Moving Makes This Pauper Pull Her Hair Out

First, I would like to say ... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And now that is over with, onto the real stuff! Yesterday (Friday the 13th!) my husband and I got our naivety shoved in our faces. But in order for you to understand the depth of yesterday I must first backtrack!

** Imagine a little flashback scene in your favorite t.v. show, just in blog form. **

~ Weeks before Prince Charming and I married, we decided to rent a two bedroom, two bath trailer just down the road from his place of employment. His parents helped us fix up the place (more like do the work the renter didn't feel like doing in a timely manner) instead of the deposit and first month's rent. The flooring in the kitchen and both bathrooms was ripped out and replaced, new paint in every room and ceiling, new shower head, and repaired numerous holes in the walls. It wasn't an easy, cheap, or time sparing job. But, it got done. And afterward, it was a nice place on the inside.
Now fast forward to two months after the wedding. I was out of a job, and my Prince was working through the night every night. Not only was the rent (paired with other bills) too much for us at the time, but it was a bad neighborhood to be staying in alone at night. And in flash, we had moved.
Yet again, fast forward. This time to our two year anniversary! It is time for us to find a new home, and we see that our old landlord has the trailer next to our old one for rent. We get in touch with him and he lets us see the place. At that point in time, the home needs a lot of work. He assures us that it can be fixed within a week. When we do not hear from him in about a week and a half, we give him a call. He says he just has to put in a new stove and it is done. Now at this point in time we are about to leave for a five day vacation, so he says to contact him when we get back to get the key. After our wonderful five days are up, he hears from us and tell us to come to his home to drop off the check for the first month and pick up the key.
At this point our excitement was through the roof and so was our trust in this man. A week later my Prince's father (Bob The Builder) wants to come take a look at the place as we drop off a couple boxes. To our surprise, the inside of the trailer is not even remotely livable. There is mold everywhere, the front door is barely on it's hinges, the so called new flooring is held down with rusty tacks, there are holes in the walls in nearly every room, the stove is sitting in the middle of the living room, there is paint and drywall mud all over the floors, the hot water heater is not in working order, and there is a random gas hook up coming up from the floor in the living room. That is just what I can remember off the top of my head.
Needless to say, I am a mess at this moment. Not only are we now out of nearly all our savings, but we now have no home to move into when we have to be out of our current one by October 4th. I had a very hard time not crying until I called Merida. She was able to calm me down into fixing the problem not just worrying about it. ~

So, now you know how and why I feel so stupid. Luckily, we were able to get all but one week's rent back from the landlord. But, it is still not enough to put a deposit and first months rent on anything else in such short notice. After looking at everything I could last night, P.C. and I have made a list of places to call come Monday and one of them happens to be a realty office. If we could end up buying a home instead, that would be amazing. I will keep you all updated on the search for a place to call home.

~ Belle

White Water Rafting

White Water Rafting in Gatlinburg was A-Mazing!

I was honestly very scared to try it when it was in the planning stages. After the payment was made I knew there was no turning back. But, that didn't make it any easier on the nerves.

We got there with plenty of time to spare, so we enjoyed taking in the sights. A pair of wooden rockers located on a store front had our name all over them. And afterward, so did the bench overlooking the river!

When they called our launch time, I nearly slipped right off the bench. Our group gathered in front of a pretty hilarious river guide and he dispatched us to our smaller raft groups. Our guide just so happened to catch onto my nervousness and made it known. He wasn't mean about it or anything, but it was still a bit shocking. 

After the 10 minute bus ride up the river I was adding psyched to my rapidly growing list of emotions. Once the rafts were off the boat everyone filed out and we located our guide. Prince Charming (my husband) sat in the front row with the husband from the other couple and diagonal from me. Once we took off in the water, the excitement over took whatever sketchiness I was still feeling. When our first rapid finally arrived, well that was a completely different story. The coldness of the water paired with my growing feeling of instability made it that much more of a thrill. We seemed to zip right through that rapid with such speed that the end brought prayers that it wasn't over yet. Yes! That is correct, it was so terrifyingly fun there was no way it could be over so quickly. And lucky for me, it wasn't even close to over.

We hit plenty of rapids on the way back down the river. One such rapid actually caught me by surprise. After a particularly large set of rapids, our guide lined us up behind the already forming group of other rafters. Once every raft was through the set, we all turned around and headed back for the very rapid we had just exited. Our turn arrived more quickly then I had thought it would. As our group dove right into the oncoming splash, the front row was flooded and we headed into a nose dive. That nose dive sent me airborne and straight into Prince Charming's back. I quickly regained my positioning and attempted ride to waves and other commotion headed right at us. And again, I was launched right out of my seat and into the lap of the woman next to me. She quickly attempted to " place me back in my seat " better know as shoving me the way I came. I almost thought she was trying to push me overboard. 

Needless to say, I ended keeping my seat without leaving the raft again. But sadly, I seemed to have lost my footing once the boat was parked. I just so happened to butt plant right  into the water as we started to carry the raft up to the starting point. 

As the first outing of our anniversary trip came to a close, we realized there was no way we could only do this once. Though we do not have any photos of the event (as it was very wet), it was probably the most memorable part of our vacation. 

First Night With Keys

   Tonight I have never felt more stupid. Tonight was also the first night I was on my own at work.....
     I have been fully trained to do my job. I know completely how to do everything I need to do during my shift. I also know when to do exactly what needs to be done.
     With all that being said, why is it that when the last hour of work showed up I completely froze, second guessed myself, freaked out, and forgot a crucial element of the end of day process?
     I completely dropped the ball tonight!
     The only comment that comes to my rescue tonight is the hard truth that I did the 9 am to 1 pm shift, a 3 pm to 4 pm interview with the district manager, and the 4 pm to 10:30 pm shift all on nearly two hours of sleep.
     I do not take comfort in that rescue!
     It is just so hard for me to wrap my head around tanking so hard like that.

     And now it is time for this pauper to get some sleep! :)

~Belle