The Burbs

It is funny when you move into a house and you start developing opinions about your neighbors. The first night we started moving boxes into our house. I walked outside and Steven and his brother Michael were talking to a high school er that I supposed lived near by. He was giving them the scoop on the street and all the neighbors. He said there was a man with an ax that walks around at night that lives down the street...totally freaked me out! And the lady next door was really nosey and tries to get into every ones business and we don't need to talk to her but other then that he said it was great! I remember thinking.."Where is the video camera...I have moved into 'The Burbs' and this is Ricky Butler the high school er on the block that knew everything!



So here is my take on everyone. The 2 houses across the street are a little strange. I am trying to figure out if we have a mad scientist in one house. He has this crazy wiring contraption in his back yard that you can see over his house. It is more visible at night and he has these awful, horrible reflectors in his driveway that I am just waiting for Steven to yank up because they drive us nuts! They are UGLY!!!! All their cars seem to have serious alarms on them because they have crazy flashes lights on them and their yard has ADT alarm system signs all over it! I am telling you it is Doc from Back to the Future. Plus they sit there trash out 2 days earlier then the pick up! If that happened at the apartment community I manage I would get so many complaints!!!

The house catty corner has a husband and a wife with 2 little dogs. I always see her with scrubs on after work like she is a nurse or works in a Dr's office but he is the interesting one. He reminds me of the Lieutenant from The Burbs. I pulled out of my drive way for work one morning and he obviously heard my garage opening and no joke....I saw the mans head peek up from behind his fence while obviously standing on something to get a good look at me when I pulled out of my drive way. I could not stop laughing!! I had to make a block just to see if he popped back down into his back yard. I called Steven and told him that everyone is trying to get a good look at the new neighbors!



One night last week Steven and I were cooking dinner for his friend that was coming over. We were both standing in our kitchen and could hear Ella barking and barking and I asked Steven if his friend was here since Ella was going nuts. The door bell did not ring nor did we hear a knock but Ella was going nuts! Steven went to check and the next thing I heard was this lady talking and I was pretty sure it was the neighbor that I had met last week that told me she was waiting to meet me. She literally stood in my yard with her dogs waiting for me to come outside and had the nerve to say.."I've been waiting for you to come out!" Yep!!! This is the lady the high school kid told us about AKA Ricky! She literally let herself in our house before Steven even opened the door! I don't even know this ladies name is the best part but she had the nerve to literally just walk into my house! Praise the Lord she told us she is moving and she was asking questions about our property line verses hers...which is none of her business...figure it out yourself LADY!!! As she stood there making up stuff to talk about Steven and I looked at her so confused as she scanned the entire house that she could see from the fron entry and said...."Well it looks nice in here." Steven replied..."Oh well we still need to get the dining room and office put together."... Her response.."Oh well the owners before were just ridiculous on how they how this house decorated!" EXCUSE ME!!! That is the whole reason I loved this house because they had it so well kept and decorated so nicely!! We were so confused....she stood there it felt like for an hour just being nosey there was no purpose at all for her being there. When she finally left Steven and I stood there speechless just looking at each other laughing when all the sudden we hear our glass door open AGAIN!!!!!!!! YES IT WAS HER!!!! Just peeking in again....to ask...."Oh by the way what's your last name?" Steven was so caught off guard that she had just let herself back into our house he just said Malone in complete shock! And after she left we locked everything and thought what the heck!!!! Praise the Lord they are moving!!!

We are for sure the youngest couple on the block and I guess we seem a little mysterious to all of them. I can only imagine what will happen when we have our 1st party or get together for a sporting event!!

I am still keeping my eyes peeled for this guy with an ax!!

Welcome to The Burbs!

Better Late Then Never

I am finally finding time to sit down and blog after almost a month! My life has been so busy this month. Steven and I moved into our new house and both of us have been working like crazy! Our weekends have been full of running errands and just trying to make our new home complete! We are really close but not quite there. The living room, ktichen, and master are pretty much complete. Everything else is no where near done! I finally stopped to take some pictures so share!

Moving in! Our movers did not show up until 7:30pm so we did not get get all our stuff in till around 9pm that night. I could not handle all the boxes and unpacked EVERYTHING that night after the movers left!

This is the office and pretty much looks almost the same right now. Just different stuff! We have to get a new light fixture obviously that one is too low. Steven has ran into it 3 times already!

Master Bedroom

Living room! I love my rug!

This is the dining room! My next project! I also going to get a chandalier for this room. Those lights look like a pool hall and of course Steven loves them and I hate them. I want a rod iron with crystal chandalier similier to this one from Ballard Designs.

Just a few of wedding gifts!

And Now.....

Our Living Room! I do not really like our couches so I really had to search for throw pillows to help me like it better. I probably bought pillows at every store possible and returned so many! I ended up going with the European brown ones and decorative green pillows. I like the couch better but this will be a couch I will never love but my husband likes it. You give some...right :)

Love the lights in the Breakfast room!

Jean and Betty!!!

This will be the next room to conquer!

Our bedroom...I love my room. This was Steven's furniture and I struggled with it too because black furniture is just hard. And yes I chose black drapes...I can not believe it myself but it actually looks great! I tested several colors but they looked the best....Shocking!!!

The flowers on the counter are from my wonderful staff for Bosses Day!

We still have so much! We have an amazing back yard! I have 7 hanging pots that I need to buy flowers for but I am not sure exactly how to put anything in them. So many new things to learn!

So much stuff

You never realize how much stuff you have until you move! Steven and I finally are done moving and I could not be happier! It has been quite the past week and a half, not too mention work as been insane for both of us. Steven is currently working in his empty office sitting on the floor. I would take a picture and post it but the charger for my camera is somewhere in a box and of course my camera is dead!

I managed to unpack almost every wedding gift in 24 hours last weekend little to say I got no sleep at all! I have been obsessing about pillows...just call me a pillow fanatic! Seriously I have bought 3 different sets of throw pillow for our living room. All of them have been a different color, I just can not decide. Currently we have green and brown. I think I am liking them the best together but Steven does not really like them. I just want green pillows for some reason. I have never liked the color green until recently!

Our garage is full of miscellaneous boxes full of who knows what that we are hoping to go through and clear our so we can fit 2 cars in the garage. I have everything to my name in the garage. This would include all my cheerleading uniforms, high school mums, old baby clothes, and stuffed animals!

Ella is still trying to adjust to the change. I think dogs have a harder time with change then anyone else! She just does not understand what is going on. Steven has decided that Ella is a "City Dog." She has no idea what to do with a back yard. She treats it like a jungle. She goes to the restroom on the concrete instead of the grass, she is just unsure of that grass.

The good news is we have a new pet in the backyard. His name is Petey. He is a giant frog that Ella loves. He comes out every single night near the back door. Our 1st night in the house Ella just stood by the back door and cried because she wanted to go play with Petey.

I promise I will post pictures as soon as I find my charger!!

The Calm before The Storm

We close on our house on Wednesday and I am anticipating complete overload! Steven is at work and I am sitting at home going back and forth between a 90210 and Keeping up with The Kardashian marathon. I just can not decide which one I want to watch....so I will watch both :)

I am guessing this is 1 of the last peaceful, non hectic weekends for a while due to buying a home and football season...not to mention just regular day to day life. We close on Wednesday but then are leasing the house back to the current owners till Sunday. The next week we are having done like concrete seals, carpet replacement, and cleaning. Then Saturday, September 25th, is move day!

I haven't packed or really done a thing. Tomorrow I am going to go to Aledo to get some of my stuff out of my parents storage and maybe I will decide what my next project is but we will see.

Project 1 on the house is a rug and throw pillows! There are so many things we have but yet so many things we need that we have never needed before....like lawn stuff...who wants to buy lawn stuff...not me!!! To bad we have too because we have yard now!

I think I will go back to 90210 and Keeping up with The Kardashians and enjoy my last Saturday of relaxation!!!

Goal Achieved.....420!

I have achieved the largest goal that I have ever been given and words can not describe how big this accomplishment is. It has become a running joke with my investment manager, president, and CFO of my company. 420! What is 420? 420 was the NRI I was given to hit in April to achieve the best interest rate for the refi of my 480 unit apartment community I manage. There was an email that circulated that stated, "All eyes will be on Amy!" I remember thinking, "You have got to be kidding me, how am I going to do this!?!?"

NRI stands for Net Rental Income, it basically takes all the charged rents you have in place and then counters in all your automatic losses and that gives you the NRI for a property. In March/April My property sat at roughly $385,000 NRI and I was told you need to get to $420,000. I remember thinking and saying to my staff they are asking us to squeeze a grapefruit out of a whole the size of a blueburry! I had no idea how I was going to gain $5000 in 6 months in NRI much less $25,000! I honestly thought there was no way....what the heck am I going to do??? Talk about stress plus I was getting married at the same time!!! Are you kidding me.....

So when you are given lemons you make lemonade. I had 6 months to prove myself as a young female in a position that had HUGE responsibility! I knew I had a great staff if I could just motivate them and remain positive up beat attitude when really I was going home thinking what the heck!

The end of May my NRI closed out at $413 which was a huge accomplishment but the problem was it was not a true number, not all the May move outs where accounted for due to Memorial Day Weekend. So the 1st week of June we dropped to $395 and I remember being so discouraged! All these people are seeing the $413 number and thinking Amy is doing great and I was the only one that knew it was not a true number. I had to figure out a way to make up that $8000 by the end of June. Talk about team work!!!

I rallied my girls together and WOW!!!! They blew me away! The A-Team was created and they were just as motivated as I was! Not only had I led them to being excited about a work goal they learned knowledge that only managers know! That has been the best part, watching them get just as excited as I am!

So here we are at the end of this 6 month journey that has consumed my life and Guess What...... we did it!!!!! Last week the VP of assets for GE Appliances came out and was so impressed by the growth we have made. He made a joke that I should have been given the goal of $450 because I made $420 look so easy.

Not only did we reach $420....we beat it!!!! We are sitting at a beautiful $425 and still going strong! Words can not express the excitement this goal gives me! I honestly thought there is no way I can do this growing NRI like that in such a short period of time is impossible but what do you know!!!

Bridal Buzzzz.....

I screamed so loud this morning in my office when I got the email from D Magazine! It may not be a magazine but it is D Magazine's Bridal Buzz!! How Exciting...it was the best news I could have this week! Yesterday I had a moment with my boss while in tears just talking about the stress and life changes I have experienced in the past 6 months. My life has been so stressful and overwhelming. Life has finally slowed down for me and WOW....I have become the person I have strived for for so long and I am just now realzing it. I have achieved almost every goal I set and it literally just hit me this week because things are slowing down...Somewhat....Knock on Wood!

I am married to an incredible patient loving man and an indepentant career driven women with a house on the way which is what I always imagined as a little girl. The conflicts and intense situations I deal with on a daily basis at work are strait out of a reality TV show, similiar to Donald Trumps....Apprentice! Yes....seriously...this includes the drama of reality TV!

Heck I am now Amy Malone not Amy Cox......That is HUGE!!! For some reason Amy Malone is not sticking to well at work even after changing my email.

The second I started planning my wedding all my vendors knew I wanted to be in a magazine! Bridal Buzz is just as exciting! Plus I still have a change to get in a magazine! After getting this email it is time to re focus and start stalking all the Bridal/Wedding magazines in Texas! I can be very persistent!

I LOVE WEDDINGS!!! I am currently sitting here drinking wine watching My Fair Wedding and it's a rerun...I have seen this one 3 times already! Good thing Steven is at a Fantasy Football thing somewhere or he would be hating me right about now :)

The A-Team

The apartment community I manage is going through a refinance in September. It has been really stressful the past 6 months not to mention I also got married within this time! There are no words to describe the pressure myself and my team have been under and now I have put a home on top of it all.

After severl prospects and residents made comments about all of us having "A" names I thought, "Oh My Goodness...I hired all "A" name girls!" Amy, Allyson, Ashley, Alicia, and Ashley A.K.A Brooke...Our regional manager is even a "A" name...Amber. This was totally not on purpose but I am so glad it happened because now we have basically created a "Brand!"

In the mist of making a marketing plan we started playing around with "A-Team" for obvious reasons. Well it stuck!! It is similiar to a sorority with colors and a mascot. Our colors are hot pink, black, and white. Our mascot is a diamond. I have even bought block letter for "A-Team" that are similiar to the letters a pledge would receive for their sorority. We have stickers that we are going to stick on all marketing items with the hopes that in 6 months to a year the "A-Team" is something that everyone in our area knows and hopefully brings in more traffic and more leases!