Photos and Such

Many apologies for keeping you all waiting on those photos of the apartment here in sunny Redlands. Things have been very busy for us out here, work taking up most of our time. I did manage to save some money to get my hair re-done though, which is awesome, since I was starting to look like a wilting tree.

I've included a photo for full effect of it's chili pepper colored glory.

I've been getting a ton of hours at work lately, (in fact, more hours than some of the other employees that have been working there longer than me!) and although that keeps me busy all the time, I'm glad to be making more money. Geoff and I have started a new fund for the puppy we won't give up on... We've decided to each dedicate $25 from every one of our paychecks to the "puppy fund", where we will save up the money we had before in order to try again next year. We're still hurting from the tragedy, and it's still hard for me to see other people with their dogs, doing the things we'd been planning to do with Tazz, but Geoff doesn't want to give up. After we move again next summer, (into the city... either L.A. or possibly San Francisco,) maybe we'll get another chance to adopt.

In the meantime, I've got some photos of the apartment for you guys!

Here's Geoff's and my room...

And here is our bathroom, (don't mind the messy counters,) with our whimsical saloon doors to the toilet and shower. Partnered with the pirate bath mat, I think it's the most amusing bathroom I've ever had.

This is just the hallway upstairs, with some storage area for my art supplies.

Here is the living room... I'm actually sitting on that couch right now!

And this is the hallway downstairs which leads to the kitchen, and upstairs as well.

Here is Geoff, surprised that I had a camera, in our tiny kitchen! Much smaller than the one we'd gotten used to last year, but it is the perfect size for the three of us now, and I just love it!

Here is our dining room table, which looks out on our patio.

I hope that's enough to satisfy you for now! I've got to go to work in about half an hour or so... and Geoff should be home soon!

If there's anything you'd like to hear more about in this blog, please comment and let me know so that I can get some more ideas of what to say... I never quite know what you will or won't be interested in hearing about. Papa helped me out with this one!

I hope you all are doing well, and I love you very much.

Take care of each other. Hopefully I will hear from you soon! :)

The Move

Well, I have to say, the move went pretty smooth as far as moves go..

We moved pretty much all our stuff (minus a few things here and there) on Wednesday with the U-Haul, and only had to make 2 trips! (Under $40 for the entire U-Haul rental. Woohoo!) In fact, every time we've rented a U-Haul, (this being our 3rd time,) we've been upgraded for free from the 10-foot to the 14-foot, which always is necessary, but we've stopped worrying about the length of the truck as they always seem to upgrade us.

I just LOVE our new place. Even though not everything is unpacked and put into its place yet, it feels so homey. Since I moved out to California, none of the places I've ever lived have ever felt like a home of my own--I've always just felt like I was temporarily living in other people's houses. But this one... This one feels like our very own.

I've gotten really into this whole 'nesting' thing lately, and am greatly enjoying it. Even though we don't really have the money to do an overload of nesting, Geoff and I get excited about saving up to purchase things for the house, like new shelves for the kitchen,

and a shiny new tea kettle.. Silly things like that. I'm starting to feel less like a college kid already, and more like a (boring? older?) adult who brightens up her day by taking her boyfriend to Bed, Bath & Beyond so they can oogle at the fancy knife sets and high-tech toaster ovens. Oh well.. at least it makes me smile. :)

By the way, did I mention we spent 3 days deep-cleaning the house at Country Place? In 110 degree weather without AC? Yeesh, what a task. Thank goodness we have a pool here at our new place where we can jump in after sweating half our body weight while cleaning. We just finished yesterday.. I am SO glad to be done!

Geoff's family also has been kind enough to drive down one of their cars (a silver VW Jetta, which matches Geoff's black one,) down to Southern California for me to use for the summer! They heard how difficult it was getting me to my one job, and Geoff to his 3 jobs, and their Jetta was just sitting in the driveway, so lucky me! I am forever grateful, and will have to send them a nice gift for their generosity. Also, don't tell Geoff, but I am secretly amused by how cute it probably looks now that we both have matching Jettas in different colors.. haha. I don't know if he's thought of that yet, but I'm sure it would be embarrassing for a boy to realize.

I Skyped with Dad and Linda (and Olivia and Maxx too!) yesterday, so most of them got the grand tour of the house, via me walking around with my computer room by room.

For those of you that were not there, I'm afraid if we cannot Skype, you are going to have to wait for us to finish unpacking our things before I start to take photos of the inside. I am a little shy about how messy it is, (it's not that bad, but I want it to look perfect in the photos!) so after

everything is set up, I will post some inside photos. For now, enjoy the outside of the house and the side yard, where we have our cute little patio for barbecuing.

Work is going well.

Everyone is still very nice to me, and while working the cash register is pretty boring, I enjoy BevMo's atmosphere. I also have been running into friends I haven't seen in a while. Even people who don't drink come in for the unique snacks we offer and hard-to-find sodas. :) I especially enjoy the fact that as an employee, I get to do the weekly beer-tastings and wine-tastings for free, every Friday and Saturday. I am learning a lot from this, believe it or not, and it's been a lot of fun. Honestly, I am just grateful I can tell people truthfully what I think of their selections when they ask me. I hate having to say "Sorry, I don't really drink beer, I have no idea what that tastes like.." College taught me that all beer tastes mostly the same, and it's fairly gross. But, it turns out, that is because in college, people only buy the cheap, nasty beers in cans that are easy to drink really fast in large quantities (like Natty Ice, Coors Light & Bud Light). BevMo has over 300 different flavors and brands of beer, and via these tastings, I now see that they each have a unique flavor, and I am growing a new appreciation.

However, my new favorite beer is one that BevMo does not yet sell. It's from a local brewery right in Redlands, called Hangar 24. They have a beer called "Orange Wheat", and they actually toss in whole oranges from the local groves during the fermentation process, giving the beer a citrusy aftertaste! Very cool. They're a really small craft brewery though, and are not yet big enough for BevMo to stock. Sad, sad.

Also, Geoff and I may be converting to Rice Milk now... we are starting to have digestive problems with dairy. But I'm sure mine are just coincidence. Geoff might be getting lactose intolerant, but not me. Cheese is necessary to my survival. I will never be lactose intolerant. Ever. Take THAT angry tummy!

Work, work, work.

Well, life is slowly starting to come back down to a neutral level for us out here...

I've been getting more and more hours for work, so I'm glad to have that money coming. I did 30 hours last week, and am scheduled for 31 more, this week! Geoff has been doing a lot of EMT work on almost every weekend lately, so that is good that he is getting work also. He seems to enjoy it... most of it is pretty low-key stuff like hip hop concerts, dirtbike races and car shows, but all his EMT co-workers seem very nice, and I think he has lots of fun being there.

Honestly, the summer has been an "eat, work, sleep, repeat" routine so far for us.. We both usually have Sunday off, but we're still pretty broke, so we usually can't go anywhere. Yesterday we washed the car and had a barbeque afterwards with Bryce (our housemate,) and Mike (Geoff's younger brother), so that was good fun. None of us (except Mike) got to do anything fun for the 4th, since all 3 of us were working until the evening, so we kind of made up for it on Sunday. Geoff and I did get to watch a few of the fireworks from the street on our way home, since they were happening everywhere in Redlands, but we didn't get to do much celebrating.

We'll probably begin to do our packing this week, as the 15th (our move-in date,) is getting closer and closer! However, I've been trying to avoid thinking about putting stuff back in boxes right now. ...maybe tomorrow it will begin. :)

I guess that's all for now!

I'm sending all my love to all of you on the East Coast! <3

BevMo

So, the job is going well.

Yesterday, I got trained to use the cash register.

It's probably the most scary thing I have to do. Honestly, everyone is so nice and helpful, and keeps telling me not to be intimidated by it, and that I will soon get the hang of it, but it is still something to adjust to. I like to think I'm a pretty quick learner, so I'm not too worried about picking it up. I definitely started getting into a flow, and by the end of my 5 hour day, I was able to check people out by myself. :)

However, I still much prefer being on the floor, answer questions, and facing bottles. I do enjoy organizing. Also, it helps me when I face bottles and put new cases on the shelves and such, because as I do it, I learn where everything is, and so I can better help people locate different items. I also secretly really enjoy unlocking the glass cases and getting people the fancy liquors from the cabinets. They're all so pretty!

This week, my hours are from 5-10 most days, but I just got a call asking if I would come in today at 1, (which is in 35 minutes,) so I guess I'm doing an afternoon shift instead today!

We signed the agreement on our new place last week, a two story townhome in Redlands. It's very lovely, and I can't wait to move in. Our move-in date is July 15th, so I will have more to update next week as we get everything packed up. And I'll definitely take lots of photos so you all can see our new home.

Ciao for now.

New Job

I have a job!!!

Very exciting... I'm working at BevMo, which stands for "Beverages & More!".

It's a big chain store in California that sells beer, wine, and spirits.

They have such a large stock, that the stores remind me of Barnes & Noble, but instead of books, they sell alcohol. 

Anyway, I am very excited, not only to just have a job, but also to be working with so many labels of spirits. I feel like this is going to be a really great learning opportunity for me in many different ways. First of all, as a bartender looking for work, learning all I can about these different sorts of beers, wines and spirits, I will eventually be able to consult fairly well and suggest different things to different people. Knowledge of different sorts of alcohol is very valued in the bartending business. Also, I really am glad that I am going to be able to experience working in retail. I have never done it before, and though I've already had experience in customer service (and I enjoy it!) I haven't ever worked a cash register before, so I think that will be really useful. Last, I'm really interested in bottle design, specifically for different spirits, as far as my Graphic Design goes. I've been thinking really hard about what I want to do for my senior project, and I have not been able to come up with ANYTHING I'm interested in until I began spending time in BevMo. If possible, I think I would really enjoy doing my senior project on designing a few different bottles for fancy looking liquor. That would be SO much fun. And working at BevMo will expose me to a lot of different designs, and give me lots of inspiration I think. :) My official title is "Cashier/Salesperson" so I will be both working the cash register and working the floor.

I had orientation today, and then my first day will officially be Friday from noon to 5.

Hooray!

That's all for now!

Soon to come.

So much has been going on lately that I don't even know where to begin.

To put things optimistically, from last week, things could only get better.

I'm not going to do a full update right now, since I'm still pretty overwhelmed with everything that's going on, but I just thought I would drop a note to say that I am still here, and have not dropped off the face of the earth. :)

Just toughing out the hard times.

On happy notes, I most likely sealed the deal on this job, we have an awesome new roommate named Bryce, and Mike, Geoff's brother, is here in Redlands, so we get to hang out with him this summer. Hooray!

Puppy Dreams

My new favorite thing to do, is watch Tazz dream.

He sleeps a lot, so we get to watch his dreams pretty often.

Sometimes he barks very softly and his paws twitch so we know he is running.

Sometimes his tail wags, so we know he is happy.

And this morning, he suckled the air and flopped his tail around.. so we think he was dreaming of his mommy. I bet he misses her.

Tazz has a bit of a cold, so he is going back to the vet this afternoon for another check up and possibly more meds. :(