Wednesday, August 30, 2006

New Template

So what do you think of my new layout? Any suggestions? Do you love it or hate it? Just don't care? LOL

I'm trying out the newest version of Blogger. So far it is easier to use than the older version, I think it will be better especially for people new to this kind of stuff.

Not much is happening here. Trying to get things taken care of so that I can move down to Grand Ronde as soon as possible. We still don't know about that mobile home, I guess it will be this week-end or something like that before Howard can see it. I really really hope that it's a nice place, and that we can move into it over the week-end. I know that it might be a few days more than that before we can move, I have to get the travel permit for the truck and such, plus gas. So I'll need something like $100 to get it all taken care of, but then ... there will be nothing stopping me.

So far none of the jobs I've applied for have come through. I'm sort of glad though, because I'd rather look closer to where we are going to live than Salem, if there is anything that is. Besides I'd have to move right now in order to be there for the first day of school. I think school starts on September 5th this year. So this gives me some time to relax.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Hood River again

Well, I'm back in Hood River for a little while. I didn't find an apartment yet, but Howard has a good lead on a double wide mobile home for $550 a month, it's on 5 acres and we might be able to buy a car from the guy. I'm not 100% sure that this is all for real, Howard hasn't seen the place or the car, the guy gave him a ride part of the way back to Salem last night. But if it is for real it would be wonderful, because it's supposed to be within walking distance for Howard to go to work.

I'm a bit upset with Howard right now anyway, he's mad because I had to bring Dad's car back and so I can't take him to work any more. Which means that he either has to find a car pool, or walk on the days that Snowanna can't take him. So, according to him, I'm not doing everything I can to get the car for a while longer. But it's the only car that is reliable around here, Mom's car will just decide not to start for no reason, and his little truck is getting old. They don't want this car to get worn out driving all that way all the time. I can't blame them, but I wish things were different. I know that I'm not the one walking 46 miles one way everyday, but there isn't much I can do right now.

Anyway, I don't know how long I'll be here. I need gas money to get down there with the truck, and if this house thing is real and comes through next week-end we will be moving anyway so ... I just don't know. Oh well, eventually everything will work out, it's just hard waiting for it.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Spirit Mountain.

Some of you already know that Howard found a job out at Spirit Mountain Casino. That's about 3 hours from here. So starting Tuesday he will be in training and I will be driving him to and picking him up from there. We plan to stay with Snowanna this week. I'm hoping that I'll find us a place to live that will be closer than Snowanna's place. I'll be looking all week. I'll also be applying for jobs that I can do. There are 4 with the Salem/Keizer school district that I'm going to apply for. So I'm thinking that Dalles would be best, it's a little closer to Salem than to Grand Ronde, 11 to Salem and 15 to Grand Ronde, but I think that will be fine. Once we have a place my next task is going to be looking for a car, something cheap, small and good on gas would be great. I would have liked to have found jobs in a place where I didn't have to have a car. Mass transit is a wonderful thing. But our situation isn't going to work without a car. I do have the truck, but ... it's a truck and doesn't do well on saving gas. Besides there is going to be a lot of problem getting it registered and licensed here in Oregon, since we don't have the title. I didn't know that it would involve so much paper work and money to get a lost title. Oh well, I'll have to do some thing about that before we can sell it.

Aidan was seen by another EI specialist, she says that he is behind in a few areas, but ahead in a few others. If I'm back in Hood River next week, August 31 in fact, they both want to see him. And we will talk about what he needs. I'll then have the paper work for who ever handles that where ever we end up.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Changes.

I was chatting with some people the other night and the subject of loosing contact with old friends came up. For some people it seems they can't keep in touch if they aren't able to see the person fairly often, for others it's distance that seems to come between them and their old friends. But I think the saddest of all reasons for loosing contact with friends is because they changed when they found a new relationship (Boyfriend/girlfriend). For instance one of us had a friend we had known since high school, nearly 20 years. This friend embraced different cultures, enjoyed learning languages, talked of travel to some Spanish speaking countries in order to use her Spanish language skills, and never spoke a racist word. That is until she fell in love with a racist man. He wasn't very vocal about his racism at first, but slowly things came out. Some times what he had to say sounded okay, until you actually thought about them. So this friend slowly developed into a racist. Getting up set about things that once brought her joy, such as Cinco De Mayo celebrations, and black history month. Maybe it was a good thing when she and her racist husband moved over one thousand miles away, and communication stopped between her and her old friend, because there were no arguments or angry feelings. Just sadness.

That's was the extreme among the people I was talking to, but there were stories of people who gave up things they once enjoyed, and then stated that they had never liked them. Or people who started to watch sports when before their relationship they avoided watching them. I think the strangest part about that is that they all seem to think that they always liked or disliked what ever it was, or they always believed such and such when in fact they didn't before getting involved with their newest boyfriend/girlfriend.

Maybe we all make little changes to our attitude, our outlook on life, and our likes and dislikes in order to suit our new love. I hope that those changes aren't enough to cause friends to give up on me/ you/ us.

On the topic of relationships, what do you think of someone who encourages their lover to behave in a certain fashion but then turns their back on them because it no longer fulfills their needs? How much time should you give someone to ... become more responsible with money for instance, before you decide they aren't going to change enough for you to work it out? And how much responsibility should you take yourself if you used to encourage spending money rather than saving it, for long enough that it became habit in your lover? Are we even responsible for the changes we encouraged in our lovers?

As you can see, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I've tried to look at my past relationships and see if I changed for them, or if they changed for me or both. It's not easy to see those changes from the inside. I know that I can't say what, if anything, I changed about myself in my relationships, but I can see some changes in some of my friends and family brought on by their relationships.