Coche Nuevo

Well we finally bit the bullet and traded in the ol' Jeep Liberty for a more fuel efficient 4 door sedan. The ol' Liberty had served me well since my sophomore year in college (over 8 years ago), but the gas guzzler was taking a toll on the ol budget. You may remember a post a couple months back where the beast hit its 100,000th mile, so it was about that time where all good American made cars come to an end.

After much research and evaluation we decided on a Volkswagen Jetta. We were able to get a really good deal on it because it was a demo car at the dealership. We also, thankfully, didn't have to use the Cash For Clunkers hogwash and got a really good trade-in on my Jeep. For all you guys looking to trade in a car...the secret is ARMOR-ALL. I armor-alled that baby up before I took it in to the dealership and they gave me a wonderful offer for a trade-in because "it looked so clean and in such good condition" (I promise you, it didn't look that great before I took some elbow grease to it that morning!).

So here is our new car...I LOVE IT so far (especially since it averaged 30 mpg on the last tank of gas)!

Well I also must post my husband's new "invention". Note the tennis ball hanging from the garage ceiling below:

Well apparently, my dear friends, I was not parking the car properly in the garage. I was either leaving too much space in front of the car or pulling in too close. So this tennis ball on a string, my dear friends, is so that I know when the car has been parked in the correct location. The tennis ball should be barely touching my windshield....

INGENIOUS!!

YUMMM!

Well I was very excited yesterday as I was checking out at Wal-Mart to see that M&M's has now come out with a COCONUT flavored M&M. Many of you might not know, but I am IN LOVE with anything coconut. So, I immediately grabbed the bag and threw it in with the rest of my purchases. Well my review is that they are pretty good. I was hoping there would actually be real coconut inside, unfortunately there is not, but there is a pretty good coconut flavor. So for those of you out there that are coconut fanatics like me, I do recommend you give them a try to get your fix!

New Job

Well I FINALLY found a job here in Pcola! After 6 months of scouring the newspapers, career builder, usajobs, and any other job website, sending in countless resumes, cold calling engineering firms, and signing up with every staffing company in the area, I am finally employed! I actually got the job through a staffing company, so I guess that is technically who I work for. The job is a "temp" job...but for 2 years...which works out perfectly for me being that that is about how much longer we will be here.

So, about the job. I'm working with a local school district in their Exceptional Student Education (ESE) Dept. This Dept. is district wide, so we have teachers/staff in each of the 65 schools in the district. Due to one of the recently passed stimulus bills they received quite a bit of mula, and my job is to spend it for them! I don't exactly have a job title but its somewhere close to a purchasing clerk with a couple of twists. Basically I receive orders from all of the teachers and staff and then I go and purchase the equipment/supplies, then I will receive, distribute, and track the items that we receive.

I was really hoping to land an engineering job to fulfill my 4 years of work experience so I could sit for the Professional Engineering (PE) Exam (I have 3.5 years and only need a half a year more of experience...ugh!). However, I'll happily take this job after seeing the extremely tight job market in this area....it is truly a blessing! Hopefully I can work this into experience towards that MBA I worked so hard for!

So, that is what I am doing for 35 hours of my week. I started 3 weeks ago, and so far I like it. It can get kind of slow when I don't have orders coming in, but when I do have orders, I really like the job (can't beat spending someone else's money, right?!). Its like Christmas when my orders start coming in...except the things in the boxes aren't really that exciting and I don't get to keep them...oh well, there is just something about getting a box with your name on it!

As for Garin, he is a busy big bee. He has had his first two flights in the Navy's T-34, and so far he has done well and come back alive ;) He says the only drawback is how HOT he gets while he is in the plane. He has to wear a flame retardant flight suit (that doesn't breath much), gloves, a parachute (comforting, huh?!), a helmet, and a harness...basically he can't have any skin showing anywhere...and the A/C barely puts a dent in it. And on top of that the exhaust from the plane comes out in front of the cockpit (makes a lot of sense?!) so add that extra heat into the equation as well. He is constantly studying for his daily flights so I feel like I hardly see him even when he is home. But fortunately God is blessing him and he is excelling in typical Garin fashion.

The T-34 (plane Garin currently flys)

The flight "get-up" (obviously not Garin sporting it)

Well that's the current life of the Kirkpatricks. Hope you all are doing well!