Happy Plants

          My best friend commented on my Facebook wall that there wasn't an update last night.  She makes me laugh and realize I probably should let you all in on a "secret."  I didn't update yesterday because there wasn't much interesting to share.  I realize that can make this blog quite deceiving for readers who don't know me well.  You may read about our amazing and fun adventures and think we live a very interesting life.  From my perspective I am living a very fun and adventurous life.  I am blessed to be given all the opportunities I've had and blessed to be able to work to achieve the opportunities that don't come along as easily.  However, as my dear friends and family know, if I posted every day about what I did you definitely would get very bored for weeks or months at a time.

This picture from 2007 is a more accurate representation of my day to day life.

          That's why my blog goes silent for so long between adventures.  I'm not someone who does something worthy of being shared every day.  So for any readers jealous of all the adventures I share with you here, take note of the long gaps in between them and realize that I am either working to afford them (and retirement and groceries), reading, spending time with friends and family, sleeping, or playing video games in those gaps.  That's a good thing for us to remember about living vicariously through others on the Internet.  The stuff shared is likely less than 5% (probably a very generous estimate) of the sharer's life.

          Now that you know the truth about real life I'll let you hear what D and I were up to in the past couple days.  After the Horror Night we enjoy our first morning of sleeping in since before this string of adventures began.  We set out in the afternoon to check our apartment and make sure everything is working for their paperwork.  When we arrive we only find the mailbox key.  That's disappointing.  I have two plants eager to see the sun again outside of the car!  After failing to reach our contact at the management office we trudge off to Walmart.

          I bet your Walmart doesn't have palm trees in the parking lot.  We pick up some microwave foods and lunch items to last us the week.  The store is so crowded getting through aisles is a game of dodge carts.  People leave their carts in the center and don't bother moving out of the way when they see you waiting.  Now I remember why we shop late at night instead of during peak normal people hours.

          Sunday night dinner is Pizza Hut.  The buffalo chicken pizza is quite good.  We catch up on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, I show D a Supernatural parody, and we relax wasting time on the web.  Monday is D's first day of work.

His day was busy but look at that smile.  Someone is excited about his new career and Welcome Jetpack.

          D's badging appointment is at 7 so he kisses me good-bye but lets me sleep in today.  Around 9:30 I get the call back about our apartment keys.  Hopefully we'll actually be able to get in today.  The rest of the day I spend lazily watching Rooster Teeth videos my sis sends me, taking a nap, dropping off a check at the bank, and munching on last night's pizza.

          Magically the keys are waiting for us at our apartment and we're able to go through the move-in checklist.  My plants are now happy sitting on the balcony.  Tomorrow they should get some sunlight.  Despite our oven being quite derpy and a few other minor issues the apartment looks great.  We can't wait to move in.  We even discuss how we want to start arranging the furniture and what new furniture we can buy.  Microwave and bed are first on the list as we realize the place doesn't come with a microwave... oops!

Derpy old oven.  Everything else is new but they kept this.

          The lack of traffic makes the drive back smooth.  We settle in for some pizza and D starts the dishwasher.  Have I told you that our hotel room doesn't like us?  We are facing the freeway so it's nice and noisy, the AC sounds like a jet passing overhead if you stand next to the sink.  Weird acoustics.  Our door needs to be bargained with in order for it to let us in.  And now as we try to wash the dishes we end up in a cartoon.  So perhaps California life will be more interesting than usual.

I feel like I live in a cartoon when I'm in this state.

Impressions of California: Normally 61 degrees is when I start putting on a jacket, but here you sweat in a jacket.  From videos and articles talking about how people from the Midwest are overly friendly I expected people here to be standoffish; they aren't.  I haven't gotten into the elevator with someone else without them telling me to have a nice night, yet.  When the ground moves it is probably due to heavy traffic rather than an earthquake.  USGS has yet to show an earthquake happening at the same time the hotel floor bounces a little.  California doesn't like us and wants to make me liar in my own blog.  We have had more mishaps in this state while we've stayed in this hotel than in the months we've spent here before.  I sure hope our apartment brings us better luck!