Peanut Butter

We just found this cute pictue of PB and I thought I would post it because he looks really cute...

We took PB to the new house last weekend and he had to go through EVERY single room (including every closet) and check everything out. He absolutely loved the stairs and he figured it out pretty quickly. He liked to sit on the stairs next to the banister so he could tap us as we walked through the hallway. He got us a few times! Later we found him passed out in the built-in shelves in the bonus room and on the stairs. It was a long day for a cat!

Happy Holidays!

Last year, we started sending out letters with our Christmas cards and this is what we sent out this year. It is just another recap of the past year:

2008 has definitely been an interesting year and so much has happened since last Christmas! We had originally planned to be in either Kansas City or Lawrence, Kansas by this point, but at some point last December, we decided that we weren’t ready to leave the area just yet, so we made the decision to stay in Evansville as long as we were able to find what we needed to be able to stay here. Needless to say, there have been lots of things happening!

First, Eric began looking for a new job in January and February. He had several interviews and was eventually offered a position at ARS, a marketing firm in downtown Evansville. After only three works of working there, the owner of the company decided to downsize the company in order to sell it. Unfortunately, Eric was one of 16 people who lost his job. We were completely shocked, but because Eric had just recently updated his resume and had been interviewing, he was able to jump back into the job search. Within one week, he had received 4 different job offers. He accepted an offer from Keller Schroeder exactly a week after being laid off, and started working there the Monday after Easter. So far, it has proved to be even better than both his job at OHA and ARS. His experience with Sharepoint has been very beneficial to the company, and Eric has even given some presentations.

Then, I started looking into the graduate distance program in Music Therapy at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, near Terre Haute. I applied, interviewed, and was accepted into the Master of Arts in Music Therapy program. The program takes 3 years (6 semesters) and 2 summers to complete. I begin each semester at The Woods, and then finish the rest of the coursework for the semester at home on my own. The beauty of the program is that it allows students to keep their lives and continue working, so I can actually incorporate what I learn in my classes right into my clinical work. I took my first class this past summer, and I just completed my first full semester of graduate school. I absolutely love the program and it has enabled me to meet and network with music therapists working around the country.

Though we decided to stay in Evansville, we still needed a bigger house, so we put our house up for sale in February. Because of the bad housing market and the mess from the southeast side sewer project, it took us almost a full 9 months to actually sell our house. We finally closed on the sale of our home in mid-November and officially bought a new home at the beginning of December. Our new home is over 2200 square feet and has 4 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths. We also have a pool complete with a deck, so we are looking forward to some awesome pool parties this summerJ We should be moved in by January 17, if not sooner, and I will include our new address at the end of this letter.

Eric and I have also spent a lot of time out of town in 2008. In February, we went to Brown County with our friends Sarah and Colin. We visited several wineries during their Wine & Chocolate weekend. At the end of April/beginning of May, we took a much-needed vacation to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. We stayed 5 nights at the El Dorado Royale where we could eat and drink as much as we wanted. While in Mexico, we visited Chichen Itza, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. At the end of May, we travelled to Cincinnati for Eric’s cousin’s graduation party and visited the Cincinnati Zoo while we were there.

In the fall, we had planned to go to New Orleans for a week, but because of Hurricane Gustav, we were forced to change our destination at the last minute. We ended up spending the week of Labor Day in Savannah, Georgia instead. While there, we visited nearby Tybee Island, where we could just lie on the beach and relax. We spent several days just walking around the squares in Savannah, and we spent our evenings on ghost tours and even a haunted pub craw. At the end of October, Eric and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary in Louisville (again). The weekend consisted of a winery, a ghost walk, dinner at The Spaghetti Factory, and a night at Howl at the Moon piano bar. Only 2 weeks later, we travelled to Ft. Wayne to attend a family wedding in Columbia City. This was an extremely hectic weekend, as we made stops to visit friends in Pendleton, Bluffton, and Indianapolis. We also stopped at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods on the way home, so I could show Eric the campus. The week before Thanksgiving, I attended the American Music Therapy Association conference in St. Louis, and I was able to come home with some fresh ideas for my private practice.

It has been an exhausting year and we are content to spend the last month in Evansville so that we can paint and work on the new house and move out of the old one in time for the new owners to take possession of it. While we are excited about finally moving, we are still a little nostalgic, as we have had many great times in this house. Eric has lived here for 4 and a half years and I have been here for almost 3 years. It was also in this house that Eric proposed to me! Needless to say, we are still looking forward to the memories we will make in our new home!

Though 2008 was hectic, we expect no less of 2009. School will start up again for me in the middle of January, and Eric has several big projects coming up at work. We also hope to be able to continue travelling and are tentatively planning another trip to Europe this spring/summer, (assuming we have any money left after buying the house). This time around, we’d like to visit Prague, Munich, and Venice.

We have started an online blog (http://rachelandericmaurer.blogspot.com) so that you can keep up with what’s going on with us throughout the year. We also have pictures from our travels, etc. posted on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/72101519@N00/). This shows only a few sets of pictures, but if you log in to your account, you should be able to see even more. Finally, our new address is:

7010 Greencove Ave.
Evansville, IN 47715

Have a great holiday!

-Rachel and Eric (and Peanut Butter)

2008 Review

I always do this in my livejournal every year, so I thought I would post it here as well:

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? went to Mexico, took grad school classes, bought and sold a house

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? this is kind of silly but I decided to try to get back into going to church...my goal was to go to church at least twice a month and so far, we've done pretty well:)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? our friends Abbie and Brian had a little girl on Oct. 13, and our other friends Emily and Jeff had a little girl on Dec. 5; I have another friend from grad school who will be having a baby anytime now...

4. Did anyone close to you die? Eric's grandfather passed away in March, plus many of my hospice patients

5. What countries did you visit? So far we visited various places in the US (Brown County, Savannah, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Louisville, Indianapolis, Ft. Wayne, Terre Haute, Cincinnati) and Mexico

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? more music therapy contracts and another trip to Europe

7. What date(s) from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Feb. 9/10 - Wine and Chocolate weekend at the wineries with Sarah and Colin
Feb. 17 - the day we officially put our house up for sale
Mar. 13 - the day Eric lost his job at ARS (and the whole week following was extremely hard!)
Mar. 24 - Eric started his new job at Keller Schroeder
Mar. 29 - the day of Eric's grandpa's funeral
Apr. 28 - May 3 - our trip to Mexico!!
May 24/25 - weekend in Cincinnati
June 17-22 - summer class in GIM at SMWC
July 30-Aub. 3 - fall semester began at SMWC
Aug. 30-Sept. 6 - vacation in Savannah!
Oct. 13 - Mace was born!
Oct. 21 - 2 year anniversary
Oct. 25/26 - celebrated our anniversary in Louisville
Nov. 4 - what were we thinking??
Nov. 7-9 - wedding in Ft. Wayne and visiting friends in Pendleton, Bluffton, and Indy
Nov. 11 - sold the old house
Nov. 15 - bought the new house
Nov. 18-23 - AMTA conference in St. Louis
Nov. 26 - closed on the old house
Nov. 28 - my first grad school semester ended
Dec. 5 - closed on the new house

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? getting accepted to grad school at SMWC and finishing my first full semester; selling the house and buying a new one...

9. What was your biggest failure? being too busy to enjoy life

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? no, not really:)

11. What was the best thing you bought? our new house!! and my grad school education, of course...

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? all the people who were supportive of my grad school dream; all the people who are helping us with painting and moving!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? people who don't support me

14. Where did most of your money go? definitely the house...though some went to vacations

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? our vacations, buying a new house, starting grad school

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2008? Let It Be...

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? probably the same
ii. thinner or fatter? probably about the same
iii. richer or poorer? probably about the same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? relaxing and just enjoying life more...still working on that

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? worrying...still working on this as well

20. How did you spend Christmas? planning on going to Eric's parents on Christmas Eve "Eve", Eric's aunt's house and my aunt's house on Christmas Eve, then my parent's house, my grandma's house, and Eric's grandpa's retirement home on Christmas Day

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? still in love with my husband and just recently fell in love with our new house!

22. How many one-night stands? only with my husband;)

23. What was your favorite TV program? Desperate Housewives, House, Nip/Tuck, Private Practice, Grey's Anatomy, The Office

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? no

25. What was the best book you read? I actually read 13 books this year, including 2 textbooks that I read cover to cover...

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Guided Music and Imagery

27. What did you want and get? to go to grad school and a new house

28. What did you want and not get? more time to relax

29. What was your favorite film of this year? haven't really seen many new movies this year...

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 27 on Dec. 12. I worked at home all morning and painted at the new house in the afternoon...in the evening, I went out to dinner with my family and then to Home Depot to buy more paint...

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? more relaxation

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? hmmm..no clue

33. What kept you sane? my husband and my cat, Peanut Butter

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I have no idea

35. What political issue stirred you the most? the election

36. Who did you miss? my friends that live far away

37. Who was the best new person you met? my friends at grad school!

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. I can still handle a million things at once, even though I don't really like it...

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. "There will be an answer, let it be...."

Books I've Read Since Last Christmas

Last Christmas, I got a lot of books as gifts. When I was younger (and had more time), I did a LOT of reading. I started reading really young; I actually read Pet Cemetary by Stephen King when I was in the second grade. That book was followed by Carrie, another Stephen King novel. If my parents had known what I was reading, they would have flipped!

Anyway, I've missed reading, so I decided to start writing down the books I read every year so that I can motivate myself to keep reading. I know that's probably wierd, but oh well...These are the books I have read since last Christmas (so mostly in 2008). That last two are obviously from my grad school classes, but I did read them cover to cover, which I had never done until this fall.


1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. Barefoot by Elin Hildebrand
3. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
4. Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky
5. One True Thing by Anne Quindlen
6. The Life Room by Jill Bialosky
7. Babes in Captivity by Pamela Redmond Satran
8. I Did (But I Wouldn’t Now) by Cara Lockwood
9. The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum
10. Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
11. The Last Summer (of You & Me ) by Ann Brashares
12. The Skilled Helper by Gerald Egan
13. Current Psychotherapies by Raymond Corsini

Moving Day!

We have decided to go ahead and try to move Dec. 27, weather permitting. This is a really bad time of year to move, but hopefully we can go ahead and get it out of the way in case we get any snow or ice in the upcoming weeks.

We are almost finished with the downstairs minus the half bath, but we will be able to fix that fairly quickly after moving in. I love having the white woodwork in the downstairs and it's so nice having some color added to the walls. Once we are moved in, I will post pictures so you can see the before and after pictures, at least in the downstairs...

Painting...

We have officially had our new house for a week today. We have already done so much work to it, but there is still so much left to do!

We decided that we wanted all white woodwork in the house, so last weekend we cleaned off the woodwork in the entire downstairs, filled in the nail holes and other nicks with putty, sanded them, cleaned them off again, and then primed the entire downstairs. We have gone over 3 nights this week and painted them white. Some of the rooms are now finished and others just have one coat of paint and need one more coat to be completed. It's starting to look really good, at least downstairs. This weekend we hope to get most of the downstairs walls painted...Our goal is to finish the downstairs and the master bedroom before moving in. I am so ready to be done with the painting so we can start living there!

7010 Greencove Ave.

Our new home!!

Walking into the house...

The room that will be the office

An extra room that will just be a sitting room/library

The living room with a fireplace

The kitchen and the breakfast bar

The kitchen

The fireplace in the Master bedroom!

The Master bedroom

We actually have a big yard with a nice privacy fence:)

We get all the patio furniture as well as the wicker furniture on the front porch...

We actually have a pool and a yard barn!!!

Finally!

I know my posting has been non-existant, but it's because we've had such a crazy week. Last weekend we headed to Columbia City (near Ft. Wayne) to attend the wedding of one of Eric's cousin. We also got to visit several friends in Indy, Pendleton, and Bluffton.

Then, on Monday night we finally got an offer to sell our house. We counteroffered on Tuesday and that night, the buyers accepted it. We are set to close on our house the week of Thanksgiving, though we don't have to be out until Jan. 17.

The house we thought wanted to buy actually sold 3 days prior to us selling our house, and for several days we were really concerned with where we were going to go. We went househunting several nights this week and finally found "the one" on Thursday night. It's a Cape Cod style with 2 stories. There is a front porch, 2 fireplaces, over 2400 sq. ft., a yard barn, and get this...a pool with a deck!! This was all for a great price. There are definitely some things we would like to update but it's all doable and shouldn't cost us too much to do.

All this time, I kept telling myself that there was a reason we hadn't sold our house and that all the houses we thought we wanted had already sold, but I just couldn't figure it out. Ironically, this house (which is on Greencove Ave.) has been for sale longer than our house has and we've come across it several times when searching for houses online...we just never had an interest in seeing it. I can't even tell you why we put it on the list to see Thursday night, but thank God we did! When we walked in, we knew almost right away that this was the house we would buy. Anyway, we made an offer last night, and they counteroffered this afternoon. We were able to come to an agreement and we are scheduled to close by Dec. 5 with immediate possession. We are so excited!!!

Anniversary Weekend

Eric and I spent this past weekend in Louisville to celebrate our Anniversary. We have decided to try to get away for a weekend every year to celebrate our anniversary, at least until we have kids to worry about!

We left Saturday morning and stopped at Indian Creek Winery in Georgetown, Indiana. It is a fairly new winery and probably the only one we haven't been to off of I-64. Then, we headed on to Louisville and checked in at our hotel downtown. We had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and then went on a ghost tour through downtown Louisville. We got some really interesting pictures of orbs while on the tour. Afterwards, we went to Howl at the Moon, which is a dueling piano bar. It was the first time I had ever been and we had a blast. We probably spent WAY too much money on beer and we stayed there until almost 2 in the morning - we haven't been out that late in a long time! Of course, after drinking for 3 hours, we had the munchies, so we made a stop at White Castle on the way back to the hotel. It was quite an evening!

On Sunday we decided to visit the World Market and again, spent WAY too much money on wine, though they had some great sales on red wine that day! On the way out of Louisville, we had lunch at Joe's Crab Shack, and then headed home.

We will post pictures as soon as we get a chance!

New Blog

So in addition to my Facebook, MySpace, Livejournal, and various other procrastination sites I've found online, I've decided to start a Blogspot to update our friends about what is going on in our lives. I need at least one more procrastination tool to keep me from actually working on my grad school work....;)