I'm back and living with unwanted roommates!

Is blogging still a thing do people do this for funsies any more? Well I've got a story to tell fitting in the old theme Kat and began. But before I get to that. Firstly I moved! I'm in a suburb of the Twin Cities, not exactly my ideal place to live but it's tolerable where I am and most importantly it is because.....I GOT A NEW JOB!! No more misery at Menards :) :) :) anyway in the move I'm pretty sure I threw away the piece of paper with various username/passwords on it which made logging on here slightly difficult seeing as the email address was my old school one which I no longer have. But I knew the words in the password it was just a matter of getting the darn number right. And yeah I could have asked Kat but I didn't want her to know what I was up to. I want it to be a surprise/see how long it takes her to find this!
At any rate on to my story. Here I am still living the apartment life by myself. Well one day (in September I think) when I got home from work, I'm opening my blinds when I notice a little mouse just hanging out on my living room floor. Just sitting still like maybe I won't notice it as long as it doesn't move. So there I am trying to get the courage to just pick the thing up by the tail so I can toss it out the patio door. But I could just imagine it struggling and trying to scratch at me and I just couldn't do it. So I did what any logical adult would do. I got a cottage cheese container put it over the top of it and then slid the cover underneath it to close it up. At this point my plan is to take it outside and drop it out of the container off my balcony. so I get out there and I envision it just dropping back onto my balcony or onto me and I don't know I was just freaked out. So I get the container open just a little bit then I freak out and just drop the whole thing down to the ground. And go back into the apartment. Yeah, I littered and I felt bad about it, but I wasn't going to try to pick it up until later, when figured the mouse could have escaped or maybe it died already, but by the time I looked out the next morning it was gone.
Well a few weeks back I had a bag of flour sitting out on my counter and I noticed one morning that something had nibbled at the bottom of the bag and there was a little flour in the area. Uh. About a week ago now I had left a dish sitting on the counter because my dishwasher was running and the next day I see them. On the plate, on the counter, on my floor, mouse turds. Grrr. So now I've set traps and as much as I want to get the stupid little rodents I'm really not looking forward to finding them. Ish. And I put peanut butter in them and the first time I just put it in the little area that was labeled for bait and they somehow managed to eat the peanut butter without tripping the trap! grr! So now I have it spread all over on it and hopefully I'll get the little mongrel. I don't know what has me so freaked out about the stupid little things, but I really don't like them! And to think there was a time when I was a kid I remember adoring white mice at the pet store and wanting them for pets! No that just creeps me out!
I'm not sure how they are getting in or where they are living, which extra creeps me out. I mean what happens when I go to put a shoe on and there is a freaking mouse in there! So basically, I'm just living in fear these days. No fun!

Oh yeah... that Blog thing Kat and I used to do...

Well it's not like I have completely forgotten this thing existed, it's just that I haven't had any bloggable moments that fit in our room mate/ living situation theme.  Or any exciting things to share with the world in general. But I guess I have some time today for general life updates.

Firstly, like Kat for lent, I have quit Facebook. Last week on my day off I was working on a job application and I would get bored and just go to Facebook to see what was new on there. Of course nothings new though, its only been 15 minutes since I was last on. But alas there I am clicking around looking at people's lives instead of applying for jobs and getting on with my own.  So I decided (well I've known for a while I didn't just decide this) that it is pathetic that I can't get through a job application/ cover letter/ resume without looking at Facebook multiple times. I also just spend too much time on there in general. And for a couple other personal reasons I don't really want to admit to the world, I deactivated my account for a while. When I did it I told myself one month.  I'll be really proud if I make it 2 weeks, but still happy with myself if I make it a week!  And hey now I'm taking time to blog when I probably would have otherwise been on FB!

Next, as you can see above I'm still on the job hunt. It sucks going to school for something then deciding you no longer desire to do that. However, I am starting in a new department at Menards tomorrow.  After four tiring years in the receiving department I have decided enough is enough and I'm moving to the Building Materials department.  I'm pretty excited to have a change in my life and learn something new, even though it means a 50 cent pay cut, since I won't get paid to drive a forklift any more. But I plan to work more hours and I can also earn spifs for selling things.  Everyone at work tells me "ya know, you have to wear a collared shirt and look professional" (in receiving we can wear Menards T-Shirts and that's about all I've worn in the last 2 or 3 months).  Uh yeah people, I know!  I think they are unaware that underneath the baggy blue t-shirts and ratty jeans, beyond all the sweat and dirt, is a girl, one who used to dress professionally to teach everyday!  I'm actually quite excited about that part.  I can wear nicer clothes because I won't be getting filthy everyday and won't be sweating as much (hopefully), I can wear a regular bra instead of sports bra, and I may even wear my hair down once in a while. In four years in Receiving I wore my hair down for an entire shift once, its safe to say I got paid to do a whole lot of nothing that day. Sure, I'll miss some things and may a few people in receiving, but I definitely won't miss other people or parts of the job.  I'm certainly ready for something new, and since nothing outside of Menards is working out, hopefully this will, at least for a while.

Now I would just like to vent for a bit about today's adventure...Shopping for jeans.
I'll start by saying GRRR!  To start off with, I'm very picky about jeans.  I don't like stupid super faded jeans, a little fade I can deal with (mainly cause you have to these days), and I absolutely don't do holey jeans, I'm pretty good at wearing holes into my jeans all on my own, why the F would I buy them that way? Also jeans are all so dang dark! What's so wrong with just a medium blue color? And I really like light colored jeans. Light colored jeans are apparently impossible to find for under $70 and guess who doesn't have 70 bucks for one pair of jeans, This Girl! Then there's skinny jeans (which I'm sorry to any skinny jean fans but they are stupid, ugly, and don't look good on anyone), straight leg (mom jeans), flare, and boot cut (what I'm looking for).  And what ever happened to making jeans out of denim. REAL STURDY DENIM, ya know the kind where you can actually see and feel the grain, not this stretchy painted blue crap that I could rip with my bare hands, I want jeans that are going to last me a while.
So firstly, I have to find jeans in my price range, in a style that I like. A task in itself.  Then by the time I find some I'm willing to try on, I'm picking out all the wrong sizes cause evidently I've lost some weight since I last went shopping for jeans (I don't even know how many years), and every brand is different, and I'm looking in both junior sizes (which are generally odd) and misses (even), and so it's all just very confusing.  Plus I'm short, so it's nice when brands have short, medium/average, and long options, but not everyone does, or if they do, they are out of short.  Then I liked a pair but they didn't have my size on the shelf, luckily the manican was wearing them, except for I probably needed the short version and ended up with average, but I think they'll be okay once I have shoes on or I'll just chop them off. And I found another pair that I really liked, not too dark or overly faded. Well I ended up spending a bit more than I wanted, but I must have been in and out of at least 25 pairs of jeans at 6 different stores today and I was getting frustrated and hungry so I'm just happy I finally found some.

Also, I just want to share a blog site that I have been enjoying lately thoughtcatalog.com it's a site with a buch of different people blogging.  So for any of you out there that just enjoy reading blogs, there are some pretty funny ones, and some more serious but still good reads. Kat, I think you may personally enjoy this one A Tour of Sex Questions on OKCupid

Well I guess that's all I have to share today.  From what I understand Kat has a new place and new roomie again, maybe she has roomie stories she should be sharing with us...or perhaps we need to find another challenge like the A-Z one we did.

Don't Worry we Survived Moving

We are moved out and on our own!  Now that we are no longer roomies, I guess we'll just have to share our independent living adventures.

Yeah, it's been a while. But really I had nothing new to share.  My life basically consisted of working and job hunting.  For the last week it has been work, moving, and sleeping.  The move only took me about 7 trips in my station wagon in two days (I could have done it in one but I also had plans to go to the State Fair).  I finally was able to get some major unpacking done the last two days (after only living here 4 days).  My place is finally coming together but I still have plenty of work to do.  It sure was nice when I just went away for a weekend last time and came back to the whole place set up.  Where is Kat when I need her?

I finally got my internet set up this morning. Stupid Comcast.  I called to have everything transferred and they told me I would just need to bring the equipment with me and set it up and they would be able to just turn it on from outside.  Well they were wrong when I finally set it up Tuesday evening it didn't work.  So they had to send someone out this morning.

My new place is pretty nice. I could use more storage, like a coat closet maybe, but otherwise it is suiting me just fine.  The key to my apartment is a little tricky though.  I struggle with normally, so I was a little weary of how it would go after being downtown.  Well Monday night I went out and came back and unlocked the door on the first try, no struggle at all. But just about every time since then I struggle.  And last night I'm pretty sure I heard someone snoring, talk about thin walls! But really that's it, no more complaints, it's a nice apartment.

Side story: Last week my friend Tiffany and I went to the Minnesota state fair after a long hard day of moving.  We decided to sit down for some ice cream and people watching.  While we were sitting there Tiffany spots a little girl (I'd guess about 3) and says I hope she is wearing something under her shirt or dress whichever that is. It was short for a dress but a long shirt. So I'm watching this little girl (and yes she had shorts on) and see she is holding herself so I says to Tiffany, "she needs to pee" and Tiffany looks and says "oh yeah she does, she's gunna end up going right there" about 4-5 minutes later we look over to see a puddle under her and her mom trying to clean off her shoe.  Poor little girl.  Moral of the story parents: pay attention when your child needs to pee.

Otherwise no real exciting stories to share. I'll try to lead a more exciting life so I have more to share.
~ Joy

O

When I asked my friend Melissa for an o word to blog about she came up with over can be followed by another word such as oversleep.

So I have to share my recent oversleeping story with you.  A few weeks ago I had closed at work (til 10 pm) on Tuesday then had to be back at 8 am on Wednesday. Well I went home showered, set the alarm for 6:57 am, and went right to bed.  But I couldn't fall asleep.  This is a problem for me sometimes.  So I was awake until like 4am.  Then I woke up and looked at my clock. It was 8:04, I thought well gee, my alarm should have gone off  like 5 minutes ago, I must have just shut it off.  oh well it will go off again.  Well 8:20 rolls around and I look at the clock and I think oh shoot its 8:20 I'm suppose to be at work. I heard music and thought it must have been my radio cause of my alarm but then I realized it was my phone, work calling telling me to get my butt to work.  I got up, got dressed and headed to work, punched in 45 minuets late.
Well then the following Sunday I was suppose to work (filling in for a co-worker on my weekend off) at 7:30 am. The alarm went off as scheduled at 6:57 again.  Naturally I snoozed it, then got up and looked at the clock its 7:25. Whoops. Twice within a week.  Got to work twenty minuets late, but my manager said being late was just a good way of filling in for the guy I was working for.

In other news we are Overjoyed to have a new washing machine! It's actually pretty nice. I finally did my laundry, it was getting pretty bad in my room.

D is for Demanding

Today's letter is D. I say demanding because that is the best possible word to describe the relationship Joy and I have. We're fortunate that we picked each other to live with because our personalities are rather similar. We have this quid pro quo type of relationship. For example, Joy previously mentioned all of the hot chocolate we consumed this past winter. She wasn't lying. It was a lot! I would be in the kitchen making myself something to eat and Joy would yell, "Hey, where's my hot chocolate ho?" Pure love right there. Last week I made homemade spaghetti and meatballs. I was rather proud of myself. I had about one serving left and I made that for lunch yesterday. Joy came upstairs and said something like, "What's this?" Me: "My lunch. This was the last of it." Joy: "So...." Actually there was one meatball and some sauce and she helped herself. We'll also demand/guilt the other into getting a water refill, making cookies, dinner, doing laundry, getting the mail, going out and pretty much anything else you can think of. That's just how we roll.
D is also for duh! There are so many routes I could take with this one, however I stick with what we've been blogging about these past few days. As Joy mentioned, I am guilty of turning the wrong burners on and I have to admit that this again happened last night. I was wondering why the water was taking so long to boil. I don't know why I do this. Joy was standing right next to me and she caught me red handed. I announced that "D is for duh!" and I knew I had to blog about this moment.

I'm a Hazard to Myself

I ordinarily think of myself as being put together and organized. Lately I feel like a scatter brain at times. I'm not sure if I'm still trying to adjust to being back to juggling classes, work, and a social life, or maybe I have a major case of senioritis. No matter what my deal is I'm afraid for Joy's sake that one day she'll come home and something catastrophic happened. Let me explain.
One day I had a little pot of water on one burner and a frying pan sitting on the one behind it. I wanted to heat up the water for tea or something before I had to leave for class or work. So, I crank up the burner with the water on it (or so I thought) and went into the bathroom. I hear Joy come up from the basement and say, "Oh, Katrin...." I scorched a frying pan instead of heating up my water. Who doesn't turn on the wrong burner sometimes though, right?
Then, there are the times where I just take a risk while trying to accomplish an ordinary task. This weekend I cleaned, no scrubbed the bathroom clean. This is how adventurous I am on the weekends. Well, our shower has those sliding doors with the metal tracks to keep the doors in place. I just cleaned the tub so it was all wet. I look up and notice the mold forming on the edges of the ceiling. That has got to go. So, naturally I step on the wet metal track barefoot and all while I reach on my tippy-toes trying to get the mold with a sponge. I could have potentially fallen and seriously injured myself, but it was a success. No harm no foul - this time.
Now, to make matters worse I like to burn candles in my room. It smells really nice and helps relax me. I had one sitting on my night table on the other side of my bed, but I figured at the rate I was going it wasn't the wisest choice to have an open flame next to my flammable bedding. Now it sits on top of my TV. The candle was getting really low and I thought I would just let it burn out until I went to sleep. Pretty much the thought of me blowing it out ended as I passed out watching the TV. Yup, I woke up in the morning and realized I fell asleep with the candle burning. Good news was I used up the candle and the house was still intact.

Poor Joy. I'm wondering if she falls asleep at night wondering what catastrophe I might cause during the night. Or maybe she just wakes up feeling grateful to be alive. Yeah, that's it....I bring out the best in people!

Getting locked out

Uh! This weekend while my friends went home for Christmas I am feeding their cats and fish.  Well as I was leaving their house this morning I was thinking "oh do I have the key? sure would suck for the cats if I locked myself outta their house." As I left the house tonight I thought "oh do I have my keys? I need them to drive and it sure would suck if I was locked outta my house."
Clearly these thoughts are bad luck and I should have never had them.
Well when I arrived at the kitty feeding house I thought "oh I'll just leave the car running. I'll be quick in and out and let the car warm up more." Went in fed the animals came out pulled on my door handle. oh damn! Locked out. Stupid always instinctivly locking my doors! So there I am house locked-key in car, car locked-key in ignition. Grrr. No way of possibly breaking into either of them on my own.
$80 later my car was unlocked. (of course they had to follow me back to my house to get their $80)
I should prolly get a hide-a-key

In better news I finished all of my reflections for my certification portfolio today, I just need to scan in my evaluation forms and put it all together.

Hope you all have had a very Merry Christmas with better luck than me! Happy Birthday Jesus!

Kat's Directionaly Challengedness

I just read the weather report to Kat and she's trying to figure out where we are relative to what I read.  So I try to get her to picture campus. We have a building called North Hall, which is the only campus building on the North side of Cascade Avenue and South Hall is directly across the street.  On either side of campus is where the dorms are located, people commonly say they live on either the east or west side.
Our conversation:
*Joy reads weather report- snow and sleet north of line between Hudson and Chippewa Falls with freezing rain and sleet to the south.*
Joy: oh, so we aren't even getting the snow :(
*Kat tries to talk out our location relative to what I just read.*
Joy: We're south of Hudson
Kat: OH!
Joy: Kat, where is North Hall?
Kat: On the other side of the street
Joy: And where is South Hall?
Kat: on the other side
Joy: And what is considered the East side of campus?
*Kat thinks a little*
Kat: oh like by Crabtree and those down there
(she is correct)
I actually knew that cause I was a tour guide.
Joy: oh geeze, really, you were a tour guide and you still can't figure this out?
Kat: well actually I never put that together before.

Everyday Objects

You may have noticed Kat's reference to my problems with everyday objects, let me explain why she says this.  First off Kat has this brita water filter pitcher, and sometimes, ok, most times I try to pour from it I tend to spill.
Also the light switch in the bathroom makes me angry. It's one of these stupid side switch dealy-o's. So whenever I walk into the room I reach in and try to do the traditional flip the switch up. I sometimes flip the switch outside the bathroom up while walking into the bathroom, I have no idea why.  It's a struggle for me. Kat labeled the switches for me but thats not real helpful, cause its not that I don't know what the switches are for, I just follow instincts.
One weekend Kat went away (actually every weekend, except this one when I'm leaving), and I was lost because you see most of the items in the house are Kat's and she did most of the moving in before I moved in (shes a great roommate to have if you couldn't tell yet). Well first I needed to use a measuring cup, I searched the kitchen high and low and couldn't find one :( I wanted to watch a movie but couldn't figure out how  to get the dvd player to play into the tv. I wanted to turn a lamp on and couldn't figure out how to. Basically, my first weekend without Kat was a little rough.
But Kat has her struggles too, she told me that the mirror in the bathroom wasn't a cabinet when we first looked at the place.  Well one night I was brushing my teeth and I was looking at the mirror and I'm like hey there's hinges there. Sure shit opened that medicine cabinet right up and let Kat know what a fool she was.
It's ok we'll struggle together.
Peace out bitches (Rachel demanded that I end that way)
Joy