Another long life update!

Sorry it has been so long since you've heard from me! I'm not sure what I have been doing, but I have been staying busy! I've gotten into a bit of a routine lately. I usually wake up as Scott is leaving for work, start some coffee, and eat some breakfast. After breakfast, I usually do whatever housework needs to get done, go work out, and figure out what we're going to have for dinner so I can get the meat out of the freezer to thaw. Then it's usually lunch time, so I make some lunch and relax and watch some TV while I eat. In the afternoon I usually study, write thank you notes, and run errands until around 5ish when I get ready to start cooking. I typically have dinner ready when Scott gets home around 6ish, and we eat dinner, and then watch TV or hang out until bed time! Haha, I can't believe we have already settled into this routine, but its actually really comforting and I like it a lot! :)

However, the routine is about to change! I met with Emmanuel, my Wal-Mart district manager, last week, and we got me put into the system and all ready to start work! Until I get licensed, I am going to be filling in wherever they need someone, so I will be going to several different stores in the area. As of right now, my first week will be August 17-21st (Monday-Friday) from 10-7. I'm excited, but also nervous about starting work out here! I've gotten pretty good at this whole house wife thing :)

Last Friday I met the across the street neighbor, Heather, when I was out studying. Later on that afternoon, she and her husband, Ben, came by the invite us over for dinner on Saturday. Unfortunately we had already made plans with one of Scott's coworkers to go to a movie on Saturday night, so we had to decline :( However, we did go over to their house later that evening and drank some wine and talked with them for a few hours!

On Saturday night, Scott and I met one of his coworkers to go see Funny People. It was an interesting movie...not really what we were expecting. It kind of had some slow depressing parts, which was kind of weird since it was advertised as a comedy. All in all, it wasn't terrible, but it certainly was not in my list of favorite movies. After the movie, we were supposed to meet up with his wife, Sophia, who had been in San Francisco all weekend. However, since the movie lasted so long (almost 3 hours!) and she got home later than she expected and was tired, we decided to postpone to another time.

On Sunday, Scott and I went to a church down the road. We first tried out this church the Sunday before, but there was a guest speaker that Sunday, so we decided to give the actual preacher a try. We had decided to try out this church because we had read good things about it on Yelp.com (a common place to go to see reviews of different businesses, etc.). I know that's a weird place to find a church, but when you don't really know people, it's the best you can do! Everyone had raved about how great the church was, and it was also just down to street from our house, so we thought we would give it a try. The first Sunday we went was the one with the guest speaker. We were not really into the guest speaker, but decided to give it a second try to hear Pastor Paul, who everyone had raved about on Yelp. It wasn't necessarily bad, it is just not really what Scott and I are looking for. It's a very charismatic church and kind of feels more like you are listening to a motivational speaker than a preacher. It was nice that we were able to walk there, but I think we will be looking for other options in the coming weeks.

Today I had my first outing with a friend! Heather, the girl from across the street, called me yesterday and asked me if I wanted to go walking with her today. We went to this place called "The Dish" that is over in Palo Alto right next to Stanford. It is a really neat trail that wanders for like 3.5 miles over hills and you can see the entire bay area below...it was gorgeous! I'm really glad that she introduced me to it! We also took her little girl, Bella, who is 6 months old. I'm new to having friends with babies, but Bella is a great baby and loves to go on walks! We're looking forward to hanging out with Heather and Ben more often!

Tomorrow night we are having Matt and Sophia (Matt is Scott's coworker that we went to the movie with) over for dinner! I'm going to be working on planning out what we are having tonight, so I can go by the grocery store tomorrow and start cooking! I'm hoping that this will motivate us to tidy the place up a bit! My newest project is for the big empty wall next to the table. I edited some pictures I have from favorite places around town in Oxford and on campus, and made them all black and white and am having them printed as 5x7s. Right now my plan is to frame them in black frames and do a collage type scattering on the big wall. We'll see how it turns out!

I am sad to report that my geraniums that were so pretty in one of the previous posts are struggling at the moment. :( I'm not really sure what I have done to them...I am doing the same thing I have been doing the whole time. I usually water them daily and pick off the dead buds. At first when I picked off the dead buds, new ones would start to bloom very quickly, but now they aren't really coming back anymore. I bought some Miracle Grow yesterday and gave them some of that, so I am hoping that maybe they were just hungry. Please let me know if you have any idea what I might be doing wrong or need to be doing! They don't look quite as pretty in front of the house with no blossoms!

Also please email me (ppblackburn@gmail.com) or comment here if you have any good recipes that I can make ahead and freeze or good crock pot recipes! I am trying to gather some of these so we can still have food when I am not here all day to prepare it!

I'll try to get a little bit more regular at blogging! I'll report back on how dinner and the picture hanging goes!