achievements for 2009

achievements for 2009:
i ran both a 5k and a 10k. the 10k was without much training too due to me not knowing if i was going to do it and my meeting erik two weeks before the race.
i met erik, i fell in love and i'm getting married. that's an amazing accomplishment coming from someone who never thought that they would get married or would get married out of boredom or something...
i moved to texas. yea, this one kinda sucked but allowed me to figure out what i really wanted and what i liked and didn't like being on my own. it was a goal to get out of new hampshire and i achieved it and now i can move on.
i started two blogs (first one semi unsuccessful). gives me something to do and a way to keep track of my life and figure everything out in writing.
i drove cross country with my brother.
i survived being unemployed.
i quit a job i hated even though it's a recession.
i figured more out about who i am, what i want out of life and who i want to be there with me. it's funny moving, you figure out who you really want to spend your life with... and i definitely have some real friends.
i'm sure there's more but that's all i can think of right now.

things i didn't achieve would have been my resolutions for the previous year:
to floss more, to wear my seat belt all the time and to not drink as much... stupid resolutions. it's like once you say that it's your rez you're done for and that ONE thing you won't accomplish but everything else you didn't even think about when that ball dropped... done. wtf...

day one of new shift

Today started much like any day...
Ok even that's a lie. Today started... Early. Erik and I went to bed at 830 last night so I got up this morning, got ready and left the house by ten after nine in order to pay my $214 ticket only to find out that even so, I'd still have two points on my license for being under 25.
Then Erik drove me to work after I vented to him all my mornings sorrows- early again.
Yes today was my first day of my new (was told I would never get) shift which is 30 minutes earlier. No biggie right? I should be able to stay at my same desk and everything? Wrong. I'm moving to the back of the mod and not only is my new manager all business but she's a clapper.
That's right. She cheers every time you do something well... Which I hate.
Ugh. And just when I thought I wouldn't be counting the moments til I left. Now I have to pretend to be happy here too.

dec. 20

first of all, happy birthday amanda! 25 woot woot!!

now that being said, and since amanda is one of my two bride's maids, i have a LOT of wedding planning to do yet...
i made a list earlier today and i'm sure i'm forgetting a lot but here it goes:

· Plan our wedding

o Pick out bride’s maids dresses

o Figure out what Ashley is going to wear

o Figure out what we’re going to do about a caterer

o Save money

o Pay for the photographer

o Buy rings

o Buy invitations

o Figure out what invitations we like

o Buy a printer?

o Figure out how much the flowers are going to cost

o What to do about centerpieces?

o Chairs

o Tablecloths, candles, Christmas lights

o Pick out rings

o Address and send out invitations

o Figure out what we’re going to do about an officiate

o Finalize guest list

o Get addresses

o Find a dj

o Find out how much it’s going to cost and how long we’re going to have him

o Get dress altered

o Start getting fit again

o Find shoes for wedding

o

and that's just the wedding part. this includes nothing of moving and everything else i have to get accomplished before then.
holy moly. and erik thinks we have plenty of time...

sometimes...

sometimes i forget that erik knows his options. i forget that he chose me, out of everyone else in the world to spend the rest of his life with. i start thinking about how maybe he'd be happier some where else, or maybe he wonders if he made the right choice? how could he possibly want to be with me? someone who asks a million questions and worries and analyzes every situation to a fault... someone who is constantly thinking ahead rather than living in the moment...
i mean don't get me wrong, i am fabulous and wonderful and every man's dream wife to be (although most of that is often forgotten in my mind of chaos and worries..) sometimes, i look at myself and i worry that i'm not the person i was that he fell in love with or that he'll find something else that he likes more and i freak myself out because all i can think about is how lucky i am to have this amazing man in my life and how on earth could i ever live with out him now?
but he's pretty gosh darn lucky too.... and he chose me. :)

perfect sunday

i woke up this morning in our warm bed only to remember that -- i don't have to work today! after some amazing snuggling, i got into more appropriate pjs to head to the grocery store to get some coffee only to find out that it was absolutely beautiful outside!
rented a few movies, picked up a duralog for later to have a fire later and headed home.
erik and i drank coffee while watching movie 1 and farming.
afterwards, i read a little then decided to take a bath and scrub off all the dead gross winter skin. feeling refreshed, we decided to head out to the llano winery.
on the way... we checked out the scenery of dead cotton fields, oil rigs and windmills.
now it's only 4 pm and we still have movie2, a bottle of wine and a fire to look forward too. perfect.


o and we stole some cotton. whud up?

...

so i guess the verdict is that we're moving to new hampshire, but open for all possibilities.

6 am rant

so i don't know if it's because erik is sleeping diagonally across the entire bed or if the fact that i've slept at least 10 hours since rearriving in texas has anything to do with it but i woke up this morning at 5 am and i realized one thing...

we have to move back to new hampshire.

it makes so much more sense. i mean, we both had jobs we didn't mind there. our families are there. we have friends there that we've both discussed missing a bunch. we have (at least i have) a slew of furniture so we wouldn't have to worry about getting all new stuff right away. plus, that way we could plan our wedding and not have to worry about whether or not we'll have to buy plane tickets and how much that's going to go up and where we're going to stay. i'm sure we even have enough places to stay that we wouldn't even have to worry about getting a place right away... which is good because i spend most nights worrying about our finances and how we're going to be able to do everything we want to.



i moved here because i wanted a change. i was bored at the direction my life was going and i didn't think nh had anything to offer me. i thought by moving here it would be a jumping point to go where ever i want. i have no idea where i want to go.

erik and i were discussing this evening about my quarter life crisis. i feel like there are so many things i want to accomplish and no idea where to start. laying in bed this morning, all i could think about was how much happier i would be if i didn't have to worry about all this. if my degree didn't mean nothing. i was working a job i didn't mind and it had some potential... maybe, eventually but the fact of the matter is that i liked it. i liked working at the nhaa. it made me feel like i was doing something and i was helping an organization where my ideas mattered and what i did mattered. now i don't think i could go back to portsmouth, but why not conquer one state or one city at a time? why do i think i have to move and get out and do all this now?



i'm already drafting emails in my head to my old boss to see if there's a chance i could get my job back. i mean, yes i have to run this all by erik... and i probably won't post this until i do. but there's still so much i could accomplish and so much we could do by going back. and there's always the opportunity that one day, our jobs or passions will lead us some where else. when we were discussing moving, erik said that we should find some place to go and stick to it. we should figure out where we want to live and stay there. i have always thought it was your career that was supposed to lead you to different places. why not like what you do rather than just trudge through each day? it just seems like right now... it makes more sense to be back in nh.



it's like we've already been on our honeymoon here... a stressful honeymoon but it's just the two of us. we need to get back to real life. and at least by the time we get there, it'll almost be summer again...

where to go? what to do?

we have approx. 87 days left here in lubbock. at least until the end of our lease.
i think by this point we've made it very clear that lubbock is not the place for us.
people here in texas are quite strange and not normal. or at least what i believe to be normal. there's something off about them. all they know how to do is drink and social interactions aside from that are hazy. i don't get their humor if they have any and i'm starting to understand why candace is a hermit. going out any where in this area is more of a hassle than a good time.
but where to go?
things i know for sure are that i want to be closer to people i understand, perhaps even people i know. i want to be close to the beach and have an affordable gym nearby (as fat as the people are here to join a gym it's like 80 a month with a 200 signing fee...). i want to be able to enjoy the weather, most of the year anyhow... i guess i could even say some snow isn't bad as long as it's not the majority of the year.
i know i'm going to need a good job.
i feel like i'm at a weird point in my life right now where i want things to start wrapping up. i want to be in a job where i like going to work every day and around people i enjoy being with... i haven't found that here.
i know that being with erik, i feel like everything is new and special and different. finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, i feel like i have different priorities now. i'll always want to do whatever makes myself happy but it's not all about me. i think maybe that's why making a decision on where we're going to go next is so hard.
i like the east coast and there are things that i miss about nh. mainly the people i know and love, but there are so many things that i don't miss enough to go back just yet... all though maybe i haven't given them the right chance? i mean, being with erik, everything's different so maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be in the same state i grew up in? closer to my family and the people i've grown to love like family?
but what would i do there? work at a bank again? no thank you. i could go back to school i guess and maybe some place like manchester or concord would have more to offer than i've given it credit for in the past. i haven't really explored that world before... although it's still pretty far from the beach.
there would be pluses about moving some place warm on the east coast too. i mean, tickets aren't that expensive to fly from north carolina or south carolina back home. and it would give us the opportunity to make friends (hopefully) with people who just knew us together rather than separate. also, i feel like it's a new market for jobs and houses and people could visit us to get away... although the likelihood that people would visit is few and far in between-- i realize this from living here... it's kinda of nice being able to define us away from nh even if it's always in our minds.
but would we like it some where else? is it worth the risk of trying some place else and possibly hating it as much as we do here?
ugh, so many questions... i guess only time can answer. i'm terrified it's going to come down to the last moment and we're gonna be like so where are we going? and not have an answer.

snow... yay!

there's snow in texas.

i thought i moved here to get away from snow and shoveling and cold weather.

i think it's stalking me.

things that i'm grateful for...

i'm thankful for a day off
i'm thankful for erik, for everything that he does and him helping me keep my sanity
i'm thankful for only having to be here for a few more months here
i'm thankful for battleship and wine
i'm so thankful for movies because otherwise there wouldn't be much to do
i'm thankful for warm weather
i'm thankful for my family and friends
i'm thankful my phone is working so i can keep in touch with all of them
i'm thankful for having a job that pays
i'm thankful for mail--- it's something different to look forward too
i'm thankful for caffeine.................................. and sleeping....................

..................................................i guess i'll have to add to this list .............

grumpy

so we're discussing moving to south carolina. i have a friend there--- this sounds like a bad start... but--- i have a friend there that owns a gym... and some family near by that i haven't talked to in ages....
damn, that sounds like the same way i got here.
maybe we need to think this through a little more.
i was trying to figure out what it is exactly about this place that i hate so much.
i don't know if it's the place so much as the fact that we just aren't happy. we don't have a whole lot going on, we don't have many friends and we end up doing the same thing every day.
i wake up when erik goes downstairs to make breakfast, coffee, morning, get ready for work, work 9 long hours at a job that every day makes me hate it a little more.... (yesterday i forgot to log out of my phone while i was on lunch which means that calls came through and i wasn't there to handle them -- therefore not showing our customers how much we care) ...then i come home, make/eat dinner, maybe drink a little wine, take care of my farm, possibly read and go to sleep to start the same day over..
unless of course i have time off, like today.
then i get to farm more, read more and perhaps watch movies and plan things that i may or may not ever get to do.
i guess i'm just grumpy and homesick.
it's almost thanksgiving and i have no family around and no way of cooking a turkey.
man, this is not a good mood to be in. i need to find something that's going to give me a little bit more positive attitude or i won't make it through the next 4 months.

saturdays are a nightmare

In customer care at least.

Its like all week long, people build and build and build up all this emotion that they just can't hold onto anymore come Saturday morning. It probably doesn't help much that I don't want to be here and listening to people gripe about their phones at 9 am is the last thing I want to do...ever.
Even after my mental health day yesterdày, it only took me two hours to revert back to my loathsome self.
I need to move. I need to move to some place beautiful and warm and happy and get a job that reflects the things I love. As much as I enjoy cell phones and knowing about them and being able to help people out... This job is nothing more than a paycheck and when it's over, it's over and I don't care about it one bit.
I have no idea how people can make it through years of this. More power to them. I won't be able to make it.

the update

things that i've done since my last blog:

• well... i read new moon in preparation for the movie out soon. :) so excited.
• i went to a halloween party at kaylee's. i went as a texan. big hair and a texas tech shirt. erik went as someone from nh, or was it an att employee?
• we are currently watching the coolest dog in texas, torque.
• i guess we must have gotten a ps3 because there's no prior mention to that. well, actually erik traded in his xbox so we could get it. and we got the dvd to play netflix on the tv, though it takes longer than the computer...
• i decided we have to move out of texas. i'm homesick and this place is just not that cool.
• i also decided i hate my job. listening to people gripe for 9 hours to come home and have no life outside of my job... it's just not worth it. i don't know if i'll make it through this year...
• we got little big planet, as previously mentioned my new obsession. it's like a combination of sims, poppit and super mario but you're this cute little sack person flying through a world of imagination. wonderful.
• we also have two weeks for both of us to read eclipse, which has been a battle between the two of us over who gets to read it first.. erik's winning.
• i'm in search of a couch. i'd like to get one soonish so people can come visit us. maybe we'll have a little more fun if people can entertain us. that means you. come visit. now.
• i've decided i'm turning all att. for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing what people at a call center look like, it means morbidly obese. ok so i'm not that bad, but erik feeds me and i don't have time to run anymore so you do the math.
• i think that's about it. erik is desperately waiting for the moment the new call of duty comes out so we're both going to our first midnight release tomorrow night. :)
• o and i just finished the week from hell: 5 days straight of work. i think i got stress sick this weekend because i'm not used to having 2 days off in a row anymore and the time to let go of everything is freaking out my system like it doesn't know when this will happen again so it's trying to shut me down in this moment... i don't know when this will happen again. at least the holidays are coming soon. people don't complain as much then... or so i heard...

i guess that's it. you may now consider yourself updated. how's it feel?

it's been a while.

erik reminded me i haven't blogged in a while...

i had blogs in mind to write but truth be told this job is sucking away my soul.
i don't have time to do much of anything and when i finally get home from this job where i basically get yelled at for 9 hours straight, blogging is the last thing on my mind.

but there is much to report...
unfortunately, i need to get into my current obsession of little big planet. i will return shortly.
<3

farmtown vs. farmville? no competition

erik and i were hanging out on farmville this morning, maintaining our crops and animals and what not when i noticed my dear friend amy had become a fan of farm town. now i've known a number of other people (family included) that have boasted about farmtown and, of course, curiosity got the best of me.
farmtown is weak sauce. the graphics are bunk. there's a creepy old man that tells you what to do and you can't even plant your crops close together. the only pseudo cool thing is that the animals move a bit.

farmville, however, is amazing and i tend to spend my long 9 hour days wondering how my plants are doing. it's user friendly, your plants florish in neat, tidy little rows and you can decorate it how you would like. the only problem with farmville is that so many people love it and some times it bogs down the system. it's time for an upgrade facebook! work on it.

this is erik's other obsession, cafe world. while it is very exciting and i would love to join my stinkin job permits me from doing so.

this is erik's "emily please don't take pictures of me while i'm playing on cafe world" face. so cute.

be warned

this bug was flying around our room. erik smashed it into the wall; his head was dislocated to another part of the wall.

when i asked if he was going to clean it off the wall, he informed me that this was a warning to all other flies. like they used to do with pirates, hang the pirates who tried to port as a warning to all other pirates...

this is fly number 2. apparently he didn't get the warning.

fall in texas!

apparently you know it's fall in text because it's football season. that's it. this is our fall foliage. i think it might be juniper cause at least it's blue!

this is the truck that has been sitting outside by the laundry room since the day we moved in. it has not moved. ever.

our protection! right outside our door. in case people try to break in, i guess. not that they'd get much.

follow up on fight #17

i'd first like to state that training at my job is so difficult that i wrote my last entire blog while i was sitting paying attention to everything that we were learning. i'd also like to state that i currently have a 96.73% in the class.
that being said, the follow up to my foul disposition is this. i went home at my lunch break even though i wasn't sure i wanted to; i knew i didn't want to be upset for the rest of the day and then only have an hour when i got home to sort things out with him.
when i got home, i don't think he even realized why i was upset. to tell the truth, i'm not quite sure i knew why i was so upset. i told him about how i wrote a blog about it and we talked about why it bothered me. he didn't realize it was so important to me and i admitted to over reacting. i mean, in the month that we've been here this was the first time he didn't drive me. it really isn't that big of a deal. i work like 7 minutes away from our apt and that's if there's traffic. my only concern with driving is parking because you have to park far away which adds another 5 minutes at least to the walking in part.
(the weirdest thing about this building is that it looks like nasa where it's a bunch of different little compartments combined and the hallway that connects them is-no joke- a quarter mile long. my training room is at the other end of that mile, so it takes a while to trudge down there. especially since it's filled with slow walkers and people who are not so in shape. it's true, everyone- i mean thing- is bigger in texas.)
so that was really my main concern and now having done it and making it in on time i realize that it's not really a big deal if for some reason erik can't/doesn't want to make the trip with me. and he understands that this is something that's important to me and makes me feel special so i think we're doing an ok job of working this stuff out. :) for now at least.... lol

fight number 17

Today started like any other day. I woke up didn't want to get out of bed. Eventually went downstairs to make Erik pancakes as he had asked for the night before. I made my lunch and coffee. Erik continued to sleep.
I went upstairs to find out if he wanted to eat the pancakes I just made and he said he'd rather sleep. Back downstairs for me to eat my pancakes in peace.
Back upstairs to finish getting ready for the day-pajama day at work. Its then that Erik informs me that he is not driving me to work today. A first since we've been living together.
I flipped. For some reason to me this means that he doesn't love me, doesn't care about me and driving me to work is more of a bother to his very important life. On top of this, I had just made breakfast! What does he have to do all day that driving me to work is such a hassle? If I drive myself to work, he won't even have a car!!
Now I know this is ridiculous of me to think this way. I left for work in a huff, pissed off and early than probably necessary. On the way to work, I thought about calling and apologizing but I'm too stubborn for that. Instead, I'm grumpy all day waiting for him to realize the err in his ways and then tonight he'll go to work and I will probably continue to be upset because nothing was solved. He'll have no idea that having him drive me to work makes me feel special and makes my coworkers jealous. Its also the one thing that we get to do together, even if we aren't really doing anything. On days that we're both working, we have a max of 2 hours together. When he's finally awake it's 4 am and I am not. Weird, huh?
I hate fighting, but I hate not winning and/or giving in. I guess I just wish he could understand where I'm coming from and realize that for some unknown reason this is important to me.

welcome to my 24th year!

they say it's your birthday... duh nuh nuh na... happy birthday to you... duh nu nu na...
or in this case me.
this is a little photo documentary of how i spent my first moments of being the big 24!

12:11 am and mouthwash! time to break out the camera!!

that's right. i was watching netflix and it kept stalling, just like any day.

happy me day!

monday surprises!

so erik and i have this ritual of sorts where every day before i go to work we check the mail together... lame, i know but it's fun to see what kinds of mail we get and seriously what else do we have to keep us entertained?

much to my surprise, we opened the mail today and not only were my long awaited checks in there from the stupid bank as well as some other stables but I GOT A PACKAGE! not just an package, a love birthday package from home! just as i was starting to get homesick too.

aren't birthdays and parents wonderful?

just plain scary

still think it's strange that giant squirrels can attack out window out of the blue...
erik thinks they like his music.
THIS SQUIRREL WAS HUGE!

friday is apparently bar night with the at&t crew

even though we have no money, my options this weekend were to desperately wait at home for erik to come home from work at 4 am or spend some time out with my coworkers indulging in some $4 long islands and learning more about them than one person could possibly want to share.
i really didn't feel like being out too long. kaylee was going to pick me up and then we were just gonna hang out for a bit. i figured i'd be home long before erik, but out long enough so i didn't really notice he had been gone for so long.
i didn't think i'd be out long enough for him to be able to pick me up at denny's on his way home...
i think the start of the night was what doomed me. we were all supposed to be meeting up at this place called the caboose which is basically like a dave and busters- not that i've ever been there either but this place is a sports bar on one side and a family restaurant with games and what not on the other. and they have $2 margaritas on tuesdays and $4 long islands on fridays.
kaylee and i got there around 10:30 and couldn't find chase or steve anywhere so we decided to just get a drink while we were waiting. moments after receiving our beverages, steve texted me to tell us they were in the restaurant bar. not realizing we can take our drinks into the next room, we started pounding our long islands.
i spent my evening educating texans about what a REAL long island has in it as well as introducing the crowd to grateful deads. mmm...
by the time that bar closed we were all pretty happy and mosied over to this other bar called jakes where i think chase spilled his beer all over tiffany, kenda lost her phone only to find it on the floor after sending steve back to the other bar and we all decided we need a girls dancing night and sung journey at the top of our lungs.
from there we headed to dennys where kenda lost her phone again and chase told me all about how he's been engaged twice and he may have a baby by this woman. we also all texted each other across the table and switched seats a bunch.
i work with some interesting people.
and next friday is my birthday. pretty exciting stuff!

our new creature!

so we finally got the new door frame put in and therefore thought that would be the end to our life in the wild. unfortunately we were quite wrong, because as erik was going downstairs yesterday he came across this:

this creature was crawling around on our carpeted stairs! barely visible, completely blending in with the floor! and he used my glass to capture it! my glass!













i just stood around and screamed and got my camera to take pictures only after it was securely maintained within the glass and plate barrier.
erik safely released the lizard type gecko creature into the wild. this was only after him pointing out that we could have eaten him in our sleep if we weren't careful. thanks honey.

then he stood victoriously in our itty bitty kitchen. he is after all... my hero.

week 3

today is the beginning of week 3 out o my 6 week training.
we most likely won't even touch a phone for another 2 weeks. my brain is still fried from last weeks intensive training on every program we could ever use. i'm already waiting for this week to be over.
there are 2 things that bother me about this situation.
1. we can take notes. i take massive notes. it helps me to refresh my mind on what we've previously gone over so i can make sure i understand what i'm talking about. the problem with this is that even though we can take notes, we can't take them home or use them any time we aren't being paid-which would be fine if every moment of our day wasn't filled with learning more and more information.
2. we start class at 12 o'clock and work until 9 pm. we take frequent breaks, like every 2 hours or so but the problem still lies that my brain is not fresh at 9pm. my brain's like what are you doing? you should be watching movies or doing something that doesn't require trying to jam more info in me! not only that but it's a 9 hour day... and we only get paid for 8 of it yet we still have to be there.
now this is a great company to work for and it has great benefits but the likelihood that one can get out of working the late shift within the first 3 years is slim. i've heard horror stories about people who have been working that shift for 8 years. 8 years with neither a morning/day or a night free and there's no way you can have a 2 day weekend unless you have saturdays off which is highly unlikely.
i'm here and i'm going to stick it out. i just hope i'm a lucky one and this lifestyle isn't forever.

my future husband

recently i've been getting a lot of advice from people who are married, dating or have been married about my relationship situation. it seems it got out that erik and i haven't been together that long and are already engaged.

one woman i work with (four years my junior) warned me after work one day not to rush into anything. she got married at 17 and has 2 or 3 kids now at 20... i guess if i were her i may offer the same advice.

another person i work with asked me about my dress and when i told him i already had the dress and the venue and most everything planned he asked me if that was a good idea. things change.

there are so many reasons why i know that erik is my soulmate. but today i figured i would share yet another amazing fact about the man i'm about to marry (as he sings time is on my side...):
erik and i have just moved cross country. i moved with my tiny little car and therefore couldn't carry much in the ways of furniture or dishes or anything really like that...
erik moved via plane and therefore could bring even less.

we have one car and one bed that was borrowed from a friend. o and some dishes. those are our only possessions. robbers would walk into our house and think they were too late.

that aside, with the exception of these last two weeks which i still won't receive my first paycheck for another week, i haven't worked in two months. erik was supposed to finish out the season at his last job but i couldn't be apart from him for that long. basically, we're not only living off the bare essentials but we can't really afford to buy anything more.

with all that being said i'd like to remark on the type of person erik is and keep in mind this is only one of many occurrences where i'm completely in awe of him.

we were on our way to the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner.

on our way inside, we were stopped by a couple women who were standing at the front of the store asking for donations of poptarts for hungry children. hungry children have a harder time learning, and what kid doesn't like poptarts?

we took the brochure they were handing out and went about finding our ingredients.

we walked through the store entirely and then on our second trip around, erik stopped and got some poptarts.

when we got home i told him that i love that that is the type of person i'm marrying and he responded with helping others, helps yourself. people are more likely to help you if your kind, have a good attitude and help them.

how could i ever ask for anything more?

things i've learned since living with erik

• it's not all about me. i know. i was shocked too. but apparently it's true.
• rice and eggs is a fine combination. although i still get made fun of for eating pasta and cottage cheese?
• one person can eat burgers every day
• i need to take things less personally. and i'm super sensitive. weird. hopefully that goes away.
• i apparently leave my stuff every where. when this was determined the word stuff was substituted for another word beginning with s. again, sensitive. idk.
• foreign asian movies can be fun.
• his keyboard is smaller than mine, making this difficult to type. (my computer at work has the like huge hand keys where you're hands are separated and on an upward angle making it hard for me to type on anything else...)
• big tvs are very important. especially for playing video games.
• i learned that when i get home from work in the evening, i need to unwind with momentary me time but i really enjoy that he picks me up from work.
• netflix is amazing when you are broke and have nothing else to do.
• not working makes him very unhappy.
• it's good to have someone around that cares for you. especially when you are almost in tears because the washing machine doesn't work and you spent your last quarters to find that out. he's a good egg. i think i'll keep him. :)

other random thoughts

• my computer hates me. it goes through these phases where it just doesn't want to work. sometimes it's fine. today and last night... it hates me.
• today is not only 1 year until my amazing wedding with my soulmate but it's also our 3 monthiversery!
• today also marks the end of week 2 of my training at my new job. my brain is frizzled. hence the non-blogging.
• it also makes week two of my coworkers mingling outside of class. we're so visiting erik on his first day of work!

erik! we have snails!

this morning i walked downstairs, in my usual morning blur, to make coffee. as i was walking over to the windows to open the shades, i felt a crunch under my foot. cereal was my first thought. i know i swept the day before but it has to have been possible for some cereal to sneak out and land in our mid should be if we had furniture living room. no biggie.

as i'm returning, few sips of coffee to awaken my stupor, i look at the crunch on the floor. that is not cereal. bug? ewwwwww.. but it looked weird for a bug. texas bugs. everything in texas is strange.

one more time downstairs, getting ready for my wonderful day of work. i'm about to run back up the stairs when i see something strange on the floor and the woodwork. do we have bugs? then...
ERIIIIIK! can you come here please!

........ WE HAVE SNAILS!

not only snails! we have baby snails. that can grow up and become big snails right in our house!

that's right. that crunch from earlier? crushed snail under my barefoot. and when erik opened the door, more snails waiting to sneak in under our misshapen door.

it still gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. escargot is not for me.

no more poppit in space

today was a sad day.
today i realized that everything has a cost and money really is everything.
it started with drive-thru pizza....
and now...
poppit.
http://www.pogo.com/games/poppit?pageSection=free_home_my_fav
unfortunately, up until now i've had the pleasure of playing this game under a temporary free membership and become wildly addicted for no apparent reason to the wonder of popping balloons for prizes. it gives me entertainment and i would receive new balloons and percentages as to how close to the next level i was... it also gives me something to do when erik is killing blue cats and green monsters... (don't ask. i really have no idea.)
now, when i play the free version of poppit... i get commercials every 3 games and pauses and worst of all... no new balloons. no chance for a new theme.
so instead of poppiting, like i'd like to be to past the time on this wonderful saturday night and regain some sanity after some intense tv shopping and computer movie watching with a belly full of what passes for tasteless cheese pizza in texas (blah!), i'm looking for a new game... hopefully one that will bring me just as much joy and entertainment...

"If we can get through Adolph's, we can get through a sandstorm!"

erik and i had big plans for our friday night. i sit in a building all day doing mostly nothing but staring at a screen and he spends most of his day hanging out in our townhouse, so i made the big suggestion. let's go for a walk when i get home!

needless to say when other plans came up with the people i work with, we jumped on the bandwagon.

the big plans were to go to this karaoke bar by the mall called adolphs. place your world war two jokes here.

kaylee felt the need to warn me as she and i are two of seven people out of our twenty-one person class that do not smoke. thank goodness.

erik and i show up around 10:15 pm. before even parking we got a glimpse of the type of people we were about to encounter. honestly, i wasn't sure if this woman was dressed to a T for the area or a transvestite. either way this isn't the type of bar i was used to.

as we walked in the door, the bouncer wearing a pink shirt and cowboy hat announces the fact that we are a long way from home. you're telling me...

we stood at the bar but apparently not at the walk-up which was the only place we could actually order drinks if we weren't sitting there. it seemed to take forever. in this time, the two people from my work that had already arrived noticed me: chase, the ex-marine californian and lisa, who's roller derby name is psycho sweettie.

both smokers.

next to arrive was jane, the excitable teacher and her husband of two years. then steve, the new mexican who says wicked and his girlfriend, kenda. kaylee and tiffany. and finally rocky. most of the gang.

lisa introduced us to her friend, shooter who continued to hit on tiffany all night even after she told him that the fact that he wanted to take photographs of her was creepy. might i add that shooter looked like a 60 year old scary version of kris kristofferson with sketchy glasses.

sketchy guy #27 at that bar got up to sing my girl to apparently every woman in the room. his arms were approximately as long as his body and he could be compared to a hillbilly cowboy umpa lumpa.

by the time chase was up to sing his second song (ice ice baby- unfortunately sketchy guy #27 also dirty dances), my eyes felt like little ash balls rolling around in my head. red, scratchy and squinting, i was blinking to try to keep some moisture away from the amount of smoke that was overwhelming every orifice of my body. after finishing our cheap pitcher of water beer, i think we were both about ready to leave. being the troopers that we are, we stayed until a little after midnight. endured as much as we could, inhaled around 90 cigarettes a piece and came home to try to brillo off everything.

i'm pretty sure if i burned the clothes i wore last night, people 4 states over would still get a nicotine fix.

snails, Snails, SNAILS!!!

so this morning i went for a little run around our townhouse, and on my way back i was shocked to find this little snail... well not so little for a snail but it was exactly what you would expect a snail to look like. strange for what i think about when i think about texas, but it's true i guess: things are always bigger in texas. it had the little antena thingies popping out of it's head, a perfect little shell and it had the perfect little tail and it was just wandering around on the sidewalk.

that was the end of my thinking about it. then i went to work.

when i got out of work tonight, i asked erik how his day was. he responded with this story: well, i was walking to check the mail today and i looked down and there was this snail! (my shock! because i never told him about my snail story even though i meant to!) his story continued, he ran back to the townhouse to grab the camera. who sees a snail in texas?! and apparently as he was walking he kept hearing this crunching noise which he didn't think about until he saw this snail.

the crunching? baby snails! the place was crawling with them. all over the place.
not only on the ground either, THEY WERE CRAWLING UP THE WALLS!! as he was walking to the car to come get me, they were falling down on him like rain!

unbelievable! i was no joke, shocked by this story. who gets rained on by snails?

so, when we got home i didn't really think about it much except for the fact that erik kept looking around. they were no where to be found. absolutely no snails anywhere! i started to question whether or not him staying home was a good thing....

and then just as i opened the door, there they were! three itty bitty snails with perfect spiral shells!

who would of thought?!?!?! snails in texas.