A Little of This, Some More of That

Since when has looking like a librarian ever been a compliment?!?!?

Today I was told that I looked like a librarian. The individual who was so kind to point this out to me wondered if I ever let my hair down after work (I can only assume she meant get drunk off my butt). I am beginning to think it wasn't meant as a compliment. Am I stuffy or something? To my knowledge, I have never shushed anyone at work.

Maybe it is because I am so quiet. Maybe my glasses contribute to this look. Maybe it is because I am always wearing my cardigan jacket thingy because it is always so freaking cold at my desk. Either way, I have been given a few names that I am really not fond of.

So far TEA employees have called me to my face:
A school teacher
A baby
A librarian

hmm...other then the baby comment, I guess I send out an intelligent vibe at least.

Sorry I couldn’t include my librarian like outfit in this picture.

** I hope I didn’t just offend the teachers, librarians or babies out there that might read my blog. No offence! No offence!**

Apparently enough of one to reply to this tagging thing.

3 Joys
1-PAUL
2-Cruching Leaves (sadly the leaves don't fall here like they did in Laramie)
3-Popping bubble wrap

3 Fears
1-Parnormal stuff
2-Being all alone
3-Big dogs running at me

3 Goals
1-To be happy where ever I am in life
2-Be a better birthday acknowledger
3-Create a better prayer and scripture habit

3 Current Obsessions
1-lurking on blogs
2-Paninis
3-The Last Lecture

3 Random Facts
1-My sister and I have each other's toes
2-I still collect pencils
3-I have a new niece named Ella. Happy Birthday Kiddo (See I am already doing better on one of my goals)

This is going to be a random post.
Last week I finished up my swimming lessons. I am pleased with my level of comfort in the water now. I like jumping in the deep end and trying to touch the bottom. My actual swimming technique needs work, but now that I am comfortable in the water that is more likely to come. I can't give too much credit to my instructor because she spent most of the time talking to her friend about who they were dating etc, but she did show us that as long as our lungs are filled with air, we are not going to sink. She also encouraged the class to purchase goggles, which was a huge confidence booster. A lot of my swimming fears come from the fact that I have always had to close my eyes while under water (it is what I do). So with goggles now I can see what I am doing when I jump in. Woohoo!

Paul and I are in love with Panini’s. Last year my parents gave me a griddle/Panini maker for Christmas. We had used the griddle a bunch of times, but this weekend was our first attempt at Panini’s. We LOVED them! Being General Conference, we feasted on the good word and soup and sandwiches with friends. I have to say that these trump the regular melted cheese sandwiches I used to make my family eat Sunday afternoons.

Soccer. I cannot believe I am going to write this, but I really enjoy playing soccer! I am not a die hard like Paul, who would play it every second of every day if he could, but I am actually enjoying the game now. It helps when we win, but I think I was enjoying it even when we were losing. I told Paul that before every game I should come up with one goal to work on so I have something to focus on while I'm running spastically on the field.

Is anyone else having a hard time accepting that it is already October?!?!?!

This week marked our 8 month anniversary here in Austin, TX. We realized that it was one year ago this week that Paul was down here interviewing at ARL! Austin seemed so far away and unknown. For the most part I think we are handling living in a big city pretty well.

Last week I realized that it was already the end of September and we had hardly done anything with our summer. Sure we had gone to Barton Springs for our anniversary, but that was about the extent of our summer activities. Summer has always been a time for vacationing, with camping, or traveling or something. Since Paul and I both have new jobs we couldn’t take any vacations until our probationary time had ended. Plus who wants to be out in the 100 degree heat? I really wanted to feel like we had done something with our summer so I suggested we go camping.

So here are the lessons learned from our first camping trip in TX.

#1. Prepare yourself for small sized wildlife in your camp sight. I am not kidding when I say less then 20 minutes into our camping adventure we had spotted a very much alive armadillo rooting around in the bushes, and a skunk passing through to see what was on the menu for dinner. Later in the evening, I saw something dart by our picnic table, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I can only guess that we were camping right on the migratory route for all small animals in TX.

#2. Prepare yourself to be gouged just to get into a State Park. You would think with so many more people here in TX, that they could lower the price for state parks. We had only looked into how much it would cost to camp; we hadn’t thought about the entrance fee.

#3. To camp in TX one must call ahead to reserve a campsite. Paul and I are used to just packing up and heading for the mountains and looking for a site. We know you have to pay, but reserve? Sure for Yellowstone or something. I guess I should have done a little more research. We almost had to turn around and head home because the campsite was booked. They did give us the option of hiking two miles in the dark to get to the “Primitive” sites. HA! Thank goodness someone had canceled at the last minute.

#4. Set your new tent up a couple of times before trying to set it up in the dark with only car headlights. I was in charge of getting dinner ready and spotting wildlife, and Paul was in charge of the color coded tent.

#5. Even though you are in TX and it still gets up to the 90’s during the day, you still may need more then a blanket and a few sheets at night. We chose not to take our sub zero sleeping bags because we figured we would roast all night. (Note a blanket and sheets might have been sufficient if lesson number six had a different outcome).

#6. Check to make sure your air mattress is leak free before you head out to camp. After Paul had his battle with the tent and successfully won, he filled up our air mattress. Later that evening we walked around the campground, stopped to look up at the stars (something that we hadn’t seen since we left Laramie), and marveled at how many people had set up Christmas lights, or tiki torches near their campers. It had already been quite a night so after our walk we decided to call it quits and go to bed. We stepped into Paul’s masterpiece of a tent to find a completely deflated air mattress at our feet. No good. We filled it up again hoping that once the two of us laid on it, somehow the air wouldn’t be able to escape. As we laid there we couldn’t help but notice the hissing sound at our heads, and the undeniable fact that we were sinking towards each other.

I kept telling Paul that we were young and that we could handle a night on the ground. I think we could have done it if we didn’t pick the rockiest part of the campsite and if we were ok with replacing our hips at age 35. Paul had the idea to take our one and only blanket and fold it up 4 times and use it as a sleeping pad. I then used our pillows as my sleeping pad. We used our sheets to cover us and attempted to sleep. So there we lay, shivering bunched up on our makeshift beds with our clothes as our pillows trying to enjoy our end of the summer hoo-rah. I am really surprised we lasted as long as we did. By 6:30 in the morning, we were both freezing, and decided to call it quits. Which leads me to our next lesson learned.

#7. Honda Accords, though they boast of their comfort and quality, were not made for camping trips or sleeping for long periods of time. We turned on the car and slept in there for a couple hours; Paul in the front seat and me in the back. I woke up a few hours later with my leg completely asleep due to being scrunched up in a ball so Paul could lay out in the front.

#8. You are more prone to find odd bugs and insects in the bathrooms while camping then in the great outdoors. While I was changing in and out of my swimming suit I found a scorpion and a praying mantis. Didn’t see anything cool outside, but indoors while I was in my bear feet… that’s when I saw the really cool bugs!

Well there you have it! We did see some cool rivers and rocks on our trip, and we also felt like we were able to get away.

Will we go camping again? Definitely! Will we have more lessons to learn? Of course!
Will you spend time reading about our adventures? Who wouldn’t?

**This post is dedicated to my Grandmother Frances, an amazing woman, who in her 90's still lives alone and takes senior aerobics classes. She told me she never learned how to swim and she regretted it. She then very forcefully told me that I needed to learn. Message received Grandma! **

I am taking swimming lessons! Paul is relieved that I come home happy and excited to go again. There are 5 adults in the class with varying degrees of swimming experience. I was pleased to know that I am not the most inexperienced swimmer in the class (that makes you feel a little better about being an adult in a beginner swim class). Now if I can just get my face in the water and not breathe at the same time, life would be really good.
In other news, I would say our soccer game on Saturday was a huge success. I mean success in that we didn't faint in the heat and neither one of us came home with any major injuries.
I would say it was less of a success in that there were only 4 girls so I had no subs, oh and we lost 7-0. We had a ton of guys so Paul had plenty of opportunities to sit in the shade and drink water. No, I'm not bitter, just burned... (not even that, we wore sunscreen).
The game really wore me out. After we got home and showered I was dead the rest of the day. We guzzled as much water as we could after the game, but not enough proving fast Sunday to be difficult.
Paul is amazing as always at soccer, he even scored a goal on Saturday, but the ref called him on something so we didn't get to keep the point. That would have been nice to have at least one point against this team. But we figure we can only go up right? I mean hopefully 7 is as bad as it gets. Fingers crossed.

There you have it!