Support

So let me give some back ground to this story and as it unfolds, things will make more sense.

I've been working on my thesis proposal for the past week and the stupid thesis approver dude doesn't seem to want to pass it. Anyway, I spent 2 hrs talking to my advisor/director of the HP program. He gave me all these ideas of what I should put in the proposal to make it work. Note: The official proposal is due tomorrow and if I don't get it approved I can't take the class this semester which sets me back a semester of school...fun.
So, I've been working on that and then I get an email from another professor about a Graduate Research Assistant position which she would like to me me for the following day. So, I'm freaking about the proposal and add the stress of semi-job interview on top. This morning the approver dude tells me I can turn in the proposal today so that if something is wrong, I can work on it the next day and still turn it in by Friday...Good. He wants me to turn it in by 11am. I have 12:30 class so I decide to go to the gym in between. I get all my stuff ready and pack a bag with interview appropriate clothes. Leave, turn in the paper, and go to the gym and do my thing.

Now, comes the understanding to the title....

I'm showering and changing after running and start to think, did I bring a bra? Normally us small chested gals don't have much of a problem going braless. But! I'm doing an interview thing with a female professor and my shirt is a thin WHITE shirt. No hiding the freedom boobs! So after spending a couple of minutes rifling through my bag, my fears are confirmed...missing. So what am I to do? Well thankfully I had worn a zip up sweater over my gym clothes. I put that ontop and hope it does the job. It does...no support but blessedly keeping me from showing the world my goods. Unfortunately the sweater has a yucky coffee stain down the front so I'd rather not wear it to the interview and its freakin' hot outside!! My plan? After class but before the interview, scour the drag in an attemp to find a bra in one of the stupid stores.

So I begin my search. I go to Urban Outfitters...no bra, no tank to hide, nothing but one little nude color soft bra that was too small and looked like it belonged in the kids section. I go to Whole Earth...maybe I can find a biodegradable bra? Good for the earth right? Nothing unless I was a 38DD. That I am not!

I'm running short on time at this moment and so decide to head over to the interview sweaty, bra less and exhausted. In a last hopeless attempt I go into a University Co-op girls clothing store I vowed never to go into. The last place and success! Offwhite 9.99 tank w/ built in bra. The support I need at an affordable price! The clerk even recognized my plight and offered to let me put it on in the dressing room and wear it out.

So! Here I sit writing in this blog, properly support and with enough coverage to be a disappointment at a wet t-shirt contest!

May I Introduce Mrs. Eberhard?

Well since I haven't posted in over 3 months, I felt that it was time to let everyone know what was up in my world.

I have now enjoyed 2 1/2 weeks of wedded bliss. Jeff and I were married on July 1, 2006 at 8pm. It was a beautiful ceremony and unseasonably cool evening in July! Truely my perfect wedding. Everyone else has said it was lovely too but of course they are not going to tell me otherwise. So, I'm choosing to be niave and think everyone had a perfect time!


We went to Cozumel for our Honeymoon. Here are some pics from the trip:

We had a great time and just relaxed by the pool the majority of the time. Not much exploring to do on the island itself and we were too lazy to take the ferry other places.

Here we are at a restaurant/bar on the other side of Cozumel's called Mezcalito's. Very yummy!

Here are our fellow Honeymooners from Tyler, Texas. They particpated in a silly couples contest at the resort. We would have joined in but missed the beginning due to too much wine.

Jeff and I in the pool on a rainy afternoon. Only the drunk people and the kids stayed in the pool. Jeff discovered that I never say no to champagne so I had many glasses of champagne that afternoon!

Everyday housekeeping would leave a towel animal/art on the bed along with chocolates. I really didn't care about them cleaning the room, I just wanted towel animals and chocolate!!! We can't decide if this one is a bunny or a dog.

These are a random sampling of pictures. None of which are in time order or anything like that. We stayed at the Cozumel Palace, an all-inclusive resort. It was wonderful and Jeff and I have decided that all-inclusive is the way to travel to places like this. So, if we take a ski or beach vacation again, it will be at an all-inclusive.

Since getting back to reality, we've opened up the majority of the wedding presents which are wonderful (registries are a blessed thing!). We are in the process of writing a bijillion thank you notes. And, I'm in the process of looking for a job while I'm not in school. However, the job arena seems to be not very open at the moment. Heh! Well, there is still time and I'll work part time during the school year too! Hopefully this'll keep us from being so very poor :(

This is all for now but I will post more in the future. I'll even post some wedding pictures!

We closed!!!

We closed on the house yesterday (Friday)!!! We got so excited that we packed up half the apartment last night until 3am! We're gonna try and finish the rest tonight and then move on Monday night if possible. Depends totally on when we get electricity turned on in the house. Yea! And even better (at least in the summer) we are only 15min away from the lake. Carlos 'n Charles here we come evey weekend!!! I have a good feeling that there will be a lot of boat rentals going on this summer.

How to fit everything in?

So, here is the situation:

We bought a house and we close on it either April 7th or April 14th. This means at that point we'll be paying rent and a house payment at two places. Unless, we can either 1. break our lease or 2. sublease. We've talked to the apartment complex and they are not willing to work with breaking the lease and one of the agents said that they do not allow subleasing but to talk to the manager. In the contract, it does state that they will allow subleasing in certain situations with written consent. We have someone lined up who is very interested in subleasing our apartment. So, no problem there.

If all works out ok, we will be moving this weekend or next weekend. If it doesn't work out, then we won't be moving until almost the end of the lease meaning that we'll be paying for both apartment and house.

I have 2 (10-15 page) papers due in one month. Also due in 1 month, I have a building pathology presentation (have not even begun working on) and a National Register Nomination project for a historical district due. The two papers, the prof absolutely refuses to give extensions. And I have a final exam in one of those classes.

I'm planning a wedding for July 1st. I have an engagement party planned for April 22nd.

What in the hell am I supposed to do? Is this too much for one person?

Italy in Spring

Excerpts from email to my mom:

I just wanted to drop you a quick line and let you know that everything is fine. I'm in Rome right now. Jeff and I stopped in an internet bar to get out of the rain and dry off a bit. Its been raining all day while we went to the Roman Forum and the Colosseum....so its been not quite as fun as it could have been but at least it kept the lines down! Yesterday we took the train down to Rome and met up with Flaminia and then went and took a tour of the vatican. She had tickets to the crypt or Scavi which are impossible to get and so we took a tour of that too. We leave this afternoon to go back to Modena and meet back with Jeff's family. Tomorrow we are going to Venice, Saturday, Florence and then Sunday we are going to San Marino. Quick trips but at least we get to see something! I've enjoyed traveling with the Nicolini's so it should be a fun time on the day trips.

We are staying at an old farmhouse while two of the kids are staying with the grandmother in Fiorano. When we got to that area on Tuesday, we were told that it had snowed recently and sure enough there were banks of snow along the side of the roads. Rome has been warmer and greener than northern Italy. The food is absolutely delicious and thankfully they have reasonable portions or I would have gained 20lbs. from this week alone!

Ok, well I need to jet so that we can get our train on time. Tell everyone that I love them and I will call as soon as I get back into the States!

Love you!

Steph

Not be lazy or anything but I thought that would be quicker and more efficient for me to do! Now to tell about the rest of the trip.

Jeff and I left Saturday morning for Houston to fly to Italy. Actually not Houston, Magnolia....so to Bella,Shasha, and Kat, sorry about not meeting up with anyone but we were out in the middle of nowhere and by the time we were done with dinner and a nap (one to many ritas!) it was so late to drive to downtown Houston! Big apologies!!!!! The next day I spent trying to get Jeff's sisters dresses for the wedding. It was only supposed to take an hour...it turned into like 5 because of a St. Patrick's day parade which caused massive traffic. But got those done. My cellie died so, sorry to anyone who tried to call and got no answer...forgot to charge it!

We left early, early Monday morning Italy and essentially flied all day long and arrived in Milan, Italy Tuesday morning. Drove 3-4 hrs (slept most of the time!) to Fiorano to the Nicolini family apt. and the farm house we stayed at. The next two days are noted above*

We got back late Thursday night from Rome and then early Friday morning, plans had changed and we went to Florence with Jeff's family. Florence was beautiful, although with 5 women/girls in the group a majority of the time was spent looking at the market that was set up along the main street. The churches were gorgeous but unfortunatley we didn't get a chance to look at too many buildings because it was only a day trip and kiddos were getting tired. So, we left around 5 and headed back to home base.

Because plans had changed, what had originally been planned as a big family trip to Venice turned into just me and Jeff. We took the train there and spent the day wondering around and getting lost. Venice is definitely a contained city, every maximum inch is used for buildings and streets. Its eerily silent because of the lack of cars. While I enjoyed Venice, I felt like I was more bombarded by tourist crap than any of the other places but maybe that was because we went on the weekend. Jeff and I left on the Intracity train which takes twice as long as the Eurostar but is half as expensive. It didn't bother us much because we purchased while in Venice a bottle of Prosecco and two personal sized bottles of wine. Four hours later we arrived back at "home" a little tipsy and very tired.

Sunday was a chill day as everyone repacked and we had lunch with the entire family clan at a restaurant up the hill. I think they beat my family record of a long lunch...four hours! Then we went to visit the mud volcanos...which is a lot cooler than it sounds! I swear.

Monday we left at 4:30am to drive back to Milan to come back to the states. We spent 3 hrs in the car, 8.5 hrs on a full plane to Newark, 3.5hrs on a full plan to Houston, 1hr in a car to Jeff's parents house, and then 2.5 hrs to Austin. I'm so tired of cars and planes and trains!!!!!!

Overall! Great trip but quick...more like wetting my appetite for more Italy! Now, back to reality. Mucho work to do for school which I am not excited about. Suckage...so I will be laying low for a couple of weeks!

Feedback

I'm gonna post some ideas for the wedding and get some feedback from people. Not that Jeff's opinion doesn't matter, its just that everything looks good to him....he's easy to please!

Floral ideas


I'm thinking off white callas and green callas...I love the reds and oranges of these bouquets but I want to keep the colors summery and try not to go too fallish..eventhough I do like those colors a lot!

Centerpiece ideas: I wanted to keep the cost down and try and only do candles for centerpieces but I'm not positive it will be that much less.




Ok, so I'm not sure about this but I thought it was kinda cool and lasts longer than a bouquet but for the bridesmaids:
Would you be pissed off if you were a BM and held a fan instead of a bouquet? And would it be weird b/c I'm not asian nor am I having an asian themed wedding?

Ok it won't let me upload any more pics...so I'll be back in a bit and upload more...

Italia.....(LaLaLa)

Thats me singing the national anthem of Italy. No you sillies not because of the Olympics, psh! Its because I'm going to be going for Spring Break!! Whoop!Whoop!!

Mr. Jeffrey and his family were going and so since I'm family now (yeah, you heard me Jeff...I'm family!)I get to go too! Jeff's and my job while we are there are saving his mom from boredom I think. Basically we get to entertain her, which equals traveling so I'm not complaining! They are so awesome for bringing me along!

Since I was supposed to be writing papers during spring break and now obviously I won't, I asked one of my profs if I could change my paper topic to something regarding my travel and he thought it was a great idea! So now I have to think of some kind of topic about rural italy....hmmmm...

Anyway, hopefully when I'm there I will get to see Flaminia who is in Rome. Not sure yet but I think it will be a possiblity to go and visit her for a day. We're staying in a small town called Fiorano which is near Modena which is where they make Balsamic Vinegar. Fun, tres exciting!!!

On Wednesday it will be exactly four months till my wedding. Yikes, I need a cake person, florist, dj, photographer, etc. I'm screwed.

But...I'm going to Italy!!!

V-Day

You know I probably shouldn't put V-day. Some people could mistake it for Victory Day or Venereal Disease Day. So all of you confused individuals out there, I mean Valentines day!

So, I'm not a bit Valentine's Day kind of person. I think that too much money is put into one day to represent love that you should feel for the person in your life all year long. So, let me knock myself off my high horse however, I do enjoy celebrating it in a lo-key type way. When Jeff and I celebrated our first Valentine's day together, I told him that I wanted us not to buy anything but make something for each other. I thought it was a good way to mark the holiday but not buy into the commercialism of the day. So last year I made the point of making a several course yummy dinner and desert and a homemade card. Jeff made me a photo album of the six months we had been together with little notes by each picture. (If you've been to our apartment, you know what I'm talking about) It was all very sweet and cute and perfect.

This year, now that we have a special reason to celebrate Valentine's Day, both of us kind of put off making anything or at least planning anything. The main reason was that we thought we weren't going to celebrate at all because I was going to be in school till 8:30 anyway. But, Jeff asked me to skip the class on Sunday so that we could at least be together and I of course jumped at the chance to ditch school! So, come Monday, I'm scrambling to come up with something as was Jeff I'm sure. I finally come up with the idea of painting our own pottery. I figured it fell under the realm of making something and we could do it together and it would be fun. So that is what we did on Valentine's Day. It was great and on Sunday we should have a coffee much with I LOVE YOU on it and a cereal bowl with "Jeff's Bowl" written on it. Jeff also, brought home sushi for dinner (wonderful and yummy!) and chocolate covered strawberries (the biggest suckers you've ever seen! and also wonderful and yummy!) and a bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne (I love champagne!).

So, long story short, low-key v-day but absolutely wonderful! Unfortunately today I feel very gross due to the bottle of champagne with dinner, bottle of wine at pottery place, and then additional bottle of champagne when we got home. Day after Valentine's Day not so wonderful!

Big P.R. Pimpin' and junk....

I'm lazy...you can read an account of my travels in Puerto Rico at FSPOT and Fait du Chocolat
My thoughts on the trip? Everyone needs to go because it is so awesome. And I got a tan in the middle of the winter...'nough said.
Other news....

Jeff and I are reunited and the plans for the wedding are in full force. The date is set for July 1, 2006. It will be a grand evening wedding with lots of candles and twinkle lights. Jeff brought me back treasures from Israel. A beautiful gold and red pashmina. Greatest Love hits by various famous artists sung by Israeli singers. Chocolate (he knows me so well!). A bottle of wine (Again! he knows me so well!). A beautiful green necklace...and lots of pictures! I think he had fun.

I brought him back from Puerto Rico a bottle of rum, a t-shirt, and a sick and whiney fiance...oops.. I think I got the better deal.

School seems like it might suck if it wasn't for the fact that I only go three days a week. Its gonna be a lot of work this semester especially with all the other things on my plate.

UMMM...yeah.....I don't know what else to write...I'm lazy and boring right now...sorry!

Merry New Year!!!

I'm trying to start the New Year right by posting as often as possible...this post is mainly copied from an email to Jeff but I figured it would get the message across anyway!

I ended up having fun New Year’s Eve even though it was kinda expensive…but oh well! I had talked to Phill of Scotland about hanging out but in the end I wasn’t able to get a hold of him. We were able to meet up with Lindsey and her pose though. Renee and I tried the Austin First Night thing and it was cool. We weren’t able to get a $10 button which would have gotten us into the places to see some of the performers but we decided to stay and watch the parade. It was really cool though and I’m glad we stayed.

We met Lindsey downtown after this long process of trying to park. Take a regular weekend in Downtown Austin and magnify the traffic by three fold. It cost us $10 to park and then Lind's group wanted to go to Apple Bar and so that was another $10 to get in. Once there it was pretty crowded and the music was horribly loud. After having already paid $20 I wasn’t really into drinking too much. It was enjoyable..I just mainly people watched because it was too loud to talk to the other people. At midnight the bar pass out champagne but I wasn’t able to get to it and so couldn’t really toast anyone…it was sad because I do love my champagne. Then Linds talked to this guy from law school who happened to be at a house party so we drove over to Yager lane to hang out at the party. The group was really cool and nice and they had a 2 keg kegorator. The house was inhabited by a group of guys who were in a frat at Southwestern in Georgetown. They were definitely not “frat” type boys though..so I gave my approval to Lindsey. We ended up leaving around 3:30 pm and then headed home. We were all a bit hungry by 3:30am and had a Taco C. welcome into the new year. We did not get to bed until 5am. Then we woke up at 9am to drive back to Dallas…it was fun let me tell you!

We went over to my mom's cousin Noelle’s new house and she’s done an amazing job in renovating the house and decorating it. The table settings were gorgeous. I’m so horribly envious and jealous of her talent. I definitely made up for my lack of champagne on NYE there. I think I had 4 glasses followed by Cocques san Jacques, prime rib (I was given the largest piece and could only eat half), potatoes au gratin, a large assortment of cheeses and a lemon curd tart (tart but very yummy!). Oh and she had some yummy appetizers of lobster and salmon and a frois gros paste of some sort. All very delicious and beat my lunch of Arby's earlier in the day. We got there around 5pm and did not leave until 11:45pm because everyone was having so much fun.

So now the holidays are over and that means the parties with the deliciously fattening foods are done and the diets can start!


The Giant Black Eyed Pea of New Years!