):

1) "Living out of a suitcase" is something often spoken by celebreties in magazines. Therefore, that phrase somehow connotates a certain amount of "glamour" and "excitement" in my mind. Um, not anymore. I've been living out of my suitcase for nearly the past month now, and glamourous and exciting it is not. Perhaps if I were staying at the Ritz or Four Seasons. In a suite. With a teleportation device that will zap in my hubby and pups (and girlfriends, of course, for girls' nights!) at the command of "Beam me up, Scotty!"

2) Hurricane season is a little more scary when you own a house. Hurricane seasons when I lived with my parents or in an apartment were exciting - Hey! Hurricane party!. While hurricane parties are still totally a part of the plan, I find that I'd be drinking more to forget that my roof might blow away at any second instead of "yay! it's a hurricane! woohoo!" Fortunately, no hurricanes have come through Houston in the past few years. None of substance, anyway. Yet I have somehow managed to be in the line of fire for Dolly, Gustav, and currently the one riding up the east coast. Forgot her name.

3) The man that just sat down next to me at our airport gate stinks a little bit. A cross between old people, body odor, and whatever it is that he's munching on. I am suddenly very aware and thankful that I am on a Continental jet going home (the plane with 2 seats one one side and 1 seat on the other) and I am on the side with the single seat!

4) I am still completely obsessed with the Twilight series I've been reading (see previous post). I'm now in the middle of the 4th book, and I literally have to make myself put it down so that I will go to sleep. And also so that I'll still have some book left to read on my flights home. I am a little upset (ok a lot upset) that once I finish this book, the series is over. Done. Finished. Gone. Well, for now. There's the movie in November and rumors of a book from Edward's point of view to be published, but when?? What is going to hold over my Edward addiction in the mean time? Do I start reading the series over again, or would that just be crazy? To keep from going overboard, I've promised the books to my sister so that she can join the obsession.

Well, there you have it. My current random thoughts at the moment. So now I'll put away my computer, flip through a few magazines I bought in the goodie shop (an obsessive airport habit of mine), and then people-watch until I board the plane and can tear into my book again.

My Travels with Edward Cullen

Over the past month, my job has kept me on the road. Monday through Friday I have been out of town, visiting my company’s various facilities in places like Corpus Christi, Shreveport, and Kilgore (and coming soon – Utah and West Virginia). Living out of my suitcase for this time has created some pretty bad habits on my part. My traveling coworkers and I have no choice but to eat out for every meal, and then we usually retreat back to our own hotel rooms when we’re done for the day. For me, this was much appreciated. Because of the line of work that we’re doing at these facilities, all I want to do at the end of the day is take a shower and crash. However, my diet and exercise routines have fallen to the bottom of my “to do” list each day. And I started to see the effects of it almost immediately. I decided after week 2 of traveling that I needed to break out of my bad travel habits. For lunch, we all decided that we’d find somewhere with healthy foods – salads, veggies, Subway… things like that. At least we’d be eating one healthy meal a day. And I made it my personal goal to hit the hotel gym (if you can really call a treadmill, bike, elliptical, and free weights in one room a “gym”) every night. Well in week three I realized that I wanted to get a few books to read while I was gone – it would give me something to do while we were driving/flying to facilities, while I was working out, and something to do instead of rotting my brain with reality TV every night.

I happened to mention my plan to Cheryl one day while we were hanging out by her pool. “Oh my god – you have to read the Twilight series!” were the exact words that came out of her mouth. I was intrigued – Cheryl and I usually have similar tastes in such things.
Here’s the jist of the conversation that followed:
Me: Never heard of it, what’s it about?
Cheryl: It’s a series of books about a girl who falls in love with a vampire and all of the things they go through trying to be together.
Me: *trying to hold a straight face at the thought of reading a vampire book – I mean, really Cheryl??* Yeeeaaahh. Sounds great – I’ll keep an eye out for it next time I go to Barnes and Noble.
Cheryl: They’re really good – seriously.
Me: Yeah. Mmmhmm. Okay.

While I love to read (though I don’t do it nearly as often as I’d like), I’m not at all a sci-fi book kinda gal. I am way into some sci-fi movies but I’ve never been one for alien/vampire/space wars books. Not my thing – no thanks.

So I go to Barnes and Noble on a quest for a good book to read during my week in Kilgore. Nothing jumped out at me. So, with a sigh, I pull out my cell phone and call Cheryl. “Hey friend. Who’s the author of those books you were telling me about?”…”Stephanie Meyer – seriously, they’re good books! They’re on the best seller list so they’re probably somewhere in the front of the store”…”Okay I’m going to try to find them.” I was desperate for a good book, so I put myself at the mercy of my best friend’s recommendation. Lo and behold, front and center of the bookstore there is this big display with all 4 books in the series. I picked up the first one, read the back cover, became slightly intrigued, and headed for the checkout. I only bought the first book, just in case I couldn’t get into it. The book sat on my kitchen counter all weekend, and then in my suitcase for the first 2 days of my trip. Then I decided to stick to my plan – Tuesday night I grabbed the book and headed for the hotel “gym”. It took me a little while (although part of that was probably me fighting off my inner voice reminding me that I was reading a vampire love story), but I became hooked. I couldn’t stop reading – I read until my legs couldn’t go anymore on the treadmill, read in the elevator back to my room, and read until I made myself put it down at midnight. I read it almost the entire 3 ½ hour car ride back to Houston. I had about 150 pages left by the time I got back home Wednesday. I tried to tell myself that I’d finish it that night – once I got in bed. I had a lot to do once I got home, and I wouldn’t do any of it if I opened that book. So I finished everything as quickly as I could, spent some quality time with my doggies, and got in bed at 7:30 that night. JUST SO I COULD READ!! Talk about obsession, right?

Without getting into the plot (because you could easily google “Twilight” and get tons of information about it), let’s just say that this vampire – Edward Cullen – completely turned me upside down. I hadn’t felt so strongly about a character since Ryan Gosling in “The Notebook” (hello, lover – shwing!). I was absolutely enthralled in everything about him. I’m such a sucker. I am probably EXACTLY the kind of person that the publishing company was hoping to rope in. And now that it’s been 2 days since I finished the book, I have been frantically trying to figure out when I can get to a Barnes and Noble to pick up the other 3 books. Needless to say, I’m going after work today. So I have a feeling I’ll be spending my weekend with Edward Cullen ;)

*Thanks Cheryl for an incredible recommendation. I’ll never doubt you again. Unless you tell me to go buy a love story about a werewolf. ;)

A Broken Heart

Last Sunday night, I felt like my world was crashing down around me.

All within about 10 minutes, my heart broke and I was more scared in those moments than I have been in a very long time. My dog Abbi, who has been like my child and my shadow for the last 6 years, was having a seizure. A serious seizure. She's had little ones twice before where she shakes for maybe a minute and then trots off like nothing happened. But this was full blown. Frothing at the mouth, chomping, losing conciousness, and she stopped breathing a few times. I felt like my child was literally dying in my arms (for those of you with pets, you understand. For those with actual kids who may be rolling their eyes at that, sorry that you don't understand).

I've taken Abbi to her regular vet before when she was having the small seizures. Without running any tests or bloodwork, the vet looked me in the eye and told me they weren't seizures. She didn't know what they were, but they weren't seizures. Probably just "episodes". And I believed her. She's a vet, so she knows what she's talking about, right?

Bullshit.

After Abbi's large seizures, I was able to educate myself in just a few minutes that those small "episodes" that I trusted my vet's judgement on were, in fact, small seizures. It is eating me up that we could've put her on anti-seizure medicine MONTHS ago to control the seizures and possibly prevent them from progressing. That's neither here nor there now. But it still eats me up. And we're finding a new vet. One that may possibly know what the hell he/she is talking about. But I digress...

When Abbi's seizure kept getting worse and lasted more than 5 minutes, Kevin and I jumped in the truck with her and headed for the animal ER. I was so scared that I couldn't even cry. I just wanted to hold her and talk to her, afraid that it might be my last time to hold her. I didn't know what to expect. The ER admitted her right away and kept her overnight for observation. She had 3 more seizures that night while she was there (thank God in the hands of capable animal medics who could medicate her) and the next day we were referred to an animal neurologist for further testing. AN ANIMAL NEUROLOGIST. Who knew, right? She was admitted into the intensive care unit there and kept for three days. I didn't know what to do with myself while she was there. But each morning, I talked to her neurologist and got updates...
morning 1 - her blood tests came back perfectly normal
morning 2 - her MRI showed that she had significant swelling and fluid buildup on the right side of her brain. she's not responding out of her left eye, her left side is showing weakness, and she's turning in tight circles. All signs of brain damage. It was highly recommended that I go visit her, which of course I was there as soon as I could hang the phone up and get in my car.
morning 3 - still showing all signs of weakness, but they wanted to release her in hopes that being home would help. I picked her up immediately after work, beaming with happiness that my baby was coming back home!

To make a long story a little shorter, Abbi is definitely improving. She has been seizure free for one week, she's no longer turning in circles, and her left side is slowly getting stronger. She still cannot see out of her left eye, but she's definitely adjusting really well to the disability. She trots around the back yard, cocks her head at me when I talk to her, and plays with Baxter again. And she did her absolute favorite thing last weekend - she swam! Granted, she wasn't the little fish that she once was, but I could tell that she was so happy.

We still have a long road ahead of us. We don't know if she'll ever be like she used to be or if her sight will ever fully come back. There are lots of pills to manage daily, and lots of heart-dropping moments when she even slightly twitches. But she's home. And she's happy. I wouldn't have it any other way.

For those who have never seen Abbi and been graced with all of her good kisses, here's a picture to put a furry face to the name:

*I am just realizing that I left a few very important names out of this blog.
Since Monday morning (1 week ago) Kevin's been at work offshore. He didn't want to go, but we decided it was best since at the time we weren't sure how long she'd be kept in the ICU. He called to check on her many times every day - I know it was eating him up that he couldn't be here once she got home.
My mom and dad have been amazing. Mom came with me to pick Abbi up from the ER and drove us straight to the neurologist. Abbi was still in pretty bad shape, so mama drove while I hugged on Abbi and tried to keep her calm. She also met me back at the neurology center when I went to visit Abbi Tuesday. We were both afraid that they were calling me in to see her to give me bad news, and she wanted to be there for me if that really was the case. Since I have to work during the day and Kevin's gone, mama has come over every morning to take Abbi and Bax back to her house in case Abbi has a relapse and she brings them back in the evening. I have been so fortunate to have her do that for me - I don't know that many other people care enough to do something like that. It's not like I'm right around the corner from her house!
The day I had to leave Abbi at the ICU/neurology center, I was a wreck. I didn't know what to do with myself. Then at 5pm, I got a phone call. From Cheryl. Checking on Abbi. And then 20 minutes later, she was at my front door with a bottle of wine. For the first time in about 24 hours, I stopped crying. I was able to get my mind off what was going on, sit back with a glass of wine, and have a normal conversation with one of my favorite people in the entire world. I don't know what I'd do without her.

New Home!

Today, Kevin and I turned in our final paperwork for our new house! We meet with the builder in a few weeks to go over final details and sign off on the blueprint, and then they start building it up! We left the sales office, got in the car, and both started unleashing our excitement. I think that if we weren't restricted by the ceiling and doors of my car, we both would've bounced all the way home.

It's so awesome to think that a house is being built exactly how Kevin and I want it (well, our budget snapped us back into reality on a few things, but you get what I'm saying..). We have picked out everything that will go into the house - how incredible is that?

Now comes the tough part - sitting for about 4 months watching it come to life. Right now, it's a piece of land overgrown with trees and weeds. But (hopefully!) by the beginning of December it will be our home. Our home. It makes me smile to think about it.

XXV

Think back to when you were 7 or 8 years old and had a birthday coming up. Did you count down the days until that magical day like I did? My birthday is in May, but you could ask me in January “How many days until your birthday?” and I would probably, without a second of hesitation, respond “132 days!” I’m not joking. I counted days until my birthday like I counted days until Santa came. It was my day.

Oh how things change.

I used to think my parents were crazy because they didn’t go hog wild on their birthdays. My sister and I would get them cards and presents and maybe go to dinner. And I kept thinking “Why aren’t they more excited?”. It just didn’t make sense. …I get it now... As I’ve gotten older, birthdays are just less important to share with the world. I’m perfectly happy with a “happy birthday” kiss from Kevin in the morning, spending time with my family, and going out to dinner. Granted, all day in the back of my mind I can imagine a little Princess Chandra wearing a tiara and holding a wand saying “This is my day – it’s my birthday!” But I don’t feel the need to proclaim it anymore.

Except this year.

I turned 25 on May 7th. I half-way expected myself to panic as if I were turning 50, but it’s good so far. After all, I can now legally rent a car AND rent a condo in Destin for Spring Break. *yeah, too bad I no longer have Spring Breaks.
…But I digress… Cheryl and I both turned 25 within a week of each other. So we decided that “the world surviving 25 years of Cheryl and Chandra madness” merited a party. And Cheryl and Saul just bought their first house – which is totally cute and homey and has a POOL – so of course they are dying to show everyone their new crib! So we are having our birthday party at their new house.

It’s going to be phenomenal – see you there.

Catching up...

So I realized that is has been over a MONTH since I last posted anything. And I feel like so much has happened. So put your reading hat on (all 2 of you who probably read my blog..), because here I go.

1. A month ago I was packing my bags to go to Malaysia, dreading the flight, the food, and the jetlag. Well the flight was long, the airplane food was edible, and the jetlag disappeared as soon as I saw my hubby's face on the other side of the customs door at the Kuala Lumpur airport. The trip was a-ma-zing. Not only was spending a few days with Kevin the most incredible feeling, but Kuala Lumpur was a really really cool place to visit. It's this huge business hub of a city - there's skyscrapers, monorails, and people everywhere. Our hotel was right in the middle of it all - with a strip of cute little cafes and bars right across the street. We did the two things that I really wanted to do - the Batu Caves (google them - they're awesome) and Chinatown. The caves were gorgeous. We had to climb 272 steps to get into them, and once you're in you feel like you're in this little corner of Heaven. They were spectacular. And to boot, there were wild MONKEYS! EVERYWHERE! Sa-weet. And Chinatown by far surpassed every expectation that I had. My top picks that I brought home were Coach, D&G, and Dior. I also brought home some sweet negotiating skills that I had to muster up to get all of my bags. LOVED IT! And of course, spending time with Kevin was what I ultimately went for. We were inseperable. Having been apart for so long, it almost felt like we were getting to know each other all over again. I can't even say how wonderful it felt to just hold his hand again. I could go on and on about spending time with him, but I wouldn't put you through that (and Cheryl, I wouldn't put you through that again.. haha). Here are a few pictures...

The Caves

Getting our Malaysian drink on..

2. Cheryl and I went to the rodeo! A friend of hers is on the HLSR committee, and we were like VIP all night. And what made it that much better was that Clay Walker was on stage that night. Hearing him sing "She Likes it in the Morning" totally made my night/week/month/everything. If you've never heard that song, find it and listen to it. So sweet. And it was Cheryl's first rodeo experience, so we definitely did it up big. And by "Chandra and Cheryl doing it up big" that means: (a) actually going OUT, (b) getting dressed up in something other than tshirts and flip flops, and (c) a constant flow of libations (ps libations is my new favorite word). Cute cowboys, beer readily available, and live music = a good time in my book.

3. My sister's baby Bradly is growing every single day. She's 3 months old now, and she's gorgeous! Since I'm in a picture-posting mood, here she is in her Easter dress last Sunday! 4. The biggest thing going on with me now is that Kevin comes home in 2 days. TWO DAYS! After two months of being gone. I can't even imagine how weird it's going to be for him to get back. Weird in a good way, of course. I mean he's been living in an apartment with 3 other guys, he hasn't eaten true American food (they have American chain restaurants over there, but they are not even close to tasting the same), he hasn't driven, he hasn't seen his dogs, hasn't hung out with his friends, and he hasn't seen his family. I'm so ready to get him back home. I've cleaned our house top-to-bottom (for about the 16th time since he's been gone - it's one of my coping mechanisms), and I went to the grocery store today to stock up on some of his favorite things. I'd say I did okay with keeping my emotions in check, too. I've only had a few major breakdowns, and I managed to keep them private. Except for one, which unfortunately happened after many libations while Saul and Cheryl were over. Sorry, guys. I'm really sorry. Think of it as a bonding experience ;) A few positive personal things have happened while Kevin's been away though. I've realized that I can take care of a HOUSE - bills, lawn mowing, changing light bulbs - all by myself. And I've realized that me and Kevin are capable of being seperate for 2 months on opposite ends of the world (not like we really had a choice, and not that I'd ever volunteer to do it ever again). And I've lost 13 pounds! Go me! I'm definitely not there yet, but I'm feeling much better (and healthier) than I was feeling 2 months ago at the start of my bikini-body-boot-camp.

So that's what's going on with me. Not everything, but I'm tired of typing and lord knows you're tired of reading about my life. Hopefully it won't take another month for me to post something else. We'll see!