HELP... I am surrounded with no where to go!!

School offically started on Monday, all the students are moved in, Mommy's and Daddy's have all gone home. and teachers have handed out the first round of homework assignments. How come on a campus of approx. 18,000 people I can't get a good set of neightbors to save my life? They let their kids run amuck all over, they are up at all hours of the night, banging on the wall, parking their toys in front of our door, looking into our house and our cars, standing behind us while we are trying to put Faith in or take Faith out of the car. As if that doesn't drive me crazy enough...they all talk to eachother and glare at me. What did I do? I have always been nice, said hi to them and smile at them, even when I don't feel like it. So, why is it that we are the minority and looked down at? Why can't I make friends? I am hoping that this will change once we get plugged into a church (yes we are still working on that). So far my boss and professors at work, Faith's daycare teachers, Faith's daycare director, the check out people at the store and Garratt are the only people I get to talk to. I am so over it. I am starting to feel a lot of depression starting to surface and I am getting very HOME SICK. Oh, well I will get over it. Any who...hopefully next week when we go to the Yakima Apartment BBQ social I will find some sort of connection to someone in the complex somewhere. Well, until next time...

P.S. HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY JON!!!!!! (that's my brother-in-law...today is his birthday!!!)

Birthday Girl

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY GIRL!!
Mommy cannot believe that you are 1 years old already!!

Yes, I know that my daughters Birthday was yesturday I just didn't get a chance to post on my blog yesterday. I barly got her post on her blog up. SO yes this is being posted a day late but who really cares??

The First Night of the Lentil Festival

For those of you that don't know, Pullman is the Lentil Capital of the World. So, this whole Lentil Festival thing is a big deal. So, we decided to go out last night and check out the downtown street fair that is the kick off of the festival. It was very cool. There was a kids area that had a bounce house, giant inflated slide and some other inflated play thing, there were clowns and of course the WSU Athletcis group with BUTCH!! This is when we found out that faith is not a fan of Butch like we thought, She SCREAMED!!! It was interesting. She is not very fond of dogs either. Faith's daycare is also hosting a lentil bean play area in the Kids Zone so Faith got to see her director Miss Cassi who she absolutly adores. There were a lot of food booths, live music, a beer garden, and different vendors. Then there was highlight of the night, a 200lb vat of Lentil Chili. Sadly we didn't get to taste it because by the time we got back around to it, all the chili was GONE!! Yes people 1 1/2 hours into the event and 200 lbs of chili was gone!!! It was funny!!

200 lbs of LENTIL CHILI

All Campus Picnic

The All Campus picnic is a free picnic for all Faculty, Staff, Students and Parents. The picnic is held at Mooberry Field, which is the Track field. It is suprisingly very well done. Yes, when you are feeding 5000+ people, there will be some waiting but that wasn't bad at all. They kept everything moving very well and there was plenty of food for everyone. There were no incidences either, at least none I saw. There was live music and there were booths all around the track for different groups/clubs on Campus, Athletics, and even some other local companies. Faith had fun people watching and dancing with the music it was super cute.

University Convocation

The picture below is the new Provoist Dr. Hoch. He has only been the provoist for 21 days.
The picture below is President Floyd.

The University Convocation was alot of fun. We got to meet the University President Dr. Floyd. We got there a little eatly to get seats and he was going around introducing himself and greeting people as they showed up, then we saw him again at the end of the convocation. It was really cool. The Convocation lasted about an hour and included 4 speakers, the President, the new Provoist, one of the Professors and a student. Everyone got a program that included a bookmark with tassle, and a year pin. The whole thing was done very well and ended with teaching all the new students and parents the WSU Fight Song (with the help of the Marching Band and Butch). For those of you wondering who Butch is, he is the WSU mascot. Ironically he is a Cougar named Butch...I don't quite understand that one?!? Oh, well. The whole thing was really interesting and this will probably be the only year we attend it because it is really just an introduction to the University and great as a new incoming student, parent or WIFE.

Let the Fun begin!!!

So, today is the start of 2 1/2 weeks of fun around WSU campus and Pullman. Today is the first day of WOW(week of welcome). Tonight we have Bash in the Grass (If it stops raining...otherwise it becomes bash in doors???) Pullman Business Bingo starts today and goes through Saturday (this is just a fun game for the WSU students to play and get cool prizes). Tomorrow starts the Campus Sacavenger Hunt (more fun prizes). Tomorrow night is also game night, Comedy in the Nuthouse (Daggy Theater), Shopping Blowout at ShopKo and Ice Cream Night at Dairy Queen. Friday (besides being Faith's birthday!! 1 year old...YEAH!!), we have the Univerity Convocation and All Campus Picnic. Friday night is the big party night, the opening of the new 18+ club, dances, movies and so much more. Friday night is also the starting of the LENTIL FESTIVAL. The major events for the Lentil festival are on Saturday and we are looking forward to checking that out. Sunday is a little slower there is just a Backyard Bash at the Student Rec Center. Then Monday is the start of the Semester. During the week there are various activities put on by different groups on campus. Then it's Labor Day weekend. We all have Monday off...yeah! Then that week is the Grand Opening of the CUB (student union). There are activities all week leading up to the Ribbon Ceremony on Friday. So there will be lots of posts about the fun happening, as well as some pictures ( more on Faith's blog for those who have access). Well, talk to you soon!!!

Weird Washington Weather

So, we have been here for 3 months now and the weather has been fairly normal. Then last week it felt like being in CA again. It was in the high 90's and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday it was 99, 100 and 102, and we don't have air conditioning...yuck!!! Then Monday morning was nice it was in the 80's with a nice mild breeze. I was happy. Then, that night within a matter of 2 hours, the wind picked up massively (like knock you over, tree branches down wind) then came the massive lightning show, thunder and rain. As a result our house had to be closed up to keep the inside dry, but that resulted in a yucky hot night. Then yesturday was beautiful, low 70's all day again a nice breeze. By 5:00 pm it was 69 degrees and felt great. I woke up this morning to some rain...like November CA rain...CRAZY. Oh, well I guess this is just what it is like when you live in the corner that get all the highs and lows.

GRRRRR...FINANCIAL AID OFFICE

Ok,so back in April when we were here at WSU doing registration and orientation I was informed by the Financial Aid Director that we qualified for additional funding to pay for childcare. He told me exactly what to do and I did it. I found out today that apperently all I did we increase the Cost of Attendance budget for Garratt's FAFSA and Financial Aid purposes, it didn't give us any additional funding for Faith's childcare...so not good!! Now I have to find a way to pay for her childcare. I just finally got a job that allows us to pay our bills on time and be completly caught up with our bills...no more pink slips yeah!!! Now I have to come up with $700 more a month to pay for childcare. That is the average cost for chilcare here in Pullman for a FT child, so there is no point in moving her to a different childcare either, it's not like it would save me any money that way. I just hate this. I finally thought I was on the right track and everything was going to be ok and then Saitin hits me with this. WHYYYY????? It's not fair... all I want is to be able to pay my bills, put my husband through school, give my daughter a good solid start in life, and maybe put a little bit into savings each month so that we can go to CA to visit sometimes, and be able to go on a vacation maybe...is that so much to ask?? I think not!!! Oh, well back to crunching numbers and tring to come up with the money for August's child care bill that is due in September.

Final Decision

Ok, here is the full story for those of you wondering. If you read my post "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" you know what the situation was as of Wednesday. Thursday morning I went in and informes my boss that my last day would be Friday. Then Thursday evening after work I went to the dealership to take care of paperwork and get a little more info about the job and some details about things. When I got home from this I was feeling slightly weird like something wasn't right, I brushed it off and went to bed that night trying to shake this feeling. I woke up on Friday and just really had a gut feeling that I had made the wrong decision. I told Garratt how I was feeling and then went to my last day of work. As the morning progressed I could not shake this feeling. I called Garratt about 11:30 and told him that I was still having these feelings and it was really bothering me, so I asked him to pray about it until I got home for lunch and we could talk about it. After hanging up the phone I asked God that if the feelings I was having were just guilt to please put me at ease. The nagging feeling continued. At lunch Garratt and I had a long talk and decided maybe we were making the wrong decision, so we changed our minds. After deciding to stay with WSU, I started to feel more at ease. I called the dealership and told them, they were disappointed but understanding. Then I informed my boss at WSU that if she wanted me to stay that I was her's. She was thrilled. Here is the interesting part. Not even 10 mins after telling my boss that I was staying She got a phone call from our Department Head. He wanted to know what the situation with my position was, my boss informed him that I had decided to stay on for now, the my DH started asking how they could get me on permently. Long story short next week the DH (who is based out of the Vancouver, WA campus) will be in our office and he intends to find out when the final day that the girl I am filling in for has to decided if she is coming back or if she is resigning. The big card that my DH is hanging onto is that there in a Federal law that says that if you go out for an extended period of time and the company has to replace you that they do not have to guarantee you your job back, they just have to give you a comperable position. SO, long story short my DH and my boss are bothing pushing to get me hired on Full Time. After hearing this from my boss (after she got off the phone) I really felt I like I had made the right decision. There really were only 2 differences between the two jobs. The first was that one was permanent and the other was Temp (at the time). The second was the pay difference there was a huge pay cut involved with taking the job at the dealership. In the end I think that staying with the University was the best choice. So now, Garratt attends WSU, Garratt works for WSU, We live at WSU and I work for WSU...there is a lot of COUGAR love going on around here. YEAH COUGS!!!!!

Being an Adult Sucks!!!

I just have to say that when your parents tell you to enjoy being a kid because once you become an adult life gets hard. They are so right. As if the normal everyday routine of life isn't enough there are always added bonus that come at you when you really aren't ready for them. Also, why is it that no one can be interested in you for months and then all of a sudden there are multiple people after you? And why is it that the pros ans cons lists don't always give you an answer? Can someone tell me that? Also why is it when you really don't know what to do and you need time to think something over that an answer has to be made right away, yet when something comes up that an answer can be decided on rather quickly you have all the time you need to decide? I just don't understand. Then when you do make a rushed decision your mind plays tricks on you so you cannot decide whether the decision you made was the right one or not. Sum this all up and I give you the title of this blog...BEING AN ADULT SUCKS!!!!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

So yesturday I found out that the President of WSU has put a hiring freeze on the university. The exception to this being any preapproved or specialty funded job for students. I also found out that this means that my (at the moment) temp job becomes more complicated. Refer to the previous blog regarding my job cirrcumstances. This means that if the girl I am replacing quits that there are A LOT of hoops that we have to jump through in order to be approved for hiring a permanent employee for this position. The problem is that through these hoops comes the lack of certinty that my boss could make me the permanent employee. I also found out that the girl I am filling in for could indeed return sooner than October if she gets a DRs release. That the Bad.

The good! Garratt got a job. Garratt submitted an application yesturday for the Rotunda (which is the Southside Dining Hall and the Southside Cafe). He got a phone call yesturday afternoon that he got the job. He goes in this morning to fill out paperwork and get all the details. YEAH GARRATT!!!

The Ugly!!! You all remember the job that I really wanted and was going for. I was in Limbo through the weekend waiting to hear if i got it. I was suppose to find out by Monday, no call!! I took the other job (at WSU). Well yesturday I got a phone call that I got the job if I want it. So now I know that there are a lot of uncertain circumstances here at WSU and there at the Auto Dealership there is permanent position with medical benefits. The kicker is I have to take a hefty paycut from WSU to dealership for the 90 day probation period, then they will reevaluate my work and change my salary....CATCH22!! AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

So last night Garratt and I sat down and looked at our budget and though that pay cut s going to hurt for the next few months in the long run it seems to be the better option for us. As a result on my 3 rd day on the job I have to have a talk with my boss about leaving. This sucks!!

I will update everyone later!!!

Finally...But Yet

I did it. I finally got a job. I should be ultra excited. It is the right pay, the right hours, the right location...it is great. So, why am I not excited you ask. Its simple really, two fold. 1 the job is currently a temp position, you see the person who usully has this job has been on disability since April, they don't forsee her coming back before October, if she comes back. If she doesn't come back then I will be made permenent. If she does decided to come back then I will be back to looking for a job...again. 2 I don't recieve my first paycheck until the end of August. This poses lots of problems mainly I have bills that have to be paid, the car needs gas in order to get to work and get Faith to daycare and oh yeah I have to feed my family (go figure). I am currently a torn individual. I want to be happy, I have the right to be happy, I finally have a job. Yet, I cannot allow myself to be happy because I am freaking out about the finances. This is where I decided now is the time to cry. I cry because I am happy and because I am scared and unsure of the next 3 weeks.