The Adventure Begins

Howdy there neighborino! This fantabulous blog has resulted from two things: (1) some of the coolest people I know not wanting to access Facebook just to keep up with me, and (2) H. telling me I need somewhere to write all of the daily details that tend to overwhelm him during dinner. So, hopefully my random thoughts will entertain yous-guyses. : ]

I'm currently sitting here (8:20am) looking out the balcony window at the beautiful mini-mountains that are probably 30-40 miles away. One day I'll figure out how to manipulate the video camera to upload little snapshot photos of the mountains. But for now, you'll have to trust me that they're actually there.

Nearly all of the moving boxes are out of the apartment. The only ones remaining are for H. to go through and decide what to use now, what to keep for later, and what to let go of. We'll also probably rearrange the furniture when all the boxes are out of the apartment. The things we're keeping for later go into the storage on the balcony. Putting everything in there was like playing tetris, but I think I've got it all organized now.

Now it's time for a Wedding Update! I just sent out Save the Dates, and now I'm browsing for wedding invitations. I'm wrestling with two ideas. The first involves buying some plain-ish invitations online (most start at $50 for the amount I need), then dressing them up myself with some fabric and ribbon. The pro here is that I save on ink costs by getting the info printed by the company; the con is that I have to purchase fabric and ribbon, and I've learned that ribbon is not cheap. The second option involves purchasing invitations at Michaels (prices range from $30-40), and I would choose an invitation kit that already includes the little paper 'coverslip' thing and the ribbon. The pro here is that I don't have to worry about matching the color of fabric, ribbon, and invitations; the con is all of the ink I'll end up using, and ink is not cheap.

I suppose it'll probably come out to be ~$60 either way. I will admit that I purchased some invitations from Michaels to see what exactly was in them, and I bought Thank You cards (something I'd have to buy either way).  In short, any thoughts on which one to do?

By the way, not having internet for a week was almost easy. I say 'almost' because while the apartment clubhouse does have a computer with working internet that is free to use, every single time H. and I want to use it there's this one guy sitting there for an hour using Facebook. Really frustrating when we need to use the internet for important stuff.

Speaking of internet, it took us a while to get ours in our apartment. Actually, it took us 11 days for them to hook it up. Hey Qwest: you have horrible customer service, and the only reason we're keeping you around is because you're fast.

Oh! I almost forgot about my car! Here's the skinny.

H. was able to get the moving company to move my car for free. As the company was loading my car onto their transport vehicle (I'm assuming it was one of those trucks that carries two levels of cars), they somehow managed to damage the driver's side door. After H.'s dad played phone tag with the moving company, their appraiser said that it would take $1300 to repair the door. The company said that they would pay for the repairs, and then ship out the car to me. H.'s dad was able to find a good car repair guy, who said he would repair the vehicle for $1000, allowing us to pocket the leftover $300. A day ago the repairs were finished, although I haven't had any word from the moving company that indicates they have begun to transport the car.

In the meantime, the moving company has paid for a rental car for as long as I need it. Here's a picture I found of it online: 

 

It's a little bigger in width and length than my car, and it has a horrible blind spot in the rear back area, but it works. When I went to pick it up, the rental company asked me to wait 15 min while somebody washed off the car. Halfway through the time, they asked if I wanted to try out one of their mini-vans, because they were ready to drive. I sat in the mini-van driver seat, took one look to where H. was sitting in the back row, and I swear it felt like the van was twice the size of my little car. We politely declined and waited for this little guy to finish taking a bath. 

Driving out here is much like driving back in Dallas, except for a few things. You know how you want to make a left turn, and you wait for the green arrow to turn on with the green light, and then you go? Well here, the light turns from green to yellow, and only when the light turns red does the green arrow light up. This results in left-lane cars constantly pulling out into the middle of the intersection as they wait for the light to turn red. Freaks me out every time.

Second. The police here have come up with a theoretically good idea - install traffic cams to catch speeders in various places in the city at various times of the day. My understanding is that they have the cameras on one street in the morning, and a different street in the evening. Sounds like a great idea, right? Except for the fact that any traffic reporter on the tv or radio tells you where the speed cams are. Boggles the mind!

Third. There are some crazy signs here. By crazy, I guess what I really mean is common sense signs. Signs that indicate when there are two left-turn lanes, you cannot make a U-turn from the further left turn lane, you can only make a U-turn from the inner lane. Signs that say do not run this specific red light, because this light is monitored by police. However the one sign that they do not have is one of those little blue or green signs on the median telling you what street is coming up at the intersection. Granted, some of the roads don't have medians, but I would love it if those signs existed on the streets that do have medians.

Now for some friendly information about Walmart. Back in Dallas, you have one kind: the Walmart Supercenter. Or at least, that's all I ever saw on Coit. Here, you have two kinds of Walmart: one that has all the food, and one that has all the stuff. The one down the street from us has all of the stuff, plus milk and beer and wine. Four miles away, there's one called the Neighborhood Market - it has all of the grocery items, but no clothing or shampoo or cleaning products. 

Then there's the Fry's that is within a mile of our apartment. Now, all of you Dallas people are probably thinking, "Sweet! She's got a computer software/hardware/everything store right down the street!". But, in fact, Fry's out here is actually Kroger, the grocery store. It even has some fresh fruit items with the Kroger logo on them. Oh speaking of fresh stuff, you can get fresh cactus here. I might try to learn how to cook/prepare it, because I'm just that curious.

I'll have to keep my cooking adventures to myself for now. It's almost ten o'clock, and I should probably get to work on laundry and maybe that breakfast thing. We'll see. For now, this is Alpha Gamma Choppa signing off. To infinity, and beyond!