How a Search Turned Into a Redesign

Right now we live in the same 1-bedroom apartment (as featured here) we moved into after we got married. Our lease runs up at the end of May and we talked about moving out to a 2-bedroom so we could have a study. Matt & I have been sharing a desk for the past year a half and that makes life quite interesting when we're both graduate students. Since I am a full-time PhD student, my husband has been gracious enough to let me have most of the desk, but on the weekends I would let him 'borrow' it for his part-time Masters work. 

It had been working OK for the most part, but we decided it was time for a change. So with some of the free time this past week, Matt & I went apartment searching. We stayed in the same area where we live now and our most important criteria included a having a study/2nd bedroom, covered parking, and a semi-decent kitchen (hey, I have a lot of kitchen stuff!). All of the places we looked at fit some of those criteria. The complex with the nicest management had a tiny kitchen and our dining room table wouldn't have fit well either. The complex that fit our size criteria had a somewhat sketchy management AND was slightly over-budget.

Sound like an episode of House Hunters to anyone? 

Anyway, after we looked at the last apartment, we discussed all the different options and realized that, shockingly, nothing was perfect. As the evening goes on, we end up having a conversation that goes like this:
Matt: I have a kind of crazy idea.
Jessica: What is that?
Matt: Why don't we move the chair and bookcase to the bedroom and then use that space to put a desk for me in the living room.
Jessica: Hmm... actually, that isn't that crazy.

The next morning we moved the furniture as suggested, realized there would indeed be enough room in the living room for a desk identical to mine, and then drove to IKEA. We bought the same desk, drove home, put it together, and absolutely fell in love with the result.

In the bedroom we have a nice little reading nook now. We will probably add a reading lamp later.

Say Hi to lego man!

And now for the living room pictures. Honestly I think it looks better than it did before (look at the link at the top of this post for reference). 

We're wanting to put something up on the wall next to the
diploma frames, just not sure what that would be yet.

Yay! Matt has his own desk now! 

Ignore the messy coffee table...

So there you have it! We are definitely happy with our redesign and I'm not sure Matt would have had his idea if it wasn't for going to look at other apartments. Hopefully we won't have to move for at least another year! 

What do you think? Ever had a similar experience happen to you?

Holiday Happenings

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a happy New Year! Matt and I had a busy Christmas, traveling across the great state of Texas to celebrate with both of our families, so we had a chill New Year's celebration. Just what we needed! Below are a few pictures from our holidays.

Our little Christmas tree

Matt's excitement over the pop tarts I gave him :)

This girl was happy to receive something pretty in a Blue Nile box!

I also surprised Matt with a Chick-Fil-A calendar & Christmas light remote control. We have interesting priorities

 Here is where we start what I like to call the Texas Triangle- DFW -> El Paso -> Houston -> DFW.

For lunch on Matt's birthday, we stopped in Midland for burgers

The restaurant is in an old airplane hanger-- very cool!

And the burgers were delicious!

In El Paso, opening gifts. Hi Lindsey!

Matt's copy of Band of Brothers-- so good so far!

Brothers playing games

The smallest cousin being sneaky...

Now on to my parents' house, this is Matt & my niece, Alice

My mom and her gift

More gift opening...

The two cutest puppies in the world, Panda & Teddy

Followed by the cutest niece in the world, Alice

We had a blast playing at the park!

And then my husband made me a Mickey Mouse pancake. So good!

 I hope everyone has a great start to 2013!

Where I talk about guns. A lot.

This post is not meant to downplay what happened on Friday. It is absolutely tragic and my prayers are with the families and friends of the victims as well as the young students and teachers who witnessed the shooting. What is discussed in this post is not meant to belittle that.

As you may know, I am a Ph.D. student in Criminology. When I found out about the shooting I was studying for a final exam for my Guns & Violent Crime class. I do not want to get political on this blog or intentionally offend anyone. However, I have knowledge that can inform the general public as well as policymakers. If I keep quiet and let the wrong information spread, what's the point of knowledge? Having an informed conversation is what is needed at this point and that is all that I ask-- before you speak up on an issue or act on an issue, please take the time to learn about it.

I know I may not change anyone's opinion with this post. It is meant for those who are genuinely interested in the best research behind the impact of guns on crime. It is not meant to be a debate or to argue that guns are good/guns are bad, etc. 

Most of my information comes from a book by Dr. Gary Kleck titled Targeting Guns. If you are interested at all in this topic and want more detail, I highly recommend you check it out. It is based off of the best research on the topic and is not sponsored by any gun-related lobby. Due to space limitations I won't be able to go into all aspects of guns, but I will discuss some major facts.

First and foremost, there is no difference in guns that are referred to as assault weapons vs. those that are another type of semi-automatic firearm. See these scary guns?

source

They are no more lethal than these.

source

The term 'assault weapon' carries with it no special technical definition and just refers to its cosmetic, superficial appearance. In fact the term was developed by someone in the media. It refers to a semi-automatic long gun or handgun that looks scary with its black matte, military-like appearance. So, banning any type of assault weapon is just picking specific brands of guns that look scary but are NOT more dangerous than other guns.

Second, automatic weapons are banned in the US. There are a few in the US right now owned by collectors and are very tightly regulated, but they are NOT owned by criminals and are NOT used in crimes. Even the military does not like to use automatic weapons as they are a waste of ammo and are hard to shoot accurately.  

Another important point is to look at the overall use of guns in the US. According to the National Victimization Survey, guns are used in about 500,000-700,000 crimes in the US/year. That's a lot, yes. However, there are approximately 2.5 million defensive use of guns/year. This is where someone defends themselves using a gun (either through threatening with it or shooting it) when someone is committing a crime against them. This defensive gun use is not only more common than criminal gun use, but those who defend themselves are less likely to be injured and less likely to lose property. 

Less than 1% of all guns in the US are used to commit a crime. Think about that. There are over 280 million guns in the US today in the hands of citizens, but fewer than 1% of those will ever be used to commit a crime. This is a primary reason why completely banning guns is unrealistic.

There is a lot more that I could go into when discussing firearms and their impact on crime. Most of this information came from Kleck's book that I referenced earlier, so if you have any interest in learning more about guns and gun control, I highly recommend it. There is without a doubt a lot of information about guns out there, both correct, slightly misleading, and completely wrong. It is thus very important to look at the issue, like any issue, from both sides and gather the best research together possible to formulate a position. 

My intention for this post was to help inform you of some lesser-known facts about firearms and their policies. I do not want to start a debate about legislation. I will leave comments on in case you have a question. If there are any comments that are rude, mean-spirited, or otherwise unnecessary, they will be deleted. If you read all of this- go you! I hope it was somewhat interesting and informative. 

Chicago Recap!

I cannot believe Thanksgiving is two days away! We will be spending it this year with my family in Houston, but before we leave I wanted to write up some thoughts on my Chicago trip.

What Chicago trip? Well, funny you should ask. Last Tuesday I left to go to the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) annual meeting which was being held in Chicago. I presented my research first thing Wednesday morning at 8 AM, and then had the rest of the time to relax, go to some interesting sessions, and hang out with my grad student friends before returning home Friday. 

I didn't get to do many touristy-things, but I did walk around the area a little so I thought I would share some of those pictures.

Inside Millennium Park

The bean!

 

Outside our hotel- The Palmer House, a Hilton Hotel

Had to try Chicago deep dish pizza!

Overlooking the huge lobby

Navy Pier (I think)

I presented part of my findings from my thesis and it went well. As with most young grad students, I was terrified someone would ask me this mean question that I wouldn't know the answer to, but thankfully that didn't happen so I was a happy girl! 

Unfortunately, I started coming down with a bad cold Thursday night and Friday, so I was very happy to get home Friday evening. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in bed resting and drinking a lot of hot tea/gatorade/water/soup. It was very exciting for my husband (poor guy), but he was such a good nurse! 

I have all of this week off from classes for the holiday so I have spent the past two days writing and editing papers. I am very much looking forward to taking a couple days off to spend with family and really focus on all I have to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Where I've been

Hello everyone! Anyone still reading? If so, I hope you are doing well. I cannot believe October is almost over. Less than one week left... wow. November is going to be even crazier than this month, so we will see how much writing I'm able to do. On the agenda for next month:

• Voting (well, this will probably happen tomorrow, but still- Election Day will be very interesting!)
• We will be traveling one weekend for a wedding, so that will be fun, but traveling = busy
• Conference presentation- I will present my research first in front of the faculty at my school and then at ASC in Chicago. Nervous much? Yikes!
• Thanksgiving-- family, more traveling. Well, you get the picture.

So it doesn't look like much but it feels like every week or weekend there is something special going on. But then once that is done, finals are around the corner then Christmas! It is definitely my favorite time of year-- Texas just got a nice cold snap and it feels so good outside! However, Matt & I are running our first 5K this Saturday morning-- it will probably be in the 40s. That does not quite feel so good, especially in work out apparel. I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

But enough about what's in the future. Here is a little of what we've been up to! 

We went to the air show a few weeks back. We had just gotten a cold front the night before so we were definitely feeling it! 

My poor husband... so cold!

Thunderbirds

The Canadian version of the Thunderbirds- the Snowbirds

Unfortunately because it was so windy and we were freezing, we snuck out early.The clouds were relatively low, too, so we didn't get to see much fly before we left. It was cool walking around to see some of the ground demo's though, and we know we will go again next year!

Last weekend my dear friend Mary came into town and we went to the State Fair! We had a blast walking around and seeing the crazy fried food. The only fried food we tried was the classic coney dog and it was delicious! 

Some of the crazy fried food offerings... yes that is fried butter

We went the day after Big Tex burned down (the 52-ft tall talking Cowboy)  and there was a nice memorial to him already

Guys, this is butter. It is a butter sculpture of some Girl Scouts handing Big Tex Girl Scout cookies.  Only in Texas

I approve of the awesome Star Wars characters participating in the Olympics :)

Mary with one of her favorite bunnies. SO many adorable bunnies!

Other than those few events, we haven't done anything too exciting. Matt and I have been studying a lot, spending time together when possible, and trying to get enough sleep. That pretty much sums up our life lately. It hasn't been easy, but I have been learning a lot about time management- something I thought I was good at before. 

Anyway, this weekend as I said as our first 5K on Saturday, so pray for us if you're thinking about it Saturday morning. It should be interesting to say the least! 

I hope you have a great Friday! And just for fun, here's a little video I'm kind of in love with.

Five Things Friday

Hello! I'm alive! I know, it's been awhile since I blogged but man this semester is definitely a busy one! There are some things going on in our lives, but with grad school + trying to relax not around the computer means I don't have much time to write! But I figured I would give you a quick update, just in case you were wondering :)

1) Matt & I are going to an airshow tomorrow! We are pretty pumped because it is the air show we went to last year and they will have the Canadian version of the Thunderbirds (called the Snowbirds) + the Thunderbirds so it will be an amazing show! Also, the high-- 55 degrees. What? This is Texas... come on!

2) I unexpectedly got a raise this semester for my TA duties which is definitely exciting. To celebrate, I went a little crazy at the grocery store. I bought a bottle of pumpkin spice creamer, 2 cans of pumpkin puree, and quinoa. Random, I know. But I have been wanting the creamer now that it is officially fall (for my decaf coffee, no worries Mom!) and now I have a reason to bake delicious pumpkin things. The quinoa- well, I've been wanting to try it, so it gave me an excuse!

Yup. It's delicious; source 

3) Guys. It's October. When did that happen? September went by entirely too quickly and there are too many things to do between now and December. Weddings, papers, a professional conference, Thanksgiving travel, exams, etc. Oh dear... one day at a time, right?

4) Being a young second year in grad school is an interesting place. Various 1st year students will ask me questions and for advice, but they are older then me. I'm not used to that. I am definitely one of the youngest in the program still, but I guess that's a good thing!

5) And because it is Friday, here are a few happy pins I've found recently (all credit- here). Enjoy & have a great weekend!