Conquered!

I really enjoy a good play on words. I wish I was witty enough to use word plays in my every day conversations with people, but we can't always get what we want, right? But if you can use a good play on words in an every day conversation, kudos to you my friend.
I started back at the gym this week with Shapour. It has been since high school that I have done this kind of work out. Sure I have been good (at times) about going and running and doing some weight lifting here and there. But we started back doing an actual routine. And I am paying for it! It's not so bad as I lay here this evening, but this morning and last night I was in trouble! I began to think that I may never walk again...at least without a hobble! But it is really good. With the countdown to May 29th getting lower and lower, it's time to get back in shape! ... At the same time I'm not looking forward to tomorrow around 2:00 PM when I head back to the gym!
For any of you keeping up with my late night sleep aid, you may understand the excitement when I walked into the hosue this afternoon to se that all of the wallpaper was striped from the dining room! Thank you very much to the unfrtunate souls that were designated that task while I was at work last night! I worked my way through the bathroom wallpaper today. And I have only solidified my hatred for the dreaded stuff. The wonderful people(and I am using that term very very loosely) that wallpapered the house never painted the drywall before putting it up in the bathroom. For those of you that don't know, that equals disaster for trying to remove it. Needless to say, it was a long evening ripping the walls to shreds! The good news being, the wallpaper is all but gone from my memory!
A former co-worker came in and ate last night with his wife(who also happens to be a former co-worker) and we chatted for a minute or two about old times. He was surprised to find out that I was now the GM of the store(which I don't think is so hard to beleive!!!), but her asked how I enjoyed that. I continued to explain why it is an awesome job, yet an awful job almost constantly. I'm sure this is the case for most jobs. While I do love the people I work with and the people that come in and eat at our restaurant, there are just certain things that I have to deal with that I just don't to have to deal with! My most recent adventure has involved pickles, and if you care to be entertained by a fairly wild story, just ask. It does a require a more private setting in an effort to protect the identities involved from public ridicule.
I had better by off now. Like I said, the gym is destroying me and I have just a few hours before having to head back there again! But, first I must share this list. I hope it is understood...if not, think about it for a minute and it should come to you.

1)Me>pickle
2)Gym>my legs
3)Me/steamer>wallpaper
4)March Madness>my bracket

I'm not sure if it is the writing or the early mornings (Shapour is convinced it is the workout), but I am exhausted tonight. I'm hoping that it is the writing and the jujube seed.

I felt old again today. I have a year left in school after this semester. I'll be taking 3 classes in the summer, and then I have two semesters worth of students teaching, and then it is off to the real world. I am in my final education class this semester and today I was finishing the observation hours for that class. The high school that I was assigned was about an 40 minutes away, so needless to say, it was an early morning. The part that made me feel old came after I got to the school. I was the first one there this morning(probably because I was the old fart in the group), so I was chatting with the teacher that was in charge of our observations. We went and made copies, checked to make sure all of the department teachers were there, etc. You know, the same ole same ole teacher stuff that has to get taken care of every morning.
3 more students showed up from KSU to participate in the observations at this school and as we were waiting for our assigned classrooms we did what every undergraduate student does...we compared classes and experiences and professors. This was fine until I realised that all of the professors that the other kids were naming off were freshmen professors. They had all graduated in 2008! Normally that wouldn't make me feel old...but one of them said something along the lines of "Oh. Wow! My older brother graduated in 2004!) Am I really old enough now to be feeling all of these mixed up emotions about my age!? Of course not..and that's why we went and hung out at Kent's place this evening so we could feel like kids again!
No news as far as the wallpaper goes. I am dreading the moment I have to walk back in to one of those rooms! But we are moving tomorrow, so I cannot put it off for too long. I have gotten some good advice from a few folks, and I am hoping that it is really much easier once I am using all of the correct methods and tools.
I must say that laughing is a wonderful thing.
I also must say that making someone laugh is a wonderful thing.
And lastly, I will say that having a group of people that laugh, make each other laugh, and laugh at each other(not in the mean ha ha you fell down way) is a wonderful thing.

House Troubles

Hi it's Erin! It's the first blog that I am writing on here. I told Trent that since my name is in the web address, that means I should get to write an entry or two along the road. I have decided that it is time for my first one.

The topic of my blog is going to be the new house. First I want you all to know that we are very excited about owning our first home, especially together, and we hope to make this our family home for a very long time. If you know us well then you know that we've been trying to find a house to buy for about 8 months, and this house was the eleventh one we put an offer on. Yes that is 11. But apparently in our lives, 11th time's a charm! God has a funny sense of humor! But He did bring us what we think is the best house we have seen so far!
With that being said, I wanted to write about how amazing Trent has been throughout this process. Again, if you know us well, you know that I am the one that tends to get a little emotional and have pretty quick reactions to things. Trent is the calm one who looks at things rationally instead of in the heat of the moment. I love that, and he seems to calm me down at times. Since we finally managed to become homeowners, he has been even more incredible. As Trent mentioned in his last blog entry, he is currently swamped with school work to do, as well as balancing that with working at the restaurant. On top of these things, he has still managed to come to the new house every night and do things he hates to do- like tear wallpaper down. The first night we had the house we went over there and I had him change out some light fixtures in the kitchen. What would I do without him? I promised him he wouldn't have to touch a paintbrush, and I'm trying really hard to keep that promise! Last night he started touching up some spots that Kelsey and I had "missed" and I told him he wasn't allowed to paint (because he HATES it, not because I'm THAT controlling.)

Today, Trent was nothing less than the amazing person and soon-to-be husband that he is. I got a phone call around 2:30 this afternoon while I was at work from the contractor who said that our neighbor had called the realtor who sold us the house who had called him (haha long story short) to tell us that our house was leaking water!! Of course my heart sank because we had only owned this house for 3 days, and it was already flooding (in my mind.) They sent someone over to the house to turn the water off and see where it was coming from, so I called Trent, who was in class, to let him know what was going on. He then left school and went over to the house to check on things himself. He caught the contractor just in time before they were going to break a window to get in, and found that the source of the water is, thankfully, probably just the sprinkler system. The only water in the house was a little bit in the basement. God really took care of this one for us! And thank God for the sweet neighbor, too. And Mr. Trent is once again the best man in the world :)

I also wanted to thank Bethany, Mandy, and Kelsey who have been helping with the paint. Especially Kelsey (no offense other girls) because she has come over every night this week to help. And to Trent's family who came over the first night and helped switch out knobs and brought dinner to help us celebrate.

Anyone who is planning on coming to the painting party, thank you in advance! I promise it won't be too miserable, and there will be some free Barbecue Street food in it for you.

I look forward to sharing this house, and my life, with a wonderful, wonderful person!

Wallpaper

The past couple of days I haven't needed the extra writing at the end of the day. The weeks following spring break are always the longest and most awful weeks of the school year. It's full of papers every week and reading every night, so I have had plenty to fill the void of missing the blog the past few days.
But a lot has happened.
Erin and I closed on our house Monday without any further hindrance. She has already begun with the painting. Thanks to those of you who may have already come and helped her out with that. She has even planned a painting party for the weekend...so if you find yourself with nothing to do on Saturday evening, be sure and give her a call!
With the new paint comes the joys of wallpaper! It should never have been invented! Curse the human being that thought gluing paper to all of the walls in a house would be a good idea! While the girls have been painting, I have been trying to get the wallpaper off...so we aren't like the previous owners and just paint over the wallpaper. Any advice for a good way to get it off? I truly have been having a miserable time with it!
Believe it or not, I am actually feeling like I am going to be able to fall asleep this evening, so I am gonna cut this short. I really wanted to give the update that the house is underway. Also, as a reminder in case you have already forgotten, NEVER hang wallpaper in your house. I think the only good thing that may have ever or could ever come from wallpaper is.......

yea, their really is nothing good about wallpaper

Childhood officially ends in the morning

Erin and I close on our house in the morning. Please send any cash donations to our new address:
2308 October Court
Acworth, GA 30102

I told Erin that I would finally write the background blog, so here goes nothin'....

I'll give a quick recap of our histories before we met first -
I (Trent) was born and raised here in Georgia. We never moved as family, at least as early as I was capable of storing anything into my long term memory. I graduated from high school in 2004 and worked for the next several months before embarking on a great journey to the other side of the earth for my mission for church. It was two very exiting years spent Russia, up and down the Volga river region. Met some wonderful people, learned a lot about everything, fully understood how much I hate cold weather, how much I love America. Not that Russia was horrible, but it was very different. I would love to go back and visit...but for maybe two weeks and two years. And then I came home and began working at Barbecue Street again in February of 2007.
Erin was born in Iowa, moved to Texas while her mom studied at Texas A&M and got her Doctorate, and her family moved to Augusta when she was in middle school. After graduating high school, Erin and her twin sister and their best friends moved to Kennesaw to attend Kennesaw State University. While at school in Kennesaw, Erin and her sister were offered jobs at Barbecue Street, and so Erin became one of the greatest servers that the restaurant has ever had.
Now, as I mentioned yesterday, my memory has fled me quite a bit, so I may get time-frames mixed up a bit. But, when I started back at the restaurant, I began as a cook. So I was always in the kitchen, and Erin was still serving. All that separated these two love birds was a chopping block and a steam table....and a boyfriend. I'll try not to embarrass Erin too much while doing this, but that is an important part to our story.
Those of you that know Erin and I, we have always enjoyed...and been very good at...a little flirting. Who doesn't, right? But it was not long before the whispers began and our friends began to notice things. The problem was, once again, somebody had a boyfriend. And we both understood that, and neither of us wanted to be in the wrong. She told me pretty soon after all of these whispers began that she had a boyfriend and was not interested in acquiring a second boyfriend, and I didn't want to be the jerk that came around and tried to ruin someone's relationship. So we settled for friends for a while.
As you should have put two and two together by now, Erin's previous boyfriend eventually left the picture...Once again Erin I apologize if this is embarrassing...and by this time I think we both knew that we had found someone that was making us happy. Erin wanted some time to figure some things out and I was willing to give her the space. I had waited for her already, if it meant waiting some more I was more than willing. By the time our first official date came around(which was an awful movie that I don't think either of us will ever forget)we had built a fairly solid foundation to build a relationship upon. During this period of "courtship" we had been able to meet each others friends and had even taken some trips together with our friends. I'm sure some people may have thought it was silly how long it took us to make things official and begin dating, but I was very happy just being around her. It didn't matter to me if we were dating yet, but I would do everything I could to be places if it meant that was even the slightest chance that I would see her and get to talk with her. There was about a year or so of overlapped time when we were both still in school, and I would sometimes take an extra long way to close just because I hoped it would give me a better chance of running into her (yes, just like you would do in middle school).
I believe it was this year or so of what we now refer to as "fake-dating" that has made us such a solid companionship now. I'm going to brag a bit right now, but we had our second session of pre-marital counseling this evening, and the fellow that is our counselor has told us a few times of how impressed he is with us as a young couple preparing to get married. Our solid foundation of "fake-dating" definitely gives us something to lean on and build off of.----gotta wrap this up now, I'm getting long winded!
So, we began dating in July of '08, first mentioned getting married in August of '08(once again it was the year of "fake-dating"), I bought a ring in February of '09, and we planned a trip with some of our best friends to Fall Creek Falls in June of '09. On June 7th, we hiked to the base of the main falls and began taking pictures with our friends. Our good friend Chris happens to be an aspiring photographer and brought some nice equipment with him. Erin and I walked out for our turn to take a few photos, and while Chris was switching his lenses around, I turned to Erin and told her that I loved her. The next part I am sure was very smooth, no shaking, and no nervous stuttering at all...but I reached into my pocket and got down on one knee and asked her to marry me, to which she of course replied she would. I'll never let Erin forget this, but she was so excited that after I asked we both hugged and when I asked her if she wanted to put the ring on she did just that...she put the ring on. She took the box from me, took the ring out, and put it on her finger. So, Rod, if you are reading this, when it's time to exchange rings, make sure she lets me put the ring on her finger!
It really has been a wonderful few years since we have met, and I would not change any of it for a bit. Looking at Erin and holding her hand let's me know that there is absolutely a reason for everything. While tomorrow we may be buying our fist home and entering the world of grown -up mortgages, I am so happy to know that I get to be a grown -up with Erin that we get to spent the rest of our time together!

Getting too old for this!

My bracket is officially destroyed. And that is all I am going to say about the awful sport of basketball.


Odd how sometimes an hour goes by really quick, and other times it lasts at least an hour and a half. Today was one of those days when 60 seconds was hardly every truly 60 seconds. As we were closing the store this evening, one of the waitresses said to me, "I'm getting too old for this," and I had to agree. We both started working at the restaurant about the same time and I used to beg for as many hours as I could get in a week! There was hardly an hour of the week that I wasn't at the store...by choice! I worked nearly 80 hours a week most summers. Today I worked from 8:00 in the morning to 11:30 at night...and I am beat!
I also cannot remember things like I used to. Back in the good ole days, when I was working 80 hours a week, I could remember all sorts of things. I would see a hundred or so people a day working back in the take-out area, and I could tell you most of their names and what they were most likely to order. I was talking with a table this evening, a really nice middle-aged couple that come in every now and then, that apparently remembered everything we talked about last time. It has probably been 6 months since I have seen them. What made it even worse is the wife could remember my name, yet I had no idea what their names were. Now you may think that is OK because I see hundreds of people in the restaurant every day. But there is another couple that comes in every Friday night, order the same things, and we always have a nice conversation. Once again, they know exactly what my name is but for the life of me I can never remember either of their names. What ever happened to being able to remember every face that I saw in that store?!I'm going to tie this up quickly. Because I am getting too old for this, and my feet hurt, I've got two points to make this evening.
1) What a beautiful thing life becomes when you surround yourself with good people. I have been blessed to have a wonderful group of friends and family (old and new, near and far) that change everything for the better. We went and had dinner with some friends last night and it was an awesome time. Not because the food was so wonderful or because we had the coolest table in the world, (it had a fire pit in the center of the table!) but because we(Erin and I...at least I hope Erin agrees with this)knew that the people that were with us wanted us to be there. And I hope that those that were there know that we wanted them there too.
2) Enough of the sappiness...While I've got three minutes left in the day, Happy first day of spring, it has been a long winter that I think we are all glad is over...and Happy Iranian New Year. My freshly liberated friends Shapour informed me that today is the Iranian New Year...a time for change and a time for improvement. Seems perfect Spring and New Year all bundled into one!

Style

I have really been thinking about what to officially name the blog. Sure, "And so it begins" was clever...for the beginning. But I cannot leave it that forever. If you've got any good suggestions, I'll tale them. I was thinking tonight I could title each individual post a new Dave Matthews song. That's just how obsessed I am. So maybe I could think of something clever with music and what's actually happening in real life. How exciting though! Relating these daily entries with a different Dave song each day! It would do wonders for my creativity skills.
We spoke in my Inclusive Education class the other about gifted students. I'm not ashamed(or humble enough) to admit that I was a gifted student. That's right. Smarter than your average bear. The keyword here is was! Things have caught back up with me. But we talked about how gifted students were supposed to excel in 3 specific ares, one of them being creativity....and I began wondering how in the world I was considered gifted if you had to be creative! So, maybe relating these song titles to everyday occurrences will boost my creative thinking skills.
Spring has finally arrived! I got up early this morning because I had a dentist appointment. I full expected to come home and take a nap, but it was so nice that I couldn't stand it any longer and headed over to the park for a run. I was amazed at what I saw. Now, I have sen this a few times before. When I lived in Togliatti, a city in Russia, I would often since this once or twice a week. And I have begun to see it on the campus green at the university. But now it is in my own backyard and I'm not sure how to handle it! Now I know there is a technical term for what is going on, but I'm not sure what it is. The only reason I know there is one is because Kent told me what it was yesterday...as if it was normal and in no need of any strange responses. It was a group of maybe 8 or so guys...there may have been a few girls but I never ventured close enough to see...that were battling out with foam swords and shields. As if they were medieval knights fighting for the round table. I just think it is bizarre. And I'm trying to figure out if this is a next generation thing, or if these just kids missed out on video games. Regardless, I have been surprised to see this as often as I have. I love the Russian people, but they were known to do some very odd things(at least to us silly Americans). So when I saw this in Togiatti, Ben and I had a good laugh about it and I think we even took a video of it...with the lion dog...so that we could prove that people were fighting like knights when they didn't believe us. I suppose it is just the new style.
I apologize for the randomness this evening. But really I don't. If you read yesterday you would understand that this is really just my Free therapy so that I can get to sleep. You really should expect something a lot more random and out of place then what I have written tonight. But thanks to those of you that are reading, I hope that you really are enjoying it. I try to be at least a little entertaining.

March Madness!

I wonder how many people titled their blog "March Madness" today?

I don't like basketball until the tournament. Sure, I'll stop and admire the pretty orange and blue whenever Florida is playing...but that's about it. But when tournament time comes around, I'm as competitive as the next guy. Erin and Kent and I went over to Kelsey and Greg's apartment this evening to watch Wall-E, and after the movie ended, the channel was naturally switched to basketball. Washington and Marquette were playing. Two teams that I don't care at all about, except for the fact that I picked Washington to win. And, as the clocked wound down and somebody that I have never heard of from Washington hit a nice three pointer, I jumped out of my chair in celebration and raised the roof. Ask Kelsey if you don't believe me.
There is a fellow that comes into the restaurant every Thursday afternoon and gets beef, french fries, coleslaw, and an entire pitcher of tea to himself. He's been coming for years. I'm sure he has been stopping by since before my time at the store. Anyway, we always enjoy a nice conversation while he enjoys his beef, and today was a pretty interesting one. It had been a few weeks since I had seen him(I am too busy most mornings o get out and chat..that sounds horrible...too many for the customers) but the last time we spoke I mentioned to him that some buddies and I were planning on hiking Mt. LeConte and he told me of his latest trip to the Confederate Gunboat Museum(outside of Ft. Benning). He wanted to see the pictures from the hike so we talked about that for a little bit and I showed him the pictures(sorry for any of you who I have promised to show them for a few weeks now and still haven't seen them). The important part of this story is this: as he finished up and I had to get back to work he mentioned how jealous he was of all of the exciting things I do in my life. I had never really thought of that. But I have been very blessed to get to have some really awesome experiences. And an awesome fiancee that lets me do all of these crazy things(like hike to the top of LeConte through 50" of snow!)!
I guess this will be a good segway into the background blog that I need to write. Now that I have thrown around a few names of people that not everyone may know. So I will take care of that over the weekend.

St. Patrick's Day

I'm not sure how long this daily blog will stay daily, but while I still have the "new toy" syndrome I'll get as many done as I can. I forgot to mention yesterday one of the other reasons why I started to blog last night. Aside from the fact that Erin produced a wonderful story to share, I did have other deciding influences for starting a blog. Many of you do not know this, but I don't sleep well. In fact most nights I lay in bed for hours before I finally fall asleep,and even after I do fall asleep I am a very light sleeper. I promise you this is not by choice! I love to sleep! But, it does offer me the time to do all of my reading and homework so that I can spend time with Erin instead of reading pages and pages of history documents all night long.... Back to the reasons for blogging. I was in my usual hours of laying in bed waiting to fall asleep when Yahoo offered an article on Chinese sleep solutions. Naturally I clicked on it hoping to find the ancient secret to falling asleep quickly and sleeping better. It stated a few things, such as using pressure points, taking jujube seed, and certain exercises. I tried the pressure points first, and after pressing my wrist and bottom of my feet for 10 minutes I realized that I was working too hard on pressing these points to be getting closer to sleeping. But it did suggest "emptying your mind" in order to prepare your body for sleep. So, I'll continue to try and empty my mind in an effort to get better sleep.
I wish I had some funny stories to share today, but it was a rather dull day for me. We went out with some friends this evening to celebrate St. Patrick's day. After discovering that we were way too late to get a table at any of the Irish pub's in the area we headed over to the steakhouse... I'm sure they eat plenty of steak in Ireland.
I mentioned to one of my professor's this morning that I would be missing class this upcoming Monday(we are closing on our house), and it was exciting to fill that grown up! Granted I am still in school, but to be able to use something like buying a house as an excuse to get out of class...I must say it felt pretty good.
Greg asked if I put a recipe in the first blog...of course I didn't...but so that I can say I have next time he asks, I found this in a Georgia History book from 1960 today and it was how to make tea when you cannot afford the tea(you know, like during the Civil War and things). Al you need are a handful of acorns and a pot of boiling water. Just boil your water and crush the acorns into small little pieces. Let your acorn bits boil with the water for a few minutes(much like you would with any tea) and enjoy.
Not much of a recipe, but now I can tell Greg that the recipe is here.

Day 1

I'll be honest. I never really understood all of the excitement over blogging. Sure, writing your daily thoughts down...I get that. Journals and diaries are great. But to put it all out there so everyone knows what you are doing all of the time and what is happening in your life..that's the part that I never got. But recently I have been thinking that it may actually be kind of fun to write a blog. Erin and I watched Julie and Julia not too long ago and that was a fun story about a blogger. Who knows, maybe one day there will be a movie about my blog.
The kicker was something that happened this evening. I'll do a history blog in a few days so anyone that has no idea who I am can get caught up as far as who everyone is that I mention in here. But this evening, Erin and I went to Kroger so that she could pick up some lunches for her to take to work with her. We headed off to Kroger and bought her lunches and then headed over to get some gas. While she was pumping the gas I started fiddling with the little air freshener that was clipped to her air vent. She has one of those fancy air fresheners that has a glass bottom filled with scented oils and a swivel top that lets you choose which fragrance can be emitted throughout the day. She has had for quite a few months now and every now and then one of us will mention that i doesn't look like any oil has been used....Do you see where this is going yet? So, I started trying to figure out why it wasn't using the oil. I eventually pulled the plastic lid all apart (with my fancy new multi-tool I got at the REI Scratch and Dent sale..Whoop!) to uncover the answer to this months long mystery. She had never opened the oil containers before putting the lid on the air freshener!
So of course I laughed at her a bit, she laughed a bit, we had a good time, and on the way home I told her "You know, if I had a blog I would definitely write about this!" So here we are. The beginning of Trent's and soon to be Trent's and Erin's blog.