And here we go!!

Our "home" officially becomes our "house" today.  

The preparations are done and the floors are shiny! It's time to sell! 

We received our first offer last night and the house hits the market today. It's nice to be wanted before officially available! Nonetheless, the offer is a bit lower than we need, so we are moving forward with countering and then to see what others have to say! I am confident in getting more interested buyers and know that God will bring us the right offer at the right time.  The housing market in Texas is ridiculous and the houses are going up up up in price in days! We gotta get this bad boy sold so we can snag an Austin beaut!

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, while it's slow at the snow cone stand. I know, I know! Bad ashley! Write in your own blog, don't just read others'. Nonetheless, I find myself reading a few friends, family members and strangers' blogs and just really enjoying seeing into their lives! I hope I can stick with this one enough for someone to enjoy reading my random blurbs, as uninteresting as they may be! Judging by my one follower and 2 comments (thanks Jo and Brian!), I have a lot of work ahead of me to impress you people :-P

One quick little photo from this morning as I dabbled in a little art before work! Aaaand caught up in project runway.

Until next time! Fare the well!

Oh MY!  I know that I am a terrible blogger. Please forgive me!

This season of my life has felt very hectic and with lots of uncertainties.  Well, things are certain, but the means to achieving them are rather unclear.  I am a planner.  I like to make sure I know what the goal is, how to get there, and what bumps may pop up along the way.  I guess it is my teacher nature to try and have an escape route to any unplanned situation.  It's a characteristic I think is helpful in life, and as long as I don't get worked up when unforeseen stresses emerge, being a planner makes for happy experiences.  :)

However, in all my planning and calculating, during these last few months, as well as being loaded down with packing, cleaning, and vacuuming animal hair, I have neglected the blog as well as my craft.  My husband and I are moving to the great state capitol of Austin, Texas!  While living in Dallas or its 'burbs my entire life, it is strange to embark on a brand new city, to make brand new friends, and to ultimately start a brand new life!  I have closed the book on my full time teaching career (for now at least!) and am going to work on getting settled into a new home this fall.  I will then be constructing a legit art studio, and begin working full time in clay and watercolor!  I am very excited to get going doing what I love.  I also have a few little projects planned for illustrating books...but those are just little seeds of inspiration that will need to grow a bit before put into action.  I do hope to spend some time teaching art lessons or maybe subbing again.  I just won't be able to give up "kid time" completely!  I love those munchkins way too much.

Here are a few tidbits from our clean and staged house!

I have found that I am quite a homebody.  While I enjoy going out and about seeing friends or having delicious meals, I really find that I like planning fun times at home just as much!  So, I am excited to have the time to do just that once we arrive in Austin.

So, while selling our house, I have decided to move my animals (and myself) to my parents' house.  They live near my snow cone stand, where I drive to work each day, so it makes most sense to not have to deal with dirtying up an immaculately clean and staged house.  I arrived at my old abode 2 days ago and am loving it so far!  Some people would hate moving home to mom & dad's, but I just love it here so much!  

A few pictures of home. Including a mini work station I have made for temporary creating!  

Until next time! Farewell!