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01:19

Our Trip to VA & Moving Updates

** I have been having issues with my site/diary lately because of a security breach. Those issues should be resolved now, but if you notice anything out of the ordinary or that something needs to be fixed, please contact me and let me know. My email is beyourpet@gmail.com or I can be reached at various online profiles under the username “beyourpet” (just search for it). Thank you for your help & patience! Sorry for any trouble this might have caused..! **

Sorry for the lack of updates lately! It’s already May but I haven’t posted about last month… >->”

Kitty Ghost Steam April - Sketchby ~beyourpet

I finally have some time to write a diary entry, and my stupid website doesn’t seem to be screwing up anymore (for now), so I’ll take advantage of that and write about our trip…
So as you know we went to NC and VA last weekish to see the places we might move to. At the time, Trev had still not been accepted to the schools, so we thought we might have to move to Chicago (which would be great in a lot of ways, and a great school, but we wanted to live in the more country area, so we weren’t looking forward to more city life). But the day after we got back from our trip, BOTH the schools of our choice accepted him!! We couldn’t be happier about it, seriously, I was like at a loss of words and just squealing when he told me he got in. It’s so great to know which ever state we move to, we’ll be in a gorgeous place and the type of stuff we’re really into. Plus, it’s still in the South! Which is fairly important to me. So I’m so suuuuper happy and excited.

We still haven’t decided where were going to, but at this point it’s entirely up to us, we have full control to decide. So we’re taking our time and weighing the options. It will probably mostly come down to cost of living (like whether or not the housing situation will improve based on the city), and the school’s programs and such of course… I hope we’ll have made a decision very soon so that I can start planning everything and pick out our house! It’s still pretty up in the air, but definitely all good news right now.

I already wrote out some of the details of our trip and will just be copy/pasting it here. At the time, we still didn’t know if he’d be accepted to either or the schools we were visiting, so the photos and writing about all of it were from the prospective of “not sure if we’ll even get to move here”. I wrote some of it in the Duke gardens when Trev was visiting the school, and some of it I wrote on the plane ride back home. So if it seems confusing as to what time I wrote it, that’s probably why… Anyway, here is some of our trip! I will be posting the rest of it later, once I’ve gone through the photos and such…

Virginia (most of it…)
We spent the weekend+ out here visiting different cities and the two schools Trev is trying to get into. One in Virginia, and one in North Carolina.
The first night we got in, we flew into DC, and had to drive out to the city we were visiting, so of course by the time we got to the hotel and such we were pretty exhausted and went to bed as soon as we could.

Driving from DC airport to the city we were visiting

See more under the cut!! – Click the link.
The next day I spent mostly by myself. Trev dropped me off at a shopping center near his potential school, and I spent the day going to different stores. So it was very fun, but I still had absolutely no sense of the town. All the shops were chain stores (like Barnes and Noble and Ulta), except a grocery store that reminded me of Central Market in TX, which was still probably just a regional chain.
I bought a little silly American Girl thing at Barnes & Nobles, spent a lot of time looking at art books and children’s books. Then I went to Ulta and bought myself some lovely smelling “headache remedy” therapeutic oil, and some of the Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm that I’ve been wanting for a while now.

A few things I bought in VA

Then after spending some time alone eating sushi and eventually talking to my mom on the phone (at the grocery store), and getting complimented by this random old man (totally strange but sweet, he left me a note saying he liked my outfit, haha), I went to Michaels.
I actually have only been to Michaels once before I think, so it was fun to look around. And they had a bunch of cheap stuff and Easter sale stuff. I bought a bunch of little things there but still only spent $20! Pretty fun… I bought some pretty shabby chic things (I really love the style of that brand), and some little cute stuff like Easter chicks for like 9 cents after discount.

Chicks (took this photo once I got home)

Some little discount easter egg decorations (took this photo once I got home)

Discount Chicks (took this photo once I got home)

A little deformed chick (took this photo once I got home)

deformed, but cute! (took this photo once I got home)

just a cute chick (took this photo once I got home)

Bunny chalkboard (took this photo once I got home)

Journal & rabbit (took this photo once I got home)

Inside journal (took this photo once I got home)

Shabby chic stuff (took this photo once I got home)

(took this photo once I got home)

Recipe cards (took this photo once I got home)

Colorful bubbles that were on discount (took this photo once I got home)

The stamps (took this photo after I got home)

Then later on I met up with Trev and he took me to the school, told me how his meetings went (they seemed to go really well), and we talked a lot about moving there and the school. It was founded by Thomas Jefferson, and he also designed the original school. Pretty awesome!

Took some photos of Trev at the school

School steps

Some of the school

Trev at the school

More of the school

By this time I had been lugging around my bag (including my heavy camera) and bought stuff all day, so I was kind of in a bad mood and felt sleepy, so I didn’t care to look around too much, but I got the jist of it. A really beautiful and nice feeling campus! Much more pleasant than UT (the school in Austin). They actually had trees and grass and plants and nature there! States that aren’t constantly suffering from severe drought are unsurprisingly gorgeous comparatively, haha.

Driving around the campus area

After looking around the school some, we decided to go to their downtown area. We went to this shop called “The Cat’s House” which was adorable, I wanted to buy so much stuff there!! I just got some little rabbit fur baby mice toys (for me, not Takkun! : P haha), and a pretty little kitty necklace (which I forgot to take a photo of).

Downtown

Hot dog and Chili from restaurant downtown

Downtown

Trev's dinner

My dessert, Oreo cheesecake

Trev's dessert, peanut butter cheesecake

We ended up eating lunch at the downtown area, which was nice. I got chili and a hotdog. We were noticing that the people there all seemed really nice. None of them seem pretentious or stuck up, like some of the people in Austin are. It felt very relaxed and just normal, like people were just enjoying their day and time there. And clearly fashion was not a huge deal, which you’d think would be kind of annoying, but it was actually pretty refreshing. I guess because everyone just looked nice, decent, comfortable, normal. Non-judgmental. Which is very different than what I’m used to living here. I feel like every time I leave the house here I’m on trial. I hate that feeling, I hate feeling defensive, like I have to defend my pride or choices, like I’m not good enough for anyone. Honestly, I don’t mean to just hate on Austin right now, I know it’s a great nice city and I should feel lucky to be there instead of worse places, but it just doesn’t agree with me at all. I used to be quite a bit happier and nicer as a person. I became a lot more depressive and misanthropic after living in Austin for 6 years. I’ve become a very bitter person here, never leave the house, no friends. I actually really dislike my social-interaction experiences here. My daily life is great, but socially, I’m unhappy here. I think I will be a lot happier in a place like Virginia or North Carolina.
Not to say that I don’t love a lot of things and people from Austin — I DO. But I guess it’s good that I’m moving somewhere I think I’ll like better, right?

Right.

Anyway, the rest of that day, we just drove around the area quite a bit and looked around. It was crazy how completely baffled we were by how pretty everything was. Every new scene we were literally saying “What the fuuuck. Oh my god, is this place real??”. It was so different than anything we were used to, so much pretty stuff, so many hills and trees and so much greenery. EVERYthing was covered in green lush ivy and plants. It was amazing, it all looked like a calendar or a postcard. It was surreal how pretty it all was. And to think we could be moving there was just too weird. The photos don’t really express how pretty it is!

Driving on the freeway

A cute little inn

Driving, a hill coming up

Pretty driving, a huge hill

More pretty driving

A beautiful overlook

Trev looking giddy at how pretty it is

One of those little houses down there could be ours!

Pretty overlook

Back at the hotel, a hot chocolate from McD's

The next day me and Trev spent together all day, we went to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson’s house), where we did a house tour and self guided grounds tour. It was interesting and very pretty there. I really like historical stuff especially the early America stuff, it’s fascinating to me. I bought a little mob cap at the gift shop! I was really happy about this because I’ve been wanting one for a long time, haha. I also got some chocolate that, according to the picture on the packaging, could be turned into hot chocolate, so I’ll have to try that later.

Monticello

Trev at Monticello

Trees at Monticello

Gardens at Monticello

Flowers at Monticello

Tree at Monticello

A big stump at Monticello

Jefferson's house

Super creepy/pretty black purple tree. Reminded me of The Ring!

Trev at Monticello

Me at Monticello, bad pic -_-"

More trees at Monticello

Jeffeson's house again

Trev walking around near the house

Mob cap & chocolate from Monticello. Little alligator from Michaels

Chocolate and other little things I bought

Well that’s all I can really stand to post right now from the trip… The next entry about the trip will include a little more from Monticello (the graveyard), some more things I bought, some really pretty foggy photos in Virginia at the national park, and then the photos and such about North Carolina.

Currently, we are not leaning towards one place or another. We’re still super undecided. But we’re trying to do our homework on both of them! So I can hopefully tell on here soon where we’ll be moving to…

Byebyebye for now!