I knew there was a reason I didn't like fishing

Ant convinced me to get up at 6AM this morning to go fishing with him. Here was the deal: we would go to a fishing pier that was only 30 minutes away, it would be in the morning so it wouldn't be hot, and we would use bait so I would be sure to catch something. He was thinking that we would catch a lot of small snapper that we could take home.

On my first cast I caught an empty mussel shell. Score. I thought that was weird and maybe a fluke, but then Anthony caught one and I caught another one! So, we switched to the other side of the bridge. I started catching a lot of small bait fish and Anthony set them up on the other fishing rods. After about an hour, I was sitting next to the rods, just enjoying the sunrise and the breeze and the reel next to me started going crazy! Anthony yelled for me to pick it up because he wanted me to catch a big fish (and maybe stay out there longer?). I started to reel and it was HEAVY! We were both excited and were thinking maybe we caught a big one. We're looking into the water trying to see what it was and a DOLPHIN surfaced. A DOLPHIN!!!!!! Of course, I started flipping out. My voice stayed about an octave above my normal pitch while I kept repeating "what do I do? what do I do?" and all I could think of was that I was like those evil fishermen that kill dolphins when fishing for tuna (remember those commercials?). Anthony grabbed the rod from me and started to let it out but then it instantly went slack. He reeled it in and there was nothing wrong with the hook at all. It turns out, Ant had heard about dolphins doing this at this fishing pier. They just go around to the different hooks and take every one's bait, being careful to avoid the hook. Anthony kept laughing and calling the dolphin a "jerk". I was just happy that I hadn't hooked flipper.

After that excitement we decided to move our stuff to the opposite end of the pier. We weren't any more successful on catching something, but at least no one else was catching anything that we saw so I guess it was a case of the fish not being there. After about 30 minutes we had a little deja vu... The reel started spinning, I started to reel it in, the dolphin surfaced to laugh at me, and then the hook popped loose. When we reeled it in, he had carefully bitten down right next to the hook so there was just a tiny bit hanging on.

So now Anthony thinks dolphins are evil. Dolphins are evil because of their shenanigans today along with manatees for trying to flip him over in his kayaks a few months back I wonder what cuddly land or sea creature will prove evil next...

Free money!!!!!

What are you looking at here? Oh, just $140 in gift cards I got for $2 and few minutes of my time!!!! Two weeks ago this Friday, I signed up for four different free or $1 for the first month trial offers so that I could get the free gift, which ranged from $50 in gas cards, to $50 in Lowe's gift cards. It was the easiest thing in the world! I ususally shy away from the gift card offers because even though some of them are legit, it is really time consuming and you have to be on top of everything. This was so easy, I couldn't believe it!

I followed the instructions on how to do it from a blog I follow. Here is the link to her instructions if you are interested.

Here is how it worked out for me: I followed her instructions and signed up for the different offers. She uses a prepaid visa card with a few dollars on it, so that they can't charge her for anything else (coolest idea ever!!!). I used a debit card and didn't have any problems. After a few days I got an email with my membership number and the terms of my membership that had the number to call to cancel. SAVE that!! A day or so after that, I got an email with a link to fill out an online form for my gift cards, and a week later here they are! For a few of them I didn't get a form for gift cards, but weird rebate forms for future purchases (?) so I used my information on the link that the woman from the other blog got for gift cards and it went through perfectly. I still can't believe that this worked out! $2 investment for $140, not bad!

I love my new job!

Can I just say, I love my new job!! I know today was only my second day, but the first few weeks at a job are supposed to be the worst and if that is true, then I landed the best job ever! Every one in this office is just so nice! They are friendly with me, show me things, and make me feel welcome. They keep telling me how glad they are to have me, and the office environment itself is pretty laid back. The work itself is also pretty awesome. The students do most of the work themselves, getting documentation of their disability and we just meet with them to help them coordinate with their professors and make sure they know we are there to help them.

Case in point: the director came up to me today to give me this: a name tag just like everyone else in the office has! She said she had it in her desk for the past couple of weeks. Can you believe it!! This is what it is like to feel wanted and appreciated instead of gum on the bottom of someone's shoe (see blogs about past internship experiences). Seriously I almost cried when she gave it to me. I told her I had to take it home to show it to my husband and she kind of laughed and told me that I'm getting business cards too. Now I really am going to cry :) What a huge blessing this placement is. Even if I don't end up with a job at graduation, these next few months will be heaven compared to the last two years of graduate school. Thank you Heavenly Father, you know I needed to catch a break :)

New callings and new goals

It has been an eventful Sunday so far. Our new ward meets at 11AM and at 10:20 this morning we got a call from the ward clerk asking us if we could meet with the bishop at 10:40 before church. Yikes! The bishop called Anthony to be the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's presidency and me to be the 1st counselor in the Young Women's presidency. Then in sacrament meeting, they had us stand up to be sustained. Sooo, last week was our first week attending that ward, they got our records during the week and skipped the whole "welcome to the ward having you stand up in sacrament meeting" and went straight to callings. How's that for efficient! We are going to an elder's quorum activity tonight so that we can meet some new people and after that Anthony is off to a Stake Young Men's leadership meeting at the stake center. This morning: no calling, this afternoon: calling + stake meeting. I think our heads are still spinning a little bit :)

In other news, I have decided to renew my previously abandoned goal of running a 5K. I looked it up and there is one near here in St. Petersburg on Thanksgiving day called the "Turkey Trot". I think that is a reasonable goal for me to do if I start training now. I'm going to try some inserts for my shoes and more stretching so I won't hurt my knee like last time.

I'm also doing the P90x workout (have you ever seen those informercials? They got me). I've been doing it for about 3 weeks now and it really has been great. (In fact, while we were moving Ant kept saying he was glad I had been working out because of all of the heavy lifting and carrying) I think I finally found a fitness-person/guru that doesn't annoy the heck out of me during their videos. He's actually pretty funny and makes sarcastic jokes about some of the harder exercises so you know that it is okay not to be happy and perky while you are dying. There are also 12 different workouts so there is a lot of variety. I never thought I would be able to do serious hard-core workouts for an hour at a time, but now it feels normal. I also bought myself a really good heart rate monitor so that I can keep better track of my exercises now that I'm not using machines at the gym. It is so cute!!! Here it is:
It was expensive, but so worth it. I've been using a $20 walmart one and not only is it obviously inaccurate, but for it to take your heart rate you have to stop and press a button for a few seconds. I don't have time for that!!! I need to be working it!! :)

Clothes on dogs will always be funny

Brownie- a gator dog in bull country. It's a hard life.

Ant's aquarium

The aquarium is finally moved and looking good! Ant has been working non-stop for a week now trying to get it the way he likes it. He even tried to take pictures earlier, but they didn't look good enough for him :)
The full view. The left side of the tank. The right side of the tank. Under the actinic lights. Now you can see why it took over twice as long for him to move this thing and set it up than for us to move our entire condo!

I've been trying to get more involved with the aquarium and have Ant teach me more stuff, and it's been pretty fun. We went around to check out all of the reef stores in Tampa and some of them were so big it was like going to an aquarium. One even had a tank with sharks and sting rays! Next Ant really wants to get a pair of Onyx clown fish to replace his regular-old "nemo" clown. They're not cool enough anymore:) Here is what they look like: Aren't they cute???

Lessons learned so far...

Lessons I've learned from my first week living in Tampa:
1)I married a pack-rat that not only hates to throw things away, but is compelled to collect new toys. There is nothing I can do about this. I must try to focus on anything else while I am spending a third day in a row carrying/arranging/tripping over HIS stuff. (Repeat in my head, "he is a good man, he is a good man, he is a good man, etc...)

2)Life is different without your own washer and dryer. I never had to worry before about someone stealing my underwear, or SOMEONE ELSES underwear ending up in my laundry. (We left the mystery boxers on the floor). I look at clothes differently now. Instead of just throwing it in the hamper, I think about how soon I'm going to have to trek it to the other side of the apartment complex to spend 1 1/2 hours waiting for a load of laundry to be completely finished. As a result, I have been rewearing my clothes. A lot. Also, I don't like paying $3 a load to wash my own clothes. If I am paying for laundry, I want someone to come pick it up and do it for me. So there.

3)DO NOT take the interstate in the Tampa area unless you absolutely have to!! We got stuck on it today at 4:30 and it was stop and go for miles. Every exit the traffic stops because there are so many cars, they have to stop to let merging traffic on. It is a nightmare.

4)GPS is the devil. It is programmed to be confused and recalculate at the exact moment you need to know where to turn and when it isn't doing that, it is telling you to turn left and then immediately right when REALLY, you just need to keep going straight. Also, if you decide to go a different way because of aforementioned traffic it flips out and tells you to take a left turn three times in a row. Then it pouts and keeps telling you to turn around at the next street when it is obvious that you want to go a different way.

5)You need AAA or the correct tools for changing a tire. Always. In the past week, we got a flat tire on my car and then didn't have the right sized tool for taking the lugnuts (?) off the tire. Luckily, my brother has AAA and called them for us so we got didn't have to pay for towing. Later that week we were driving my mom's minivan back from Tampa and we got a flat tire going over a bridge on the interstate. Luckily we had the right tools for changing it. Unfortunately we might have broken the cage that holds the spare tire underneath the car. (Oops) We had to tie it up with a red rope so that it didn't drag on the ground while we were driving. Can you say Ghetto?

6)You can fufill a check cashing or money order urge immediately at any time of the day. I have never seen so many of these money order places in my life! They are literally on every corner, even in the nicer neighborhoods. When I called to set-up our electricity, the customer service rep told me I could pay my deposit online for a $5 fee, or go to one of these places with cash and it will only cost me $1 to pay my bill. She then went on to tell me that these places are addictive because you can pay your bills and get free money orders! What? What do I need money orders for, and are there that many Tampa businesses that use them instead of letting you pay your bill online? Maybe after a year I will be changing my tune and telling YOU how wonderful check cashing places are and that you should be using them more often :)

7) There are a serious amount of people in this town. I don't know if I've blogged about this before, but I don't do well in crowds. I get all uncomfortable and irritable and snappish because of everyone being in my personal bubble. We actually did an exercise in class once about individual differences in the amount of space people need between them and another person in order to feel comfortable. Everyone in the class was surprised and had a little laugh at how much space I needed to be comfortable, even with friends (probably around 3 feet or more). Soo, it is not cool when the local grocery store has people bumping into me and standing real close to look at that piece of meat. With traffic and everything, sometimes I crave to be alone in my bedroom so that I can breathe my own air.

So there you have it. We are learned the ropes of living in a big city and even though it can be frustrating at times, it still is fun having new experiences and thinking about things I never thought of before. As for job updates, Ant got a job with a nursing agency here in town so they will be sending him around to different places as needed. He gets to pick his schedule and he will be making more money than with just a regular job in a hospital, so that is a good thing. I am starting my new job with student disability services as USF on Monday and I am really excited about it. The director emailed me to apologize that they are moving things out of the office I will be using so it might be messy. I was thinking "I have an office??!!". I am sincerely hoping that this placement ends up as where I want to be. All of the others haven't felt like the right place career-wise, and if this feels right then I will probably be set for a job after graduation, which can I say is in 4 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!! :)

Our new ward

Today was our first Sunday in our new ward. We weren't sure what to expect, but it went really well! It is a small ward, and EXTREMELY friendly, which makes things nice. Different people kept saying over and over that they love getting new people :) At the beginning of sacrament, a woman looked at me, smiled, and waved. I smiled back, but I thought she was saying hi to someone behind me. We met her after church and it turns out, she was saying hi to me. When we confirmed to her that we were new to the ward, she pumped her fist and said "yes!".

Another person came up to us right after sacrament and introduced himself. He then wanted to introduce us to the Bishop, so he led us to him, introducing us to everyone on the way. We met with the Bishop for a full 30 minutes, visiting and getting to know each other. He told us that most of the young couples in the ward are there for the summer to do seasonal sales work and will be leaving in the next few weeks. He also pretty much told us that we can expect some big callings, since a good chunk of an already small ward will be leaving soon. It is a little intimidating, but also exciting because I feel like it will be a good opportunity to grow. The ward in Gainesville is so big that sometimes it is so easy to just sit back and do nothing because there are a million and one other people available to serve.

As a funny side note, the piano in the relief society room is an electric, self-playing piano! I guess since the ward is so small that not many people play, so you just have to push a button and the piano plays whatever hymn you chose from the hymnbook!

Our new digs

Here is a front and back picture of our new apartment in Tampa. It's pretty nice! It has been a crazy 4 days!!!! Let me chronicle this day by exhausting day:
Tuesday:
Anthony and I drove down to Tampa to sign our lease, get our keys, and move a few little things. We got there around 12PM and started going through the paperwork. The leasing agent didn't calculate the pet fee for our dogs in the email she sent us with the final amount due and you should have seen our faces when she said that it would be $300 for each dog!! She felt bad for us, so she got her manager to agree to let us pay for just one dog since they are both so small. Whew! Around 2 o'clock, we had everything and we found our way to the apartment (we'd only seen a model before this). I opened the door to find that the apartment was gutted!!!!! There was no flooring in most of the place, and where there was carpet it was filthy. The kitchen had no appliances and stuff was hanging from the ceiling. So, back to the office we went and the leasing agent apologetically told us that she made a mistake and put us in a unit that is being renovated. We got a new address and apartment number, new keys and we left to hopefully find our real apartment, promising to come back to sign paperwork with the corrected address. When we came back, we had to wait 30 minutes to sign the paperwork and then we finally started home to finish packing.

We got home around 5PM and started packing. Since I am so speedy, I did most of the packing while Anthony did trash duty and broke down all of the electrics with the maze of wiring. We finished around midnight, but I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up for an hour changing our addresses on things online.

Wednesday:
Moving, moving, and more moving!! After today I had bruises and sore muscles in places I didn't know could get hurt (like the bruises I have on my hip bones from jutting them out so I can balance boxes I am carrying). It took us about 4 hours to pack up the u-haul and my mom's van and we left for Tampa around 3:30. When we got to the apartment, it was just me, Ant, and my brother Daniel to do all of the unpacking. It went surprisingly fast and we got done in about 1 1/2 hours. We were all sweating like pigs, and Daniel made Anthony carry things downwind because of his manly odor :) We went to 3 different u-haul places to finally find one that was open so we could drop off the drop. As a side note, I had no idea that u-haul favored kwikie marts and discount clothing/cell phone stores to run their operation. Huh.
Being as sweaty and stinky as we were, we decided that a trip to a restaurant was in order. After that, Ant and Daniel dropped me off at the new apartment while they went back to Gainesville to get Ant's aquarium. I couldn't sleep in such a messy, disorganized, new place so I stayed up to 3am unpacking and arranging furniture.

Thursday:
Woke up promptly at 9am to LOUD construction workers. Apparently we are the only unit in our building not under renovation. Nice. Decided I might as well unpack as long as I was up. Anthony spent the entire day in Gainesville breaking down his aquarium and loading it in the car. He got home around 10:30pm and I had pretty much finished all of the unpacking and arranging (what a perfect ploy to get out of unpacking!!). We finally dragged ourselves to bed around midnight

Friday:
Finally a day of sanity! We got internet hooked up today, which makes life in a new place SOO much more bearable and getting things accomplished SOOO much easier :) Ant's still working on setting up his tank, but I think it is starting to settle in for both of us that we live in a different place. Here is what my living room looks like courtesy of Ant's hobby:

And just so you know, I plan on never moving again. I am going to live and die in this 2bedroom/1bathroom apartment. Either that, or if we ever do move again it is going to be for the wealthiest job imaginable so that I can just get rid of everything and buy all new stuff there. For real.

Our first yard sale

This morning Anthony and I had our very first yard sale! We had a lot of junk to get rid of, and now that it is all over I am glad to be rid of it. I was way too nervous about doing this!! I mean, what is there to be nervous about right? I couldn't sleep all night because I was thinking about how exactly we were going to set things up. We got up at 6am to start putting out signs and starting setting things up at 7am. Not very many people came, probably in part because we are in the back of a small neighborhood. Still, I told myself that I would be happy if we made $25, and we ended up making $40! What is funny is that the things I was sure were going to sell didn't, and we sold some things that I put in because otherwise I was going to through it away (like an old back scratcher that I have no idea where it came from).

I don't think we will be having very many yard sales in the years to come. We aren't patient people, and sitting there for hours we kept second guessing ourselves on what we could sell on ebay. We ended up taking things back and putting them in the house, vowing to put them on ebay tonight. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen :) After a few hours, we were tired and no one was coming so we packed the car FULL of 7 bags of stuff and one big box of books to take to Goodwill. Now I don't have any more excuses, I have to get to packing. If only I had some boxes...