my poor blog

I haven't forgotten about my blog or any of the other blogs I used to read regularly. We simply have no internet in our apartment, and the public computer at the apartment leasing office blocks Blogger. I'm using a computer at the local library right now. I'm hoping to make it over here more often, although I can't promise I'll update regularly... I'd rather read other people's blogs than type up my own posts. ;)

honeymoon part 1

Blogger chose to put these out of order after I uploaded them, and since it would be too much work to re-arrange them, I'm just leaving them like they are.

We went to Big Bend National Park for our honeymoon, and on our way home we drove along a river road, stopped at an old fort/mission, drove into Mexico, and then up into the Davis Mountains before returning home.

a rattlesnake!

In the the restaurant in the Basin, where we stayed.

In Pine Canyon, with the Jeep we rented.

In the desert near the Rio Grande, on the south east side of the park

Loose horses in Boquillas Canyon, which according to park rangers, probably crossed the river from the Mexico border while it was low. The river was very high when we were there, so the horses were trapped on the US side.

A little Mexican hut on the Mexico side

Boquillas Canyon... the object in the water on the right was a dead horse...!

Near Boquillas Canyon. There was a sign on the parking lot that said "Thefts occur here frequently." When we came back to the car, we suspected the car had been broken into. When Mark opened his door, a bobby pin fell out on the ground and the rubber strip over the window looked like it had been tampered with!

A sunset in the desert on the south-east side of the park.

The view outside our balcony at our room at the Lodge... and a little visitor on our first morning there!

The Chisos Mountains

A tunnel under a ridge with the Sierra del Carmen mountains in the background.

One of the little things set up in Boquillas canyon... there were also little trinkets with crude signs nearby that asked for donations for poor schoolchildren in Mexico.

honeymoon part 2

A little border town in Mexico that we drove into, where we bought a shirt.

McDonald Observatory, in the Davis Mountains.

In the Davis Mountains.

Mark next to the Rio Grande.

In Lajitas, a little resort-town on the river road.

One of the views along the river road.

Some sort of wild mountain goat

At Fort Leaton

We left on Monday, and spent four nights in the Chisos Mountains, and after doing a lot of meandering on our way home on Friday, we ended up stopping for the night in a city west of San Antonio, and then came home on Saturday. We really enjoyed our trip!

evacuation

Two weeks after our wedding day, we're in College Station on our "second honeymoon"... trying to stay out of reach of Hurricane Ike. The different families are spread out from central Texas to eastern Louisiana, trying to keep away from this huge storm. I'm continually amazed at how this storm fills almost the entire Gulf of Mexico.

I was hoping to put up pictures from our honeymoon, but I figured there would be more people interested in what was happening with the hurricane first. I might find time to post some pictures tomorrow.

the air conditioning...

on my car is broken. :(

three weeks!

Two weeks ago I sat down briefly to write a blog post titled "five weeks!" and I never finished it because I ended up feeling guilty that I was spending time on a blog post when I had so many other things to do...

Anyway, it's three weeks away from my wedding! We have all the major things finalized except for the cake, and of course there's a hundred little (and not so little) odds and ends that need to be taken care of before then.

I put in my two-weeks notice at work a little while ago, and yesterday was my last day at work. I was originally going to work right up till before the wedding, but Mark suggested I quit sooner -- and I'm so glad I did, because there was just too much going on.

Sorry there's no pictures this time. I've simply not had time to use a camera, and I'm not sure how to go about uploading the pictures from my phone to my laptop.

busy busy

I don't really have time for this post, but I've felt kind of bad about not posting. (I'm not even sure if anyone even looks at this blog anymore..?!)

We had our first Sabbath in our new church building! It's so nice and almost hard to believe we have our own building now. I don't have any pictures of it, but here's Mark right before a deacon's court meeting at the new building on Saturday. ;)
And here's Matthew, looking very nonchalant.I had him with me this afternoon while I ran a few errands and worked on my wedding invitations. Mark came over in the evening and helped me quite a bit as well. Hopefully the invitations will be going out soon!

briefly

(What happened to June?)

Sorry everyone, I know I'm doing a really bad job at keeping my blog updated.

Work has been going ok, with enough problems to keep things from becoming boring. We're overbooked almost a week in advance, so there's always plenty to do.
Most of my extra time is spent trying to accomplish things for the wedding (which is next month!!!) Getting ready for the wedding seems to consist of spending a whole lot of time getting very little done, but Mark is right when he reminds me we are getting a lot done.

I'll try to get a proper post up in a few days... for now I need to run. ;)

the ring

may twenty-four

I was scheduled to work Saturday, and I set my alarm to be sure I got up early enough to get other things done before I left. But my alarm never went off, and I ended up waking with a start when Mark called me, 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at work! There was no time for coffee, and I arrived at work a little groggy and a few minutes late. The rest of the work day was chaos and confusion. The usual extra appointments were scheduled by my manager, with hopes we'd work them in. But the ridiculous thing was that one of the groomers was fired the day before, but none of her scheduled appointments for Saturday had been canceled! On top of that, my manager left early, leaving just three groomers to handle the whole day. There was so much tension, pressure, frustration, and confusion everywhere.

I was scheduled to leave at 4:30, and I was impatient to get off since Mark and I had plans for the evening. 4:30 came and went and there were still dogs arriving and none of the groomers were in a very good mood anymore. I finally escaped some time after six.

Well, shortly after I arrived home, Mark took me to Brazos Bend to spend some time together. I'd come home so much later than planned that he had to make a change of plans, and I was too tired to have a preference or ask any questions.

We had nice conversation at the park, and then we went on a peaceful walk as the sun went down. I was so relaxed and and ease, and Mark's proposal was a perfect ending to the evening. ;)

:)

work

Work has been going fairly smoothly, despite a few bad dog bites, minor disasters, and outraged customers, etc, etc. There's another mandatory meeting coming up soon, and I'm going to have to talk to my managers about that.

The other day someone brought in his high strung Belgian Malinois for a nail trim and file. I trimmed down the nails quickly and started up the electric file to start grinding the nails when I realized I'd clipped one too short and it was bleeding... and bleeding and bleeding. By the time I finally stopped the blood flow there seemed to be blood everywhere. And meanwhile the owner was standing right there watching! He didn't complain when I gave him his ticket to take up to the front register to pay, and when he came back to get his dog, he gave me a $5 tip! I'm not sure if he felt sorry for me or what exactly.

Unfortunately my work station is just opposite my manager's, which is right at the very front of the salon where all the customers come in. Groomers are supposed to check in "their" dogs, but more often than not I'm checking in and checking out a whole lot of dogs that aren't "mine", and on a busy day that can put me way behind schedule. We cannot leave a dog unattended on the grooming table, which means that for each of these people I have to take my dog down and tether it near the wall, and sometimes I can literally put the dog on and off the table over a dozen times! Of course, I could ignore all these customers and make some of the other groomers come up to the front, but the customers don't know if I'm running behind, and as far as they can tell I'm just standing there ignoring them.

I actually do usually enjoy my job, even on the chaotic days. It's satisfying to turn a messy dog into something the owners are visibly very pleased about, and I kind of like working under deadlines.

Sorry there's no pictures this time... I'll try to update again later this week with some photos.

new baby, new car

James and Hayley's baby was born on Friday! His name is Cameron James, and he weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces.

I've been looking for a car lately, and have found it at last. All being well, I'll soon be the owner of a new (used) Mazda3!

...

Most of my equipment came in, and I'm pretty adjusted to things at work. The other groomers have been really nice and helpful. I quite enjoy working at times -- especially when all the groomers are there, and everyone is talking and socializing so much that it hardly seems like work anymore.
There are definitely still those moments that are less than fantastic, though. I'm daily clawed and/or bitten at, and frequently things are running behind and the phone just won't stop ringing. Then there's the difficult customers.... Yesterday we had to have a store manager come help out when a customer was livid over a price, and she ended up going away with a free service.
Today we had a dog that had major behavioral problems, and bit the groomer repeatedly. When the groomer told the owner about it, she actually laughed and went on to cheerfully tell us how many people won't groom him at all, all as if his attitude is cute. She then proceeded to take her dog and tell him in a sweet voice that she'd bought him a hamburger for on his way home...

Last week there was a plane crash just down the road. A little cropduster hit a power line and went down in a field. Surprisingly the pilot only had minor injuries, but you can see his plane didn't do as well!

work, fedex woes, moody gardens

I worked till 9:00pm last night, and groomed four dogs. I'll be working closing shifts about twice out of the four days I'm to work each week. So far everything is going fine, although I'm concerned about "mandatory meetings" for store associates, which are apparently only held on the Lord's Day. I'm going to have to talk with the store manager and see if there's any way we can work around this.

FedEx... have I mentioned how much I dislike FedEx? I'm pretty sure I did in a blog last fall. Anyway, the equipment I ordered was destined to arrive last Thursday, and it is now nearly Wednesday and I still don't have my package. The reason for this is simply that they lost the package. As you can imagine, I'm not very pleased about this. The shipper can't file a complaint until 10 business days have passed from the time the package was lost, and add on top of that the time it would take to make a new order... it could be a long time before I get my equipment. This is rather a large problem seeing I really needed it yesterday.

Mark and I met up with James and Hayley at Moody Gardens on Saturday. We went to a somber Titanic exhibit with artifacts and details about the the incident, watched a neat 3D IMAX about the Grand Canyon, and then had a peaceful ride on a paddlewheel boat.

the third thing

(see other two things in post below)
I remembered, and I didn't even have it written down!

I started up my laptop this morning, and discovered I had a trojan virus. I also had an automated-looking message I'd received while offline from someone on my MSN list, telling me I had been blocked -- I'm not sure if I received the virus from them, or if I sent the virus to them... At any rate, I've cleaned my computer, and I apologize if I infected other people's computers. Everything should be back to normal now.

first day at work, and...

I spent my first day at work today. Except I didn't really work, I just spent hours and hours in the break-room in the back of Petsmart, going over a gigantic book full of rules and policies and safety procedures, and watched videos of the same, while people came in and out and ate lunch, or fell asleep slumped over the table and snored, or sent text messages, or cheerfully distracted me from reading while they asked me countless questions. I have to do the same thing a couple more days, until I finish watching the videos and going over the book. The place is very hectic and a little chaotic, but the managers are all friendly and nice even if you can tell they're very pressured.

After getting out at six in the evening, I had to do a little running around and shopping while I was out, and guess what I saw...



...

Isn't it pretty? Nevermind the Mazda3, I think I'm going to look into a Maserati Quattroporte instead! ;P (Photo not mine of course, though the car I saw looked exactly the same.)

Well, I was certain I had three things to mention in this blog post, but despite trying and trying to remember, I've completely forgotten what it was...

a job!

Ok, I'm updating. I thought about skipping this whole post since what I'm about to say has kind of been mentioned in other places already, but I suppose not everyone will be impressed with that idea. :D

I had a job interview with Petsmart on Monday. I must say, it was not a very organized or professional interview, but it went well. I think I like most of the people (but not all of them), and I feel pretty comfortable working there. I'm starting out on Monday with "bookwork" and at some point I'm going to have a tryout groom so they know I can do the job. If everything works I will be working part-time, 36 hours a week, as a dog groomer. I'm not particularly fond of dog hair or misbehaved dogs or phones that never stop ringing, but I'm looking forward to it because it pays fairly well and I'm already trained in it. :)

I had to drive up to Houston for a drug test yesterday, which is required as part of Petsmart's hiring procedure. I then spent most of my evening working on an online order for some equipment I need for the job. The website I was ordering from wasn't set up very well, and I spent quite a bit of time getting things together, only to lose it all when trying to pay for it! I had to start over at the very beginning again. It was after midnight by the time I had it finally fully ordered, but even now I'm not positive it worked out since I didn't receive a confirmation email. :S

If the job works out I will be looking for a car to buy in a couple weeks. Exciting!! :D

(Edit: Why do all of my paragraphs end with smiley faces?)

more pictures...

On Thursday we had a load of dirt delivered to our house. One corner of our yard floods badly when it rains, so we're trying to fix that. Mark, Caleb, Leah, Nat, and Sam came over to help move the dirt from the driveway to the backyard.


Here's a nice boring picture of the backyard... as you can see it needs a lot of work.

Yesterday we went over to Caleb and Leah's for a barbecue. We ate hotdogs and hamburgers and stuffed jalepenos (which were the best part, I think) along with salad and chips and dip. Mark came by, and Leah's Aunt Jeanne and family dropped in briefly. We had icecream and played a couple games.

Some of the guys looking at the car

Mark giving roofing advice ;)

Shannon looking forlorn in her kennel

In the evening we went over to the Smith's for dinner with lots of people.

This is how a photographer takes pictures!

James and Hayley

I was actually going to spread these pictures out over a few days so I'd have something to post about... but instead I'm posting them all at once so I won't have to update again for a little while. ;D

surfside

We went to the beach on Wednesday.
It wasn't quite as cold as it looks in the pictures.
(Edit: I just noticed I apparently can't hold my camera straight!)

...

Sharon came on Saturday and is staying for a week with Elijah and Noah. It has been really nice having them here again!

Mark, Matthew and Sam came over yesterday. (Sam spent the night.) While they were here, we heard one of our neighbor's dogs making awful sounds, and when we looked over the privacy fence we discovered one of his dogs was attacking a little puppy! Sam and Ben climbed over the fence and chased the dog off, and we rescued the puppy. He was bleeding and shaking badly, so I put him in a crate in our garage. At first we thought he was badly injured, but after a few hours he seemed ok. They are all pitbull type dogs that our neighbor breeds to go hog hunting with, so they are tough dogs! Our neighbor picked up the puppy when he came home from work.
Isn't he cute?! I thought he was adorable, but some of the others thought he was rather ugly. :D

Other news... My GED results and certificate came in the other day, and I was pleased with my scores.
This morning I left Neluska at the vet for her surgery, and will be picking her up later this afternoon. It feels strange not to have her here -- especially when I pulled into the driveway and she wasn't there to push aside the curtains in the dining room window and wait for me to get to the door.
Someone on the web has asked me to do a portrait for them. I've done several other things for them, but this is my first real commission.
The photo with Mercedes-Benz hasn't really gotten anywhere, which is my own fault for not getting back with them. I kind of forgot about it, actually, which tends to happen when I don't write things down. :P

Here's a few pictures from kind of recently:

I left my camera at the Smith's house by accident, so when I get it back I'll try to update soon with some more pictures. :)

of saturday, and etc

We went to Brazos Bend on Saturday afternoon. Neluska really wanted to go after all the birds in the water, but of course I couldn't let her swim out after them since there are lots of these out there:
That alligator was sunning peacefully beside the path with his eyes closed, but whenever Neluska came too close to him he would open his eyes, which was kind of perturbing. I know the alligators there are fairly used to people, but I don't know what they think of dogs!

Later that afternoon, Mark, Matthew, and I went out to Ben & Jerry's, and then to Carl and Stephanie's for dinner.

Today I'm taking Neluska to the vet to get her vaccinations and a heartworm test done, and they are going to check her out to make sure it'll be ok for her to go under anesthesia next week to get spayed. She isn't particularly fond of the vet, so let's hope she behaves herself. ;)