homeless adventure part talatta: born again

we are no longer homeless!  so yesterday we left our first home, which looked like this:

and now are at our new home, which looks like this:

except for our air mattress, we have no furniture haha.  grandmas lent us a table and chairs, but they are still in my car.  

today we went to our new ward, which was super friendly and alot smaller than our last one.  the lesson in sunday school was about the rich man who asked Christ what else he could do to follow him.  Christ answered-give up all you have and come follow me. people in class were talking about giving up all your material things (which is only one part of that parable, right?) so i mentioned how having only one pot and one pan has made me realize we could give up all we have in our storage unit, and giving up everything isnt a big leap from where we are right now hahaha.  oh man.  

speaking of church, and being mormon and such, the manager, who is an elderly man, noticed that my phone number was 6666.  he asked me if i was christian and i answered yes.  Oh! are you a real born again or just christian in name?  oh, actually im mormon!  oh uh well about the deposit... haha lets just say he went from excited to really awkward really fast.  then when we came with the deposit, he grumbled about how if he had known sooner that we would only stay for 3 months he probably wouldnt have rented to us (he knew the whole time), that it was a renters market and he probably was too eager to rent the apartment out, blah blah blah.  anything to do with the fact that he now knew that we were mormon? hmm.  oh, and did i mention that TWICE he made us go on a journey to get cash or a money order when he told us we could use a check initially?  yes.  im just glad he didnt totally decided we werent worth it.  

anyways, later today we are goin to ride bart, so i have some idea what the heck i am doin when i start my internship tomorrow, and so i dont get lost on my first day.  that would suck.  

YAY FOR HAVING A PLACE TO LIVE!!  but if you want to come visit me, bring your own bed.

homeless adventure part it'nane: the epad

so. we made it to california in one piece!  well, technically two pieces since we drove two cars.  holy crap, driving through nevada is SO boring.  this time, we stopped in reno for the night, which we have never done before, and it was a nice way to break up the trip.  we stayed in a butt cheap casino hotel that turned out to look pretty nice actually.  if they were planning on ripping us off by gambling, HA.  not happening.

who knew that reno would be the place where brian proclaimed a desire to bond with people??  the 49ers drafted a guy from UNR and brian, while waiting for our food to come to the table, said "i feel like bonding with all these people!  we have something in common!"  weird.  brian doesnt usually want to bond with anything, especially people haha. we also stopped in vacaville and walked around the outlets for a little bit, and let brians car cool down.  it was fine, but the turbo (im guessing here, i really dont know what im talking about) makes the engine run hotter so there is an additional intercooler needed to cool the engine down.  but after driving for a few hours, it still gets pretty hot.  i think.  actually, it was like 90* in vacaville so we needed a cool down too thanks to neither of our cars having A/C.  whoever thought that was a good idea needs to be shot.

so we made it to grandmas house safely.  first thing, we got into her pool and cleaned it for her.  ahhhh i have many a memory of jumping into a pool right after arriving at a grandmas house. classic.  yesterday we spent driving around the ENTIRE bay with the exception of the city, which we almost accidentally visited.  what were we doin? oh, looking for a place to live.  it really doesnt help when people never call or email you back. so lame.  so we drove around forever, visited several sj sharks stores, and saw way too much of the bay in one day.  today grandma and i went to the farmers market, then we will take her to lunch at her fav chinese place, then we will go on another housing hunt. yay.  i hope you hear the sarcasm in that.

do you guys have grandmas in law that you intrude on?  i dunno, grandma is great, and this is the second time she has let us stay with her for a few days.  its clear she is a little lonely because she constantly tells us about random things, but she is a great tour guide and tells you all about the street you are on and how a girl died on it (thanks for that nice bit, grandma haha), and she could tell you (and will tell you) the summary of every book she ever wrote.  but its still awkward!  i dunno how much i should just nod and agree, or if i should interject (cuz she seems to just talk over that anyways haha), or if i should look at brian for help when im feeling awkward.  he is so good with her though.  super patient, and kind, and accommodating.  i love him more just watching him treat his grandma with such love.  anyways, im sure she likes the company, and she always has questions about the computer or her new epad (she means ipad but it cracks brian up to hear he say epad constantly) or how to use the tv guide (she has 1000 channels and just uses the guide that comes with the paper, not the one on the tv for dish network).  she is so kind to let us stay here, but im eager to get out of her hair.  hopefully something this afternoon will work out!

homeless adventure part wahid

so my second year of law school has finally ended.  and im pretty sure i remember none of the stuff i studied so hard for finals.  not that ive had a chance to lazy around that much.  why you ask?  ive had two weeks of summer, essentially, so why havent i had a chance to let the wax build up in my brain??

because yesterday we moved.  yup, packed up all our belongings.  and today we are driving to california.  hallelujah.  no, we are not taking all of our stuff.  most of it is sitting in resplendent glory in a storage unit.  the only things we are taking with us are the essentials.  by that, i just mean the crap we could fit into two tiny 2-door cars.

yesterday, we had a home.  today, we are homeless.  we still have NO idea where we are going to live in ca.  all we know is that my internship is in oakland and we dont want to live in oakland.  im hoping-praying-crossing my fingers-determined to live in an extended stay hotel instead of an apartment.  why you ask? because i want furniture.  and no bed of mine fits in a 2 door honda.  not to mention i spent two weeks trying to find apts and of course nothing is furnished (what married couple DOESNT have their own furniture??) and  the hassle/stress of finding cheapo furniture that we can leave there is not worth it to me.  no way.  give me an extended stay. and that way we dont have to pay additional utilities either!

so, what are my ultimate thoughts on this homeless adventure we are about to have? well, up until about 2 weeks ago, i was really excited. then i was stressed.  now im terrified. oh, im sure it will be TONS of fun.  but the unsurety of it all freaks me out.  yes i am a planner, yes i like to know where the crap im going to be living for the immediate 4 months.  (actually, we are homeless when we come back to UT too at the moment, but thats a whole other stressball) yes, id like to think we arnte going to be sleeping in our car or in some equally embarrassing situation that i hope my supervisor doesnt find out about. but oh well. we didnt bring the TV, we DID bring camping gear and our freeboards and swimsuits, and im stoked to have a homework free summer with my honey.

i have already dubbed this summer the homeless adventure, and im sure this will be the kind of epic story that brian and i will look back at when our ADD crazed children are running around screaming like wild animals and think, "lets go on another homeless adventure and leave these hooligans in storage."  just kidding.  we would leave them at home...and lock their grandparents in with them. :)

lets hope this doesnt become our new neighborhood...