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!