Camping...FINALLY!

We like to call ourselves campers but when we sit back and think about how many times we've gone camping recently, it's kind of pathetic!

We finally went camping for the first time in nearly 8 months over Memorial Day weekend. We camped out at Hiwassee State Park, which is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a 2 hour car ride to the park but it was worth every minute of it. While we were there, Matt took me white water rafting down the Ocoee River for my birthday. We were on the river about an hour and a half. What fun! I'm ready to do again!
-A

Dude, you're getting a Dell...job

After the ups and downs of waiting tables for 3 months, I'm considered a pro. While it's nice to know that I've mastered the art of serving food, yahoo (sarcasm), the job sucks horriby. In our endless searching for replacement jobs, Ashley came across an advertisement for a Dell career fair. After 2 interveiws they called me back to tell me that things went well, and they'd like to have me come up to the Nashville campus for testing. After the testing I waited, nervously, for a call saying things had gone well again; at that point I really wanted the job. I received the call from Sam, in talent acquisition, after about a week. He offered me the position but there were some problems. The first 5 weeks of the job are training, and I'm not allowed to miss even one day. With JD and Sara coming to town and fulfilling my duties as an usher in a wedding on the 23rd, I wasn't able to accept the start date he proposed. He told me July was a possibility, and that he was 90% sure I'd be able to start then. June 1st, 2007 Dell announces a loss in market share, and lays off 10% of their workforce globally, 8,000 people. AAAARRRRGHHHH!!! at this point I'm thinking, well at least I didn't take the job in June, only to get laid off a week later. On June, 5, Sam called me back to let me know that they had in fact approved a July class, and that he'd like me to be a part of it!
YAHOO!!! (no sarcasm) So, now I'm just waiting for July, so I can stop saying "Welcome to Puleo's, can I start you off with a Big Orange Belinni, a Puleo's pina colada, or a glass of our secret sangria?" However, those word will probably be replaced by some other corporate phrase...oh well.
-M

More Iowa visitors!

Looking back on previous blog posts, I realized that I never blogged about our second set of visitors...big surprise! We are trying to get better at blogging and if I do say so myself, I think we are improving.

Anyways, clear back in April a really good friend of mine, Kate, and her friend from college, Christina, came to visit us for a long weekend. We had a really great time hanging out. Unfortunately we didn't get to hang out with them as much as we would have liked because Matt and I had to go to St. Louis the weekend they were here. But they found lots of stuff to do and had some city experiences. They were in a parking lot and had a hit and run. Some woman backed into her car and sped off. Her bumper got dented but a short while later it popped out. Her bumper obviously got cracked but it is almost impossible to see. Then on their way back to our apartment around 10 pm they got lost in a shady part of town and wound up on a street with lots of police cars. Come to find out on the news the next day, they were right by a double homicide crime scene...good thing they drove by after the fact!


This week, JD and Sara, Matt's friends from Washington, IA, came for 3 days. They took a vacation that made a big circle around the Midwest. Many of their friends have moved away and decided to go visit them. We were their second to last stop. We showed them around the city and took them to Lynchburg. Lynchburg is the home to the Jack Daniel distillery. It's kind of funny that the world's best selling whiskey is located in a dry county. Even though we didn't get a free sample like many distilleries offer, it was still a great time.
-A

Watermelon toes

Today is my birthday and I want to thank all of you for all my birthday wishes and presents! It meant a lot to me!

Being my birthday, I thought I would treat myself and Matt by getting a take-out order of fried dill pickles. I have been craving them ever since we moved to TN. So, I called Toot's to place the order and 20 minutes later we were at home eating them for lunch. Big mistake!!! Being people who don't eat fried food and haven't even had a bite of fried food in 2 months, this was not good. Our tummies were not happy with us and we paid for it hours later. The fried pickles weren't even that good, too salty. What a bummer to have to pay for something that wasn't worth eating. Oh well, you live and you learn.

In an attempt to make myself feel younger I did something juvenile and I just had to share it with everyone. I painted my toes to look like watermelons...how corny! But it was fun and brought back some memories of the good ol' days.

-A