A Tourist's Guide to Greenville

Should you ever decide to take a trip to the lovely Greenville, Ohio, here are some things you could do to entertain yourself. This may or may not be the actual list of what I do every day while my husband gets to go to his exciting job where he walks up and down rows of corn and counts plants (jealous!).

1. Walk around town aimlessly.
2. Bike around town aimlessly.
3. Go to Walmart.
4. Go to Goodwill.
5. Go to the library and get mobbed by employees (librarians? volunteers? I'll play it safe and call them employees) who are super-excited that they have a patron.
6. Walk around aimlessly.
7. Bike around aimlessly.
8. Take pictures of dilapidated buildings and then post them on your blog.
9. Walk around aimlessly.
10. Eat a nectarine.
*Here is where my husband comes home and our evening activities ensue.*
11. Drive up and down every street in town. This should take approximately 10 minutes.
12. Go to the "famous" sandwich shop in town and order the "famous loose-meat sandwich" which is actually just a messy hamburger that really is not that good.
13. Drive around aimlessly.
14. Go to bed early.

Who wants to come visit??????!

Wedding and more...

I'm thrilled to announce that I am now a married woman. Everything regarding the wedding went very well, thanks to lots of help from amazing family members and friends. Even the weather cooperated! It was a beautiful day and lots of fun. Thanks to everyone who came! It was great to see everyone. I don't have the pictures yet, but you can look at them here on the photographer's website. I'd especially like to point out my incredibly handsome husband.

We arrived in Greenville, Ohio last night. After passing through Dayton (which is the closest "big" city, we drove a good 30 minutes, seeing nothing but farms, before arriving at our bed and breakfast. It sure is a small town, but that's alright. I've always wanted to experience living in a small town. I'm going to go walk around downtown today and check things out. Heck, maybe I'll walk around the entire town - it's only 6 square miles.

2 weeks! And summer plans...

Just in case anyone is interested...have I mentioned that we are moving to Ohio? Ok, ok, it's not really moving. We are leaving most of our stuff in Raleigh, but we will temporarily be living in Ohio for 9 weeks. After our wedding and honeymoon, we will be back in Raleigh for less than 24 hours before we leave for Greenville, Ohio. Jared has an internship with Monsanto, the company that is providing his fellowship for his Ph.D. program (i.e. - paying him to go to school). They are also providing our living arrangments while we are there (a room at a bed and breakfast).

SIDE NOTE: Not only does Monsanto pay for Jared's tuition for his entire program and pay him a salary, but they are also provided housing at no cost during his internship. Let me just take a moment to contrast that with my internship: I got nothing. I did not get paid, I had to pay for 14 credit hours of tuition even though I was not taking classes, and I was not allowed to work another job. I had to take out a loan just to live. (Oh, but when I interviewed for the internship, I was told that I got free lunch every day and could consider that my stipend.) Not that I'm complaning (ok, I am), but I am definitely excited (and grateful) for Jared's sweet deal. No hard feelings to any of my Provo Canyon friends! We all know PCS is cheap. ;)

We will return to Raleigh mid-August. School will start again immediately for Jared and I will go back to the tortuous, but hopefully-more-promising-this-time-around job hunt.

24 days...

So we're down to 24 days until we get married. Just thought I should update that. And maybe update a few other things. I've been terribly absent from this blog for a couple months now. The reason for that is I moved and I no longer have internet at home. Remember that post about my awesome house? Well I don't live there anymore. It's a long story, but basically the owner of the house wanted us to start paying more rent and we were so not okay with that, so we all moved out. I moved into a one-bedroom apartment by myself. It's actually been really nice having my own place. I was afraid I would not like living alone or I would be scared, but the opposite is true. I don't feel scared at all (I live in a nice complex in a really good area...in fact the town I live in has been ranked the 6th safest city in America) and I really like having my own place and organizing things however I want them and not dealing with roommates being loud and keeping me up at night. Plus, it is making the transition to married life easier, I think. Jared has been gradually moving his stuff in and we've had time to sort through all our crap and organize, combine, discard, etc. Even though Jared doesn't live in it yet, we view it as our apartment.

I finally got my ring. Actually I got it about a month and a half ago, but I hadn't mentioned it yet, so now I am. I knew it was considered an "antique" style ring, but I wasn't prepared for so many comments about it! I receive at least a couple of compliments per week from customers at work and every single one has been from an older woman. I've also been asked if it was a family heirloom or if it was an antique. But I don't mind having an old lady ring. I really, really like it and I'm definitely still happy with my choice.

How I Know I’m Poor

I just dug through a trash can. For food. More specifically, for coupons for food. I stopped by the mailboxes at my apartment complex on my way home the other day to see if I got any interesting junk mail, because – let's be honest – that's all I get. Well today was my lucky day because my junk mail was not junk at all! It was a postcard from Chick-fil-A with 3 coupons for free food! And the best part is that the food is actually free! It's not one of those "you can have 1 free small fry if you buy 2 large burgers and 2 large drinks and give us a kidney and half of your liver" coupons. It's just free – by itself. (*Note: 1 of the coupons does actually require you to buy a medium drink, but the free item is totally worth more than the drink.)

Anyway. I was excitedly reading the details of the coupons when I happened to look down at the trash can (which, to my credit, is more like a junk mail receptacle than a diaper/smelly trash/rotten food receptacle) and noticed that someone threw their coupons away! Of course I snatched them right up. But then I noticed there was another coupon postcard underneath that one! So I had to pick that one up, too. And then that got me thinking…how many more people have thrown their coupons away? So…I dug. I only had time to find one more before I heard someone walking toward me and had to collect myself and my stolen mail and walk away nonchalantly. (Oddly, I don't mind broadcasting to the blogworld that I was digging through the trash, but I just could not bear to have the middle-aged, hairy, talks-too-loud-on-his-cell-phone man see me do it. Why is that?)

I got in the car with a grin on my face, ecstatic to tell Jared that I just scored us 12 free meals – 6 each. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have personally been feeling the pains of this recession and subsequent job market, so I'll dig through the trash for coupons any chance I get. What have the rest of you done to save a few bucks?

Updates

1. Got the dress. It's in great condition. Now I just need to get it altered (it's one size too big). I've never had anything altered before. Nothing. How do I find a good place? Any advice?
2. Started at Staples today. I'm going to be resurrecting my copy center skills from BYU and working in the copy and print shop...for less than the wage I made 5 years ago at BYU's copy center. Sigh. But after applying for about 75 jobs online and going to 4 temp agencies with no success, I was desperate and accepted the first scam-free job that made an offer.
3. I can't wait to get my ring!
4. For the first time, I'm following American Idol. My favorite contestant so far is Danny Gokey. Seriously, he was the only one last night that sounded like he was actually performing rather than playing around on karaoke revolution. Granted, not everyone performed last night, but still...

Waiting

Oh my gosh, this is torture. I bought a wedding dress (yea!) online (risky, I know) from Craigslist (getting sketchier) from a girl in Provo (phew, that makes it all better). Renae picked it up for me and put it in the mail. She sent me the tracking information, which told me its estimated delivery date was today, February 17. Even though I've known it wasn't scheduled to arrive until today, I've been obsessively tracking it online every day, watching it go from Salt Lake to Colorado to Kansas to Missouri to Kentucky and (finally!) to North Carolina, hoping all the while that it would miraculously appear on my doorstep even though I KNEW it was in a far-away state. On Saturday, I saw a UPS truck stop right in front of my house and got irrationally excited until the delivery man walked across the street to the neighbors house with some package that I'm sure was not as important as my wedding dress. Well the day has finally come. It is supposed to arrive today and every creaky noise in my house (was that a knock?) has me perking up my ears and running to the window. Now I know what Paco feels like when he is waiting for Mom to come home.