The Shotgun Toilet: An Alex and Beth Adventure

So, a couple of days ago, I noticed a strange sound emanating from our bathroom. I first assumed that it was construction. I mean, they’ve been “constructing” all semester long at unruly hours of the night, so why not put sheetrock in the apartment right above us at 3 a.m.? However, I decided that it did not sound like a nail gun, but really more like a metal bucket filled with screws and washers and nuts that someone was banging on the bathroom floor every thirty seconds. While this is truly what it sounds like, it is highly improbable because the only reason a neighbor would spend their time banging buckets of nuts on the floor is to annoy us and there are much better ways (as we shall see). So, after finally ruling out the bucket of nuts idea and actually convincing Alex that there was a noise, since he claimed he couldn’t hear it, we decided that it was the toilet. It sounds like the upstairs toilet is fixing to be flushed but then the operation is aborted. Again, it can’t possibly be a human doing this because it goes on ALL DAY and no one wants to annoy their neighbors so much that they don’t go to work or sleep. So, I did some research online….

It appears that our friendly neighborhood toilet has a case of (dun Dun DUN) the Phantom flush. It has something to do with the seal in the back and is easily fixable. However, being that our apartment runs like a public school system or an ill run company, the problem will not be fixed for the next few days, if our friend has even put a work order in for his apartment. Instead, our neighbor, whose bedroom is directly above ours, has decided to drown out the phantom flushing with his television. So last night, as I was laying in bed, trying to get some shuteye, I was wooed to sleep (more to annoyance) by some kind of African tribal flutes or Phil Collins or something of the sort. Note: I resorted to sleeping with earplugs. So, this is my rendition of the Sounds of the Most Ghetto Apartment Complex in the World, composed last night (an original composition by Bum):

Mumble
Mumble
Mumble
Scream
Flush
Mumble
Mumble
Flush
BANG
(silence)
Laughter
Mumble
Clap
FLUSH

All of this translates to me getting up in the wee hours of the morning and relocating to the teeny tiny love seat in our living room and Alex getting zero winks. I hope the problem gets fixed, so our neighbor can sleep without watching action movies all night. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that you cannot submit a work order for someone else’s apartment, although I may try. Are we graduated so we can move yet?

Saving Money= Making Memories

I've got a little story for ya' Ags. It all started on a stormy Tuesday night....

Alex: Hey Beth, will you cut my hair with my new beard trimmer/hair clippers?

Beth: Heck no! I'll mess it up!

Alex: No you won't. I've seen them do it. I'll tell you how. I trust you.

Beth: Fine....

Alex (sitting in bathtub on a stool): Okay, run the clippers down the back of my head. I just want to cut some of the length off first.

Beth: Ooh. This is easy!

(Beth successfully trims the back of Alex's head)

Beth: Okay, it's pretty short now. I'm going to go the other way and get some more off........OOOOOPS!

Alex: What?!? What?!?

Beth (shrinking away): Errr. I'm going to go get a mirror (and a camera).

Alex (after seeing what has taken place) : Oh my gosh! I have a presentation on Thursday! What am I going to do?

Beth (in hysterics): Wait! I have an idea! (runs to other room) Now, just sit still.

(That's right ladies and gentlemen, I colored Alex's head with a black crayola marker. He didn't go for it though. He got a haircut today.)

Just wanted to share that little moment in history from our marriage.

In later news, Alex accepted the Frito Lay job in Irving, so we'll be movin' on up to Dallas in January. I'm still kind of at a loss as to what I'll be doing but I'm sure I'll figure it out. It will most definitely include some kind of higher education and/or tutoring. Yay!

Job alert...

Well, lemme tell you that once we're out of college, we'll write in this thing alot more often. With working and school and church and eating and sleeping, there's barely any time to do anything else. Alex has been applying at different places for a job after graduation in December. He got a third interview with General Mills, a possible second interview with Textura, and he's applied for at least five more, one being a financial analyst for Proctor and Gamble in Egypt (fun!). We're still praying through all these opportunities. God's been really good in the past, so we trust Him now!

The decline of Western civilization...

So, within the past two days, Alex and I have noticed that the ads on ALL of the sites that we were visiting were getting pretty terrible, and by terrible, I mean pornographic. It was to the point where we were looking for email addresses to write the companies that own these sites for letting such smut be put on their website. I searched for any new law that had been passed that allowed such ads to be put all over creation. While doing this, we decided that the moral fabric of our country is decaying. When we saw that Fed-Ex had smutty ads, we had an epiphany. Alex hadn't run any spyware on his computer for about two months. Apparently, we had gotten some sort of bug that took over other ads and put in smutty ones. To avoid this, download this software...

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

Well, Alex and I survived our first few nights apart. I went home to good, ole', Abilene last weekend to see my little sister in the Homecoming Court. It was a fun weekend, but I was anxious to get home and see my sweetie.

The week itself was pretty busy. Work and school (as always). Alex had two tests on Tuesday that he studied for and then we switched spots and I started studying for my two tests today (Thursday). Between that, we had Bible studies, chess club, working out, grocery shopping, and...wasting alot of time online (facebook is the bane of my studying times).

Alex had career fair last week and he applied at a few places. General Mills would make us move to Arizona, Minnesota, Arkansas or somewhere where no one else lives. He also applied at Textura (http://texturallc.com) which could possibly put us in the UAE (www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/604.gif) in January. If you are the praying type, we would appreciate some chat time with the Lord. That would be a huge step for a newly married couple. Even if both of those jobs fall through, Alex still has an offer on the table from Frito Lay and that is why God is so good.

We're off to Huntsville State Park this Friday for a break from dumb school. Hopefully it won't be swamped with Boy Scouts (there's supposed to be some kind of national service day). We're going to practice the art of parcour: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEbYtOEftc0 .
Hopefully this doesn't mean broken faces...

Ramadan

Hey guys!

Today, Alex and I have been married for a month. I know that we promised honeymoon pictures but it's been crazy since school has started. God has provided us with a great job tutoring high risk high school freshmen at a school designed to give them college credit. That and reading for school has been keeping us busy!

Alex and I have had a great week so far. I went to bellydancing class on Sunday. I don't know if I'm going to keep going to the class, but I'm definitely buying a skirt. :)

On Sunday afternoon, I had the opportunity to go over to Fadhliani's and watch her and a friend cook, so I could learn. I met Fadhiliani in my Arabic class. She is here on a Fulbright Scholarship from Indonesia. Then they invited over a couple more people and I called Alex. In all, we had 4 Indonesians, 1 Indian, a Russian, and two Americans. It was so fun and we really learned alot (and ate alot).

Last night, we had Eric, my ex-coworker, over for dinner and an episode of Planet Earth. It was really fun but we ate too much. Eric is going to reciprocate the invite by letting us come to his slip-n-slide party. WHOOP!

Finally, the holy month of Ramadan starts on Thursday. As one of the Five Pillars of Islam, Muslims from all over the world will be fasting from food and sex during daylight hours. It is a time of community building and purification (a friend has already asked Alex and I for forgiveness for anything they have done- they say this is a tradition because Muslims want to go into Ramadan with a pure heart.) Alex and I have decided to fast alongside the Muslims. We've been invited to the mosque on Friday with Fadhliani. We'll keep you updated on our comings and goings. We love you!

Beth

Quick update

Everything is going great. Beth and I are continuing to thank God as we see Him provide for us. Grant money came in today so rent and bills are no longer a concern, we both have job interviews today, and I have a job offer on the table for when we graduate. Perhaps I should write all this when I have more time to fully develop my thoughts but it can basically be summed up in God is so faithful. Matthew 6, as with the rest of God's word, is so true. God bless, we love you all.

We're HOME!

We got back on Friday from sunny Cozumel (which was stunningly beautiful and uber-fun). We'll post pics of the honeymoon soon after we run our fifteen bajillion errands tomorrow (most of which involve changing Beth's name on all important documents). We love you!
Beth and Alex

Welcome!

Family and Friends-
We are so blessed that you want to continue knowing more about us and our lives. You can see that we've already gotten started on the blog. You can leave anonymous (or not!) comments by clicking on the word "comments" below each blog. Please feel free to email us and let us know how life is at: alex.and.beth@gmail.com . We love you!
-Beth and Alex

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Questions? Ask Alex, cause I am not a techie.

Move-In Day Stories!

- So Alex despises moving and it's not my favorite thing ever. I decided to express my sentiments with my shirt (The Worst Weekend Ever). But really it wasn't. God was faithful about the weather situation and it was just regular can't-breathe-its-so-humid kind of weather. Yay!

-Thanks to you fine people (and I really mean thanks!) we had about 17 car loads of wedding gifts but we are set to go! (Now all we have to do is fit it into our kitchen) After we get everything unpacked, we will invite you all over for dinner...at one time.

- I don't have a picture for this one, but I should. Alex wanted to try out the juicer so we bought 10 limes at wal-mart for a dollar and he made lime juice (with a little sugar). I tasted it and my face was puckered for about 10 minutes. Alex drank it though, and then felt sick afterwards. I made him choke down some milk to neutralize the acid that he drank. Oh, college chemistry...

-Upon moving in, we found a few things that really make this place home. The first is this cabinet. It sags about 3 inches in the middle- just enough to make you think that it won't even hold a cookie sheet. Alex has already fixed it. What a handy man! We also found large piles of dead roaches (Alex actually found a pile with his head when he laid down in the closet, but that's beside the point.) At least they are dead. Let's hope they and their million babies stay that way.

-Some house church family came and helped us load and unload. Without them, it's quite possible that we would be spending our honeymoon moving and unpacking (ooh lala). Linda, Dave, and Pam were experienced movers. My old roommate Elizabeth and a coworker, Eric, helped out too. We paid everyone with cold water.


-We got a little loopy after seven hundred hours of packing and moving, so we walked to HEB and got some sherbet (only after one of our neighbors that we don't know pretended that they were going to run us over in the parking lot...). I think it was probably the best sherbet we've ever had.

-We got all new appliances. It's really quite nice. Until you're trying to make banana nut muffins and the simple task of preheating the oven evolves into lighting the instructions (which had been left in the oven) on fire. Alex was still sleeping and when I realized what had happened, I had visions of our new apartment going up in flames. My first instinct was baking soda but Alex said that wouldn't work and then I thought about our fire extinguisher that was in a box buried under pans and dirty socks. Needless to say, Alex was quick to act (after I screamed his name and ran around the apartment) and we found out that our smoke detector works. Sunday mornings can be so exciting.
- This is my favorite. Because our new place is so near HEB, many residents walk three minutes and "borrow" shopping carts to get their groceries home. As a result, we have about 20 shopping carts next to our dumpster. Alex and I got creative and used them for moving purposes. They were really loud, they got stuck in the mud, and if the sidewalk slants just a little, the baskets would over the edge into the grass. Alex decided that he looked like a janitor and I would be a homeless woman (carrying a vacuum cleaner). We also found out that our complex has a lack of handicap ramps from the parking lot. :)

[Post-move edit: Everything is settled in THE DUNGEON (aptly named for the complex's lack of windows). It took me three days to unpack, organize, and hang things up. I gave a huge bag of clothes away because I have to share a closet with someone now...but he's worth it :) - Beth]

The Dreaded M-word!

MOVING! Wedding plans are falling into place (finally!) and it seems like this thing is really going to happen! We're going to be moving all of our stuff to our new digs this weekend and guess what! There is a sixty percent chance of rain for the weekend. Yikes. Be expecting fun pictures of wet people. -Beth

Thank you

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of our friends and family. It means so much to Beth and I the amount of support, prayer, and love you have shown us. We truly are grateful. Let us know how we can be praying for you!

T-Minus three weeks

Alex drove down to C Stat and surprised me this Wednesday and we got our marriage license taken care of (two trips to the courthouse, a frantic call to Mama Wise, and 37 dollars later.) Then I got strep throat!