Big shoes to fill with all of my fantastic friends that blog away and keep my days full of laughs and tears as they share their journey's through relationship, engagements, marriages, babies, deaths and life.
I think I need to play catch up.
ALMOST ONE YEAR AGO...Philip and I quit our jobs, sold our townhouse and started building a house in South Charlotte. Pretty lofty I must say, seeing that neither of us had jobs. However, we had each other, a plan and a goal and in my opinion that is all we needed. I moved to Charlotte without Philip to pursue a job that didn't end up working out. (Let's leave it at that!). I lived here in Charlotte for about 3 months without Philip and stayed with my parents. Philip stayed back in Raleigh and finished out his job with the state. After months of interviewing and searching he finally secured a job (A HUGE PROMOTION!) working for a company called Gevity, Inc as an HR Consultant. He joined me at my parents in Charlotte in August to start his new job!
Side note: Staying with my parents was not nearly what we though it would be like. Everyone talks about moving back home and how terrible it is once your an adult or even married. We never thought that we would live with my parents only one year after we got married. My parents were great hosts. It wasn't the easiest time for them personally (which had nothing to do with us) so it was great that Philip and I were there to lend our support. We love them and thank them for allowing us to live with them for almost 6 months! ALSO...while I was living with my parents in Charlotte I met my weight loss goal of 40 lbs weighing in under 138 lbs. I started Jenny Craig back in October of 2006 and by May 2007 I was 40 lbs skinner and had dropped almost 10 sizes! The move was a very good test on my weight loss but I was able to pull threw and continue to lose and maintain at 140lbs (my original goal!)
While all of this was going on I re-connected with a colleague at Global Knowledge (my former employer in Raleigh) and she put me in touch with her husband who owns a IT Recruiting firm in Cary, Surety Systems, Inc. Surety Systems offered me a job that would allow me to work from home as an IT Recruiter. I was very nervous about the change but threw myself in feet first.
During this time of transition and separation we had began building our dream house....with lots of room for a future family. I can confess I am a planner. I am constantly thinking...days, weeks, months, years ahead. Our house took 3 months to build and we had many obstacles throughout the process. The two major obstacles were the doors to the study didn't fit into the frame of the house and the house looked like a hurricane less than 1 week before we were scheduled to close (which is supposedly not the norm for our builder). We had 3 project managers, 3 sales reps and 3 mortgage consultants in 3 months. Let' s just sum this experience up with: We never got our JD Power's Survey that they brag about and I am sure we didn't get it for a reason. They knew it was going to be ugly!
We love our house and could not be more thankful that everything worked out! Our house has 4 bedrooms, a large bonus room ("man room filled with Philip's NC State Stuff") an office for me to work out of and all the other normal rooms! 2700 sq ft.... with plenty of empty rooms! We painted the majority of the house before we moved in so that we wouldn't have to deal with moving all of the furniture around.
We moved in the week of September 21st, 2007 just in time to celebrate Philip's 28th birthday. Ironically we moved in and three days later Philip left me for a week in this huge brand new house to go to a new hire training in FL for his job. Both of our mom's helped me unpack and get settled. I can admit I was very anxious about getting all of the boxes out of the house and unpacked. I am proud to say we got it all done in less than 2 weeks! We already purchased all of the furniture we needed for the house prior to moving in so all we had left to do was mount the two plasma's. Somehow Philip and I mounted both TVs by ourselves. That is what I call determination!
We have settled in quite nicely. We have made some great friends in Charlotte by getting involved at the Temple, JCC and Federation.
Philip and I have already thrown numerous parties at our house which is perfect for entertaining: Random party with new and old friends, Vodka Latke Party, Final Four Cook out and more. In preparation for future summer parties and cookouts we decide to expand our puny 10x12 cement patio and make it 15x16 with bluestone pavers. To save money Philip and I took this project on ourselves. Thanks to Blue Maxx materials here in Charlotte this project was a success! We are very proud of this project and love the way it came out. I am sure our neighbors think we are nuts because we spent one rainy freezing cold week outside trying to get it done in time for a large party we had at the beginning of April (however it rained and we were forced to play beer pong in the garage instead of volleyball and horseshoes). Some other home improvements that we did were to have custom book shelves and cabinets built on either side of our television. We love them and definitely this that they add a lot to the room as well as space for future toys! For our two year anniversary my in-laws helped us purchased a substantial amount of landscaping and had their landscaper come and plant all of the trees and bushes as well as create beds throughout the backyard to beautify the yard! I can honestly say that we are the ONLY ones that have landscaped our yard around us and it makes the world of a difference...especially since they knocked down every tree possible in our neighborhood before building. Hopefully in 5 years we will have a very nicely shaded/landscaped yard.
Can you imagine what this looked like without these? Big indention's in the wall!
Stage 2, Pouring the crushed stone for drainage
Stage 3 Extending the Patio with Cement Pavers to level the surface
Stage 4 Filling in all of the gaps with ABC to prepare for the stone
Stage 5 - Spread Sand to prepare for the laying the stone. What is underneath is now a mystery!
Stage 6 - Laying the Stone and Leveling each piece of Stone
Stage 7 - ALL DONE! Hopefully the grass around the patio will come back alive sooner than later! We love rain right now.
This brings us to now....
Philip loves his job and is really succeeding. I have never seen Philip so passionate about something like he is about his work. He is getting ready to take the SPHR exam for his HR certification and hopefully will be pursuing his MBA in the fall at UNCC. We are in the process of working out the logistics and getting him registered to take some of the pre-req's that he will need. Philip has also taken on a role volunteering for the Jewish Federation for 2008 and I think he will do an awesome job getting involved through this organization.
I have been with my company almost one year now and I have really grown to like what I am doing. Initially as many of you know I was very concerned about our financial situation and the large pay cut I took for this position. I am happy to say that I have already exceeded my own expectations for 2008 and couldn't be more proud. I was recently nominated for the Board of Directors at Temple Beth El and couldn't be more excited about this honor. I think I am the youngest board member ever! This past year I led the Temple's 20's and 30's group titled NextDOR (next generation) through its most successful programming year yet and it allowed me to meet so many people I would've never met sitting at home working away in my office all day. The group has grown so much that we have over 50+ people at most of our events! It has been a great outlet for both Philip and I.
The past few months have been our busiest yet!
Lots of Birthdays and anniversaries....house projects...cook outs...
Passover begins this weekend and next Friday we head to the Dominican Republic for our 2 Year Anniversary trip. More details to follow.....
I just found your site through Cassidy's and am so excited:) I loved this first post and the pictures- What a beautiful home! All the projects you have done make it look beautiful:) Congratulations! Hope to see you again soon!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Tara