I talked to my dear friend, Angie Watson, yesterday and she reminded me that I have a blog she expects to be updated regularly. ha ha. Once a month isn't bad right?
First and foremost, my husband is in love with Arizona. He says he is not leaving. He works 50 hours a week in extreme heat and still comes home in a great mood. His job is going well in every way except for pay. His work performance is impressive and he's met some great guys that he hopes will be lifetime friends but the pay is pretty lousy so he is forced to continue to look for something better. In the meantime, money is tight. When I am able to get a job and add a second income to our budget, we will be fine but we only have one car and no way to buy a second one right now. It's a classic catch 22. No car, no 2nd job, no 2nd job, no car.
For the first time in my life, I am shopping for groceries one day at a time because I have to watch the balance until payday. Thank god he gets paid every Friday. I'm honestly enjoying the challenge though. Spent $22.00 last night and I think I can feed us for the rest of the week. My job is to watch that budget and squeeze every ounce of living out of it. I ordered a Magic Jack to reduce our phone expenses. I'll let you know how that goes. We don't have TV but we do have Netflix so we're shamelessly into Lost three years behind the rest of the world. I haven't used the clothes dryer once but the power bill is still nutty because of air conditioning. That's a corner I just can't cut. We're in triple digits now. If we aren't in the pool, we're home with the A/C on. Jonah and I read a lot. He's into bug books and I just finished The Catcher in the Rye. I'm writing a book too but man, do I need an editor. My punctuation skills are gone.
The last 30 days have varied from 100 to 116. I had a hard time at first. I even got nauseous once while running errands but it seems tolerable now. On super hot days I try to think ahead. If I need to go to town, I drink plenty of water prior to leaving and take a quick shower so my hair is wet for a while. One day I even got a dress for me and a tank top for Jonah soaking wet in the sink and wrung them out before we put them on and got in the car. It worked perfectly! We were totally comfortable and no one knew.
Jonah has learned to swim and learned to read since we got here. Big stuff for little Jones. He's more than ready for school next month and so is Mama. I was worried about his upcoming birthday in October because I didn't know what kind of a party we would have if we didn't know anyone but my house is often full of kids so no worries there. We have met 5 kids here in our neighborhood...all girls but he doesn't mind.
I was nervous about meeting new people here in Phoenix but that was just plain silly. Diane, who we knew from Washington, comes over once a week for Fun Day Monday. Elicia and Bud, who we also knew from Washington, serendipitously live 2 blocks away from us. Eli's new BFF, Roy, and his wife, Amanda, live near Peoria and have 2 kids, Nathan and Lily. Nathan and Jonah are perfect pals. Zina and Eno are from Bosnia and sweet as can be. They live in our complex with their daughter Irma. She and Jonah will go to the same school. Then there's Madi, the remarkably mature 11 year old that lives in our complex as well with her Mom, Melissa. They are the nicest people. We love having Madi around. She's sweet and helpful and really good with Jonah. More recently, I met Katie at the pool with her 3 little girls. She and I hit it off right away. She's a high school teacher with a quick wit just the way I like it. She took me out with her friends last Saturday for plenty of liquor and laughs which led to karaoke. We're bonded now. ;o)
Diane dared me to train for a marathon which I did until the summer heat came. Even when we got up to run at 4:30 a.m. it was already 90 degrees or more. I wimped out. I had also agreed to take on 2 more kids for the summer and they arrived at 4:30 am. Excuses, excuses, I know. I may try again in the Fall when the weather cools down to a nice 80 degrees or so. Don't think for one second that she has forgotten. ;o) She even offered to pay for a gym membership so I could run in an air conditioned building. She's serious! Even though I wimped out, we are still getting in better shape here in AZ. Eli has lost 20 lbs, I've lost 6 (Isn't that always the case with men and women). I attribute it to the heat, the daily swimming and craving better food in higher temps.
I miss Kylie and Taryn terribly but I get to talk to them often and they are doing very well on their own. Jonah and I flew back to Washington for Taryn's graduation last month. I got pretty homesick. I find that I only get homesick when I go home. It's tough to leave again. Taryn is planning to come out here to live with us for a while and go to school. Plans often change but I really hope this one works out. It would be nice to have at least one of them here for a while.
That's it for now. Oh, by the way, Phoenix IS the 5th largest city in the nation for those called B.S. It doesn't feel like a massive city to me but there are many benefits. Benefit #1: You can get anything delivered. Not just pizza. *wink*
