We Did It.

In less than six months we drove from Missouri to California, added two new additions to our family (birds, of course), found a place to live, got a job, got a car, and finished my first quarter of graduate school. And, well, I've been much too busy to write.

I started this blog to simply document our time in transition, and I think were are the end of that period. I feel as if we've fully transplanted ourselves into completely new lives.

But I do want to wrap up this story to wrap up the memories we've made and the journey we've started here.

While school was stressful and overwhelming, I learned so so much. I feel 100x more intelligent than I did when I first started. My brain is no longer on hiatus. I am super excited to learn all of these new things and how to apply them in the real world - which is great because my job is evolving into exactly what I wanted.

I'm still able to do graphics and social media, but I'm also doing a good deal of program development, marketing, and I/O consulting. I'm throwing in the latter in small places here and hoping to be able to use it for my internship hours. In short, I'm doing pretty much everything I love. I get to sit in my own office, drink coffee, listen to good music, and push pixels around. They say to find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life, and that is how I feel.

Who expects to reach that point at 22? I sure didn't. I didn't even know what I wanted to do with my life up until I got accepted into graduate school. I feel like I finally have some purpose. I don't know if I will work there forever, but it's one hell of a start.

I'm very excited about the way life is unfolding for me, and I consider myself very lucky to have things fall in my lap this easily. Sure, I get stressed and upset and pushed to my limits at some points, but I can honestly say that I am becoming a better, smarter, and more socially competent person every day. The bad things that come along are no longer life destroyers, they are mere annoyances. I'm not stricken with fear about the future or where I am going.

So here we are. We did it.

Can't complain when there are palm trees.

It has been a long, but productive day. Work has been going great, and I'm really enjoying the work I get to do and the creative freedom and autonomy I have to just go after what needs to be done. I still lack some direction and knowledge about the whole industry, but that will come with time.

And on my third trip to the DMV today, I finally got my license and transferred the title on my car. So I am an official Californian now. I of course had to take the test on traffic laws and I of course failed the first time (by one point!) but the second time around I got 100%, so I was elated to be gone from there by hour three. Thankfully, I shouldn't have to go back there for a long long time.

I got home around 4:30 and did myself a solid and went to the gym. I only went twice last week so I figure I should at least do that. I know it's only going to get harder to get motivated once I start school in a few weeks. But my brain could use some exercise too, I feel like I'm getting dumber. So there might have to be some trade off there.

So I'm pretty much wiped out from today, but I try to keep things in perspective. It's a good kind of exhausted. It's an accomplished kind of exhausted. And it feels good to feel that way. And I really keep reminding myself is that I really have nothing to complain about. I drive to work every morning in my nice new car, in beautiful sunny california, I make money, come home to my wonderful boyfriend and two extremely naughty birds, and then I generally piss around until it is time to go to bed.

And quite honestly, even my worst days in California are better than my best in Missouri.

Goodnight.

I'm becoming a morning person.

I woke up at 5:45 this morning and made my first commute as a grown up. It's a weird feeling knowing that I have a real job with real responsibilities. It's weird being a full blown adult in general. Granted, I'm only working part time for now, but it's a big step in the direction I will be heading during my 20's.

While training and the first few days of a new job are usually the worst, but it went quickly and I am shadowing different people this week to get a feel for what the company is doing and other peoples' responsibilities. It's a little hard for me to stay detached and remember that while some aspects of their job are important for me to know, it's mostly for me to figure out how things work in general and see what I can improve upon from a graphic and usability standpoint. Hopefully by next week I will be set up with an office and my own responsibilities. I already have multiple ideas to work on, and there is a lot that already needs to be done.

But, it is nice to have a job where I can actually be proactive and creative and looked at like an equal and a person with value. I also get to wear nice clothes, which is a nice change of pace and probably the biggest adjustment out of all of this.

Tim's dad found me a car this weekend, so I will be getting that by Wednesday hopefully. I need to take my driver's test out here again and get all the registration crap sorted out which is going to be a big pain in the ass because it all has to be done so quickly, but it's the last big hurdle to being a real californian and being completely settled in out here.

So, basically I need to get through this week and I'll be good to go. In the meantime I'll suck it up and deal with it. At least I'm doing something productive and making some money.

Big Changes

Things have changed quite a bit for us over the past few months. First of all, we added to our family. Tim bought me a Jenday Conure that we named Kiwi. He is almost five months old and really cute and playfully. He is a little mean to Mango (our other bird) but they are entertaining nonetheless. And they have kept our spirits up during our respective job searches.

I was about on the verge of giving up on finding a real job and just trying to do some freelance design to make ends meet. I had applied for one job that seemed to fit me perfectly. I emailed to set up an interview, but didn’t hear anything back for about a week. Finally, I got the interview arranged so Tim took me in for my first interview since we moved here.

It was for a graphic design position, so I felt very out of my league when I entered the waiting area and there were pretty much only older men carrying big portfolios. I also arrived about 15 minutes early and there were three other people that were going to be interviewed before me. To me this just screams cattle drive interviews, if I had driven there myself I would have probably just left. Nonetheless, I stayed there, had a great interview and left feeling a little bit hopeful.  As is customary to us now, we went to In-N-Out for lunch and then headed back home.

I found out on Tuesday that I got the job. We went out for sushi to celebrate, and we are going to San Diego this weekend. More importantly, I get to go shopping for new grown up office clothes.

Tim is still looking and has had several interviews, but no luck just yet.

I start school in a little over a month and I am a bit apprehensive about the load I will be taking on, but I think it will be good for me. And after two years I should be set up for a pretty comfortable and successful career. It’s exciting to have a job that fits me so well and the opportunity to expand upon my education.  But I will still have nights and weekends to do homework and/or relax.

So that’s where we are at now.

Life's a Beach.

We've finally settled in San Bernardino, our home for the next two years. We moved in for good on the second and have spent most of the time since then unpacking, looking for jobs, and entertaining my parents who came to visit last week.

We're very happy here, but the job hunt is starting to get a little frustrating for the both of us. Most of what we see are scams or "entry-level" jobs that require much more experience than we have. I've applied for various things, mostly jobs in HR, retail, and customer service, but also one in printing and even as a cheerleading coach.

I find that not worrying about life makes it a little easier, so I've taken to spending time at the gym and going to the pool every morning/early afternoon to enjoy this time off because I'm sure I'll be in over my head before I know it. I've also been getting into better shape and reading books again, so here's to improvement.

Other than that, I've been doing some work on fiverr.com/lahkkd doing some design and proofreading work for a bit of extra money. So if you need a t-shirt, or logo, or pretty much anything, hit me up. I can do some decent work when I put my mind to it.

So, that's about all that has been going on here lately. Should be more interesting, but it really really isn't.

California, here we are!

It has been a very eventful couple of weeks. We left Rolla on June 14th and had one last sushi lunch and spent the night with my parents in Lebanon. We officially headed out on Tuesday and stayed the night in Amarillo, TX. The next day we got to Flagstaff, AZ. On Thursday we headed up to the Grand Canyon, and we learned that it costs $25 to stare at the hole for one hour or 7 days. Rip off. But it's one of those things you have to see. We also found out on the way to the canyon that we were, in fact, not getting the puppy we were promised. So, I was quite possibly the only person crying at the Grand Canyon, but that's a rant for another day.

The pain lessened with some In-N-Out. We stopped at the first one we saw on the way into Phoenix. It was excellent. We also went to the Mills in Phoenix for some retail therapy and I got my big ass california sunglasses.

This day I was also very excited to big "cactuses" (I know it's wrong, but it's much more fun to say). They are one of those things you see in movies, but you don't really expect to see them all eight feet tall and big arms just like in Wile E. Coyote or something. It's one of the few you see as a kid that is true to life. Moral of the story: I'm easily impressed. And very tired (as you can see from the picture, adding two hours in one day is a bitch)

Friday was our shortest  day of driving, but it seemed to take the longest. Mostly we were getting a little sick of each other. I guess this is normal when you are pretty much within three feet of someone for 5 days. We did get along surprisingly well, but I think that's because we knew the prize that awaited at the end. Ahhh California.

We took a deserted (no pun intended) shortcut out of Phoenix (one I was convinced was plagued by mexican gangsters/pirates...I have no idea why) and then took "the 8" (yeah, I do that now) all the way to San Diego. We hugged the Mexico/US border most of the way, literally you could see the fence. We also went through three border patrol checkpoints, luckily they weren't at all interested in the amount of crap we were hauling and waved us through. I saw the sand dunes as soon as we got into CA, then it quickly turned into a series of mountains. Under normal circumstances it's probably a pretty cool drive, but I have to say that El Cajon has never looked more beautiful.

We've been puppysitting and housesitting in San Diego while Tim's parents are on vacation, but that time is almost up. We are moving into our apartment on Thursday. We've mostly been shopping for furniture and things for the apartment. I guess we are finally adults since we bought a TV and a mattress with an actual bed frame.

Today we went up to Fullerton because Tim had a job interview, then jetted over to San Bernardino to check out our place. It's a bit smaller than what we had in Rolla for double the price, but still not terrible for CA. We're about a mile or so from CSUSB which will be nice, but Tim will have about an hour-ish commute if he gets this job.

We also went to Ontario/Rancho Cucamonga to do some shopping. We are both pretty excited that shopping no longer has to be an "event" like when we made day trips up to St. Louis. We can just jet over to the Ontario Mills (the biggest one story mall this side of the Mississippi), Target, Ikea, Costco, etc. in about 15 minutes. This is a very new thing for me since everywhere I've ever lived has hosted Wal-Mart as a main attraction. On that note, it has now been three weeks since we have been in a Wal-Mart.

We are going to be enjoying a bit of San Diego before we head out later this week, going to a casino tomorrow (mostly for a kickass free buffet) then to a Padres game on Wednesday afternoon and sushi afterwards. It's still a little hard to comprehend that we don't have to get on a plane and fly back to Missouri at the end of the week. I'm actually adjusting to Pacific time (otherwise I would totally be asleep by then). We're also pretty excited to finally be embarking on the last leg of our journey to San Bernardino. It seemed like it was so far away, and then all of a sudden we're here making a brand new start.

I'm hoping to keep up with this (hopefully in smaller installments), but I guess I need to also be looking for a car and a job. Nonetheless, that's what's up. I apologize for the blog vomit. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the memories.

Tim and I were getting in the car to go to Napoli's for lunch with some friends before we leave. It was one of those perfect timing moments. The song "Thnks fr th Mmrs" (Thanks for the memories - for all you people who use vowels out there) was on the radio.

To me, this pretty much blew my mind. For one, this song hasn't been popular since my freshman year of college. At the time I first heard it, it meant something so much different than it does now. Granted, the meaning of the song is something completely different from what I was interpreting in this moment. The lyrics "one night and one more time, thanks for the memories even though they weren't so great" couldn't have been any more perfect for us on our last night here in Rolla.

I was a big fall out boy fan back in the day, but now they bring back their songs just make me remember a very complicated time of my life. But who hasn't been 18 and a little disillusioned? This moment really made me realize that as much as things change, you can always remember where you've been.

So in honor of my last few hours in rolla, I want to take the time to remember a few memories from my time here.

- First and foremost, meeting Tim. When I first met him in class, he was a long haired smelly kid fresh out of football practice. My mind changed when he got a haircut and a shower and he brought me cheesecake after I busted my face and got a concussion at cheerleading practice. The next day he left me captain and a dr. pepper in his locker when we went to decorate for the game. He picked me up outside the locker rooms and we went on our first date to the park, then to Wendy's, and then back to his trailer. We watched grandma's boy but talked through the whole thing. He took me back to my car when I asked him to. He thought he blew it, but he totally didn't. I knew he was the one for me when I got back to my apartment. In some crazy aligning of the planets, three guys I had been head over heels for at some point or another in the past year or so were hanging around the hot tub of my apartment complex. None of them were even somewhat appealing to me anymore. Tim and I have been inseperable ever since.

- hanging out with sass, standing up guy, beans, fink, and even dosh at the shack. Mostly drinking and playing guitar hero and coming up with some ridiculous inside jokes about furry mouse tits and brownies. They always included me even though I was a leeching teenager. I always had fun and I am very happy to have met some actual nice guys that weren't out to always get me into trouble. I also owe them a decent amount of alcohol.

- this brings me to my girlfriends. the ridiculous things that we got into. We never got into trouble, but we were definitely always asking for it. Drinking in barns, rooftops, and various pools. Float trips, halloween parties, and beer pong marathons at quigleys or sigma chi. We stayed up all night and talked philosophy, then went sex toy shopping. They put up with my Ryan Adams obsession and the string of sketchy guys I always seemed to scrounge up. Things change and we drift apart, but sometimes friendships are explosive like that. No one can live like we did forever, but I'm glad we had the time that we did.

- cheerleading. we had a love and hate relationship. Deciding to quit was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but school had to come first. part of me wishes I could have done that last year, but it wouldn't have been worth my sanity, and I ended with very pleasant memories. Remembering nailing that final routine and that last game of the tournament where there were only about 6 of us, and we lost, but we had so much fun. I wish it could have been like that all the time. I wish there had never been any of the bruises, tears, or blood. I wish it could have always felt like it did at the end. But for someone who never expected to cheer again, I'm glad I had for the experience. Because looking back, all the bad times eventually led up to something pleasant to remember.

 So as we get ready to hit the road tomorrow, I believe FOB said it best.
"say a prayer, but let the good times roll."

California, here we come.