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.

Long-term Wife Insurance

The Day I (Eventually) Said Yes

Saturday, January 24. Jared picked me up at about 7:30 AM to go on a trip. He told me to expect about a 4 hour drive, but left the location a surprise. Eventually, I figured out that we were going to the Outer Banks. We had put that location on our to-do list, but didn't really plan on going there anytime soon. It had been really cold the past week and was supposed to be warmer Saturday, so we were ready for some outside fun.

The first thing we did when we got to the Outer Banks was visit the Bodie Lighthouse and visitor's center. Basically, we walked through the small visitor's center, walked around the lighthouse, took a few pictures, and that was it. Next, we were off to Kitty Hawk, the home of flight, to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial. This place was cool. They have monuments marking where the plane took off (the monorail they used to slide the plan on is still there) and the 3 locations where it landed. Ok, moving on. Next, we went to the Currituck Lighthouse. This lighthouse was closed for the winter, but we were able to sneak in (well...there wasn't much sneaking involved since the gate was unlocked) and walk around the grounds. The groundskeeper or whoever he was that lives there told us about a wildlife center just a short walk from the lighthouse, so we went there next. The woman working there told us that we should come back at sunset because you can sit right on the water in a gazebo and watch the sunset over the sound. (Remember, we're on the east coast, so the sun doesn't set over the ocean.) We thought that sounded pretty fun. We had about an hour before the sun would start setting, so we drove a short way to the beach on the ocean side and walked around for a bit. Jared didn't mind the brisk temperature, but I was freezing so we didn't stay very long. We went back to the sound and took a seat at a gazebo on the water. But first, I snagged this awesome picture of the bridge/walkway.


It was beautiful. It was a cloudy day, so we kept waiting for the sun to peek out from behind the clouds. It was pretty close to disappearing when I finally got up and told Jared I was going to take a picture. So I walked to the edge of the gazebo closest to the horizon and took a few pictures. When I turned around, I saw Jared just a couple feet behind me, on one knee. Jared says I did a double take from his face to the ring and back to his face. I just stood there in absolute shock/surprise/confusion. And then we had a conversation that went like this:

Jared: "Jenn, will you marry me?"
Jenn: "Are you serious?"
Jared: "Yes."
Jenn: "Are you serious?"
Jared: "Yes!"
Jenn: "Are you serious?"
Jared: "YES! I wouldn't joke about this!"
Jenn: "Yes!"

Then we hugged. But rather than soaking in the moment, my mind just kept spinning. 'Was this for real? I feel like I'm being pranked. He's such a jokester, but would he joke about this? Maybe he is joking. Maybe he just wanted to see what I would say so he would be more confident asking me later. Oh gosh, I can't believe I said yes to a fake question. I feel so dumb.' So then we had another conversation that went like this:

Jenn: "Are you serious?"
Jared: "Yes, I'm serious."
Jenn: "Are you serious?"
Jared: "I don't know how else to tell you that I am serious."

Finally, I believed him (sort of) and we took some pictures to commemorate the moment.



Then, we starting our drive back to Raleigh, looking for a place to eat on the way. The Outer Banks thrives with tourists in the summer, but it's pretty dead in the winter, so lots of the restaurants were closed. We finally found a seafood restaurant called Mako Mike's and ate there. While the decor was...odd (think cruise ship/children's play area/80s interior decorating), it had a comfy, vacationy (touristy) feel to it and the crab legs were delicious.

So...we're getting married June 6 in Dallas. And now you are all up to date and in the know.

Calling all dream interpreters

I had a strange dream last night. I was at a ski resort with Jared, Jeff, Renae, Kyle, Lynn, and two girls I don't know in real life, but I knew in my dream, with funky names like Timber and Ash. This ski resort was odd in so many ways. First, it was not on a mountain. It was more like a waterpark, where you walk up 8 flights of stairs and slide down. Except here you had to carry your skis up 8 awkward, narrow flights of stairs and then ski down, which probably lasted .2 seconds. The good thing was that the stairs were mostly indoor, so you were at least protected from the elements on your journey up. So at one point, I was taking the "lift" up to a "run," when I realized I had to pee really badly. For some reason, I felt embarassed to tell Timber that I need to go to the bathroom, so I started to consider peeing my pants. How obvious could it be? I had big thick snow pants on...plus, people would probably just think I fell on my butt in the now. But suddenly, I looked down and realized I forgot to put on ANY of my ski clothes OR my boots. (I also didn't have my skis, but that did not seem to concern me.) I was just wearing shorts and a t-shirt. No socks or shoes, no hat, no gloves. Luckily, since the lift was not really a lift, I easily walked down the stairs and across the street to our stinky motel room (could this nightmare be related to a real-life nightmare?) to use the bathroom and put on my ski clothes.

At another point in my dream, I was inside a room at the resort with Ash when an albino alligator (with a hard shell on top, like a turtle) started attacking us! (Imagine this crossed with this, which I think was inspired when I saw this on Planet Earth.) We couldn't get out of the room because it was blocking our exit, so we tried defending ourselves, but it was really hard to fight off because of its hard shell. We tried jumping on it, throwing things at it, kicking it underneath its shell. But all of these things made the alligator more vicious (imagine that) and more intent on making us dinner. I don't know how it happened, but eventually I looked around the room and noticed it wasn't there anymore. So we left.

LOL

I'm not a big fan of using text speak like LOL, mostly because it's usually not true. People use LOL as a filler, not as an abbreviation to describe what is really happening. But I am using it now because the following blogs did in reality leave me laughing out loud. Enjoy.

http://backrowballers.blogspot.com/2008/12/pathophysiology-of-butt-abscess.html

http://jensjingle.blogspot.com/2009/01/day-i-almost-died-of-both-mortal-peril.html

http://regardingannie.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/bare-it-baby/

http://regardingannie.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/the-big-slip/