In a Groove

As we are nearing the completion of a second week of gainful employment for both Jeremy and me, we're settling into a routine. We've had a few bumps on the way, but it's been good. Jeremy drops me off in the morning, and I take the bus home in the evenings. The last few days haven't been bad. There haven't been as many people on the bus that I take, and I think that can be attributed to the beginning of school and to the fact that it's early in the week. We'll see if it's packed on Friday afternoon.

The weather is also getting a lot colder. I don't think it's unbearably cold though, even standing outside for 30 minutes waiting for the bus. We'll see how I feel when I wait for the bus in -3 degree weather at the end of the week.

We've also gotten more in the habit of cooking at home. Although it is a little tiring doing a lot of cooking on the weekends, we are actually eating the food and not going out. I think it has to do with the fact that while we have restaurants conveniently around where we live, it's not the inexpensive fast food restaurants that we had before. It is unnerving how much we are spending on groceries although we are eating healthier now.

I think if we can keep up the progress we've been making in our lives, we may actually get the office unpacked and organized before too much longer.

Rearrangements

We are planning on rearranging our living room yet again. We have been in our new place a month, and we've moved our living room furniture around twice already. We can't seem to find an arrangement that we like. Ideally, the best place for it would've been where we had it before, but there just isn't enough room for the couch without blocking either the way to the stairs or the way out the front door. Where we have it now on the other side of the room works okay, but we have about 3 feet between us and the tv. It's a little close.

I really didn't want to arrange the living room this way because I want to be able to utilize the bar better, but this will give us more room between the couch and the tv. It will also allow for tv watching from the kitchen.

I've also managed to rearrange a lot of the kitchen so that cooking is a lot easier. I'm not completely finished nor completely happy, but without more room, it'll be hard to get it exactly the way I want it. It's actually not too bad in that my prep area will be right by the sink and the trash can so it makes chopping and stuff more convenient. I can't wait until we get our pot rack though so I can clear out the cabinet and put more prep type items in there.

Weekend Plans

Weekends seem to go by so quickly, regardless of plans or activities. Maybe when we get everything more settled our weekends will be more fun.

We get to spend our Saturday morning at the DMV getting our new drivers license. I guess it's a blessing that the DMV is open on Saturdays. Maybe if we get there early enough there won't be that many people.

If we were still in Memphis, we would be participating in Memphis Madness tonight. I told Jeremy that he should feel free to drive 12 hours back there to watch, but he declined. I suppose 12 hours is really too far to drive on a whim.

It's starting to cool down here, inspiring me to want to cook more. Our kitchen is still such a mess though that I'm not sure I could actually cook the way I want. We recently ordered a potrack that we think will work well for us, but it won't get here for another 2 weeks. I think my goal this weekend will be to try to get the kitchen into a workable form so that I can at least contemplate cooking again. It's going to be hard though now that our kitchen is actually about half the size of our old one. I cannot imagine how I dealt with a kitchen that small in my studio apartment.

There is a Memphis football game on Saturday that we will watch provided the DMV doesn't take up all of our time. It should be a fun game, but it will be the first game we watch through the SlingBox. Hopefully it will be better quality than the Memphis vs. Houston game we watched via channelsurfing.com that was actually the Shanghai stream, Chinese announcers and all.

We don't have any plans as of yet for Sunday. Maybe this lack of activity will give us just enough time to finish what we need to around the apartment and actually rest up to tackle the coming work week.

It's Been Quite a Day

So my experiments didn't exactly work today. It's not a total setback being that these experiments were just a test anyways. As I've been told through my entire graduate school career, if things worked the first time, it wouldn't be called research; it'd just be called search.

On the home front, I think we're just about completely settled. We've still got a few things left to unpack, but for the most part, it'll be rearranging some things. We still need to buy several pieces of furniture, but again, we'll do that after we finish settling in.

I am really loving the weather right now. It's warm enough that I don't need a jacket, but it's cool enough where the leaves are changing. I'm really looking forward to the weekend and exploring more of the city.

Eastern Time

I have now lived in the Eastern time zone for oh, almost a month, and my impressions are that it just sucks. Maybe it's because I've only lived with central time, but I'm used to being able to watch ALL of my primetime shows before I pass out at night. Not to mention the fact that I used to actually be able to watch the news.

Now, I'm lucky if I make it to the start of the news. I honestly don't know how people do it. I suppose though that my habit of working 8:30 to 5:00 is a little different for people here. I'm not here particularly early, and my coworkers tend to arrive around the same time as well. However, the two weeks I was at home I noticed that most people really didn't leave for work until after 8 and didn't get off work until later in the evening.

Oh well, I'm getting really good at Wheel of Fortune.