It's been a really, really long time since I have written anything, mainly because my life has basically been at a standstill the past several months. I have been working at Blue Marble Java since February, as a barista, and my time in between working has been filled with making trips to the gym, or doing other regular things like buying groceries and watching Frasier and Wife Swap on Lifetime. :)

But I recently got hired at a new job, and so I figured, "Hey, I actually have something exciting to talk about!" I was hired at Helping Hand Home in Austin to be a Theraputic Childcare Specialist. Helping Hand Home is a place that takes in children ages 5-13 that have been severely abused. The job of the Childcare Specialist is to care for the children before and after school-act as a parent, and try to teach the kids appropriate ways to deal with the emotional issues that arise after being abused and neglected. I will know more as I start training on Monday. I know that it will be a difficult job, knowing what the kids have been through, but I have experience in dealing with those kind of issues through my previous work with Developmental Services of Nebraska. And luckily, this facility is one of the best in the state of Texas, and is striving to be one of the best in the US.

As far as things go aside from employment, it has been unbelievably hot here-a record breaking 60 days of temperatures above 100 degrees in a row. Usually there are only 15-30 days this hot. And, ironically, I hear Nebraska has had a rather mild summer. Interesting....So my time has been spent indoors, which is sad b/c there is SO MUCH that I have read about that I want to go explore-like McKinney state park, The Green Belt, Zilker Park, the many frisbee golf courses-things that I didn't know about in the first two months we were here. South of us, in New Braunfelds, there is a water park called Schlitterbaun that we are planning on visiting soon. The Guadalupe River also flows through New Braunfelds, and when my brother was visiting, we tubed down the river, but it was rather shallow, so we had to actually walk our tubes through some areas.

I am trying to figure out when I am going to be able to come and visit Nebraska---I couldn't afford it before, because I wasn't working much, and now I am thinking it may be hard for me to get time off. Luckily, the schedule at my new work comes out monthly, so hopefully I will be able to figure a 4 or 5 day stretch where I can book it out.

WELL that's about all I have to update right now. :) Hope all is well on the other side of the screen. See you soon!

Not much to update, to be honest...I just have another hour before we close here at the little coffee shop, and I figured I'd take a minute to squabble. 

I have an exciting month coming up: A trip to Florida in the first week of June to meet Clint's sister for the first time, and to spend some well needed time at the beach. Also, my parents and brother are coming to visit the 3rd week in June, and Clint's birthday is on the 25th. 

I have realized that living in a larger city means that I need to keep a better eye on my spending. Maybe that isn't the best way to put it. Not spending, exactly...but apparently businesses will readily screw you over. For example, my last post was about my car having problems. Lamb's auto was recommended by my roommate, so I readily accepted it as a good place. Well he's also a dude, and someone who would probably not get taken advantage of at a car shop. Clint happened to stumble on the reviews of Lamb's auto, and there were 6 posts, all negative. They told someone that they needed new tires when they'd had them replaced 4 months earlier. Someone else, a new battery when the battery was new. And they took me for every penny they possibly could have. We added another negative review. Now my car won't even start....something is draining the battery. So I am understandably reluctant to take it to another place. This time, I will take Clint with me, who is a total skeptic. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. 

In addition to the car situation, my State Farm bill was $20 extra this month, because they "accidently" changed my renters insurance to homeowners insurance. Whoopsie! 

And, my bank threw in a "monthly service fee" of $12, out of nowhere. That has never happened before. 

On top of those, I went to get my roots touched up at the salon, and long story short, it ended up costing over a hundred bucks. 

So basically, I am getting screwed over everywhere I turn. I have learned my lesson. It may have cost me around $2500, and put back yoga teacher training by about a year, but I am now going to act as a private detective when it comes to my money. 

How frustrating. 

But, moving on to something more exciting, Clint and I have gone out to Pflugerville lake and done a couple of run/walks. I jog for about 20 seconds before I need to stop, but it's a start. I just need to get over that hump, find a way to steady my breathing, and I'll be good to go. I keep thinking about all the Dairy Queen Blizzards and Papa Johns pizza I've eaten over the years, and imagine carrying them behind me in a sled, and I am a reindeer pulling them behind me. Fat is gross. And heavy. 

Other than that, things have been pretty simple. My brother moved to Portland, OR from Eugene yesterday. Pretty exciting stuff, I'm really glad he is out of Eugene. That town was filled with hippies and dirty needles. 

Well, its time to start closing. Peace out. 

I can't say I was surprised....

...when I heard the familiar squeaking in my car that said I was going to have to invest some money in new brake pads. So I patted myself on the back for catching it early, and proudly walked into a Goodyear place called "Lamb's" and said, "Well, I think I need new brake pads...It's squeaking and I wanted to get it fixed before I need new roters." 

"Well, that's a good idea!" the guy said. He took my keys, and I sat down in the waiting area and started to read this article in "Texas Monthly" about a parent of a frat boy that went to some school in Dallas that overdosed on drugs and they were investigating his death, stating that the person that sold him the drugs needed to be charged with homicide, and all the normal "We taught our son to stay away from drugs" blah blah blah. 

About ten minutes later, the man asked me to follow him into the garage. Oh boy. He pointed out to me that my struts were covered in rust, my brakes were completely covered in rust...my tire tubes were screwed up, so my allignment was all messed up b/c the tires were wobbly. There was an oil leak that was spreading oil all over my alternator, which meant that at any moment, if the alternator wasn't able to breathe the way it was supposed to, my car could pretty much explode. (My words, not his.) Also, some belt had cracks all over it, and if that broke, my engine would die immediately, most likely in to 5:00 wall to wall traffic on the freeway. The guy pointed all this out to me,  showed me the belt, and the massive amounts of rust and oil leakage...there is not a thought in my mind of, "Oh, he's taking advantage of you." I knew there were problems with my car from the beginning, but I did not expect there to be $1900 worth of business. I'd told him that we just moved here when he asked me earlier if I'd ever done service with him, and so he knew suggested that instead of tackling EVERYTHING that was wrong, they just do the stuff that was needed to be done to keep me alive. They had a "Goodyear Plan" that they could set me up with, where I pay for 6 months, interest free. So I thought about it: I can either fix up my car, pay $250 bucks for 6 months or I can get a new car and pay $250 for 5 years. Obviously, the 6 months is a better plan. He said I have a good car, if I get it fixed up it will last me a long time. I only have 93,000 miles on it...

So that totally stressed me out earlier today. I made it home and to work BARELY on time...atleast I have a job...

I'm pretty sure I figured out a six month plan...for AFTER my "Goodyear six month plan". There are tons of gyms in the area, and most of those gyms have studios where you can do pilates and yoga, but most of those gyms only have one yoga teacher, and they are pretty large gyms. So I think that I am going to spend the next few months working out, and practicing my yoga consistently, and then once I get done paying off my car in 6 months, I am going to go to Yoga Teacher Training at a studio called Yoga Yoga. They have a volunteer program now, where I can volunteer my time cleaning the studio, or doing other things that need done for the trade of a free yoga class. So I will become familiar with the school that way, and after awhile I can go to Teacher Training, and then I can go to different gyms around the area and teach yoga there. 

I'm thinking it's a good plan. Not only will I have a job that I enjoy, but I'll have a job that will keep me from getting osteoperosis, which runs in my family, and I can stay in shape and not be miserable as I grow older due to lack of activity. 

Right now I am at work at Blue Marble Java. Now that I am trained, I get to be here all by my lonesome, and it seems like we are much busier in the daytime than at night. I think 5 people have come in since 2:00. Maybe more...maybe ten, but definately not anything NEAR busy. Luckily, there is a computer and an itunes folder FULL of music, lots of stuff I've never heard of. MGMT is pretty huge here, and TV on the Radio is pretty popular. 

Yesterday Clint and I went to a place south of the lake called SoCo...short for South Congress street. Lots of odd little stores, it's the "hip" place to be here in Austin. The frustrating thing is, most of the stores that had odd little knick-knacks had things that I used to make (like little magnets) or stuff that I had an idea to make and never did. So I could totally have a store making bank right now had I followed thru. Shucks. 

I'd better get started on my closing duties...but I thought I'd post a little something. Til next time....

Texas: I'm wearing shorts, and it's February!!

Hello!!! So I didn't necessarily post these pics in the correct order, so I am going to just type, randomly show you a photo, and maybe someday I will have the patience to cleverly arrange everything just so, but today I've had a bowl of cereal, a 32oz Mountain Dew (it's either that or start smoking ciggerettes again, will explain later), and it's 4:00. I'm not very patient right now.



This is our home!!! We left for Texas Saturday morning around 6:45am, and got to Jesse's house around 11:30. We stopped a few times, because the truck and trailer combination got about 8 miles to the gallon, plus we ate a few times...but when I arrived at the house, it was much more than I was expecting. I was expecting a normal house, but our street looks like we live on country club lane, which is really nice. It's good to see single women walking their dogs after the sun sets, you know?


Our wonderfully spacious living room, with the 52" tv and fireplace....


Which was a sight for sore eyes after looking at THIS all day long.


Gross.



So about the smoking ciggerettes thing. The traffic here is pretty crazy. It's okay when it's in the afternoon, but on my birthday we made the mistake of trying to get to a Cold Stone Creamery to get a birthday cake...we left the house at 5:02pm. NOT a good idea. Plus, the Garmin, which has been right about 75% of the time, (I'm pretty sure it wants to take us to a secluded field and kill us someday) directed us to a place where the delicious ice cream shoppe had closed down a few months before, despite updating our map before leaving. So we're navigating in traffic that is moving 70mph, weaving in and out of lanes, not sure where we are or where we should be going...and the sun is in our eyes so we can't see anything. I don't mind the traffic so much, but it pretty much puts Clint in the fetal position, so between my "We'll get there" attitude and his "Jamie, quit waiting til the last second to tell me to change 3 lanes!!!!" panic mode, it's been interesting getting around. Earlier that day we went to downtown Austin to look around, and the exits were pretty sporatic...we passed the exit for 32nd street, thinking we had a bit before we were going to be near 6th street...but then all of a sudden, "Exit for 3rd-8th streets, 1/4 mile"!!!!...we were pretty much yelling at eachother the whole time, and then I just decided to stop talking. The whole experience made me want to go buy a carton of Kools, but I can't start doing that. Pretty sure they'd make me sick anyway.

Today was a much more successful day. We got up and bought groceries at the fancy Round Rock (fancier suburb north of us) grocery store called H-E-B, we bought avacados the size of grapefruits, and looked at the selection of fresh salmon/shrimp/crab legs that we COULD buy, but didn't yet...Chicken is more expensive here, it was like $7 for 3 breasts, but maybe that was just the store we were in.

I'm going to start applying for a "filler" job while I slowly figure out what the heck I want to do here. I did apply at a radio station before we moved down, but it seems like everyone is on a hiring freeze. There's a cute coffee shop on every corner, so I may take that route. I'm thinking I may go back to school---we looked on Career Builder the other day, and there are still a lot of jobs down here, it's just sorting through the crap jobs that are like, "make $60,000 a year selling crap to people". In time...in time...


The Kiva Kitty is very happy here in Texas. She was good on the ride down here, she slept in my lap the whole time and only meowed when I tried to put her in the kennel while we stopped for gas or whatever. She's been very active here in the house, and she'll jump up in our laps while we're watching TV. I think she's pretty happy.

Clint already got pulled over...the cop drove right past me--I was talking on my cell phone, not wearing my seat belt, there was a cat in my lap, and I have a tail light that is broken--he actually CUT ME OFF to pull over Clint, and give him a ticket only for not wearing a safety belt. They can pull you over for that here. So he now has a ticket where he has to drive 3 hours to some crappy north Texas town and appear in court--he would just pay it, but it could be a fine over a hundred bucks, so he's going to TRY and fight it. We'll see...

I'm kind of scatter brained right now...it's been a really really crazy few days. But we're staying out of trouble...we're real happy, and now all we have to do is get our shit together and OFFICIALLY get settled. We're going downtown tonight to experience 6th Street--they close down the street and local musicians play all over the place. Jesse and I have the same birthday, and since he had to work at 5am the morning after our actual birthdays, we're officially celebrating tonight...AFTER we eat at a sushi restaurant. Lalalala.

Oprah is on in 10 minutes...and I'm watching it.

It's my first day officially unemployed. Here's how I planned my day:

Sleep in, get up around 10:30 or so.
Go to the gym...my mom bought me 15 sessions at Fitness 101 for Christmas.
45 minutes on the elliptical, some weight lifting, 150 crunches.
Come home and take a shower
Start tackling my entire bedroom that is a closet/art room that is a COMPLETE mess.

Here's how the day has gone:

Get up at 10:30.
Eat 2 bowls of Kix cereal and a cup of coffee while talking to my mom about daily horoscopes. Mine said "Not everyday can be fun and games. You have to take a day to pay bills"
Watch Sex and the City, Season 4, end of disc 1 and the entire disc 2.
Surprise Clint with a homemade lunch of stir fry shrimp and veggies.
Continue with Sex and the City.

No gym. No 45 minutes on the elliptical...and definately no tackling of the panic room. But I DO know how Carrie and Aiden got back together, I know how Steve lost one of his testicles, and I know that Miranda's mom dies of a heart attack. I cried.

Aside from that, I am filling in at the radio station this Thursday, Friday and maybe next Tuesday. I am also filling in on Y102 next Thursday and Friday. And then I think that's it.

I just realized that it is 3:00 and I haven't brushed my teeth yet.

Anyway, I don't have anything in particular to really say today...I can understand how unemployed people stay unemployed. This is pretty awesome.


Have a great day!