IrvinLiving

The fans are gone!  Bogo is more pleased than anyone that is house is much quieter and that the fans are not permanent new décor that I was trying out.  Once the fans left today I felt as though a weight was lifted almost instantly.  Not having plastic up in the hall having half of our house in quarantine certainly makes things more comfortable.  Granite there are still no baseboards, no carpet, drywall to be ripped out in the hall as well as the old wood flooring, but it is really not nearly as bad as it seemed or as it could have been.  It could have been the our bedroom, our office and our living room; where there is much more furniture than in the two guest rooms that were damaged.  It could have been every single room in the house verses just two bedrooms, a bath and one of the halls.  The moral of this story is that it could always have been worse and that the situation is improving everyday.

• Gray Dress: Belk’s
• Black Tank: NY&Co.
• Black Cardi: Target
• Gray Tights: Payless
• White Neck Wrap: Forever 21
• Black Boots: Target

Too much work and too little time.  The fans are still here and I have not slept and I have a ton of work to do.  An inconsiderate sales person at the office is saying that something is due tomorrow verses on Friday when I was originally told that it was due.  I am sitting here at home working and working and I have a good bit more of work to do before morning comes.  I am certainly glad to be moving away from the time constraints of unrealistic sales people.  I mean do not get me wrong, in my new role I will be under unrealistic sales expectations as well but I will have more control of how I handle it.  As in this role I am having to do what I am told when I am told, which does not always result in my best work.  He to hoping there are not many more nights like this……

This picture is a true picture of just how tired I am and it is only Tuesday!

• Black Hoodie Sweater: Old Navy
• Black Skinny Cords: NY&Co.
• Black & White Checkerboard Scarf: Rue 21
• Black Booties: Payless
• Sliver Hoop Earrings: Target

After a world wind Thanksgiving and then being greeted by the wonderful water damage, sleep certainly has not been going to well.  I woke up with a cold on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  This pesky little congestion decided that it would stick around throughout my entire visit in Alabama.  Along with not feeling well these big ass fans are making it really hard to sleep.  Bogo is certainly not a fan of the fans!  I swear that he has been looking at me with the look of; “Dude, what did you do to my house?”  It is the work week which means that Eric is back on the road again.  I can home today during lunch to meet “Serv Pro”, the guys who are drying out the house.  They have to come by everyday to monitor the fans and that the house is on track for drying out.  The verdict, it is WET and the fans are staying for now.

• White Shirt: Forever 21
• Black & White Wrap: Anne Taylor
• Gray Skinny Wool Pants: NY&Co.
• Black Booties: Payless
• Black Skinny Belt: H&M
• Sliver Hoops: Target

This outfit is serving as “Week 31 Day 3 Gold” and as “Cassie goes to the airport".  Today is Wednesday, as in the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  We are so happy to be heading home for the holidays!  It is even more fun because we did not tell our parents!  We both told our brothers, well actually I told both of our brothers, but what is new with that!  We enjoyed non-shlantly walking in to both of our parents home and truly shocking them all that we were there for the holiday, it was super fun!

• Gray Turtle Neck: NY&Co.
• Gray Cords: Old Navy
• Plaid Scarf (It has Gold in it): Target
• Blue Flats: Target
• Sliver Hoop Earrings: Target
  • Eric’s Dad and My Mom saying to us. “Why are you here?”, when we arrived, PRICELESS!

Please note that I am standing in front of my brand new French doors!

We came home from Thanksgiving with the surprise of a new pool inside our house.  Yes a new pool, how nice right, no not really.  The float valve on our toilet wasn’t working properly and “broke”while we were away.  We came home to water damage in our bathroom, two our our bedrooms and in our hallway.  To say the least we are not to happy about this surprise.  We are thankful to our neighbor Tove who came in and discovered it and rallied her company to turn off the water and help remedy the situation.  We have many fans and workers here already helping with the situation.  The bad news came later when we found out that our deductible is $5,000.  I really didn’t plan on spending $5,000.00 on something that was not wrong with my house in the first place.  Meaning new cabinets where I didn’t need new cabinets, new carpet where I didn’t need new carpet and new wood flooring where I didn’t need new flooring.  Yes this is not how I wanted to spend $5,000.00 and I was certainly not planning for it.  I can tell you one thing for sure, there will be NO shopping and luxuries during the month of December for sure.  Yes the month of December is totally a convenient time to cut spending, right!?

The spare bedroom in it’s current condition now that the carpet has been ripped out

You may remember that I have been working on a huge deal that started back in August.  It required a ton of long nights and weekends.  Today on my way home the big boss called.  He needed some info from me about the deal.  He was trying to look it up on the server.  I walking him through where it was on the server as we began to discuss why he was looking for it in the first place.  Another partner out bid us by a long shot.  He wanted to play with the numbers to see if he could do anything else to play ball.  We took the quote all the way down to our buy price which means that it will not even cover the sales persons commission.  After taking it down to our buy price we were still about 45K over our competitor.  Not good not good at all.  What it comes down to for me is there are two sales people that I keep creating large time consuming deals for that are being super greedy and trying to get into large companies that we have no business severing at this time.  I know that we have to spend money to make money and I also realize that we need to take risks, but I think that there are some risks worth passing on.  I think one day the big boss man will see through the people that are crying wolf about every single deal.  Not ever deal is a rush, not every deal requires me to work late, not every deal is priority.   Certainly not being a sales person my self, I realize that I do not understand the risk and that it is not my bread and butter, but I just think that sometimes things should be evaluated before hand a little more and we should take in to consideration if we really have a chance and if it is worth our man hours on the front end.  Due to these situations I totally half-assed a quote a few weeks back, but I made sure that people knew that I took short cuts.  The truth is that I know that we will not be getting this one either, so why should I waste my time when I can through a few formula’s and get the results that I need. To me, working smarter is better than working harder any day of the week.  I am a little bummed that it didn’t pan out but my conscious feels better about it because I know we are not the best people for the job.  That sentence right there is proof that I should not and could not actually be a sales person!

• Gold Turtleneck: Marshall’s
• Green Wrap Skirt: Forever 21
• Brown Tights: Payless
• Brown Heels: Target
• Gold Earrings: Accessory City

Luke could not resist the quality time:

I am not a girl that can wear yellow, it is a no no for most blondes.  Although Gold I can handle.  I don’t really wear a lot or even own a lot of gold clothing for that matter!  Hopefully I will be able to make it through this weeks color challenge.  The weather will have to be cool enough for me to wear my gold pieces that are certainly winter wear clothes.  It will certainly help that this is a short week.  The work week is over on Wednesday, just two days away!  I am so thrilled that the holidays are among us. 

Do you have a color that you just can NOT wear?

• Navy Blouse: Target
• Gold Cape: Sears
• Café Skinny Pant: Gap
• Natural Bead Necklace: Accessory City
• Brown Heels: Target
• Gold Hoop Earrings: Accessory City

A few weeks back my husband turned the big 30!  Due to our schedules we were waiting until this weekend to celebrate.  Eric finally settled on having a party at the house with a Taco Truck.  Yes, we rented a taco truck and margarita machine to come to our house.  It was a fantastic event.  It was certainly a blast, but I did not expect the food to be so good.  I will no longer be snubbing my nose at food that comes from a truck.  The food was so amazing, not mention that I did not have to cook or really do much cooking/preparation at all.  The best part of the weekend was that Eric’s brother Brent was able to fly in for his birthday celebration.  Eric of course was thrilled, but Luke was certainly the happiest of them all.  Luke loves his Uncle Brent more than anyone, but I have comes to terms with that!

Friday Eric was off of work.  With the break in his schedule we took the opportunity to have a cabling AV guy come out and mount our flat screen above our fireplace.  We moved into this house in February and our TV has been sitting on the hearth of the fireplace the whole time that we have lived here.  I am very pleased that it is no longer sitting on the hearth and that it is safely and professionally installed on the fireplace!

I really wanted to wear this particular dress during teal week.  The weather and the casualness vibe of the dress have been making it hard for me to incorporate it all week.  Today I finally managed to “make it work”.  The teal “blouse” pictured here is actually a summery cotton dress with a tie that gathers the dress at the waste.  I put the dress on and could not make it work with the tights and the cardi.  I then got the idea to put a half slip over the bottom of the dress along with this black a-line skirt.  I was comfortable and warm with the layers of this outfit and rather pleased that I was able to remix this dress in November!

• Black Tank: NY&Co.
• Teal Dress: NY&Co.
• Black Shirt: Target (Hem-ed to knee length)
• Gray Cardi: Forever 21
• Purple Tights: Payless
• Black Booties: Payless
• Sliver Hoop Earrings: Target
• Teal Croc Bracelet: Accessory City

I finally started learning a few things about my new job today.  I am still trying my best to rid my day of tasks from my old position.  The problem with turning over my old tasks to someone else is because I will need to give up total control.  I am not ready to turn everything over.  I feel the need to monitor and micro manage my old tasks and the people that are doing them now.  I know that I can not be successful with my new job until I take the step of releasing my old responsibilities.   With every passing day of this first week in my new position I have giving up more and more, baby steps!

Along with the other construction that is going on outside of the house, we are having cabling done on the inside.  The AV guy will be coming back tomorrow start and finish all the work that needs to be done.  I am super excited that my TV will no longer be sitting on the hearth of my fireplace.  We never thought about not having a place to put of TV when purchasing a house that was built in the 70’s.  The fireplace wasn’t exactly built out to hold a flat screen and the components that go along with it. 

Step by step we are making progress with the house, our jobs and our life in Texas.

 

• Gray Turtle Neck: Express
• Teal Sweater Vest: Target
• Black Skirt: Forever 21
• Argyle Tights: Payless
• Black Button Heels: Ross
• Sliver Earrings: Target
• Gun Metal Bracelet: Express
• Teal Croc Bracelet: Accessory City

Today was the start of the construction at Casa de Irvin.  We are having a ton of work done.  There are a few things that HAD to be done and a few the things that we just wanted to do and it makes sense to do it all at the same time.  We had some wood wrought in our atrium.  The wood wrought was certainly the most important thing to handle.  While that was be taken care of we figure why not go ahead and have the French doors put in at the same time.  Plus the French doors are much more energy efficient then the old sliding glass doors.  I am most excited about the gate that is going in between the house and the garage.  Having a gate means that Luke will have his very own fenced in yard.  He is super excited too!

• Animal Print Ruffle Tank: NY&Co.
• Black Pants: NY&Co.
• Teal Sweater: NY&Co.
• Multi Chain Necklace: Charlotte Russe
• Magnetic Teal and Gray strand: Mom bought it @ the school fair
• Black Button Heels: Ross