Saved Some BUCKS!

Well, as mentioned before I found a good apartment, but apparently some of the help isn't toooo bright. Exactly one day after I signed a lease, one of the agents called me on behalf of the manager (who had given me the tour) and left a message asking if I wanted to sign a lease, and that they were offering a tremendous special. Hmmm... So I called back to see if I could switch. After a lot of hemming and hawing on their part (uh, it is only on a select few apartments, you might have to change, it's really not that much money, etc.) I switched to a new apartment - with more & better upgrades - and I'm saving about $700 over the next 12 months. YEE HAW! Thank God for stupid people! Of course, she may not be stupid... She may just be busy or tired or who knows what. But whatever the reason, it worked out well for me!

Life in the Sunny Southwest

I moved! Well, sort of anyway. I am here staying at Curly Girl's house with the Gift (my nephew - born on Christmas Day) and QB (my BIL) so called because he played QB at his university and is still very in love with football some 20 years later.


I've spent the week looking at apartments, and I have found one that I like that is about 15-20 minutes away from my sister's house, so we are both really happy, and the one I picked is running a special where for $10 more, I get a 2 bedroom apartment. It will be nice to have an office again, plus good storage. I'll be moving my stuff out here in a couple of weeks.


Surprisingly, the hardest part of this transition is the transfer to a new big orange box store! It seems like there is nothing that facilitates. I have to make the contacts and the arrangements, and that all finally came into place this week, so that is a big load off my mind.


Big differences between my hometown and the urban southwest? Rocks are a primary landscaping tool, and there is very little if any grass in most neighborhoods. Eventually, I'm sure I'll get used to lawns that look like this








and backyards that look like this

Always Have a Friend with a Lake House

As a going away treat my friend Angel invited me and some other friends to the lake this weekend for girls weekend away. Ironically, our weekends at the lake hardly ever involve actually going to the lake. Last time we went it was raining all weekend and we just stayed in our PJ's all day and watched movies and laughed and laughed. Laughter always finds its way into gatherings with my friends.

This weekend I actually walked down to the lake with The Chick - what a good friend she has been to me, I will miss her a whole lot. My learning from our walk together - if you have a hard time walking down a steep hill, you will have a REALLY hard time walking back up it. But the weather was just beautiful, and I couldn't pass up the chance to spend some of the time there outside.

I loved my time at the lake. Nothing more relaxing and entertaining than small town living for the weekend. Thank you to all the girls who spent time with me this weekend.

P.S. On a semi-sad note, Angel is talking about selling her lake house. I was really worried, because I love going to the lake and she was my "lake house connection" - but I still have hope because The Chick wants to buy one - maybe she'll buy Angel's.