Just Coasting...

Greeting from this place where I am!

Second week of work is well underway - I picked up a few extra shifts. Today I had a conversation with a customer about Washington people, and how they skip using the verb "to be" quite often, as in "That needs washed", "Hey, kid, the floor needs swept", etc. It's true! They do it all the time!

Boone didn't get the bus driver job, but is still applying, and he's probably going to cut off his mohawk so he can apply for some office-y jobs he might not have a chance at otherwise.

I been raiding the library like crazy and rekindling my love for bringing home a huge stack of books - half of them reference books I page through for the pictures. I'm watching Bill Nye and the Muppet Show, and getting ready to get out some half-finished canvases I brought with me. Sometimes not having internet or TV is a blessing, and I'm always drawn to it - but in the end I really enjoy internet and TV. Maybe going back and forth - having it, then not having it for a while, then enjoying it again - is a totally excellent solution to that conundrum.

Something is wrong with the video card on my computer, but I am slowly figuring it out with the help of Boone and the Ubuntu forums. I'd like to install some sort of music-creating software on my computer, but I think Ubuntu Studio would crash my system at this point. :(

I also been re-reading Scott McCloud's series on making comics, and it has me all inspired. It's the writing I get stuck on, the drawing I could push through and practice. Anybody have a comic book script lying around?

Keepin' on keepin on.

For those of you who didn't see my Halloween costume, here I am as a Mexican Calavera/Sugar Skull! >>>>>

Well, week one of my job went great! I really like the culture and my fellow emplyees, I also really like being up, active, and interacting with customers all day. The manager types all seem pretty pleased with me - I had the highest items-scanned-per-hour of anyone in my training group. :P Pretty soon I get my discount card and we'll be getting %10 off groceries and a bunch of other stuff.

Everyone is buying turkeys and cranberry sauce, so I have to figure out if I want to try and cook or we wanna just eat popcorn and candy instead. I have both Thanksgiving and "Black Friday" off, so I'll be able to get my lounge on.

Boone has an interview tomorrow, and he's got more applications in. We went out for our friend Christopher's birthday this weekend. Newport is a small town, so we pretty much got to monopolize the karaoke machine. Good times. I miss everybody, especially my folks and my roommates and other dailys in ABQ.

The Newport Public Library rocks! I'm so thankful. Yay for public internet and free dvd rental, not to mention a way to feed my insatiable appetite for fantasy. Anyway, much love and cute kitten for everyone - Lyss Out!

P.S. Thank you IVY, for the prompt and adorable postcard. LOVE YOU!!

Apartment Pictures

This is the bedroom - look at that walk-in closet! For a one bedroom, it's pretty spacious. The rooms have pretty large dimensions. We have enough room in the living room to put the bikes against one wall and still have plenty of room for a hypothetical couch and so on. That's our Queen size air mattress, courtesy of our friends Robin and Melanie (:D), and it's super comfy.

This is Boone at the living room window, taken from the kitchen. So far (and granted, we've had nice-ish weather), we have kept the heaters mostly off. Everything is electric, and that is the only utility we are responsible for, so it should be pretty easy to keep tabs on everything.

This is the living room, full of stuff we just brought in from the cars. Now we have two chairs and an improvised end table, so we can watch TV and play Munchkin.

The kitchen! Mostly big enough that we can both be working in the kitchen at the same time. We have a dishwasher! Wow! Everything is very clean and bright and well cared for, it feels really nice. I'm so pleased. It's such a relief to have a home base and have access to my entire wardrobe again.

I had my dates mixed up - I actually start training on the 11th. Which is good, cause Boone had he flu all weekend and now I have it. I've stocked up on tea from the food co-op and movies from the library and am resting up. In the mean time, we are both still applying for jobby jobs. I think between the two of us we should be working about 40-60 hours a week to pay all of our bills and still go to the movies sometimes, so that's 20-30 each - Fred Meyer will be 40 hours for the week of training, but then probably around 20-25, so I'm looking now for something little.

It was 70 degrees yesterday, today it's 50 with a high wind advisory. The weather seems like it changes quickly, but I think I'm just not used to this part where I can't see the weather two days away on the horizon. Anyway - come visit! Everybody, right away! I miss you all, and I want to show you the neat things about my town and my new little home.

We Win!!

Apartment, check! Job, check! On Thursday, the property management company we'd been waiting to hear back from turned us down. I was pretty upset, everything felt hard, I found out Friday that I was hired for a part time checker job at Fred Meyer - I had to drive to Corvallis to the social security office and get a new social security card, so by the time I finished my hiring paperwork on Friday it was too late to go look at any other apartments. We looked at a few over the weekend, but then Boone took sick. It was a long weekend of waiting for property management company #2 to open on Monday, even knowing I had a job and was halfway there.

So this morning I went down and got keys and looked at a few units in our price range, I went back to to office and explained that I had just been hired and didn't have a Fred Meyer paystub yet, and the lady said "You guys want to move in tonight?". BAM! Just like that. Came back at four to sign the paperwork, went to the electric company to get our stove (and everything else) turned on, made dinner at our new house around six! SO EXCITING! Still a few things in our hotel room and not everything put away, but our cars are empty. EMPTY!

Tomorrow through Saturday I work about 8-5 doing training. We have the hotel through Saturday morning, Oh! Y'all need my new address:

928 NW Spring St #4
Newport, OR 97365

Drop me a postcard! I'm two streets from the beach, apartment pictures coming soon!

Think I've used enough exclaimation points in this post? I can't believe it worked. Throwing my stuff in my car and moving to a strange place halfway across the country. I left ABQ Oct 1, and here it is Nov 2 and I am housed and gainfully employed. Even two days ago I didn't think it was going to happen. I was planning how I would return to NM or try this same shtick in Portland. I'm so happy. !!!