The Worst

I am the worst person ever at keeping in touch.

Everyday I think "I should call (insert friend or family member's name) but...maybe they're busy. I should probably just wait until they call me. I don't want to bother them." Which is so stupid of me to think because if I call someone and they are busy they can either just not answer the phone or schedule a better time to talk. Or what if they are like "I should call Jodi, but wait, I have kids/a job/both and she has none of those things so if she wants to talk then homegirl can call me." And I won't even be offended if people think that, because it's true, I have no job and Rick works everyday for 12-14 hours. I've got some time on my hands.

I keep thinking "I need to ask Andrea about Disneyland" or "I need to call Lacey and tell her that I think I'm going to start a swear jar where I put $1 in a jar every time I swear and hopefully it'll rid me of this damn habit" but I usually think about this stuff when I'm at the grocery store and I am in no where near coordinated enough to talk on the phone and shop for everything on my list at the same time. I see Mom's with 4 kids talking on the phone and getting all their groceries at the same time without breaking a sweat. How is that even possible? The only time I call people when I'm grocery shopping is when I have to ask my mom where in the hell Walmart keeps coconut milk or when Rick and I get separated and we both start to panic. After I get home from grocery shopping I usually make dinner and then I'll turn on the TV and there will be a marathon on TLC of Honey Boo Boo Child and so obviously I will watch it. 5 hours later I will remember to call/text everyone but it's too late. Not like 10 pm too late, like 3 in the morning too late.

I vow to be better at this. I miss my friends and family a lot lately. I was never this homesick when we lived in Arizona, but Arkansas is way different. Arkansas is a place where hopes, dreams,  dental hygiene, and general well-being goes to die. I think part of the reason that I'm homesick is because it's getting cold here. I love Arizona because of the warmth, and because it never gets cold. I left Utah to escape the cold. And now it's cold here, but it's different cold. It's a humid cold, which is worse. And every time I get cold I get angry and I think "IF I'M GOING TO BE COLD I MIGHT AS WELL BE IN UTAH." And then Rick gets a look on his face like "what have I done to deserve this life?"

If you are one of those friends/family members who is like "I should call Jodi, but what if she's busy?" I'm not. Call me. Or text me. Or email me. Or Skype me.

P.S. We finally got a toaster oven. I had been looking for some but they were like $100 and gigantic. Like half the size of a regular oven. I have very limited counter space. But I was at the store and I found a perfect sized one for $20. It can barely fit a 9X9 pan in it but it's still perfect. I've finally been able to bake, and it's made living here a lot more bearable. I told myself that while I was here I wanted to try all the recipes I had seen on Pinterest, and I've actually been able to make a lot of new things. Some have been awful, but some are the kind of meals that get passed down from generation to generation. Our favorite meal is DORITO CHICKEN. The secret ingredient is, you guessed it, Doritos. When a recipe calls for Doritos, you don't second guess it.

Hotel Home

The last few weeks have been a blur. I got back to Arizona from my trip to Arkansas and had 3 weeks of work, school, and getting ready to move. I'm pretty sure people think we're crazy. Normally when people ask you where you will be living the answer is not "in a hotel" and when they ask how long you'll be there the answer is not "I don't know." If someone gave me those answers I would think they were liars, runaway teens, or in trouble with the law. I promise this is legitimate. Since we are living in a hotel I only brought my clothes. So really this was the easiest move ever for us. 3 bags was all it took. We still have our apartment in Arizona. The one good thing about that dust bowl of a town is that the housing there is really cheap. So we are keeping all of our stuff in our apartment for now.

The hotel we're staying at is brand new. Like it isn't even on google maps yet. A brand new hotel means no cooties anywhere. Best news ever.

The view when you first walk in. I love the long desk with the built in dresser. There is room for all our computer stuff. The plastic bin under the TV is my dresser. We're pretty fancy.

The kitchen. Not just part of the kitchen, the ENTIRE kitchen. The dishwasher is broken so that's fun, but everything else I love. Especially the cupboards. I want those same cupboards in my house someday.

King sized bed! After this, I can't go back to a queen. I just can't. Just barely Rick did his famous steam-roller move and he didn't even elbow me in the face. Magical.

This bathroom is about twice as big as my bathroom in Arizona, and has twice the cupboard space. 

Love it.

I hate toilet shots but this is to show how big the mirror is.

My view. I like to lay in bed at night with the window open to have the fluorescent lights from the Walmart sign shine into the room. So romantic.

This hotel also has a pool, hot tub, BBQ area, gym, and laundry room. I told Rick that everyday I want to make a new recipe from Pinterest, but then I realized I don't care if it's from Pinterest I just want to make something new everyday. Which will probably turn into make something new a few times a week but just cook everyday. So far so good but we don't have an oven so I've been crock-potting like it's nobodies business. They have toaster ovens you can use here but isn't that just for heating stuff up? Or can I actually bake a cake in a toaster oven?

It's actually really pretty here if you just overlook the swamps. 

The Arkansas River.

Besides the humidity that hasn't even really started yet and the swamp smells, I like it here. It's very green. Such a nice change from the desert. Even when you get into the busy city you can look in every direction and just see green.

Since I flew here, I left my car in Arizona for my In-Laws to use. Rick has his car out here, but he takes it to work everyday. I didn't really like that my options would be to either be stranded in a hotel while he was at work or take him to work and pick him up everyday when it's an hour drive one way. We have been talking about buying a new car forever because ours are both hanging on by a thread. So, for my birthday, Rick got me this beaut.

Notice how shiny it is but also the low gas prices.

 It's really nice to drive a car that doesn't spill water from the AC all over your feet when you make a left turn like Rick's car does, and that doesn't have broken door handles so you have to roll the window down and open it from the outside every time like mine does. It's a stick which I don't love but I'm used to it already. That last line should bring tears to my Father's eyes.

Lastly, a few month ago I started a Twitter account as a place to record all the things that Rick says and does in his sleep. Normally he would wake me up by talking and I would go back to sleep and forget about it. Now I just grab my phone and update it. You can follow it on twitter www.twitter.com/ricksdreamworld OR you can just look at the side of the blog because I'm going to keep it on here from now on.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

After 45 days of being apart, I went to Arkansas to visit Rick for a week. It was wonderful and I finally felt like myself again when we were together. We did a lot of fun things and celebrated our 3rd Anniversary (more blog posts on that later). The Railroad puts you through a lot of uncertainties and decisions for the early stages of your career, and we have certainly been no exception to this rule. At first Rick was going to be there just the 90 days, then 2 weeks after he arrived, Tucson started requesting that those employees who were in Little Rock come back. We had no idea how long Rick was going to be out there. Now, Tucson has plenty of employees and are putting them all to work, and Little Rock is desperate for workers. With a borrow out, you have to stay there for 90 days but you can stay longer if you'd' like. Most guys don't because they have wives and kids who need them back at home. One of the guys asked the management how long he could stay in Little Rock. The management said they needed people until 2014. After a lot of going back and forth and "but what if"s, we decided that I'm going to quit my job and move to Arkansas to be with Rick, and he's going to work out there for as long as he can.

I just bought my 1 way ticket to Arkansas, and I leave in a little over 2 weeks. I gave Chad and Christy my 2 week notice, and I am so sad to be leaving my nanny family. I love them so much. This move is not permanent (at least for now, who knows what other adventures Rick's job will bring), but we have no idea how long we will be out there. Could be 3 months could be 6 months could be a year. We will leave all of our stuff in Arizona and just bring clothes. When you go on a borrow out the railroad pays for you to live in a hotel, so that will be my new home sweet home. Luckily the hotel that we are staying at has a kitchenette. Full size fridge, a sink, dishwasher, cupboards, dishes, stove top, and microwave. We will get a toaster oven and a crock pot. If the hotel didn't have these things, I seriously don't think I could do it. Months without a kitchen? No way.

The best part about all of this, besides being able to live with Rick again, is that every 26 days he gets a guaranteed 4 days off, and we can use those 4 days to plan little trips. He already had his first 4 days off when I came out, and for his next time off we will be headed to Utah for the 4th of July. You have no idea how happy this makes me. I'll be damned if I have to relive last years 4th of July. No way.

I can't wait to be with this handsome guy again. I'm a little nervous because I don't know what I'll do all day. Luckily I still have my online schooling to do. And I keep telling Rick that I'll go fishing while he's at work. He thinks I'm kidding. I'm not. I will also be able to fill up my free time by trying to manage my curly hair in 100% humidity. I was only out there for a week but I started to look like Monica from friends when she went to Barbados.

If things get too bad I can always just do what she did. I'm sure Rick wouldn't be embarrassed by me.

Arkansas y'all

Rick has been gone for a week and a half. I feel like I haven't seen him in 10 years. I also feel like my sanity is slowly draining. When I'm at work I'm talking to babies all day and then I go home and there is no one there to talk to. All my schooling is online so I don't get normal human interaction. I'm pretty sure I've called my mom everyday because I feel like if I don't get some type of adult conversation Rick will come home and be surprised to find that I've adopted 500 cats while he was away. I'm sure he'd love that.

A few days after Rick left he told me that he loves the work in Arkansas and that they are planning on hiring 200 people this year and he wants to work there. We weighed our options and were seriously considering it. I hate decisions like these because there are pros and cons to staying and leaving and I feel like there is no right or wrong answer. The only strong feeling I felt was that I'd hate Arkansas which is totally ignorant because I've never even been there. When making lists of pros and cons to moving there I didn't even include anything important. It's more like "pro: I can make my kids say 'yes ma'am' and 'no sir' and it's not weird" and "con: they'll also say crap like 'y'all' and 'reckon' regularly and it's annoying me just to think about." So I told Rick it was all up to him to decide where we would live and a few days later he told me he wants to stay in Arizona for good but that he wants to extend his borrow out from 3 months to 6 months, maybe more. I know, it sounds awful, and it's already sucky for him to be gone 3 months, but the reason is that if he can work out there for 6 months we can buy a house when he gets back. We already have an area in mind that we'd like to live. The day after we decided this I stopped feeling sorry for myself and stopped googling cat names/shelters/YouTube videos. I'll give him to Arkansas for 6 months if I get a house out of it. I'm going out there in May for 10 days, he'll come home for 4 days in June, and I have a week off in July that I'll either spend in Utah or Arkansas. Not sure yet. After that he will come home every month for 4 days.

I really would have liked to just quit my job and go with Rick, but then I think about how hard it was for me to find my job here and how much I love it and I probably couldn't just quit my job for 6 months then ask them to take me back afterwards, so then I'd have to go through the job hunt all over again that made me crazy in the first place. Also the thought of living in a hotel for 6 months with no kitchen while Rick works everyday makes me YouTube more cat videos. It's not likely that I'd be able to find a job there to keep me busy. "Hi, I need a job but only for a few months. Also, I see on the resume that you need an address for me but I actually don't live here I live in a hotel. Would you hire me?"