This week

This week has rocked! I have been working in Olive Branch at a local agent's office. They are so good! My head is spinning from all of the info and thousands of aspects I have yet to learn! It is a HUGE office as far as insurance goes, 7 employees...all women and 1 guy! I love the girls and feel really comfortable. They are all really good and the customers are pouring in. I have almost met my p/c sales goals in the first week! What a relief! I am worried about life and health policies and the 1 mutual fund but it will work itself out, I am sure of it. At a normal job, the day might drag on or you may feel really stressed but in this situation , I honestly want to learn everything I can and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. I feel lucky that I got placed in such a good office.

Also this week, Brett went down to see his sister and bring her some things. I miss him but I am also very proud...i used to freak out anytime I had to spend the night alone. Now, sadly I am used to it with all of my traveling and have been fine. Tonight, I got to eat with a few girlfriends and it was soooo nice to see people! I miss having a social life!

I have been scouring the internet for homes lately. We have a lot of things we would like to have in an ideal world. I know I have addressed the brick shortage/funky layouts of the homes in the Bham area, but there is a really cool neighborhood called Lacey's Grove. It seems really southern, Desoto countyish. I found what I thought was perfection and it sold this weekend! I found another house in the same neighborhood and the outside is ok but the inside honestly has everything we are looking for: no cut out above the mantle, a finished bonus room, wood floors, granite countertops, medium to dark cabinets, a fence, covered patio..etc. None of these are really essential but it makes it nice and does also have plantation shutters! The only drawback is that it is for sale by owner and I thought the price was decent until today when
I saw they are still building the same floorplan for much less money... Here are some pics...what do you guys think?

I don't know what it looks like in person but from the pics, it seems cozy. I think maybe we should build and then we can get the exterior we want but a better price! The layout of the house I loved that just sold was even prettier/roomier but the price is more. This house looks a lot like the exterior of the home a few posts ago..

Back Home

I have been in Atlanta for the past two weeks, and am very happy to be home finally! We did a lot of studying and got together one night for some fun. Below, pics of the class at Barnacles. Second pic is Tom braving the karoake scene:

Brett drove down on Friday and stayed until Monday morning. It was wonderful! I don't think I would have made it otherwise! We had a very fun weekend. We did some touristy things including visiting Stone Mountain. I had never heard of it but apparently it has been in a few movies. We took a tram to the top and walked around. It was great to have him there and show him where I have been spending all of my time these days! I haven't been outside a mile radius of the hotel/Operations Center. It was nice to see other parts of the city! We found a really nice restaurant called Rainwater in Alpharetta, slept in, shopped, watched movies and had a great time.

I finally got a cool rental car this time! I spent the last two weeks in a new Camry. It was really fun and sporty. I liked it a lot better than grandma impala I have had in the past! I drove the horrible 7.5 hour drive and got home late Thursday night. We have spent the past few days catching up and getting the house ready to put on the market. We are going to try to do a for sale by owner for 6 weeks or so before listing with a realtor. My cousin Claire and her bf Jim were in town Saturday. We met up with them at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the basketball game and drink a few beers. Tommorrow, I start the field development phase of my internship. I am working for the next few weeks at a State Farm office in Olive Branch. I am excited. I know how the office works in general from my past jobs but I need to learn the computer system and other helpful things they have in place to be such a successful producing office. Hopefully things will go well and I will meet my sales goals too!

Birth Announcements

I love making stationery, especially for people I know! I made these birth announcements this morning for my friend Meredith. They turned out so cute I thought I would share! I printed them on some heavier cardstock than I normally used and I think they look really nice! Congratulations to Meredith and Preston on their cute new addition..Eva!

I passed!!

Notarized proof..I passed the Series 6 exam Friday morning!!! I feel so much better!! Thanks for all of the prayers! Now all I have is the state portion, the Series 63..I don't even want to think about it, I am going to take a break for now and gloat on the fact that I am officially a registered investment representative..woohoo!!

Sassy Update

In my very first posts, we were going to Charleston every week to visit Donna and see Brett's aunt and uncle. They had a new puppy Sassy, who we got very attached to. I know if you saw early posts you got to see what a little fuzzball she was. Now she is quickly growing into a cute little dog. Amazing how quickly it happened...

The Great House Hunt

We have sort of been in denial about the actual moving part of our lives until now. Now I have eased into training, Christmas is over, and a lot of things have slowed down. I have to spend the next two weeks in Atlanta in exchange for having the past two weeks home. Brett is driving over this weekend so I am really excited!! I get to stay the whole two weeks without making that terrible drive home in the middle, plus we get to go out in Atlanta and possibly go out with April and David. One of my best friends since college, April is moving to Duluth which is about 1 minute from my hotel/training center. I am so happy! It keeps her close by even after we move to Bham, plus she is happy in love, which I am a huge advocate of!

Brett is spending the next few weeks on "honey-do's" fixing up a few things to put the house on the market. I am so very glad that he is handling the house stuff. We have not actually looked in person at any houses but I have been looking online for a very long time. Birmingham is very much the South but the houses seem very Northernish to me! A lot of them have basements and are built in a very straight up and down style. For some reason, there seems to be a brick shortage because only the fronts of homes are bricked in a lot of neighborhoods. After scouring for a long time we have found 2 or 3 neighborhoods that resemble what we are used to here in Desoto county, which I guess has spoiled us. These are our two favorite homes just based on online. The first one is my fave, this neighborhood is a really nice golf course community. There aren't any pics of the inside but judging from other homes in the neighborhood they all have very nice ammenities. The second one looks like it is on a low lying lot judging from the other pics which makes me think we might have flooding problems..sorry the insurance woman in me thinking!

We are trying to not break the bank but be specific on a few things since we will likely be in this house for the next 5-7 years. It seems very hard to find a good sized back yard. We mostly want a flat one since our hill in our existing one has been hated for a long time. I think most of our criteria is based on things we want differently or have changed in our existing home. I am so sad to leave our first house but this will be fun to have a new one! Anyway, above are the pics of for sure favorites.

Give us your input! Vote in the poll on the upper left corner of our page:

House 1 above with no inside pics, hopefully I can see it in person on this afternoon!

House 2 below with a great kitchen..

One last Christmas Post

Two things happened this year :1. We boycotted Christmas 2. I lost my Christmas card address list when I left my old job. These two resulted in no cards being sent. We still recieved tons of cute cards of everyones children and I saved all of the addresses! Back in October/November I had made two cards that did not get

sent so here they are:

I never got around to editing this one..obviously because it still says the Robinson's but it was my first choice..

For boycotting Christmas we wound up having a very nice one. We still did gifts. We had agreed not to do much but Brett spoiled me anyway. I got a lot of really thoughtful gifts one which I wanted to share...

Last year he gave me monogrammed Pottery Barn pillowcases and this year I found the matching bedspread at Marshalls for a third of the price! He is the best about remembering things that you like and going back to buy them later.

I will have to buy pillows to put in the Euro shams and iron the bedskirt (neither pictured) but you get the general idea. It looks like our pillowcases were made for the spread..

Liberty Bowl

State played in the Liberty Bowl this year, which was nice since it is hosted in Memphis. Between our tickets and my dads, we had 30 people come to the game. It was freezing cold and alot of other miserable conditions but we won!! There was literally a human traffic jam down in the concession area that turned into a huge pushfest and was gridlocked for close to an hour. I got creamed with a huge tray of corndogs and spent the rest of the evening smelling like mustard! Brett got the guy to at least pay for the corndogs since he had smashed $20 bucks worth into my shirt without even so much as an I'm sorry or excuse me.

We had a few friends and family over to the house that morning for some warm inside tailgating and bloody marys. Then we drove over to the stadium and tailgated with some friends as well.

Brett with his binocular flask...shhh don't tell anyone that they aren't real! He LOVES them and has never once been questioned when entering a stadium!

Taylor Hicks preformed at halftime, we could barely hear him and I am sure you can't see him in this pic..poor Taylor! I loved him on American Idol..

Cold, beer, and crazy times. Brett took a pic of his dad looking silly trying to stay warm! We came back to the house after the game and put on warm clothes, ate and drank. Our friends Meghan and Daniel were here from California and stopped by for a quick visit.

Christmas Night

Since it is the last Christmas here in our house in Southaven, so close to my family, Brett wanted to carry on tradition and have my family over Christmas night. We started doing this about 3 years ago and it has been really fun. the first year we did a New Orleans brunch, last year an Italian theme and this year was just plain and simple...homeade pizza and salad. The past two years, I have sent invitations, really decorated and worked hard. This year with our boycott of Christmas it was decided about two days before and thrown together. Honestly it felt really nice to not clean and rush around all day. Brett always does most of the cooking but this year we went and saw a movie then came home and threw out tablecloths. I didn't even worry about matching trays or anything. The secret to Christmas night success is the alcohol I think! I have been getting together with my family all of my life and we always have fun but the first year we hosted Christmas night, Brett set up a big bar and everybody really let their hair down! Even though we are coming up on 12 years of being together, I think that first Christmas is when my family really came to love Brett more than they love me...kidding but I think it is a close race. After that first Christmas, Uncle Tim became Timmy, Battle of the sexes is called Bottle of Sex, and Brett got called Lucy Chenille Chiffon for awhile. We have made of ton of good memories and silly jokes.

Here is our very basic but yummy spead with my hodge podge of serving ware!

Cousins Claire and Christina, The fam, Brett showing off his ring that Hannah made him from the jewelry kit we gave her, and Team Girl!

Oh yes, everyone participated in rocking out to Guitar Hero, it was hilarious!