Edit: In my last post, I said I accepted a 'public teaching' job.  While my misspell could have been worse, I meant to put 'substitute teaching' job!

And now for something completely different.


I finished up my temp job today, 3 days early.  They fired me.  Just kidding! I finished all my work early and they didn't need me anymore.  Its a little disheartening to be out of work (and the $$ that come with it) for 3 more days, but overall it was a great experience.  At first there was a lot of looking up stuff and data entry, but towards the end I had a few projects that involved analyzing and writing up reports on data for various issues- it was cool that my boss told me the objective and let me figure out the best way to get there.  

My, now former!, boss and I went out to lunch and I clocked out shortly thereafter, and, stupidly, decided to go for a run when I got home.  While I've been working out, now that we don't live on base getting to the gym is a bigger task- and frankly I've dropped the ball!  Truthfully I miss being outside a lot, its been to hot and buggy to really do much out of doors. Today would have been a good day to hit the gym though, because its a whopping 105 degrees outside as I type this.  My computer at work's weather is set to Fayetteville for some mystery reason and I always forget this, like I did today when I thought that Enid could only be 92 degrees--ya right.  After staggering around our neighborhood, crawling home, and plopping on the carpet I stumbled over to the pool (are you getting how dramatic this is? Its really frickin hot!).

Now that I'm all showered and cleaned up I'm about to get ready for a Spouse's Social tonight, the theme of which is "Survivor: Enid"- we're supposed to learn about fun things to do in here, I'm hoping the bug eating is kept to a minimum.  I'm really looking forward to hanging out with and getting to know more of the spouses here!

Lance is still doing formation flying and has late show-times all week, with a possible matinee on Sunday. AKA he's busy and gets home late.  They're trying to push him through the program, which will mean he finishes earlier which will hopefully mean he has some time off- fingers crossed!

get it? Like Ryan the Temp from the Office? Anyway, lack of blog posts can be explained by the fact that I've been 'working'- I have a temp job for 3 weeks in the office of a local food company.  Its a LOT of data entry and not particularly invigorating, but I'm learning a little and I know I'm gaining experience.
 Because I don't have any job lined up afterward, I've also signed on as a substitute teacher for one of the local school districts, figuring I like kids and I like bossing people around, it'd be perfect.  Turns out a lot of the jobs are at the local high school, which would be fine except that when I showed up at the high school for a teacher meeting they thought I was a new student!

Lance and I went into the city with Ralph and Corey this past weekend so the guys could get fitted for tuxes for Ralph's upcoming wedding (SO EXCITED!).  Ralph's a bit taller than both of them though, so the one sample jacket they ordered didn't quite fit!

After that we wandered around Bricktown in downtown Oklahoma City and attempted to go 'wine' tasting.  Nobody seems to believe me when I say there are wineries here, and you're probably right because whatever this was it wasn't wine! It was easy to tell it had been artificially enhanced, and while peach soda tastes great, it doesn't taste like what Chardonnay should taste like!

My favorite part of the weekend was going to an Oklahoma City Redhawks game.  Baseball games are always fun, be here they made an especially good effort to involve the crowd and get everyone excited.  I noticed while we were there that a lot of people had black and white Redhawks hats that it appeared the stadium was giving away.  On our way out I asked a boy working at the gate where everyone got them, and he said they were given out to season ticket holders.  Seeing my disappointment he GAVE me a hat! Wasn't that nice?!?  I wore it the rest of the weekend- its like wearing good karma on your head.

I'm off to pick Lance up from his first formation flight- meaning he flies 3-10 feet away from another plane. HE I know will be great at it, its whoever he flies with that makes me nervous! Check the photostream for a picture of the storm rolling in!

Is a MESS!  I'm still getting the hang of how to cook meals so they're done at the right time and so I have time to prepare stuff to go along with them. Basically I'm a big fan of one-dish entrees, like salads or tacos!  Its fun cooking for two, figuring out what 'works' and doesn't (apparently Mexican food 5 nights a week isn't as popular with Lance as it is with me?) and just trying new things.

In addition to cooking, I've been trying my hand at a few DIY projects around the house; it helps that this week I found a desk at a thrift store that I can now use to work from, because stepping on sewing pins did NOT go over well in a house of people that prefer going barefoot!  The desk really didn't need much actual work, one of the veneers needed some glue, the screws needed tightening, and some new knobs really spruced it up.


On it you can see the  beginning phases of a 'coral' painting I made for our room.  Almost all of our bedding is blue and white, and Lance said he liked a sea theme- but since fish and shells are just so mainstream I went with everyone's favorite polyp (bonus: they're a lot easier to paint than fish or shells).  Today I added some white stripes to give it some dimension, I'll be the first to admit that its no masterpiece, but it'll do for now!

I've got a few other little things in the works, like pillow covers and some more wall art things.  After attenting Spouse's Coffee Night this week I not only met a lot of great girls, but was introduced to "Pinterest"- where I've found a TON of cool craft ideas!  Lance is out of town this weekend for training, so I've spent mine at Hobby Lobby and in front of a sewing machine.  Just kidding- I spent a good chuck of it doing that, but tonight I've been chillin with some pinot and The Tudors on Netflix.

Other than playing house this was an eventful week: I mentioned going to Spouse's Coffee Night which was so fun! I was a big apprehensive walking into a house full of strangers, but everyone was really friendly, and it helped that there were a lot of newcomers =)

Enid isn't exactly a hotbed of career opportunity. I've been looking for a job and met with an adviser at the Family Readiness Center that was really helpful, I'm hoping something regular and career enhancing comes in soon, but in case it doesn't I registered with a local temp agency.  People there sure were weird (a lengthy post on 'Enoids' is in the works!), 2 separate people showed up with Big Gulp sodas going into interviews! Its pretty disheartening to go from framing my diploma one day to finding out I've got a data-entry assignment the next, but I'm thankful to HAVE a job and something to do and am hoping something good comes out of it. 


The national news has talked a lot about the massive heat wave that Oklahoma has felt the brunt of (at least, I hear they've talked about it, we don't have cable) and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.  The picture at right is of a dust tornado that I'm not actually sure has anything to do with the heat, but it looks like it could be relevant so whatever.  Lance has had some pretty miserable days out on the tarmac in the heat, and I try to make the best of it at home by staying inside or going to the pool and drinking a LOT of water (and sweet tea).

Birds must just love Oklahoma because of all the juicy bugs we have here, and they seem to like our roof in particular.  Sometimes it seems like just a matter of time before the pigeons that congregate on the skylight above our room come pouring in!  Starting a few days ago I heard a fluttering noise in the chimney. I figured the sound was coming from the top on the outside and simply traveling down into our living room, but it quickly became clear that the sound was, in fact, coming from the chimney. 

 Distressed at the thought of a pigeon being trapped in our chimney I waited it out to see if it escaped, the noise stopped so I hoped that was the case- and not that the poor thing had died.  The noise stopped, but picked up again the next day, and the next. That nerd was living in our chimney.

After a few failed attempts at pounding at the wall and blaring youtube clips of Peregrine Falcon territory protection calls, the only thing I seemed to be tempting to leave was Lance.  So we decided to smoke it out, figuring that if it could get into the chimney, it could easily get out, right?  With us armed with cardboard boxes and a fly swatter, the fire was started, the flue was opened, and the grate was shut. 

Into the flames flew a tiny soot covered bird.  We flung the grate open, releasing our squatter into our living room, then the kitchen, then straight past the open door into the office- with Lance in hot pursuit. 

It was finally goaded out the front door, clearly shaken, but then again I'd be pretty torn up too if the bottom of my house opened up into a fiery inferno.

I spent entirely too long trying to get another red Ford Escape to start, after putting all my shopping bags in the back- before I realized it wasn't our car.  That is all.

We're pretty much all moved in now! Save for a few boxes with knickknacks, its so nice to have everything in its place- and we have a LOT of places to put stuff.  As I said in my last post, our townhome  (aside- do we call it a house? apartment? what? townhome sounds real dweeby!) has one bedroom downstairs and a loft upstairs that we use as our bedroom.  I've been trying to fill empty spaces as best I can without spending tooooo much money and knowing that its better to wait for pieces I really like than to just buy stuff to fill voids- so currently there's a large corner of our downstairs living area that is empty.  Lance and I have been brainstorming about what to put in there, so far we've come up with:

• a pool table
• a foosball table (gee, who came up with those ideas I wonder...)
• a giant repica TARDIS
• a reading nook
• a dog bed, with a dog to put in it
• an arts and crafts table

We are open to suggestions.  Meanwhile, here are some pictures of the other parts of downstairs: