life update… including a new job!

So much stuff has happened in the past 2 weeks!! From graduation, a wedding (not mine!), beach vacation, design renovation job in Atlanta, and starting a new part time summer job!! Let me get y’all caught up…

Graduation! I am officially a MASTER of Science from Auburn University…feel free to call me “master” anytime you’d like. After 3 years, lots of tears and really hard days, walking across that stage felt really dang good.

After THAT monumental moment, Mom and I went to the wedding of someone very dear to both of us! I’ve been in her life since she was a Junior in college (4 years ago!!) and mom had the pleasure of mentoring her one summer when she lived in St. Simons.

Wedding festivities over (OMG, I can’t believe she’s married!!!!)… it was off to the beach with the fam. Fun, sun, FOOD, and planning my cousin’s wedding!!!!!! Eeeeekkkkk, she’ll be walking down the aisle in December! More to come about that in later posts!

Relaxing finished, once back in Auburn, I had a quick turn around to leave for Atlanta for the weekend. I accepted a renovation design job for one of my best friend’s mommas. She recently got engaged (WAHOO!) and her fiancé bought a awesome new house for them to move into. The house is just that… AWESOME. Designed originally in the 70’s by now world renowned architect, Jim Strickland, senior principal for Historical Concepts. On Friday afternoon I got a tour of the house, my responsibility is creating design drawings for the kitchen and master bath. Here are a couple existing space pictures…

I had already come up with a few ideas when my best friend’s mom made a call to the architect. He had gotten wind I would be in town working on the renovations and wanted to meet me! Eeeekkkk. We drove over to his office, gross and sweaty from a whole afternoon of work, and sat down with him for an hour and a half. I posted on Instagram that I had never been more honored to take up someone’s time and that is indeed a fact. It was such an amazing experience. Especially when he said “what do you think?” I about fell out of my chair.

The second coolest moment of the weekend was on Saturday when my best friend’s mom wasn’t able to visual the new design ideas for the kitchen. It was really challenging to see it because this entire wall would be knocked out to the living rooms the kitchen would look light years different than what it is today…

Well, then I had an idea. Painter’s tape, you know the blue stuff that doesn’t stick super strong. I found some in the house and began laying out the island and new locations for all the counters.

We walked through other parts of the house to compare distances…. for example, she’d say “ehhhh, 3 feet seems a little small…” so we went into the hallway where she was able to see and touch what 3 feet feels like.

Between the painter’s tap and distance comparing we got to the “Ah-Ha” moment. And I remember exactly her face looked like when it clicked. She “got it” and loved it. 🙂 It was such a cool feeling.

Much like when a student wouldn’t understand something, look at me all cross-eyed, and totally confused, and we’d sit down and walk through it in a different way. Sometimes in several different ways. After awhile, that “ah-ha” look would come, followed by excitement and a real sense of pride in themselves for figuring it out!

She got it. BUt her fiancé hadn’t yet. He wasn’t at the house for the whole painter’s tape, distance comparing hour and a half so when he got home we went through it again. But the things that worked for her, weren’t working for him. O crap, what am I going to do now? But there was a click in my brain, and out popped another type of explanation and BAM. That look came across his face. He got it.

It was in that moment I realized how much I learned in my 3 years as a teacher. I’ve been worried that my teaching skills weren’t going to come into handy in my life unless I was standing in front of a classroom. But in that second, God squashed those fears. He showed me that I learned SO MUCH and what I learned was going to be very helpful in my design career in years to come!!

Speaking of design career, I haven’t found one yet, but I’m not one to just sit around doing nothing for very long so I’ve signed on (again!) with IE Designs in Auburn to work as a part time design associate for the summer. I worked for the interior designer two years ago and learned so much! When I heard through the grapevine she was opening up a retail home decor store, I was anticipating lots of work and the potential for me to climb back on board… and I was right! She offered me the job and I readily accepted. I’m working Tuesday-Thursday 9:00-5:00 doing whatever needs to be done at the store or with her design firm. The store is called Oliver-Henry, named after her two adorable boys, and will be selling high end furniture and home decor.

Here are a couple pictures of what the store looks like currently…be sure to check back in future posts or our Facebook page to see the progress of the store!! Think we can be ready in 25 days?!?!?!

 

The most fun part about the whole experience is that I get to work with 5 of my students who had me as their teacher last year and just this past spring semester. You’ll have to ask them if working with me as an equal is weird after having me as a teacher for so long. 😉

So that’s happening Tuesdays-Thursdays this summer. Mondays and Fridays will be spent job hunting and traveling for interviews. Currently I have lots of irons in the fire and am looking forward to the day one becomes a career!!

For now, I walk in the knowledge that the Lord has always paved the way for me, all I have to do is check back to the blog post I wrote about how the whole grad school thing came into fruition and I’m reminded that He’s always given me the details at the last minute… but the details have always come!!

xoxo, va