A new guitar addition

This is the newest addition to our musical instrument family.  Caleb had been talking about wanting to get an electric guitar, but considering our situation at the moment, it really wasnt the smartest way to spend money, especially on something we don't need.  I wish I would have thought twice before letting my dad sell his in a garage sale this past fall....oh well.  Anyway, we were at church on monday night for VBS and we were talking to the pastor.  He had asked Caleb if he plays electric guitar because they are looking for someone to play in the praise band for church.  Now I felt like maybe we could start looking around since he would at least have the possibility of being able to use it for church, which is what he loves to do, if he likes playing it.  It just so happened that the same day we had gotten a letter in the mail from AT&T apologizing for not sending us a rebate like they were supposed to for setting up service with them back in January.  We had no idea we were even supposed to get one.  I called the number the next day and they said they would be sending us a prepaid visa card for $100.  Coincidence?  So the hunt was on.  We decided to do a little bit of looking around first.  There is a music store here in New Albany that we went to first.  They had quite a nice selection of guitars but he still wanted to look around more.  The next day we ventured out to two different music stores in Clarksville.  They all seemed quite a bit more pricey than the New Albany store, so we decided to head back there.  Right as we pulled out onto the main road, I saw a pawn shop and pointed it out to Caleb.  He pulled in real quick and we took a look around.  They also had a nice selection of guitars, and then....jackpot.  We found one that looked nice, it came with a hard case, and it was a really good price.  Caleb was going to haggle with the man a little bit to try to get him to go even lower, and the man willingly offered the whole deal to Caleb for $100.  Coincidence?  Caleb already has an amp for his two acoustic electric guitars so he is able to use that to just piddle on his guitar but eventually we'll need to find him an amp that will work better for it. 

Tuesday night we got hit with a huge storm.  I normally love storms, and I was enjoying this one quite a bit.  I noticed a lot of lightning and told Caleb I bet the the fire department gets called out soon.  Not even twenty minutes later they got called out.  I shoulda kept my big mouth shut because within the next hour and a half they got called out a total of 4 times, which was, of course, during the time we were trying to fall asleep.  The weirdest part was that the next morning we went to move our cars from across the street and both of our cars had flooded up through the floor boards.  I first noticed it because I had a mapquest map on the floor of my car and it had gotten all tye-dyed.  Caleb said his was soaking wet too and he could almost see a line where it looked like the water had risen up the side of his car.  We went out Wednesday night and, not thinking, I set my purse in the back seat on the floor and when I picked it up, the water had soaked half way up my purse and made a bunch of stuff in my purse turn a muddy brown.  Gross.  Now my car has a lovely stinch in it.  Lesson learned, from now on I will make sure I will not park my car across the street in a storm and I will think twice before I enjoy a storm.

Caleb and I have tried to find things to keep up occupied the past week (he's more ok with not doing much a lot more than I am).  The first project on my list was to make a curtain for the bathroom.  I got a sewing machine for Christmas from my mama so we headed out to the only fabric store I could come across in New Albany, which was Ben Franklin. 

I didn't like the way that the bathroom curtain turned out and decided that it needed another panel.  We went to walmart to try to find the same material we got at ben franklin for cheaper.  Turns out, it was cheaper to make completely new curtains than to get the same material to make a second panel.  Here's the result:

While we were at wal-mart, we found material to use to make roman shades in our living room.  I had been toying with the idea of making them and Caleb talked me into it because he thinks it will help keep the sun out better, thus making it cooler in our living room.  I ended up making 4 of these:

They were a little tricky to figure out, but I'm pretty pleased of how they turned out.  They were much much cheaper than buying roman shades!

Meanwhile, Caleb found a project to work on.  He got this picture of Cleveland during one of his summers there.  He really likes the picture and wanted to get a frame for it, so he decided to make his own.  I think it turned out awesome.

He originally bought the steel pieces all silver and stuff, then decided that maybe it would look cooler rusted.  He found a youtube video about how to rust steel  quickly.  It consisted of a concoction of bleach, vinegar, and salt.  Neither of us knew that the gases released from mixing bleach and vinegar is toxic.  He did all of this out in the sun room where he turned on fans and opened the windows so it's not like it was right in the apartment, but it was a very strong odor and i could smell it a little bit without even walking in to that room.  A few hours later we were watching a movie and i just decided to google bleach and vinegar and everything that came up was about how deadly it can be.  Of course I freaked out and made Caleb pour it out.  He assures me that it wouldn't have killed us because we would be able to feel a chemical burn (which we did not).  The steel didn't get as rusted as he had liked, so I told him that the only way he was doing that again was taking it outside to the little alley-ish thing that separates our building and the vacant house next door.  It turned out more like what he wanted and we had a win-win situation. 

We got a lot of frames and things from showers and our wedding that never made it onto the wall of our old apartment.  Caleb hung all of these up the other day and I really like the way this hallway looks now!

I realize that this wall only has pictures of the two of us, but a lot of money was paid for such pictures to be taken, so we shall display them.  :-)

In other news, the Lord has blessed us with a wonderful church that we have been visiting.  It's the only one we have visited so far, but it's been a huge blessing to us.  The people are so welcoming and we like having people to consider friends here!  God is always good.  :-)

We live right across the street from the fire department and our bedroom windows faces their building.  We have curtains to block out the light, but curtains can only keep out so much sound.  I'm pretty sure most of the city of New Albany must have been on fire this morning.  Anyway, (this may be one of those "you had to be there" things) but we were on our way to the museum today and right after we had walked out of the door, we heard sirens again.  The truck was coming from a few blocks down, so I'm guessing they were already out on a call when they got this call.  They were blowing the horn a ridiculous amout, so I looked back and saw a firefighter in the midst of walking across the street from the fire department and he's just standing there waving at the oncoming fire truck.   He did get out of their way by time they got to him. It was amusing to me at the time but it doesn't sound as funny to me when I write it out, so I guess you did have to be there.  You can just ignore this whole paragraph.

Moving on, the fire truck happened to stop at the museum we were headed towards.  Turns out it was just a little old lady who was about to pass out or something.  The museum was really neat.  It's not huge, but there were some interesting exhibits.  Apparently Indiana and New Albany were involved in slave trading, so they had a big walk-through exhibit about that.

A few nights ago we went to Clarksville to eat dinner at Applebee's.  While we were there, we went in to Bed Bath and Beyond because I had a gift card that our wonderful church gave us.  We came across the clearance section and found a neat wedding wall hanging thing that was originally $40 but one of the frames was broken so they marked it down to $12.  Here's what it looks like: (and no we won't keep these pictures in it like we did at our old apartment)

The only thing that wasn't part of the set was the heart frame.  The broken frame in the box was actually an invitation frame, and we already had this heart frame with an invitation in it that we got as a wedding gift and hadn't found a place to put it here yet.  It doesn't match exactly, but I think it works out well.  I'm excited to get pictures in the frames.  :-)  Not too bad for $12, eh?

Also, tonight Caleb decided we were going to have tacos for dinner.  My mom gets us those Old El Paso taco kits sometimes that have the shells, taco seasoning and taco sauce.  As he was browning the meat, I opened up the taco box we had to get the seasoning out, and turns out that the box was only hard  and soft taco shells.  No taco sauce, no taco seasoning.  I called my mom and sister to see if they had any ideas of what else we could make with hamburger meat since we don't have a whole lot of food because we're still in the process of stocking up since the move.  They had some ideas, but nothing that we had everything for or were willing to wait for it to bake.  Caleb decided to stick with the taco idea and ended up adding a bunch of stuff...I'm not exactly sure what, but I know there was enchilada sauce, paprika, black pepper, and jalapeno juice.  It actually didnt turn out too bad!  It wasn't as seasoned as taco meat usually is but it certainly wasn't disgusting either.  We added "a big jar of taco seasoning" to our grocery list.  You live and learn, right?

After the taco eating, Caleb fried some biscuits and made cinnamon sugar doughnuts.  They were delicious!

On the job front, I got an email from the seminary the other day asking me to come in and take a clerical test.  I did pretty well on the test.  I would have done better if they gave you more than 2 chances per question on the Microsoft Word and Excel.  If you even accidently press a button that has nothing to do with what they are asking, it's counted wrong.  Oh well.   Prayers would be greatly appreciated regarding these jobs I applied for because working at the seminary would be an awesome opportunity.   If it doesn't happen, then I know that something even better is out there and I just have to be patient. 

I think that's enough rambling for one night.  :-)

Coffee. Time Zones. Decisions. Laundry.

Kara came through Indiana again today on her way back to Knoxville and she stopped by and we wanted to go get some coffee.  I found a coffee shop about 3 blocks down called Hobknobb coffee, and since new coffee shops can be fun to try out, we headed there.  However, it closed at 1 p.m. and there was a sign saying that starting sometime in July they aren't going to be open on weekends anymore.  I guess they just really don't like business.  So, we drove down the street a little further to Kroger that had a Starbucks in it....so we hung out in a grocery store for a few hours.  :-)

Since moving to Indiana, we changed time zones.  I realize that we only changed one hour, but I just can't seem to adjust to the time change.  I usually wake up around 9:30, get hungry for lunch around 1 p.m., hungry for dinner around 7, and go to bed around midnight.  An hour later for everything than I normally would.  I mentioned it to Caleb and he pointed out that we are so close to the time change the sun rises and sets close to the same time.  I guess it also doesnt help that I don't have any sort of set schedule where I have to get up or go to lunch at a certain time like I would if I had a job.  Oh well, not a big deal.  Just something I felt like sharing.

Speaking of "if I had a job", I applied for 5 jobs last week.  One of the places I applied for was Target.  I figured that if I couldn't find a "real job" elsewhere, that at least I could have Target as a back-up.  However, they called me this morning wanting to set up an interview for next Thursday.  I didn't answer the phone because when I didn't recognize the phone number and it had an Indiana area code, I figured it was an employment place calling and I usually like to be able to think about what I want to say based on a voicemail in situations like that.  That way, I don't regret what I say and have to end up calling back and feeling like a fool.  So I listened to the voicemail and at first I was pretty disappointed that it was Target calling, although somewhat relieved that it was the New Albany one and not the one in Clarksville.  The New Albany one is about 2 miles away from where we live.  I really want to get a job in my field.  I realize that I haven't tried much and it hasnt even been a week since I submitted all of my applications, but the more I thought about it, at least I would have a job, I wouldn't need much training since I worked at Target for almost 4 years (which means less stress), it would help me keep from having a large gap in my employment history, I would have something to do during the day, it would keep a paycheck coming in so that we aren't completely relying on our savings (which would mean less loans we would possibly have to pay back later for student loans), they are probably going to be ok with me taking time off for our adventure to Missouri at the end of July, and if I found a "real job" then at least a place like Target has such a high turn-over rate that it wouldnt be a huge deal for me to quit.  Obviously the more I thought about it, it sounded more and more like a better idea.  Also, since I don't really want to work at Target, it will really get me going on trying to apply for as many jobs in my field as I can and hope that someone will call me before next Thursday or before I start working at Target, assuming I were to get the job.  I called them back and got an interview set up, and then proceeded to apply for more jobs.

I also got a call from Sears tonight.  Our washer and dryer are supposed to be delivered tomorrow so they were calling with our delivery window.  What is the time?  7:30-9:30 a.m.  EEK!  Thats like 6:30-8:30 a.m. in my poor confused mind.  But hey, we get to do laundry in our own apartment whenever we want!  That right there will get my behind out of bed early in the morning.

Fourth of July

Sadly, my family had to leave this morning.  (My dad did bring us cinnamon rolls for breakfast though :-D)  Caleb and I didn't do a whole lot today.  I took it upon myself to catch up on some sleep while he watched his weird "Deadliest Warrior" shows on Netflix. 

Last night, as my parents were leaving, I noticed some fireworks that we could see through the trees and they looked like they were really close.  Amy, Caleb, and I went outside and sat on the sidewalk and watched the rest of the fireworks.   I really wanted to be able to go to a fireworks display tonight so I mentioned it to Caleb and asked if he wanted to go.  I got a *sigh* "I don't care".  Caleb isn't a big fan of big crowds or even cities for that matter, and his idea of explosive fun is actually blowing stuff up, not sitting and watching pretty fireworks.  So then I told him that I was going to put myself on Craigslist to try to find a friend to go watch fireworks with.  A few minutes later he told me to get my shoes on and get ready to go.  :-)  (How wonderful is he??) We went down to the New Albany ampitheater where they were shooting off the fireworks we watched last night.  We walked around the area for a little bit and then found a bench.  Caleb made a comment about wondering if they were even going to have fireworks since they had them last night.  I thought he was crazy....what city shoots off fireworks on the 3rd and not the 4th?  Sadly, he was right.  I googled it on my phone and it said that New Albany has their celebration on the 3rd so that people can go enjoy other activities on the 4th.  We could see a few of other displays across the river but there were too many trees to be able to see them well. 
Sadly we decided to leave and just came back home.  Next year we'll know to head to the river on the 3rd instead of the 4th. 

Here's an idea of what our view would have been

Goodbye, Biff

We are finally starting to get everything in it's place!  We had our first company last night around 11:30.  My roommate from my second year of college, Kara, came to stay with us on her way to Iowa.  It was a short visit, but I enjoyed the brief catching up and getting to see her is always good :-)  She left early this morning to finish her trek.  My family came around 12:30 and brough my beloved Biff (my beta fish) with them.  I left him with my sister because I thought it would be easier on him if she brought him so that I wouldn't have to deal with him on the drive to New Albany along with all of the plants I had to make sure didn't tip over in my front seat. Then I didn't want to have to figure out a safe place to put him where he was out of the way while we moved our stuff in and Christa and Josh's things out.  He survived the week and I had his water bowl out and waiting for him (I even thought of making him a welcome home sign but I didn't have time.)  Shortly after my family got here, we decided to go to Chick-Fil-A and then head to the mall in Clarksville.  After we got home, I was looking in Biff's water bowl and I didn't see him.  I wasn't too worried at first because his bowl is rounded and there have been times that I didnt see him because he was at just the right spot where he looked like he wasnt there.  I called Caleb over and asked him if he saw Biff, thinking maybe I was just being a blonde.  Neither one of us saw him and I didnt see him on the counter, like if he had jumped out.  I looked down, moved my foot, and there Biff lay.  A little squished, and all dried up.  Amy had sent me a video earlier of Biff in the car and he was swimming around super fast, and he never did that.  I guess he was just under a lot of stress due to the vibration of the van and just freaked out.  I was just sad to see my fish of almost 11 months all dead and dried up (after all the trouble that I had to go through in getting him through the move).  We obviously had a proper funeral for him at the toilet.  My dad and my sister went out to Walmart to get some things for dinner and while they were out they bought me a new fish!  He's even prettier than Biff and Caleb refuses to call him anything but Biff (I think he's in denial that the first Biff is dead.)

The picture is a little bright because of the flash, but I guess it just shows off his pretty scales.  :-)  I also poured out some of the water to make sure this guy doesn't jump out either.  Biff had never jumped out so I never worried about filling up his bowl real high. 

Anyway, while we were out, Caleb and I bought our very own.......washer and dryer!!  We are so excited.  Laundry has been quite an issue for us for the past 6 months and so we are super excited to get to be able to do laundry in our own home and not have to haul it up and down stairs and planning ahead to make sure we can go 3 weeks without needing to wash anything.  We got a pretty good deal on them at Sears and thanks to our wonderful church family, we didn't have to pay much out of pocket for them (Thank you, Lord!)

We also stopped by Petsmart :-D.  I had a somewhat seemingly crazy idea to get a large rounded vase and put a hermit crab in it and use it as decoration on our coffee table or end table.  I found the perfect vase thing at my parent's house that used to be mine anyway and some left over hermit crab stuff from my "I want lots of pets" days.  I really wanted to keep the price cheap because I don't want to be spending money on things we don't really need, but we were able to get a crab and food for a pretty decent price.  The girl at the petstore kept telling me that hermit crabs don't come out very often...blah...blah... (I didn't want to sound snotty like I know everything about crabs, but I'm pretty sure I know more than her because I used to read up on them all the time when I owned a bunch of them and didnt have anything else to do). I got the crab home and shortly after I put it in it's new home, it hasnt gone back in its shell since.  He's really fun to watch and definitely more interesting than a vase of flowers :-)  Caleb named him Lester.

So despite my tragic loss, I would say that my shopping adventures went well today.  I'm glad to have my two new critters

Tomorrow morning we are planning on going to a church that my 6th great grandpa (i think) started right here in Louisville and my dad is really interested in going.  It's great having my family here and having something to do other than unpack.  I'm sure the next day is going to to just fly by and they will have to leave again, but hopefully we will find some friends/jobs soon to be able to have interaction with people other than utility companies who make life difficult.