december in arizona

We hit the ground running when we arrived in Arizona. We barely had enough time to unpack the essentials before we both started work. I just completed week three of my seven week training for my new job with CPS. The training is long and emotionally draining (more on that later) but on the plus side, Wendel works about a mile down the street from where my training is held in downtown Phoenix, so we get to have lunch together almost daily. Having my training in Phoenix has also given me the opportunity to capture some of downtown Phoenix with my camera. Here is a brief look at what December looks like here in Arizona.

Arizona is very different than Washington but it has its own kind of beauty. I remember when I moved to Arizona from Virginia when I was ten, it took quite a while for it to grow on me. All I could think of was the rolling green hills I left behind. I am trying to look for the beauty here and capture it when I can to help along that process of feeling at home here again. The high was 76 degrees today and the expected high for tomorrow is 79 degrees. Oliver and I were both wearing long sleeved shirts when I took him to the park today. It ended up being a short visit as we were both so hot and needed to go home to change into short sleeved shirts. It is beautiful weather but this summer is going to be rough.

It is twenty minutes away from a new year. So much happened this past year; both good and not-so-good. I am ready to move on to 2012 and look forward to the new experiences it will bring. Happy New Year!

arizona

[Taken on the plane.]

We were in Arizona Thursday of last week until this morning. It was anything but a vacation. We went because our tenants moved out and we needed to get the house in order to rent again and get new tenants in. We expected we would have to do a bit of work, but as it turned out our house was pretty trashed. I guess that's the down side of being a landlord in another state. They let their kids write all over the walls with crayons, markers, and pens, they let their animals pee all over the carpet in every room (it was like a land mine), one of the closet doors was cracked (it looked like someone punched it), the side door in the garage had a huge hole right through it, a window was broken, a ceiling fan was hanging half way down (as though someone hung from it), they let their dogs have puppies in the master bedroom closet and didn't clean up the blood, their dogs chewed up the dining room french doors, the back sliding door wouldn't close all the way...the list goes on. I had painted one wall red in the room that used to be my scrapbook room - I guess they decided they didn't like red because they painted over it with white. But they didn't use primer first so it was all blotchy. Nice. On top of that the house was just dirty and smelled bad. We also upgraded a few things that we wanted to do while we were living in the house, such as replace the garage door, replace the oven, and build a shelf above the fridge.

Yep, it was a ton of work. On average, we were at the house working from 8am - 3am. It was crazy. So if you are a friend of ours in Mesa and you're wondering why we didn't call to get together, now you know. It was strictly a work week for us. I honestly haven't been that exhausted from working since my mission. However, we did get it all clean, repainted, carpets cleaned, all repairs finished...and we have to ask ourselves why we do this for people who will trash it when we didn't do it for ourselves while we were living there. Anyway, I'm so glad it's done. We have a nice family moving in and we're crossing our fingers that when they move out it will be nothing like this experience.

We did take a quick dip in my dad's pool yesterday morning (at 8:30 if you can believe it - that's how hot it is there). Dusty (my dad's dog) decided to join us.

Arizona was, of course, very hot. I burned my hand while opening the trunk of the car yesterday and I got sunburned while mowing our lawn. I think my body is still in shock with coming back to this chilly weather. I haven't been able to get warm all day. Regardless of the chill, Washington feels like home. I was telling W last night that both Arizona and Washington feel like home to me, and he agreed. I've lived a lot of places in my life, and no other place feels this way. We really love it here.

Our luggage is still sitting in our front entry way...better go take care of that.

ETA: Just FYI - did you know taking a limo from Sea-Tac Airport is the same price as taking a cab? It's true. We got in at about 1:30am so we gave it a try. Pretty cool pulling up to our house in a limo at 2am.

ten years

I'm packing today for our trip to Arizona this weekend. We're going for my ten year high school reunion. Weird that it's been that long. I'm so excited to be in 90 degree weather, see my good friends from high school (I still keep in touch with most of them), and enjoy the homecoming football game at our old stomping grounds. It's so fun that Dub and I went to the same high school (he was a year ahead of me). [Notice that warm weather was the first thing on that list...not that I don't want to see my friends but it's getting cold here so warm weather is really on my mind right now.]

I'm also doing a ton of reading today. The first day of school went well yesterday, aside from searching forever for a parking spot. Luckily I was early so I had time to search. I only have one class on Wednesdays so it was a nice transition back into school (unlike Mondays, when I will have five hours of lecture, with only a five minute break between the two classes and Fridays, when I will have two three-hour lectures, with an hour break in between. That's a lot of lecture). My Wednesday class is a Mental Illness Recovery class and seems so interesting to me. Luckily the majority of the reading that I have to do today (five of the eight chapters I have left to read today, not counting the two I read yesterday) are for this class and the reading is easy and enjoyable. This teacher also doesn't give tests or have us write papers. Beautiful.

I am also trying to get some baby blocks made for some friends who live in Arizona...the pictures for them just came in the mail yesterday. Not sure it will happen, but I will try.

Busy day.