Reasons to celebrate...

Austin and I have had lots of cause for celebration recently. I've been promoted to Designer/Office Assistant at the oil company, and Austin has been promoted in his job too. We're also on the hunt for a house, my parents are flying out next month, my friends keep popping out beautiful babies, and the charity book project is near completion. Phew! Or perhaps 'woo!' would be more appropriate. I'll combine them: Phewoo! I've just invented a new exclamation. I have no idea how you'd pronounce it, but I'd better copyright that bad boy. Anyway, I digress...

So, I move out of reception and into my new office on Monday. They're giving it a good clean for me as I type. There are even rumours of a brand spanking new desk! 

I'll be in charge of the monthly newsletter, any in-house advertising, office supplies, web maintenance .etc. Now, I have no idea how to do most of these things...shh!...but they have faith in me. I'm currently doing an online course for Corel Draw, which I love. My first job at work using this software was to create a 'bad battery' label for my boss's bad battery disposal box. He told me to have fun with it, so I did:

I'm excited to delve into creating labels for our company's products. Fun times ahead!

On the house front, we are looking for a house to restore, which may be daunting for some, but is turning out to be like Christmas morning for me. I'm one of those people that would go into a dog shelter and pick out the pooch with one leg, three eyes and a wonky tail. I love the idea of taking something that's broken and bringing it back to life. Jesus led the way with that one. I'll keep you posted with the progress. Once we have a house chosen, I'm sure I'll bombard you with photographs of the process, don't you worry!

As I mentioned, Mum and Dad are flying out next month. They will be staying for just over two weeks, and one weekend Austin and I will join them somewhere new, probably Washington DC. It will be my first time out of Texas since moving here. Finally I get to see more of the States! Again, you will be bombarded with photos. 

Now to the babies. At Uni, I lived with three girls: Gem, Shell and Lisa. Between last October and now, they have each popped out a sproglet. Jackson, Jordan and now, as of today, Scarlett. Congratulations to all three of you! Now I guess it's my turn to step up to the plate...

Finally, the charity book, Pay Attention to Black Thread. It's nearly ready!!! I've just finished proofing the final copy. The publishing date, although not set in stone just yet, is very close. You may remember me mentioning it a few posts ago. It's a middle grade book about a young carer, and all royalties will go to Carers Trust in the UK: http://www.carers.org/

Here's a sneak peek at the front cover, inspired by Renee Bel-Momodu (a young carer aged 11) and created by Katie Hopmann:

The book will be available to order on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle form. I'll keep you posted!

To complete the celebration, you can't go wrong with a good old Pixar mini-movie (slightly random, but I had to get this animation in here somehow!). I discovered this one the other day and thought you might enjoy it -

Partly Cloudy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6Pe1ovKHg