Two weeks later!

Well, sorry that I haven't posted, but it has been a busy two weeks. I went back to the hometown, packed all of my stuff on a truck, drove it out to the southwest (with the assistance of the parents) unpacked it all off the truck (with the assistance of many) and started setting up the apartment. The parents helped Curly Girl with her last minute nesting and then just a couple of days later her new baby was born. I'm still figuring out her personality, so no nickname for her yet. Went to get the Firecracker, who couldn't wait to see her new sis. New Baby is a BIG baby - 9 lbs, 10 oz and 22 inches long! The Gift thinks she is great, and wants to keep giving her kisses. He's being very gentle with her and is awfully sweet to watch. The QB took a few days off to enjoy the new girl, so the family is resting quietly at home.

My apartment is starting to come together. I hung some things on the walls this weekend, which always makes it feel more like home. And the furniture I brought fits (with only a slight inconvenience of taking the door off it's hinges to get the desk into the office) so everything has worked out great. Of course there is always something that goes kaput in the moving process, and this time it was my DVD player. Since I'm not ready to fork over $300 for a blue-ray disc player, I've been looking at new DVD players and am quite amazed by how small and light they have become. I was a somewhat early adopter on the DVD track, and my last one was big & HEAVY compared to the ones out now.

More unpacking ahead. Here's hoping the rest goes as smoothly as it has so far.

It's All Coming Together

Well, I've sort of got most everything under control for now. Things are already going well at the big orange. My new boss seems to like me, and already asked me if I'd like to supervise - how long have I been there? We'll see. I'm not looking to climb the orange ladder, but it would mean more money and less time outside when it is 110 degrees. I'm making new friends and trading schedules already and fitting in with the new co-workers as best as I can.

Get the keys to my apartment TOMORROW, take off for my hometown the next day and get everything packed up in time to be back here by a week from today. WHEW. The only thing I haven't really changed yet that I'll be changing is my cell phone. Don't want to get a new one until I get back. The biggest pain will be switching everything to the new address. That takes so long and I always forget something.

A Study in Potato....

No work today, so this morning I was hanging out with Curly Girl and the Gift. He wanted to play with the Mr. Potato Head that Aunt Smarty got him for Christmas (not his B'day). I mostly buy him gifts that I liked to play with as a kid. I figure if they've been on the market more than 35 years or so, they'll probably be fun for him. Luckily the QB's sister got him one as well, so we can each have our own potato.

The best thing about playing with Mr. Potato Head with a two year old is that there are NO RULES! For example - I see a mouth where eyes should be and 3 arms - I would have never made these, but I loved his so much that I decided you needed to see them too.

Notice the muscle arms and the flowered hat. I think I saw that guy coming out of the gym last week.

An extra mouth where the arm / ears might belong? NO BIG DEAL. We love it!

The Gift kept insisting that they be photographed together. Like they were friends.

Mustaches are fun, so we needed two on this one. One where it "belongs" and one over the ear that looks suspiciously like a nose.

I guess he has seen Aunt Smarty and Curly Girl with their sunglasses on top of their heads so many times, he wanted the Potato to look cool like us.

The master at work. And a nice side view of the two mustached Potato.

I had so much fun with these, I think there could be an art project for his room somewhere down the line. Next time you play with a Mr. Potato Head - let your mind run wild.

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.

Nearest Book Meme

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!) Well it is kind of funny you ask, because I am sitting in the library right now, but the nearest book is one of my own that I was using to do some research. It's called Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for Congregations.

Find Page 123 and Find the first 5 sentences: This is Chapter Nine: Reading the Congregation's Culture. The section is Dealing with Culture Clash.

Post the next 3 sentences. In either the "congregational training for planning" or the "internal audit" phases, a congregation may discover that it has two or more cultures competing for dominance. At this particular moment in history, culture clash seems to be the norm rather than the exception. We can identify several reasons congreations are experiencing this clash.

*[In case you wanted to know what they are in a nutshell 1) generational differences 2) demographic changes impacting comfort zones 3) size transition] No big surprise there really...


Tag 5 people. Uh... At this point in time, I am so far down on the meme list, that all my blog pals have already been tagged. Maybe I'll start my own book meme. Maybe I'll be the beginning chain instead of the end.