that's right . . . I said a house

I know it's Wednesday, and it's kind of late to update you on the weekend, but I do not have near as much time as Christopher to type in my blog . . . especially at work.  This weekend I went up to College Station, and Cassie's Mom came in to town to relax and enjoy the weekend.  I finished up at my first gold tournament on Friday and drove to C.S. getting there around 7.  We went and had Jason's Deli, Cassie's ultimate favorite and a good choice considering Candy and I are both watching what were eating.   Candy is loosing tons of weight in preparation for the wedding in June so . . . hint, hint mom you have some competition.  I have been working on the weight loss challenge at work and I am determined to win the $250 bucks.  I have lost about 9 pounds since the beginning of the challenge on October 11th.  We are about half way through and I am in second place.  The only guy ahead of me is falling off the horse so I think the slow and steady approach is going to do me good.

House.

One of the main topics of this weekend was future living arrangements for Cassie and I.  My lease will be ending in June and Cassie is moving out of her apartment in a few weeks.  We originally decided we would just start looking or a town home in the Downtown area because I love having a short commute and living so close to all of the action.  Well we really couldn't find what we were looking for, everything was soooo expensive and very outdated.  I found a shack that was boarded up and in a not so great neighborhood and it was still $280,000.  I know that is way out of my budget and forget about finding something new, that's just outrageous.  

Over the weekend we discussed budgets and our needs quite a bit and in that process kept thinking how much cheaper it could be if only we were building it ourselves and eventually that stuck.  I have been dreaming day and night about the possibility of building a house ever since so the wheels are turning and we are beginning the process.  I have started searching www.har.com for any and everything available.  The hardest part is picking the location, we have to be far enough out of town to get a good deal, but I also don't want to sit in traffic everyday for an hour each way, so the decisions are hard.  The way I look at it though is if life were easy it wouldn't be worth living.  Cassie and I are making some huge decisions about our future and it's a great time in both of our lives.  So far I have sent Christopher some sketches and I think he is playing with floor plan ideas so who knows I might have a few sketches to throw up here in no time at all, and everyone can weigh in.

That's all for now.  I'm staying very busy at work so I have been putting in as many hours as possible, that and the weight loss challenge are starting to tire me out, but heck, I'm young and I can handle it.

The Josh (more on that later)

10.20.08

So I have decided to get better about writing these blog's.  I find myself looking forward to Christopher's blog's each time he updates and I figured what the heck, this would be a good way to keep everyone up to date.  Dad's half way around the country, Chris is on the other side of the country, Cassie is in C.S. and Mom and Kim are an hour away.  Sometimes it feels like it's just me in this big city, but I'm loving every second of it, you only get to be young once.

Work:  The past few weeks have been hectic to say the least.  Last Friday we moved our office across the street into the old Enron Day-Care center.  We have a pretty sweet little set-up.  Slides and monkey bars and it's all padded out there so we won't get hurt.  We have finally gotten the office unpacked, there is still plenty of organizing and cleaning up to do, but the crates are empty.  We have also started a little weight loss challenge among the guys in the office (we invited the ladies, but they didn't care to jump on the scale each week).  We opened it up to almost everyone, there is one superintendent that is way to competitive who would be taking ex-lax for the next month to make sure he won so he was eliminated from the get go.  The challenge is set up with a $50 buy in per person.  We have six people competing so someone will win about $250.  The ironic part about it is I was the one who suggested the challenge, and I'm the one with the least amount of weight to loose.  I am the only guy in the office under 200 pounds.  However at our last weigh in on Friday I was still in the lead with a loss of 3.1% lost.  My only saving grace is that we are doing it by % lost, not total amount of pounds lost.

Thats all for now, it's late and I've been working 11 and 12 hour days the last week or two so it's wearing on me . . .  I will update soon.