Alone
Ben left really early this morning for his week long math conference in California. I can already tell I’m not going to like these conferences. I think it’s harder for him to leave for a week now than it was for him to leave after a week when we were dating. I don’t care for it. I’ll get to see him Friday evening in the Atlanta airport when we both land for Desiree’s wedding.
In other news I was offered a different position at my job, with a promise to move up. One of the girls will be going on maternity leave in September so I would take her place and then when she comes back, after six weeks, I would be moved to a higher position in that department. I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’ll take it. I speak with the manager of that department on Monday, so I’ll make my decision then. I just don’t want to move to a position and then fail horribly and force them to fire me because I don’t get it. They apparently love me there, so I think they want me to stay as long as I can. The hr woman said they think I have great potential. That’s a good sign, huh.
Smells like
something. I can’t tell you what. So sometimes there is one random article of clothing in the wash that just stinks. It’s been washed and none of the other clothes smell, just that one random piece. Well with that said, today my pants were that article of clothing. I didn’t really notice it while I was at home, but once I was in the office I was getting whiffs of it. They just smelled so bad! So I started thinking, what can I do? I was tempted to send Ben a message to drop off a skirt at the office just so I wouldn’t have to wear those stinky pants. I start thinking of other ways. Maybe one of the women in the office is going to the grocery store or something during lunch and I can pick up some dryer sheets or fabreeze or something. Then I remember that in each stall in the women’s bathroom is a can of air freshener. So on my lunch break I went to the restroom and there was a can of fabreeze air freshener. Yes, that’s right, I sprayed my pants with Fabreeze air freshener. It’s the same principle, right? It was linen scent. It works. My pants still smell a little though.
In other news Ben was eating a bag of chips and guacamole. He found ants in the bag of chips he was eating…he ate ants.
Lousiana
Today I experienced two things: flooding and a leaky roof. I hate Louisiana, thus it will henceforth be referred to as “Lousiana” (it’s a little more subtle in spelling than Lousyana). So, yeah, it started raining this afternoon around 2-ish and still hasn’t completely stopped. Many of the roads, especially the intersections and lower lying areas, were flooded with about two feet of water. So unless you were in a truck or SUV, you were forced to pull into a parking lot and wait unless you wanted to get water in your engine. Yep. Fun times. Ben got stuck in the parking lot at Starbucks for about an hour. Someone from my work drove me over so we could be stuck together. When we finally got home I heard water. I heard the normal water hitting the windows, but then I heard something different. The roof in our kitchen leaks. Right through the light fixture. Have I mentioned how much I hate this state?
My day
So all I do is answer phones, basically. I typically pick the line up on the first ring because there can very easily be a flood of calls after that and I want to get through them as quickly as possible. Because of this I often catch people talking to others around them. Today I picked up the phone and the man on the other end said, “We have pie.” I wanted so badly to respond with “Can I have some?” However, I did not. I said what I was supposed to and proceeded to stifle laughter through the next three calls.
They’re remodeling the office I work in. They’ve already completed the third floor and are working on the second floor (where I am). The noise has actually been very minimal, especially considering they’re knocking down walls and whatnot. Today I guess they needed to use a power tool for something, so there was a little bit more noise than normal, but only for like 5-10 minutes. A little bit later this woman walks into the office and starts complaining about how loud it is downstairs and how she can’t work with all that banging on her ceiling. I’m thinking, lady, it’s construction, what do you expect? I wanted to ask her when her lunch break was so they could work on it then. So she asks me to make sure Mike knows, the COO or CFO or C?O, I assure her that I’ll tell him and just as I reach for the phone to call him, the line rings. She misinterprets that as me ignoring her so she asks where his office is and I point in the general direction and off she goes with her huffy self and complains to him about the noise. Get over it lady. Thanks to her the construction guys had to leave because they couldn’t do any work that didn’t involve noise. Imagine that.
I also do the mail now. It involves stamping every last page with a “Received by such-and-such date” stamp and now going into a program and finding the adjuster, then sorting into appropriate piles and then putting in appropriate folders for office delivery. So today I was going through them and saw an envelope for a law firm: Tierney and Smiley. I got a good laugh out of that one.
When I say stamp every last page, I mean every single one. They get mad when you miss one. Every day I get a bin full of mail. It’d be really great if all the envelopes only contained one page, however they do not. Not by a long shot. I stamped several novels today. There were about three 70-page documents. One of them may have had more pages. Then there were several 10-20 page documents. Lots of fun. Stamping every….single…blasted…last…page…ugh! Try stapling 70-pages with a normal stapler, too. It’s impossible, in case you were wondering. You have to be creative.
Oh, and my oldest sister didn’t realize that I live in a different time zone.
Ethanol
I StumbledUpon this article.
“If the entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into ethanol, it would satisfy scarcely 18 percent of our automotive fuel needs.”
Yet we’re still pursuing this form of fuel? That’s intelligent.
Name Change
With Ben’s penchant for encountering strange people and my ditsy tendencies, I had been thinking about changing the title of my blog to The Adventures of Summer and Ben for a while now. Last night I was telling my dear husband about this and he told me that he never understood the Southern Musings because I don’t muse. Thanks, honey. So that sealed the deal. Name change it is. I’m keeping the subtitle though because it adds a little humor with the new name. Plus, Ben never writes posts anymore and I’m the one who updates everyone on our oh-so-interesting lives. Right.
Ben is working for LSU’s REU program this summer and they have afternoon teas and occasional activities for the students who are part of the program. Last week they had Pong Fest, which was a ping pong tournament for the REU students, and a few professors. After much urging I decided to go with Ben. I am a terrible ping pong player. I was the second out in the tournament. That is okay, though. So Ben was trying to remember the name of the school we would be playing at and at first he thought it was like Walnut Elementary or something, but when he looked for it in the Garmin he realized there was no Walnut school. Then, he remembered that the school had “Visual” in the name, so it was a school for the visually impaired. I looked on the Garmin and behold, I find a visually impaired school in BR, but it’s on the wrong street. We’re following one of the professors anyway, so it doesn’t really matter much if we know the name of the school. We get there and I notice the name of the school…it’s not for the visually impaired, oh no, it’s a school for Visual and Performing Arts! It made for a good laugh.
Have I mentioned our neighbors yet? They’re very nice and friendly. They’re also typical Cajuns. One of our neighbors ran over an alligator and then ate it. He kept offering to cook us some. We politely denied. This past weekend he went to the river and a frog jumped in the back of the boat. Can you guess how this one ended? It was still alive when he showed it to us. And man was that thing huge. He offered some of that to us as well.
We bought another camp chair so we can both sit outside in the evenings. It’s nice. Last night, however, I kept getting bitten by mosquitoes, as was Ben. We got a three pack of citronella candles to help keep those blood-sucking monsters at bay and lit those suckers up. However, I kept getting bitten by mosquitoes. So I grabbed some bug repellent from inside and sprayed myself down. Guess how many times I got bit after that. There must be some mutant mosquitoes down here. My right foot is covered in bites and one even managed to bite through my jeans and get me on the thigh. Next time I won’t go down without a fight.
In other news Ben’s mom found a basic sewing machine for me so next time they come down I’ll be able to start sprucing the place up with curtains and pillows. I’m excited.
I made some guacamole Friday. We didn’t have tomatoes, because I never buy them, so I added salsa, salt and garlic powder. That was some delicious guacamole. I want more. And, it tastes good on hot dogs. Who knew!
Okay, back to figuring out that spare room…
Celebrate good times!
Come on!
I have a job! Yaaaay! Starting Wednesday I will be the new receptionist at LUBA. It pays fairly well considering my work experience and at the end of my trial period I will be offered benefits, including life insurance and a 401k. How exciting! That takes quite a bit of stress of Ben and me, definitely. Thanks for the prayers in that area. Oh, and I get paid weekly. That will be wonderful. :) So, I’ll get my first paycheck two weeks from…yesterday. For some reason I thought today was Wednesday. So, apparently this company promotes from within quite a bit. The VP was a file clerk and two of the accountants started out as receptionists. I never thought I’d really care about advancing in a company, but that’s a pretty cool prospect. Most of it would be training on the spot, but they do offer to send you to seminars and such for some of the positions.
So, yeah, near the beginning of the interview the woman actually said that they were looking for someone with a great personality like me. Yes, that’s right. There was another point in the interview when I seriously thought she was going to offer me the job on the spot. I said a little prayer and she didn’t. :) This afternoon when the woman from the staffing agency called I asked her which would be the better position, this or the law firm (assuming I was offered that position) and she told me quite honestly that LUBA would be a better company to work for. The lady at the law firm is apparently somewhat of a pain to work for–hard to please. So I think this position will work out very well. I’m just so happy that I have a job. It’s closer than the law firm and seems like a friendlier, less stress environment, which I’m all for. The interviewer actually said that sometimes there’s a bit of downtime so I’m more than welcome to bring a book to read to occupy my time. Yeah. :) Well, that’s all for this one. Time to make dinner for my wonderful hubby.
Crib
What a rough week. Monday I went to the Y with a couple of the girls from church, which was lots of fun, but man have I been sore ever since then. We attended one of the half-hour classes where we worked on a bosu. Believe me, they work. Quite well. After that we headed to the gym portion and worked our arms.
Anyway, I don’t want to write a huge long post right now because I started one on Monday and, well, yeah. Where to begin…We got the keys to our apartment. Our internet and cable went out in our old apartment so we didn’t have it for about three days, but for some reason it’s on in the new. We started moving our stuff over and have the living room stuff set up. Today I’ll continue moving all of our stuff over and we should be able to get the rest of the furniture over this evening when Ben gets home. And we need to somehow get our furniture out of storage–we have no truck. Annnd…my interview was canceled because of stuff but it got rescheduled for next week. Found out there’s some music teacher positions open in the area and that Louisiana pays their beginning teachers fairly well (because no one wants to teach, let alone live, in this horrible state). Okay, that’s the very shortened synopsis of what my week has been like.
Oh, and I’m still sore.
And we were approved for Branson.
Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads
Well, looks like the Mr. and I will be attending the Feast in Branson, Mo. Assuming they approve our transfer… That’s where his family is going and it would definitely help my dad out with transportation–think one day of driving instead of two. I think it will only be a couple hours longer for us, which with how the Feast is laid out this year, wouldn’t make a difference with which day we leave. I’ll miss Texas, that was a nice Feast site. Mmm…the steak sandwich at the Gristmill. I may have just drooled on my keyboard. I know Ben will miss it too, but I think he could be easily comforted with a trip to Bass Pro. It may be the one time I’ll *almost* willingly go to that store. Hm…maybe this would be a great opportunity to get cute winter church clothes! What will the temps be in Branson around that time anyway?
So the neighbors have moved out of the apartment! The landlord has been in there the past day or two cleaning it up. Hopefully we’ll get to start moving soon. It’ll be convenient since it’s two doors down. Ben can help me carry the furniture over when he’s home from work/school and during the day I can move the little things and get settled. We’ll actually be moving into an old store, so the front definitely still has that look. It’ll be interesting. It’s twice the size of the apartment we’re in now and we’ll have two bedrooms and a spot for a dining area! I hope we get to move soon. I’m ready to get settled for real. Yesterday we got a Pottery Barn catalogue and I definitely cut out pictures and taped them to a piece of paper to develop the look I want for our living room…in the future…when we have money to decorate. :) I did a pretty good job, too. I should be an interior designer. The only thing I’m bad at is arranging furniture to make the most sense. Anyway, enough of this blogging, I have an apartment to keep clean.
