Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Something New

As of this last weekend, I have gotten everything moved and settled and I can finally enjoy my new apartment. The funny thing is, I don't know what to do now! I work, yes, but not enough hours to keep me so busy that I don't have time for anything else. When I get home from work (I like the sound of that), I try to find something to do. If you didn't know already, let me tell you a little something from my past four years at school: having free time to do whatever I felt like was an extremely rare thing in college. I was always working or had school work to take care of. Now, I'm beginning to find myself bored! This is not a good thing. Fortunately, I have a few projects that I can work on!

Last summer, after going on an amazing vacation on a cruise to Mexico, Matt and I began a scrapbook of the trip. I was able to put together a few pages over the summer, but once school started, I never took it back out. Today was the first day since July that I was able to work on it. I have several pictures and pages that need to be made to finish the project, so that's one thing I can do!

Just recently, since graduating, I started making a "T-shirt quilt" out of my many USAO school T's. Making the move hindered progress, but now that I am settled, I have tons of time to begin again on this project.

Another something I look forward to beginning is cooking! Currently, my cooking skills go no farther than putting together Hamburger Helper or throwing a pizza in the oven. Hopefully I can pull together recipes and experiment in the kitchen. I'll need to learn this much-needed skill eventually, so why not start now when I don't have other kids or adults to feed!? :)

Lastly, there are always books I have yet to finish reading. Maybe a good reading every now and then wouldn't be so bad (ha ha).

That's all for now, until next time!

-Beki

Sunday, May 15, 2011

This last week.

Hello again! I apologize for the lack of posts in the last week. I have not been around internet access all week due to moving, and moving into a place with no internet yet! However, I think that my roommate Nina and I will be looking into this and getting it fixed...soon. There's hardly much else to do around the new apartment, haha.

Speaking of the new apartment! YES! I am finally moved into my new place and, for the last week, I have been organizing and placing everything in its own spots. Saturday evening, with the help of my wonderful Matt, we finished unpacking; everything (in both my room and bathroom, and some of my kitchen stuff) is in place, and it is such a great feeling. After this weekend, anytime I am back "home," it will be time to start my hobbying and find things to do. That, I am definitely looking forward to!

This weekend I went down to Comanche with Matt to spend time with him and his family, and it's been super fun! We made it in time for lunch, then immediately got started on my car. (If you have not been following me recently, I have had car issues, one to include an oil leak which really needs to be fixed!) Matt's grandpa--who knows everything there is to know about cars, no exaggeration--, himself and his dad, all got to looking at my car's engine, trying to find where this "oil leak" has been coming from. The hypothesis is that it is NOT the rear main seal. If it was, that would involve taking apart the axles and the transmission, and then remove the engine, to simply replace the tiny seal at the back of the engine. And then of course, putting back the engine. That would have taken an entire week possibly. Believing it's a leak with something else, we added an oil solution that is supposed to seal any leaks. We'll see how this works.
On top of finding the leak, the men went ahead and changed out my brake pads. Then we took my car down to the car wash so that Papaw could clean up the engine--which had been extremely greasy for the past several months. He went ahead and gave the rest of the car a bath, too. Taking my car back to the house, he pulled out a mini carpet cleaner so that I could clean the stained floor mat and floorboard in the front seat. All this to say: my car looks fantastic and is on its way to recovery!! A side note: taking my car to a shop or dealership to attempt to fix the rear main seal would have cost me (literally) $1,500, estimated. Thank God for Matt and his dad and Papaw and their help!!

Seeing as this has been pretty long, and how Matt is also bugging me to get up so we can start a movie (haha), I'll let you move on to your next daily task. Thanks for stopping by! Not sure when I'll be back next. Take care until then! God bless.

-Beki

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Frustration...

This whole "real world" thing really is beginning to frustrate me. I know that it is a good prime example of what is to come--that not all parts of life are just so easy-going and stress-free. I realize that things out of nowhere come up and change your plans, or finances in my case. It just isn't easy to deal with at the moment.
This post is going to be more of a personal rant/complaint just because I'm upset and feel the need to express my thoughts. If you don't like one complaining, then you might want to stop now. Nothing personal. And also understand, though, that I usually try to not complain about a situation but rather see everything in a positive light. I just feel the need to share everything about this...situation... haha.

As you may know--if you have been able to keep up with the last couple of posts or statuses on Facebook--my car has been giving me problems. Out of nowhere I am now having to fork out money to get it fix. This is money that was supposed to be going towards buying new things for my apartment. I guess those will just have to go on hold for now.. I can always buy that stuff later, right?? I had to spend $147 on a new radiator and anti-freeze for the car. Fortunately Dad is going to come down this weekend and try to replace it for me. However, there is more than just the radiator to be fixed. I have a pretty good oil leak as well, and this might be more difficult to fix--will probably have to take it in to a mechanic because it is a Honda and, well, we all know how the foreign cars can be a little tricky! All in all, I must fix my car soon before it croaks on me. I for sure cannot afford to buy a new one...not until this one gets paid off. It just came at bad timing because this same week, I'm putting down all the deposits for moving next week. So with knowing that my car needs a lot of fixing which requires a lot of money, I am just frustrated and getting upset. But I know that God is much bigger than any of this and He will see that my needs are met. He's a great God and nothing can stop Him!

On a brighter note: Monday I will be checking in to my new apartment and get my key! :) More on that story will be up very soon. Have a great night/day and God bless!

-Beki

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

A block in the road...

Entering into the "real world" has its many ups, while also having some downs... I have begun experiencing those unexpected mishaps that just pop up when all is going great! And of course, this mishap involves spending money which was originally intended for other things, such as moving into the new apartment and buying things for it, of course. Oh well. Fortunately--and thank God--I have a little bit of extra money to afford the situation. So what happened, you ask? Well, my car is starting to give me problems. And this is expected due to the fact it has roughly 205,000 miles on it. (It's a '98 Honda...) It started when I was driving down the highway and noticed that my temperature gauge read higher than usual and also a little bit of smoke was coming out from the front end of the hood. Of course I pulled over to check it out. I noticed a huge splash of [something]--antifreeze I believe--made it's way all over the front end of the engine. After talking it over with a few people, I think it possibly overheated and the radiator cap popped loose, causing the antifreeze to spray everywhere. I added some water, then antifreeze/coolant eventually, and it seems to be okay for now. Also I have been having issues with the oil; my car is either burning it or leaking it, and I lose it faster than it should be. Basically, it is definitely time for a fine tune-up and I need to get it fixed. That just requires extra money... JOY.... (ha..ha..)

In light of the circumstance, God provides and I will be okay. I have the money needed to move into my apartment and buy groceries; I have gas money; and I also have the apartment coming my way with a very reasonable rent. This is just one situation that happens in life, and I must learn to be prepared for all possible happenings!

Take care and have a blessed day. Count your blessings!

-Beki

Monday, May 2, 2011

A fun weekend with family.

This past weekend I had the privilege of going home (El Reno) to visit my family and spend some time with them. I always enjoy doing this because, since being at college, I haven't gotten a lot of time back home with them. When the time is available, I make sure to go and visit for a few days.

Sunday after church was my post-graduation party. Only so many were able to come graduation due to limited seating, so we had this party for family and friends to get together in honor of my graduation last week! It was a decent turn out. My grandma put together a pretty darn good buffet of sandwiches and other goodies to snack on--anything consisting of food that she puts together always turns out marvelous! She did a fantastic job on the cake too. I have a picture but no means of posting it yet. Basically what it was was the USAO school logo and it looked exactly like it! :) She's always done a great job of cake making.

The fun part, of course, was seeing what grad gifts I got. My cousins got me A LOT of new things for my apartment which I will soon be moving in to! Things such as a set of kitchen towels/oven mitt that have the coffee cafe design (my kitchen will be decorated with Cafe stuff!), a couple of wall hanging pictures, welcome mat, cookie sheet, mixing bowl with flipper and rubber spatula, an afghan with Psalm 93, and some other things! Getting all of this makes me soooo excited to be moving into my new place this coming weekend!

On a new note, last week was my first week out of school and I must say: I loved it! No worries of anything to do with school was nice. I've also begun a new project that might turn into a hobby. I have several school Ts--too many for my own good, probably--and decided to cut a lot of them up and make a USAO t-shirt quilt! I have never made a quilt before, but I have had some experience with regular sewing and I think I understand the general structure of making the quilt so, we'll see how it goes! This also gives me a lot more room in one of my dresser drawers.

I'm sleep tonight. We shall meet again another time soon. Take care until then, and God bless you. =]

-Beki