OMG...It's been forever.

So have you ever had one of those sleepless nights where your body wakes up before your head? ....welcome to my world, at least for today. Why in the world did I go to bed at 9:00 last night just to wake up at 3 AM raring and ready to go for the day?! Ok so it has been 9 months since I have posted...good Jesus what have I been doing all this time?! This post just might run extra long because ...well it's been 9 months for crying out loud.

Ok for those of you who are completely lost and have not seen nor heard from me in that matter of time here's a run-down on my life now. I live in Dallas, moved out here September 15th (the day after I quit at the bank), accepted a job offer from Nortel (aka Nortel Networks) in Richardson, had a month's time of vacation before I started work on October 8th, I've been living with Peggy (my aunt who also works for Nortel) in Allen, I found my own apartment and will be moving out December 7th--WAHOO! So....that's the short and sweet version, the following long and extended version is pasted from various e-mails I have sent out to family and friends over the past couple of months with a more detailed update.

This was an e-mail from either my first or second week of work:

New job is soo crazy....I really haven't had time since I started to actually sit down and write an e-mail to anyone about how it's going. It's a REAL CHALLENGE, I think I send and receive like a BIZILLION e-mail a day. I've been on several conference calls and several "seasoned" employees have been walking me through stuff over the phone....well you get the picture I've been on the dang phone all day! Hahaha. Its' only my third day and I am SO busy which is a good thing, makes the day go by fast. I have my own laptop, phone, and little cubicle I sit in all day, haha. It's pretty quiet and I hardly talk to anyone face to face, we all use yahoo messenger, which by the way if you have it my screen name is ldo62185. Anyway, other than that I have a girl kind of training me off an on and really helping me out, she's only been here a year so everything that she knows and needs to teach me is fresh on her mind....YAY! I get an hour for lunch, I can take it whenever, I can come in late, leave late, leave early, work from home if I want, dress how I want....yeah, it's NICE. They have a huge cafeteria with good food, and a nice Starbucks. They didn't supply me with ANY office supplies so I went to Office Depot and spent about $150 on CRAP! Ugh, anyway other than that I am learning a lot, they all speak in code and acronyms around here so I've been walking around with a Nortel Dictionary of Forecasting terms trying to keep up with people as they talk a mile a minute. So...so far so good. I also found a place to live and signed a lease and I move in on December 7th, not the greatest time, but it's when I wanted to do it. Alright, enough for now I'll write more later,

This is an e-mail I sent....sometime last month or so:

Went to Texarkana the weekend of November 2nd and 3rd for the second time since living in Dallas. Stopped by Regions Bank saw old friends and met my replacement, she's cute! Haha. I'm glad she's young like me, the ladies at the bank can nurture and raise her just like they did with me :) The branch is looking good, complete remodel and Lord did it need it; I can't believe they painted over all of that wood! But it looks a lot bigger and nicer; I can't wait to see it when it gets finished. When I came in last weekend I came to pack up boxes and get prepared for moving...oh my Lord. I have so much crap! I don't guess we ever realize how much junk we have until we move. I've recruited some of the guys from work to help me move into my apartment because mom and Mike can't help me move :( it's the beginning of their busy season for Christmas, so I'm on my own...should be interesting haha. I haven't wanted to buy anything just yet for my apt. just because I'm not really sure what I need, I am less than a month away from moving in, and I am SO ready. The other day I forced myself to make my first new purchase for my apartment.....A SHOWER CURTAIN!! haha :) I know I'm weird, but hey I need one right?! :)
Mom and Mike actually came in to see me last weekend, and bring me some WINTER CLOTHES, haha. I guess I left all of that at Shadyside. We had a good visit though, I wanted to take Mike to the PGA Tour Golf Store, it is this HUGE golf store and they only go in where old Wal-Marts and supermarkets used to be. So you can only imagine Mike Murrah in this store....eye's glazed over, drooling over everything, and he near 'bout got run over in the parking lot he was running just to get in, HAHAHA!!! It was a lot of fun, he always takes me and mom shopping and everything so I wanted him to have a good time there. They had simulated digital golf courses and putting greens, indoor tennis courts and all kinds of stuff. We had been there probably an hour walking around and Mike looks up and he says "Well I'm ready to go if you guys are." ...LIAR. I said "Oh man, this place is so cool I could stay here another hour!'.....and we did :)
Work has been good, VERY ....VERY stressful. I've made a couple of mistakes, but i guess that's all part of being the "newbie". Everyone on the 15th floor calls me "The Cute New Girl", haha. Although I'm not the ONLY newbie, there is a guy who was hired a week after me named Perari...yeah you heard me Perari. When I met him he said "yeah like Ferrari but with a P." He's from Nigeria....enough explanation there. My friend Jaime and I say that at Nortel we have the "United Nations of friends" because we have such an eclectic group of friends. There's Ebby and Joyale, who are Indian, (Joy just says she's "brown" so we refer to Ebby as "The token Indian guy") Brandon- smartest black dude ever haha, I call him MIT, because he's taking business school class from MIT ...JUST FOR FUN!? What!?; there's Juan the Mexican, Vy Li the little Chinese guy, Sammy from Morocco with his little French accent; then there's Kelechi, he's also from Nigeria and then mmmm who else.....well that's just a small portion of us that all hang out. So yeah we always seem to have a really fun time when we get together. I'm still learning so much everyday, always staying extremely busy. My aunt was telling me about Nortel not being the typical 9-5 kind of job where you take your time and do what you want, she said it's more like the 24 hour a day job where you can never catch your breath and you don't "walk" anywhere....you run down the hall 90 mph with your hair on fire! HAHA yeah, sounds about right the way my days have been going here lately. The good thing about this job is weird but everyone says that you can't make a mistake that can't be fixed. And it's true, when I made those mistakes it was not a big deal my boss shrugged his shoulders and said "it'll be alright, we'll just fix it."....and we did. Of course with my boss' personality he could have very well been extremely mad at me, and I would have never known it. Working at Nortel is fun because I have made ssoooo many good friends and we hang out all of the time, but my actual job is SO HARD haha, it's a real challenge, but I wanted something like this, I know it will help me out in the long run professionally.
Friday was actually a fun day at work; I helped lead tours throughout Nortel for our New Grad Welcoming program with my friend Ebby. They were all very impressive candidates and had fully researched Nortel out. The New Grad program at Nortel is a very exclusive invite for new grads to come and get a taste of what the company is like. Boy do I wish I had this when I got hired. There were about 100 candidates vying for over 30 jobs so it was pretty cut-throat competition. The people in our group were mainly computer technicians or engineers and they wanted to know all about hyper-connectivity and our 4G technology; they were geniuses compared to me. Haha. I'm more on the business relations side of the spectrum so computer engineering is last on my "to learn" list. One of the last tours we gave was to our "Solutions Showcase," this is where we have simulated environments of our technology. I think the coolest things we saw was the hyper connectivity environments. Here's a little technological education for you all out there. Hyper connectivity is described as being able to control multiple switches by using one device. So for example, with the new technology that is coming out, say that you are at the office pretty late on a conference call and you really want to get home but can't get off the call immediately. With hyper connectivity you can, with the push of a button, switch the call from your office phone to your cell phone with out dropping the call and with no one on the call ever knowing. AND while your on the way home on the same conference call you can turn on the lights in your house, start your TV programming, turn on your coffee pot, unlock your doors and open the garage door, all from your cell phone....Pretty neat huh. And so when you get home you can also switch the call from your cell phone to your home office phone if you want to. So that is what hyper connectivity is all about. We also saw a demonstration of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) This is where you can watch your favorite shows like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars and when it comes time to cast your vote, instead of grabbing your cell phone or home phone to dial in and vote, a menu prompt comes on your TV screen and with your remote control you can submit your vote for the shows without ever leaving your recliner. (We are getting so lazy, haha) IPTV also comes with features where you can participate in polls, contests, and other features relating to the show you are watching....I know...AWESOME!
Everything else is going well, Dana came in Thursday night for the weekend...for a boy ..UGH! I made a flying trip to Texarkana Friday night for Autumn's 30th birthday party at Amigo Juans, we had a good time and a nice visit. Tracy and I returned back here Saturday morning and I had to house-sit through Monday, so I went to church and out to eat with a group of friends later on that evening. Sunday Dana and I FINALLY got to hang out, we did a little shopping and later that evening took Peggy (our aunt) out for her birthday to Mi Cocina, (the most amazing Mexican food EVER!) I have had the busiest weekends here lately; I'm either house-sitting or going somewhere or doing something random. I think this coming weekend will be the first weekend in about 7 weeks where I will get to do ABSOLUTELY nothing! YAY!!!
Church is going good too, I love it! We have a 20's group that meets on Tuesday and I have made lots of friends there. There is a ski trip scheduled in January that I'm going on, it's in Keystone, CO January 17-21st and I'm SUPER excited about that...I've never been skiing but hey...why not right? So me and some of my girlfriends from there are all rooming together, we're all so excited. I need to start working out NOW so that I won't be miserable the whole trip. Haha.
I've written a small novel here today! haha. I have got to get better about sending my little e-mail updates. I miss you all and hope to see you around the upcoming holidays.

Back to the Blog:

Phew! Ok so that's a little bit of the "in between" story. Hopefully your up to speed on some things. I have been busy on the weekends house-sitting, I swear I think I'm going to start my own little enterprise on the side, I think I am gaining a new client every week. My price per day always varies depending on animals and how far I have to travel, people usually want me to stay at their house, take care of the pets, bring in the paper, yeah pretty much live there while they go out of town for however long, it's just nice to have a little extra money on the side to pay for gas and groceries too. I must tell you though, my house-sitting duties recently rewarded me...BIG TIME...take a look

Yes...that would be me, and my friend Cynthia who I housesit for ....COURTSIDE AT THE MAVERICAKS GAME!!!!!! aAaAaAaAHhHhHhHhHhH!!!!!! I know right! INCREDIBLE! It was the most amazing experience I have had since I have been in Dallas! Cynthia is good friends with one of the owners of the Mavs and gets to go to all the games, well last night (November 28th) she decided to take ME! VIP parking, VIP dinner, VIP seats (mid-court, 2nd row), it was surreal. Dirk is huge in real life...I'm mean he's a big 'ol dude, but when your there....he's even taller! Haha Oh my gosh it was SOOOOO much fun! I was so grateful to Cynthia for taking me and being able to get to experience something that most people don't get to. Here are some more pics...

Devon Harris...all the girls like him haha

This was actually my first picture of the night...it was such an accident! I was trying to get my camera out to take a picture of us walking onto the court when low and behold Jerry Stackhouse comes running through to go back to the locker room...i didn't realize it was him until after my camera flashed right in his face!! ugh! I apologized, he said "It's ok, I know it was an accident." patted me on the shoulder and went on his merry little way....Holy Jesus.

This is the main photographer who is exclusive for the Mavs, I was trying to take some pictures (the ones you see below) of the guys warming up and every time I would take a picture, he would take a picture of me! Haha. So finally I took a picture of him. Haha, I think there is a fan page where all of his pictures are posted from the evening.
That would be the court and the front row....yes I know...I know...you'll forgive me soon Dirk and his trainer
So yeah all in all it was an amazing evening...I am a TRUE BLUE fan of the Mavs, once you've been, you will be too.

Church is also going really well, I go to Gateway Church in Southlake (I know ....long drive) and I LOVE it! I think every time I leave I say "I think that was the best sermon I've ever heard...I need to go pray." Very captivating sermons, awesome worship, and I have made so many great friends too. YAY Jesus! Haha. I had mentioned a ski trip in one of those earlier e-mails....it got canceled...oh well. I've got a week in January asked off for....anyone down for Rome?....I'm serious!! Haha.

I move into my apartment this time next week! YAY! First time on my own...I'm oober-excited. I have furniture, a tv, and a bed...yeah that's about it haha. I have nothing for my kitchen yet, but you know me "The Gourmet Chef" I won't go long without utensils and cookware.....yeah RIGHT! I still need help moving....I asked off for Friday December 7th and will get most of what I can carry upstairs complete and then hopefully my recruits will show up. OK I think you've had enough of me for now...if you've endured till the end...Thanks.

Cool website of the day: http://www.imalreadyrich.com/

This is a site posted by Preston Morrison, Gateway's twenties pastor for Seven, this is a sermon series he is doing at the moment....it's AMAZING. Will completely revolutionize how you view your money and your life.