Iowa is progressive?

For whatever reason, the state of Iowa (to me) doesn't seem like it would be a progressive state. Iowa reminds me of Ohio and Idaho, but that could be because I don't have any recollection of being in Iowa ever, and Iowa kind of sounds like Idaho in that they both start with the letter "I". In any event, Iowa Supreme Court upheld the ruling allowing gay unions, and the article I read mentioned Iowa was the first to allow interracial marriages, allow married women to own property, and to admit a woman to the bar to practice law. Go Iowa, get down with your bad self!

We had JL over for dinner last night and that was fun because we haven't hung out much since Jess and I have been back. Recently I watched an episode of the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network, and she made a blue cheese souffle. It looked quite tasty, so I will be attempting it for dinner tonight. I need to get a souffle dish from the store, but other than that I think we have everything here. Stopped at Costco yesterday and bought a TON of eggs, so we're prepared on that front. We are thawing out a turkey in the motorhome fridge (wasn't enough room in the house fridge) to eat later this week, so I need to get brining materials while I am out and about this afternoon.

Still waiting to hear back on those school positions I applied for. Still contemplating trying to do the alt licensure program. Not sure how seriously they take Letters of Authorization, though. And it appears you have to take some courses over summer, and I'm planning on being in Oregon for one of those weeks. I guess I just need to call and speak with a live body as opposed to trying to glean all info from their site.

A day at the zoo

I spent Easter at Velvet's this year, and while there she said she was taking the girls to the zoo on Monday, so mom and I decided to tag along. Instead of writing a short something about each photo, I'm just going to add them in the order they were taken, so you can feel like you were right there with us!

I hope you had as fun a time as I did! I forgot to put on sunscreen yesterday, and as you can tell it was a gorgeous day, so today I am rocking a RED sunburn. And I have an interview today for a managerial position at Blockbuster, so wish me luck!

I've said it before and I'll say it again

Give me work!

I've had a couple interviews and have a couple more coming up this week.

I'm torn between which one I want more, and believe me, a couple of the jobs I've applied for are a laugh. For example, next week I'm interviewing at the Verizon cell phone call center for customer support, and at a Blockbuster video store for a shift lead position. Actually, I kind of think the Blockbuster job sounds like it could be fun. The issue is that it's not full-time work, and it's around minimum wage. Oh, I also have an application in with the city's emergency dispatch department, but not sure when I'll hear from them about an interview.

There is a house in a neighboring city (West Valley) that we quite like the looks of via the internet, but Jesse doesn't want to even go look at it in person until we have a downpayment ready. At the moment we're staying in Jesse's parents' basement. It's not a bad arrangement, but after months of staying with my folks in Oregon, and now staying with his, I am totally ready to have my own place again. Especially my own kitchen! I must say, it drives me nuts to be cooking and have someone come along and look in the oven, or uncover pots and pans on the stove. Hello! I have those things covered for a reason! And now you've let all the heat out and it has to build up again! GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN! Except, that it's not my kitchen, and both our families have been very gracious in letting us staying rent-free, so I'm attempting to be as low-maintenance as possbile (not quite sure how I'm doing). *sigh* This house we're looking at, slamming kitchen, it's very large. I love it.

I spend the vast majority of my day looking for work and playing Guild Wars - Factions, online. It's a good game, but as I've now created four characters, it gets a bit repetitive. Repetitive mainly because all new characters start out at the bottom, so I'm doing the same quests over and over again. Then it gets interesting again because I haven't nearly beaten the game yet. Lord, I need a job, don't I.

That being said, Jess and I did just buy two more Guild Wars games, both Nightfall and Factions. He already had Nightfall, and I already had Factions, but the problem is that even though they are both Guild Wars, they play on different maps, so we're not able to do quests together, and when the other two games come, we'll both load the opposite games and we'll each have both, so it will all work out. I love Half.com, I get such great prices on there!

I joined a couple groups on Meetup.com. One is for a book club, a couple are movie groups, some are dancing, and one is hiking. The movie group last night went to "Sunshine Cleaning" which looked very cute, but I don't really have the money, so I didn't go. And Jesse isn't into the whole group thing when he doesn't know anyone, so I have a feeling I'll probably be doing most of these groups solo. Tonight there is a showing at the library I may go to, about how Corporate America is using our seas and oceans for dumping, and also fighting over water rights...something like that. I'm always interested in those shows, and hey, it's free.

Jesse's folks are going on a camping trip this week for the Easter holiday. We were thinking about coming along, but Jess wasn't able to get Friday off (and the family leaves on Tuesday) which means we would have to drive down after he gets off work. So really we'd only have one full day there and then we'd have to fight Easter traffic on the way home. So, I think we decided not to go.

Have you seen the trailer for "Funny People"? Check it out, it looks pretty good.

End of an era?

Man, I kind of feel like today is the end of an era...that's right, today I decided to take out my belly button ring. I know, I know, it doesn't seem like it's such a big deal, but dangit, I've had the thing since college! We've been through many hard times together, many arguments about it getting caught on clothing items, etc. My belly looks so weird in the mirror without it.

But, you know what they say, when a door closes, a window opens and all that. And I have had my eye on these neat foot tattoos...