Apartment Shma-shmartment!

Ever since we moved to Louisville, we've been busy unpacking, getting ready for our vacation, unpacking from vacation, and winding down. This past week was the first week where I felt like we were "home," and unfortunately, I haven't been very happy with our apartment. Once we got settled in, I started to notice all of the little, nagging things that come with living in a 50 year old four-plex building. None of them are big enough to mention, but all the little things put together really started to aggravate me. Then, add to that the two yapping dogs upstairs, the construction going on next door, and the gaggle of drunk girls that gathered outside my bedroom window at 4 AM on Saturday morning, and now you have sleepless nights to accompany the "small things," thus turning them into huge annoyances during the day.

So, first thing tomorrow morning, Chud and I are meeting with a mortgage lender to find out how much we can, and should, spend on a house. We drove around a lot of neighborhoods here in Louisville this weekend, I've been reading up on the schools and communities around here, and I have a pretty good idea of some places where we might want to live. The only reason we haven't bought a house yet is because our savings is so slim and we cannot afford the down payment for the kind of house we want to buy. Until now, I was dead set on saving enough for a down payment. However, I've been meeting more and more people who have bought a house without one, and I've been reading a lot of articles about the dying trend of down payments, especially for first-time home buyers. Not to mention I've seen three or four episodes of "My First Home" on TLC where the couples were buying much bigger, more expensive houses than the ones we want and were doing it with no down payment. Consider me convinced.

Now that a real "home" is just around the corner, I can start to cope with the every-day annoyances in our last apartment. I know that a home will come with it's share of annoyances as well, but they'll be our problems to fix and the place will be our own. I want to paint walls, for Pete's sake! I want to decorate for real instead of for "fake."

I am so DONE with apartments. Real home, here we come!

Oh My Blog, How I've Missed You!

(No, I'm not pregnant, I just decided to wear a shapeless curtain of a dress!)

Well, we're finally back from the sunny Bahamas, and I have so much to blog about! The time between moving and flying was filled with household chores, trips to Lexington, and a portfolio freakout, but that's no fun to talk about, so the first couple weeks of June are non-bloggable. However, this past week has been quite a whirlwind of relaxation time, exploration time, and fun family gatherings. I'll try to condense....

We landed in Nassau and promptly made our way to "The Riu," our hotel on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The lobby was gorgeous and as soon as we checked in, they strapped a band around our wrists to display our "all-inclusiveness" to the bartenders and service staff. We spent the first evening experimenting with the drinks we could order: Rumrunner? - no problem, Pina Colada? - coming right up, "What kind of beer do you have?" ("Budweiser or Kalik") - hmmm, "What kind of wine do you have?" ("Red or white") - WHAT KIND OF A PLACE IS THIS!!! Yes, my friends, I spent four days drinking a non-identifiable "red" wine that tasted like rubbing alcohol, but gosh darnit - it was "included" and my parents were happy, so I sucked it up.

After a day and a half in "make-believe land" where the beaches are beautiful, the food is plentiful and the sugary drinks can last all day (without making you drunk no matter how hard you try,) Chud and I ventured out into the very real town of Nassau. Granted, we still did the "touresty" things, but gosh darnit, we paid for it, and that felt kind of nice.

We saw Fort Charlotte (the fort built to protect the Bahamas that never actually fired a shot)...

AND I got to dance with real freaking flamingos at the Zoo (Ardastra Gardens)...




Mom decided she wanted the whole family to go snorkeling as well, and aside from the tremendous panic attack that ensued when I put my mask on and jumped into the water, (I believe my exact words to all seven of my family members who were trying to help me as I clutched the life raft were, "GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!") that was a pretty darn good time. We saw lots of colorful fish that were impossible to catch with my bare hands, we saw an enormous lobster, and there was a rogue jellyfish or two that kept popping up in my mask's view. Needless to say, I made my way back to the ship with no pictures and a mild sense of achievement for not having lost my life on the open sea. Rumrunner, anyone?? Here's a pic of Jordan on the snorkeling trip, in his one and only purchase - a Bahamas trucker's cap (Mom was beside herself in shame)...


On Monday night, all of us kids decided we would go out for a night on the town at Senior Frogs. Has anyone ever heard of these bars?? Apparently they are in every touristy hot spot in the world and they are the ultimate place to "throw down" when you're on vacation (or at least that's what my brother Matt said and we all believed him). We went to this hellhole of an excuse for drinking where we discovered there was Kareaoke! Well, you know me - I hopped on stage with a beer in my hand and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" playing in the background when an 18 year old drunk-as-a-skunk frat boy decided it would be a good idea to hop on stage with me. Apparently he thought that if he dry humped me enough, I wouldn't notice the gallons of sweat pouring off of him and staining his Ralph Lauren polo shirt. As he was knocking me off the stage with his pelvis, I yelled in the microphone for my sister, who promplty hopped on stage as well and tried to dance with him while I finished my song. Ahhh....vacation.

After a couple days of excursions, our trip was almost over and Chud and I were happy to resign to the fat, rich, white person mentality of drinking by the pool....



Chud made this insightful comment: "It's just like drinking in a regular bar, expect my butt's wet."
So, we took our Rumrunners and Pina Coladas and Mago Daquiris (and one special night, even our Champagne!) to the beach and had a dandy ol' time...


Despite our discontent over the economic situation of the inhabitants of the islands, despite our disgust for fat, rich, white people and their touristy ways (at least we didn't stay next door at Atlantis - yipes!) we managed to have an amazing time in the land of clear waters and sunny skies!

(that's Chud Muffin and Jordo out there in the surf!)

We let ourselves get kissed by birds:

We laughed as Jay smoked a stogie with "the boys"...

We indulged Mom whenever she said, "Gimmie the rock!"...

And we had a wonderful time!

P.S. Chud's Mom was married yesterday at the Lanier Days Civil War Re-enactment. As soon as I have pictures, I'll blog about it - I PROMISE!!

It's the Small Things

Chud said something tonight worth blogging about. He said, "I'm just not used to your enthusiasm for such small things." At first I took offense, thinking we've been together for fouryears, how can you not know me by now? But then he explained that just when he thinks he has figured out what makes me happy, there's always something else that I end up getting excited about. I took that as a compliment. Here are the small things I got excited about tonight:

We were sitting on the front porch, on the hideous wicker furniture that we share with three other apartments. We were chitchatting about the days events, enjoying an evening drink before going inside to watch our TV shows on DVD. Just as I was about to get up, I saw a flicker of yellow light in the yard across the street. I gasped and Chud thought I saw something truly spectacular. "Oh my god!" I shouted. "I just saw.....the VERY FIRST LIGHTNING BUG of the summer! This is so exciting!" He laughed and shook his head. I guess he doesn't understand that the first lightning bug means alot to me. I remember catching them in a jar when I was a kid and putting them on my dresser while I turned out all the lights so they could light up my entire room. I remember sitting on Grandma's porch after dark and looking out at the trees at the edge of the woods, but you couldn't see the trees at all, you could only see the glittery glow of a thousand tiny lightning bugs. I also remember the summer I spent in Colorado, when I realized in the middle of July that I had not yet seen one lightning bug at all and when I asked someone if there were any lightning bugs in Colorado, I was met with this response..."What the heck is a lightning bug?" I almost cried. So, yes, lightning bugs mean a lot to me, and I get very excited when I see the first one of the year.

The second small thing isn't as nostalgic and exciting, but any drunken housewife can probably relate. We were sitting on the couch and watching TV - nothing exciting was happening at all. I leaned over the coffee table to pour myself another glass of wine and I turned the bottle after my glass was full to prevent that little annoying drip from sliding down the bottle and staining my table. Then, like any good backwoods, redneck girl would do, I pulled the bottle to my mouth so I could lick the drop off the top of the bottle before it hit the floor. It's a disgusting habit, I know. Then, as I went to put the bottle back on the table, I looked at my floors and realized - they're hardwood floors! I can't stain them with wine! Halleluiah, may the heavens rejoice! How many tiny drops of wine fell on our old carpet between the coffee table and the couch? How many times did I frantically scrub with the Resolve Carpet Cleaner to get out those teeny red blotches? No more, my friends! A drop of wine on old hardwood floors requires nothing more than a mere swipe of a paper towel!

Life is so good.

Bliss

Whenever I get sad, I like to look at this picture:

I just love that goofball to pieces!

Half In, Half Out

Alright, folks. Here we are. The move was completely successful, the walkthrough at the old apartment is over, the hot water at the new apartment is turned on (as of yesterday - yikes!), and I officially LIVE in Louisville. Weird! However, I can't stop going to Lexington for some crazy reason.

I realized it today. I drove home from Lexington, where I cleaned out my classroom and had dinner with Emily Laura and Pete. We went for a walk and Chud asked me to outline our plans for the rest of this week and upcoming weekend. I said, "Okay, I have to go to Squires [my old school in Lex.] on Wednesday to pick up two more things that didn't fit in my car, I might have to meet with my advisor [at UK] on Thursday if she ever gets her act together, I'm going to Emily's [who is house-sitting for a friend in Lex] on Friday to make cupcakes, we're meeting with our financial advsior on Saturday morning, going to Preston [for a civil war re-enactment...don't get me started on my in-laws' crazy hobby] Saturday afternoon, Laura and I are going to a jewelry party on Sunday while you and Pete play frisbee golf, and we're going to Northern Kentucky on Monday to have dinner with Mom, Jay, Ann and Andy." Then I took a deep breath and realized that somehow I've already managed to busy myself for the first week of my summer "break." Oops.

So here's my dilemma, which isn't really that much of a dilemma at all: if I follow through with all of these plans, that will make four trips to Lexington in one week. I'm not second guessing myself because of gas prices, I'm second guessing myself because I think I'm addicted to Lexington! Granted, Chud and I have always done a lot of driving between Lexington, Louisville, and Northern Kentucky in the last few years. There always seems to be phases of the year (spring and fall especially) when we are always "gone." But I'm starting to wonder if my plans this week revolve around the subconscious idea that I know my way around Lexington and I want to see my friends there instead of staying here with my husband, who knows his way around Louisville and wants me to make new friends here. I think the hardest part is knowing that all of these Lexington plans are exclusively mine - none of them require Chud to go there at all. I guess I'll call it my own, grown-up version of separation anxiety!

In all seriousness, I love Louisville. We have an amazing apartment, everything is unpacked, we stocked the cupboards with food, my brother is coming over for dinner tomorrow night...what could be better? Only all of that, along with the friends and "family" that I left behind in Lexington. Drat.

A New Place

I sit tonight in my empty apartment in Lexington after a day of vaccuuming, scrubbing, and magic erasering myself to death. I blog with numbed fingertips to the fresh scent of Pine-Sol. Chud is in Louisville at the new place getting things all put together and cleaned up and we call each other every couple of hours to update each other on our progress - it's almost like a contest!

But now that it's nighttime - now that the blinds are closed, the doors are locked, the lamp's turned on and the air is so quiet - I'm already starting to get homesick. I've been in Lexington for NINE YEARS. When I moved here, I was a freshman in college and it was impossible to NOT make new friends. In fact, I made too many new friends and now I am left with the handful of people who I deeply care about and who care deeply about me. If you told me nine years ago that these are the people I would love so much, I would have thought you were crazy - mostly because I didn't meet some of them until the end of my college career or after I started teaching. Anyway, the point is - I'm really going to miss these people! Louisville is wonderful and I'm SO happy to be closer to my brother, who might be the second most important person in my life. It's not that far away, either, which is nice, of course, but I'm so scared to approach 5:00 on a Friday night when I would be making my usual round of phone calls to plan the evening with my Lexington friends. So, best case scenario, I make some new friends in Louisville who will want to hang out with us on a Friday night. In that case, I'm scared to be left at the whimsy of people who know where they are and where they're going. Meanwhile, I'll be "the girl from Lexington" who can't find her way out of a Highlands coffee shop to save her life! I like being in charge, or at least taking part in the decision making of what happens on the weekends, so to be the one who says, "I have no idea where I am or what place you're talking about," is scary - yet exciting at the same time. In fact, I feel a bit like Little Red Riding Hood as she walks through the woods:

"And he showed me things/Many beautiful things,/That I hadn't thought to explore./They were off my path,/ So I never had dared./I had been so careful,/I never had cared./And he made me feel excited-Well, excited and scared."

This feeling brings me back to those times where I've wandered to other places just to push the edges of my comfort zone and feel that excited and scared feeling to remind myself I'm really alive. I went to Colorado and worked at a camp for an entire summer without ever meeting a single person I worked for, other than the secretary who interviewed me on the phone. I went off to England to do my student teaching in a school where I was the only American, and lived in a dorm where I was the only person from Kentucky in a sea of Pennsylvanian student teachers! I even jaunted over to France all by myself just to see if could do it, and you know what? I did. And it was awesome.

That's how I'll approach this Louisville situation. It's an adventure. It's a new beginning. It's a new life and a new start and yes, it's freaking scary as all get out, but darn it - that's how I know I'm alive. And the best part is, this time I don't have to do the adjusting by myself. I have a husband who loves me and knows me and will discover things with me as we both start our new lives together.

At least I can still go to Lexington whenever I want. The "old" life isn't that far away at all!

Gainful Employment!

Well, I've been putting of my blogging all week because I wanted to wait until I had Derby Day pictures, but alas, I have big news! (For Derby Day Shenanigans, you can checkout Laura's blog). Tuesday evening, around 4:30, I got a phone call from the secretary at Engelhard Elementary in Lousiville, asking if I could come in for an interview on Wednesday. Of course I said I could, because I didn't think I'd be hearing from schools in Louisville for quite some time, and on top of that, Engelhard was one of the nine schools I had on my "list" of schools where I actually wanted to teach. So, I took a half day off work on Wednesday so I could go home, get some folders together full of impressive goodies to give to the interviewers, take a shower, and get myself all gussied up for the interview. I left with plenty of time to get there and I was SUPER nervous as I waited for the principal to call me into the little room.

Once I got there, though, I was totally fine. The nerves were gone, and I answered the questions as best I knew how. When I left, I thought I did really well and I was very pleased, but on the hour and a half drive home (the one my husband does every day), I couldn't help but overthink all of my answers and all of their reactions, and by the time I got home I had decided that it was the worst interview I'd ever been a part of! So, this morning during my planning period at school, I sat down at my computer to email the principal and thank her for the interview while asking her when she thought I might hear something about the positions. As SOON as I opened my email, my cell phone rang.

It was a lady from Jefferson County Public Schools calling to inform me that I was being reccommended for the FOURTH GRADE position at Engelhard Elementary!!! I could NOT believe it, 9:30 in the morning and I was already getting a phone call! Of course, I graciously accepted and carried on through the rest of my day with a bit a chip on my shoulder - I was pretty darn proud of myself.

So, it looks like I have a home next year. Engelhard is a great school in a rough neighborhood, and I'm definately up for the challenge. As a very smart teacher at my current school said, "Every teacher should have the chance to teach at a disadvantaged school. That's what makes a good teacher a great teacher." And she's right. What's important is the fact that the STAFF seemed amazing, there seemed to be lots of support, and overall I got an amazing vibe from everyone I spoke to. At the end of the day, I can't WAIT to teach there!