All Growed Up

Right now my sister Brittany is at a very exciting time in her life! She just graduated from college and begins her first job next week. It's fun to see all the stuff she has to do as a new Texas resident and remember back to 5 years ago when Phil and I landed in Austin. Our experience was a little different.

[Insert the wavy lines on the screen from Scooby Doo.... taking you back in time to 2003]

• On July 26, we were married in Nesbit, Mississippi.
• On August 2, our honeymoon (a 7-day Royal Caribbean cruise) ended when we pulled into the port in Galveston. I was actually excited to leave the ship because I really, really, really wanted to get started setting up our apartment in Austin. We took a shuttle from Galveston to the airport in Houston, and Phil's parents picked us up and drove us to their house in The Woodlands where we had left our first car, a 1999 Ford Explorer named Larry. That evening we drove 3 hours to Austin.
• The first month in Austin was kind of a blur. It was so fun to "play house" in our apartment and set up all our new things. I remember feeling kind of giddy at the grocery store. I loved it!!!
• We had to do all the administrative stuff and then some - first thing was to change my name. I stood in line at the Social Security place for HOURS. Then I also had a get a Texas drivers' license. We had to update our insurance with our new address. We also had to go to the bank and make Phil's checking/savings account into a joint account. Then we had to set up internet, cable, phone service, and get cell phones. (Why did we waste our money on a home phone and cable TV? Ugh.)
• Jobs? Oh yeah, employment. Now that you mention it, that is kind of a critical part of living on your own and being an adult. Unlike smarty pants Brittany, neither one of us had jobs yet.
• After a couple of frustrating weeks of commission-only door-to-door phone sales, Phil took a job as an assistant manager at OfficeMax because we needed a paycheck. A couple of weeks later, I found an hourly job as an accounting clerk at a small company.
• In the end, though, the job thing worked out. Phil only had to work at OfficeMax for a few months before he found a position with his current employer, and my hourly position turned into a salaried one. A year later, when I enrolled in the masters of professional accounting program at UT, I was able to convince my boss to let me work part-time (back to hourly, but at a much higher rate).

And that's our story. We've made a lot of progress in 5 years. I love you baby!

("Baby" inserted on purpose. The term seems to annoy Brittany... ha! I guess I'll be using it a lot!)