An Explanation

Since I am living here in Prattvegas with no job and no real prospects, I thought I would take this opportunity to explain how it came to be that Z and I moved here. It appears a blind move. Once upon a time, it did not seem so senseless.

Last summer, Z did an internship for the state. He made solid contacts and made a good impression on some important people. Since there were not going to be any openings in that department upon Z's graduation, they decided to help him out and hook him up with some other departments who might have an opening. In January or so, Z made contact with another department that would be needing someone. In March, they finalized the deal, saying, "Yes, we will hire you. We will hire you for a few months in this one measly position, and upon completion of the bar exam will hire you as an attorney." From that point until now, it has been no walk in the park. There have been countless unanswered phone calls, unreturned emails, vague replies, and code-like answers. There are lots of references to "paperwork," "the registry," and "procedure."

I quit my job two weeks ago, and we moved here, expecting Z to begin work approximately two weeks after the move. Ever since we moved, we have tried to hammer down the exact start date. We have been unsuccesful. Our paranoid selves finally got to the point where we thought maybe something fishy was going on. Maybe they decided they didn't need him after all, and were just avoiding him, hoping he'd give up and "quit" even though he hasn't started. That would be catastrophic, seeing as how we have no Plan B.

So today he reaches out to his old buddy from last summer, his original contact, to ask if he has any idea what is going on. The response: There seems to be an issue with completing your paperwork in time for you to begin next week.

Uh, OK. Except you have had that paperwork since March... So... anything I can do to speed this process along??

Nope. You've done everything you need to do. Just be patient.

Yeah right.

So now we are at least one more week removed from his first paycheck, and while that may not seem like a big deal, it sort of is when you're in our position. I haven't worked in two weeks, our new apartment rent is higher than our last, etc. Lots of boring details. The point is, this is crappy! This is frustrating! This is making me crazy! How can people have so little respect for others' time and mental well being?

Don't get me wrong - I am beyond grateful that he has this opportunity. Most of his graduating class has no such opportunity, and I get that I sound like a jerk for complaining about this. But if only they had come out and said, "why don't you just not start work until after the bar?" Or, "why don't you start on an exact and precise day, which I will offer to put in writing" then I could have kept my perfectly fine job and continued to collect my perfectly acceptable albeit meager paycheck.

My job was getting a little unbearable, but I could have handled it for another 3 months or whatever was needed. But we were led to believe (by the following direct quote) that Z was needed "sooner rather than later."

So here we sit.

And I'm just saying...

As promised

Here are some pictures of our new apartment.

Memorial Day

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day (observed). Mine was delightful. I slept in (you can do that when you're unemployed) and ate pizza for breakfast (because it was 11:00)! After that, Zack and I drove around trying to find Prattville's River Walk. I'm not sure if we ever found it, but we did find a nice little park and boat launch. So we walked around in nature for a while, and that felt nice, since I knew we'd be spending 3 hours in the car driving to B'ham and back. Today was dinner at Granny's!

For just about every holiday, and some birthdays thrown in during the year, my mother's side of the family gathers at Granny and PawPaw's house for lunch or dinner. It evens out to about once every 5 or 6 weeks, and I love it. Today we went for dinner - a cookout. It is so great to see my family, especially now when I'm feeling a little homesick. Everyone was able to come except for the few of us who are more than a couple of hours away. Zack and I traveled the farthest, and there are only 3 branches that have moved farther away than we have. My first cousin and her husband (and their precious baby) are in Mobile, another first cousin and his wife are in Augusta, and my aunt and her fiance are in Atlanta. But other than those family members, we were all there, and it was really nice to just be with them.

It's really late now, but I am not that tired. My sleep pattern has been all messed up since moving, because, what is there to wake up for? I will be so relieved to get back on a normal schedule. I hate waking up late and feeling like the morning is gone and therefore the day is wasted. That's a crappy feeling.

Just killed another roach. So grossed out right now.

My uncle and aunt from my dad's side of the family live nearby in Montgomery. We are going to meet them for dinner this week, and I'm looking forward to that. I was never very close to them (no one from my dad's side is close at all, in comparison to my mom's side), but now that we live so nearby, that should change.

I think that we will go home tomorrow for Zack to go fishing with my brother and stepfather. After this week, all of Zack's free time will be zapped, because he will start his new full time job, and his bar review classes will be held at night - sometimes 6 or 7 nights a week. Talk about crappy.

This was such a boring post. More excitement later when I'm not tired.

Critters of all kinds

So, last night I saw the Daddy Roach. Seriously, we must have mutant roaches immune to the pesticide the pest man sprayed. (And I watched him; I know he was thorough.) I nearly threw up when Zack killed it.

In much happier news, we went to the Montgomery Zoo today - so much fun! I'm a sucker for a good zoo, as Zack and I both love watching shows on Animal Planet, regardless the animal. We saw some really cool stuff, including chimps who were fighting. Kind of scary.

Zack left for a fishing trip tonight, so I am on my own to watch the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, and maybe I'll squeeze in Juno, which my sister gave me for my birthday.

Tomorrow, the job hunt resumes. I quit my other job so we could move here for Zack's new job. I don't have a replacement yet, so I've been searching. Some nibbles, but no great leads yet.

Crisis not averted

So, the roaches are not gone. Not only did I find one in the bedroom floor this morning (he met the wrath), but also something knocked over my delicious Ghirardeli chocolates (a birthday gift from my friends Dave and Christy) and spilled them all over the floor. I had only eaten two pieces (wonderful, decadent pieces), and now I had to throw them all out. I cried.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, we are finally getting settled in to our new apartment. We're almost completely unpacked, and all major crises (broken fridge, roach infestation) have been handled. Now what?

This is the biggest move I've ever had. All during college, I lived only an hour away from my family. After college I moved home for about 5 months until moving to Tuscaloosa (about 1.5 hours away from family) to be with my future husband. I lived in Tuscaloosa for 1 year. Then, a million changes happened at one time. Zack graduated law school May 10 (YAY!), he had a job offer with the state in Montgomery, we signed the lease to a new apartment, and started a house hunt. These are all very good things, and I'm so proud of him, but I am unsettled too. I've never been this far away from my mother and siblings (about 2.5 hours). I know that doesn't seem like much, but I've always been extremely family oriented, and I know it makes my mother sad too.

One silly thing I noticed today that will seriously lead to more homesickness - different news anchors! In all of my other moves, I've always been close enough to Birmingham that I still could watch Jerry Tracy, etc., on my local stations. Here, all the local channels are numbered differently, and there are strangers reporting news to me about locations I know nothing about. They talk about Troy, Dothan, Auburn. These places have never even been on my radar, and I don't want to hear about them. I want to hear about Birmingham, Pell City, Montevallo. Our new apartment is smaller than our old apartment (which, by the way, I absolutely loved. It was seriously the best apartment.) So lots of my nesting items which would normally make me feel a lot better are stuck in boxes and shoved into the tops of closets. It feels so much better to have our things displayed, but still nothing looks the same. Bottom line: I was not ready for this move. I had really close friends at work, one of my best friends lived just 5 minutes away, and we'd made good friends with some law school people. Other than that, I had a good job (well, more on that later. It was good enough.) We had a kick-ass apartment, and were really convenient to everything except home. Now we're even further from home, and I don't know my way around.

On the one hand, I remember feeling this exact same way when Zack and I had our first conversation about me moving to Tuscaloosa. Until then, I'd always assumed that once we got married, we would live closer to Birmingham, where I would work, and he would commute to school until graduation, when he would find a job in Birmingham. Well, I had no idea how difficult it would be for him to find a job. So when I resigned myself to moving to Tuscaloosa, I was miserable. I lived there completely alone while he worked in Washington D.C. for the longest 6 weeks of my life. I didn't have a job, and I had all kinds of pressure. I cried all the time and just wanted to go home. But of course, Tuscaloosa felt more and more like home after a while. It's where Zack and I shared our first home as newlyweds. It's where I had my first real job out of college. My coworkers there traveled to my hometown to watch as I took my vows. It became home.

So I'm hoping Prattville can become home too. Because we hope to buy a house either here or in Wetumpka, and stay there for probably 5 years. We will probably have our first child while we're living here. I know our parents are not happy about that. Zack's parents have been sort of freaking out about it. Both Zack and I are from nearby Birmingham, and in our hearts, that will always be home. I hope one day it can physically be home again.For now, I am trying my best to clean, nest, and make this place as comfortable as possible while I learn my way around. I took some pictures of my new apartment, and I will post those later when I learn more about how to do this.