Graduation!

I have officially received my Ph.D. in criminology now! This past Wednesday and Thursday were the various graduation-related activities and I was so blessed to have my family attend them with me. On Wednesday was the doctoral hooding ceremony and that is where things really became real for me. When the graduate dean and my dissertation chair (and mentor) put the hood over my head, it finally felt like I was done. Though I had defended my dissertation over a month ago and was technically done then, it just didn't feel like it. I guess there is something to be said for experiencing a formal ceremony to make something real. 

And yes, you are allowed to laugh at the hat. I do every time.

Nicky, my dissertation chair, and me.

The hood!

Nicky and her husband, Alex, and myself. They have
both been my mentors for the past 4 years and I owe so much to them.

After the hooding ceremony my department hosted a reception for the PhD grads and our families. My friend Sarah also graduated and it was awesome getting to celebrate this with her. Several of the faculty members came and I loved getting to introduce them to my family. 

This was an amazing red velvet cake. Yum!

Sarah and myself with our cool CRIM coffee mugs!

On Thursday we attended commencement. Thankfully UTD doesn't do university-wide commencements and even though it was for both undergrads and grad students, it only took an hour! We were all really impressed at how fast they got all the students across the stage. I actually was able to receive my diploma at this time, too, so that made it all the more real. 

Processing in

About to receive my diploma!

Yay! Sorry to blur out the name-- security and all.

Had to get family portraits!

I loved getting to spend so much time with my family and it was great getting to relax and celebrate. I truly couldn't have completed this degree if it wasn't for the love, support, and encouragement of my family. I have much to be thankful for!

House Tour

And I now present to you, less than a week after move in, a tour of our new house! All of the boxes are gone and everything has a home. May not be its permanent home, but it is in some place. We just have to hang curtains and put some pictures on the wall. Without further ado...

The study; the walls are more blue than they look in the photo

We will eventually get new furniture in here so everything
matches. Also I think I need more bookshelves...

Living room looking into kitchen.
Please ignore the mess on the coffee table.

And also ignore the art sitting on the floor in front of the
fireplace. Ultimate location TBD

Dining area

Master bedroom

The man cave/Matt's study upstairs. Will ultimately have a TV & sofa in the back half.

I spy Nerf guns

And the prettiest room in the house, the guestroom!

I can't wait to have people here to stay! :)

Formal dining room; this set is from my grandparents

Entryway table (also a piece from my grandparents)

So there you have it! Hope you enjoyed seeing the pictures!

Moved!

We are successfully moved into our house! The official move day was Friday (yes, the day of all the crazy storms in DFW) and it went remarkably well. We were lucky to get a full-service move paid by my new employer, but it was still an exhausting and long day. The movers arrived Friday at the apartment at 8:30 AM and left the house at 9:30 PM. For it only being the two of us, we certainly have a lot of stuff, and goodness those guys worked hard! We were very blessed as it only rained on us while we were driving from the apartment to the house. I am very thankful it didn't actually rain while they were loading/unloading the truck as the storm was pretty bad (found out later it knocked down our neighbor's fence!). 

Saturday was spent unpacking and we were able to unpack and break down all the boxes. As a break, we went to Matt's work's Family Day and had a great time. The weather was absolutely perfect and we got to spend a lot of time outside- so nice after the stress of the day before. 

These bags are FULL of packing paper. So much paper.

We kind of grew found of the mountain of boxes. Made for a fun path to walk over.

On Sunday we spent some time organizing several rooms like the master closet and the garage. Things aren't quite perfect yet, but with time it will. I have to keep on reminding myself Rome wasn't built in a day and our house won't be 'perfect' for a long time if ever. Our to do list has certainly grown dramatically since becoming homeowners but it has already been worth it! We are very glad we purchased the house we did and can't wait to make amazing memories in it.

As far as today goes, I'm currently sitting in the car dealership customer lounge, waiting for them to install a new starter lever in my car. So it has been an interesting and different morning! Hope you had a great weekend and you aren't having any car issues :)

Defended

I realized I never shared about my dissertation defense so better late than never, right? The defense is typically the last hurdle in someone's PhD program and can also be called the final oral exam. Each program is different in how long the defenses last. Mine was over in about 30 minutes but I know others last longer. 

The defense went pretty much as I outlined in this post. The most stressful aspect was the Q&A portion with my committee. A few of them asked me some questions that I simply wasn't expecting, but I was able to muddle my way through them. After that portion, I was told to go into the hall while they deliberated. After what felt like an hour but was probably like 3 minutes, my chair opened the door and said, "Congratulations, Dr. Craig!" SUCH a good feeling! I passed with very minor revisions!

I celebrated that day with some friends and Matt took me to dinner that night. I took the weekend off and we spent it with Matt's family in Austin- a great relaxing way to enjoy being done. Once we got back, I spent about half a day on the revisions, and then completed some minor formatting edits with the graduate dean's office. The final stage was walking back and forth multiple times from the grad dean's office to the copy center. The last thing was turning in a piece of paper with the graduate dean reader. So anti-climatic for what it indicates you finished...

Regardless, it is DONE now! I get to pick up my binded copy in 3 months! Now all that's left is to finish teaching my undergraduate class and then graduation ceremonies. I picked up my graduation regalia (seriously, that's what it's called apparently) and had way too much fun laughing at the hat.

Seriously, how could you not laugh at yourself while wearing that?

Bathroom mirror selfie FTW

Between earning my final degree (please no more school!), moving into our first house, and starting my first 'real' job in a few months, it is certainly a time of transition. Will definitely keep this blog updated as life continues to be interesting!

Painting Update

Hello there! Figured I would pop in for a quick update on the house. I wanted to share the before and after pictures from the 3 bedrooms we painted a few weekends ago. We are so lucky to be part of an awesome church small group and they all volunteered to help us paint! As Matt & I are pretty much amateurs when it comes to painting (and really most house-related tasks), we were quick to take them up on their offer. Their expertise was really appreciated in not only painting but also picking out what paint and supplies to purchase. But enough words, here are the pictures!

BEFORE

Welcome to the blue room. Eek. So bad. Thankfully only 2
walls were like this; the other 2 were white like the ceiling.

This is the pink room. It's hard to tell because of the light,
but it's a pretty Pepto Bismol shade of pink.

And the tree room. It wasn't that the tree was bad, we just didn't really want it.

 DURING

So our first step was priming. This was after 1 fairly heavy coat of primer in the pink room. We definitely did another coat 

AFTER

This WAS the blue room. It is now our guest room. We
selected Pussywillow by Sherwin Williams.

Used to be the tree room. Look- no more tree!

And now no more pink! 

I apparently need to work on taking better before/after pictures at the same angle, but I'm learning. At least you can see that the color is MUCH better in all the rooms. We move in to the house in a couple of weeks and we can't wait!