I have a place to live! I also have a pumpkin spice latte, which is happy because that means that it's fall! I have to use Starbucks drinks as my seasonal calendar since I live in Charleston and the few tiny trees that do change colors ARE few, and tiny (but I am going to the beach when Patten gets off work, so I suppose things do balance). Of course it is a little bit chillier, sometimes. Today it was 47 when I woke up, which means that, even though it is in the mid to upper 60s right now, people are wearing boots, scarves, leggings, jackets, sometimes all of those things at once. Meanwhile I am wearing boots, because I just got them from home and I was excited and also because someone in Asheville asked me if I was fashionable enough for Charleston, so I thought I would give today a shot, and I am sweating. Not very Charleston-girl-like;) Also, my purse is a canvasy-nylon ripstop bag thing only large enough for my tiny computer and it has a rubber bottom which makes it nice and rugged and lets me set it down anywhere, so really, the sweating issue isn't completely what sets me apart. I don't know if it's the lack of a purse that is cute or large enough to hide myself in or the fact that mine does involve rubber in the description, but I'm guessing boots or no boots, mr. asheville naysayer would still not find me fashionable enough for Charleston. I'm just setting the scene here, not trying to be boring with generalizations about the (I'm sure) nice girls around me. I DID go in Gucci the other day, because Patten was working their 90th bday in the store as one of two male servers (they requested 2 guys only and said no girls...hm), and I couldn't even fake interest in the things there.
Best outfits of today: the two little girls who just walked past with their parents. One had on a sparkly shirt and reindeer antlers on her head and the other had a plastic jack-o-lantern bucket, such as one would use when trick-or-treating. Hahahaha, yessss.
Anyway, I have somewhere to live! It is on King Street, which is one of the main downtown streets (like Boone! yay) and I will be living with a young couple, Erin and Joel. She works at the College and he is a chef, and they have a small-ish dog named Annie. The house is very cute. It is in a large brick house that has been divided into two apartments. The side with the screened in porch is our side. My room is big, there is a nice living room with a fireplace, a great kitchen, washer and dryer, the afore-mentioned screened porch, and a little back porch. I am moving in on October 15th, except not really because Patten and I will be in Pawleys Island because his brother is going to be home for fall break. He goes to school 10 hours away, so it's kind of a big deal :) I will move in the 16th when we come back I suppose. I will live there until April and then perhaps move out into a place by myself. You all know how much I like living alone, but these people are nice, this is affordable and central, and it might be a good way to make friends, because I don't really have any here.
I don't know if I mentioned this before but Patten fixed my bike, so we've been able to skateboard/ride bikes around in the evenings, which is really nice.
He also got a job! He started training yesterday and will be working as a specialist on the sales floor of the Apple store here. He likes it so far and it is right up his alley. I don't know what they do at training, but he did have to write a haiku right before I met him for lunch today. I won't share it because I don't think he would approve, but it was good stuff. So, I guess training is going well!
I filled in for him as a server at a wedding on a plantation last night. It was a long night full of running up and down stairs with a ridiculous amount of glasses and tiny plates and bowls, but the other server girls were nice and it's always nice to have some supplemental monies.
So, I have a job, Patten has a job, I have a place to live soon, he has a place to live. Life together in Charleston: CHECK :) I'm working on the school aspect. I just need a couple more shot/immunity test type things then I may register. Except I also have to do some online tests and get ANOTHER cpr certification before I may register. Ahhhhhhh. But it's looking like I don't have many classes (6?) at all before I will be done with the LPN portion and will be able to apply for LPN jobs while I finish school.
I also just got in with the Medical University hospital here as a volunteer, and I'm very pumped about it :)
I'm sorry this is so long. I suppose I should write more often. I miss you all! I know it's hard to have time to catch up on the phone, but I love emails, so if you ever feel like writing to me...do! I will probably be in Asheville sometime in the next month, but my sister is about to have a BABY in the next month, so I will definitely be going to see her at some point, we'll have to see what other days off I end up with. I love you all and think about my lovely friends all of the time. I promise I won't write a novel like this next time.

Charleston!

It's so exciting to have a job! Half Moon Outfitters agreed two weeks ago today to employ me (thank you thank you Katie Walsh for helping me!) and I started the very next Monday at the Mt. Pleasant store. The agreement is that I will spend Monday-Wednesday each week at the internet store in the headquarters in North Charleston, and two of the remaining four days of the week at the Mt. P store. I enjoy both, but at the internet store I'm solely loading product onto the website and I've really enjoyed the consistency of that type of work. Everyone here has been really nice, but I still want my favorite Half Moon employee to come visit me in Charleston!

Once I have a place to live I hope EVERYONE will come visit. Bring your babies, husbands, fish, whatever. Patten will babysit the fish. He recently acquired two, which I named Opaline and Cosby Jr. Cosby Jr. just hangs out in the little animal skull (not real, I don't think) all of the time and is not interesting. He is still more interesting than his namesake, though, unless you count jumping out of a bowl and into a dry sink in the middle of the night interesting. Opaline darts around and eats all of the food and looks pretty, so I mostly like her, except that she is semi-aggressive, which means we can't add any tiny fish to the mix, and I do so love tiny things.

The boy and I are both off of work today, so we are going to have a picnic on the beach and then apparently he's taking me somewhere that is a surprise.

I miss everyone! I will be in Asheville one of the last weekends of this month, so we all need to catch up.

When I have a dwelling of my very own I will let y'all know :)

If you're new, and you are wondering about the name, do read the first post

I'm not a blogger/getting some ducks in a row

I'm not so much good at writing on this. Obviously. But I intend to try to keep it up now, especially since I will be moving, starting a new job, finding somewhere new to live, decorating said new dwelling, living in the same town as boy, and going back to school. Those are all things that I am likely to be super pumped about and now you can read all about it right here! And yes, school was so fun the first 6 years that I just had to have more.
Since it's the only settled thing, other than that I will for sure be in the same state, area code, maybe even zip code, as boy, we will start with school. Yippee! Back when I decided I wanted to go to nursing school, but didn't change my major to Bio because I wanted to just finish a degree and get out so I could start sooner...I should have just changed to Bio. Or gone somewhere with a nursing degree. Because I decided in 2008. It is now 2011. I will be starting in Jan. of 2012. Good thing I'm not big on rushing (remember school-one degree-6 years. i know must know A LOT of things). Of course, if I had done any of that then the rest of my life would not be the way it is. And believe it or not I've had a blast living at home for the last year or so. Mom and I are best friends and she's been a great roommate. I'm also more free to choose to go to school in Charleston, live in Charleston, etc...bc I'm not tied down by anything even slightly resembling a serious career. Anyway, tomorrow I am sending my deposit to save my seat in the LPN (licensed practical nurse) program at Trident Tech! I have been advised to start with LPN because they had room for me in that in January and when that program is done I can bridge neatly with their LPN to RN program. The wonderful news is that I only have 9 (maybe even 8) classes to take to complete LPN. It turns out that I have a lot of stuff done already (6 years of school, close to 150 credit hours...I better have some stuff done), plus I am qualified to test out of 1 or 2 classes if I choose. So. Yippee again! I am very excited to finally have the nursing school plan in place :)
I would say that I would write about my job search later, but let's be honest...I really may not, so I better keep going while I'm on a roll...I had an interview in Charleston (actually in Summerville) last Monday at a dialysis center, and will be going back this Monday morning to shadow one of the current pct's (patient care tech) from 8:30 to 11 a.m. The job would be taking clients in for dialysis, setting up the machine, monitoring them, keeping them comfy, and taking them off the machine. The clinical manager is very nice and all of the people I met last Monday were as well, so we shall see how it goes this upcoming Monday. I am trusting that the Lord will lead me to the right job for me, as long as I keep searching and applying, so if I don't get this I know that there must be a better fit for me with another company. I will just keep praying about it, and I appreciate all of the prayers I know other people are saying for me. I have applied for many many jobs and not all in the same types of work, but I would be happy to do any of them. I'm just not sure what I will do with my time after I find a job and a place to live. I especially spend a good deal of time applying for jobs. It is a good thing that boy has been working all summer, because I know when I was like this about finding a different car I found it hard to concentrate on other things. That is a flaw, I know, and I will work on it. After I find a job!
On another note, I am getting so excited to meet baby Navey in a few months. I bet he will just be precious and I will want to cuddle him until he probably won't like me very much.
Boy comes home in 5 days (by the babydoll countdown), 6 days by normal people countdown. Either way...I cannot wait to see his super hot face.
And YES, those are tiny magnetic ducks swimming on a multi-colored polka dotted canister in my room. Reminds me of: Julia Gray asks me: "why is everything you have so small?"

Cupcake Liner Flower Love

I'm sure you can tell that this will be an amazing post because it begins with a picture of cupcake papers. You are so right. So... it all started because I went to Michael's craft store for a very quick trip...Of course I checked the dollar aisle bins. I never miss them when I visit that magical store. This time there were HOT AIR BALLOON/CIRCUS items. Cupcake liners (came home with me), ink stamps (also in my possession), and tiny printed paper flowers (multiple packs jumped in the basket, there was nothing I could do) were among the assortment of amazing items of crafty goodness. I was so excited. So then I thought I DON'T WANT TO BAKE CUPCAKES IN ALL OF MY FUN LINERS AND THEN GET THEM ALL CRUMBY AND THROW THEM AWAY. Solution: various cupcake paper crafts. I promised flowers last time, so those have happened. Yet to come are the garlands and twinkle light covers. I looked up some ideas for flowers, but once I sat down to actually make them I just winged it, which I generally prefer. I've turned one of the flowers into a box topper...

The hot air balloons on the box are courtesy of the stamp I got on the same trip. They match the hot air balloons on the cupcake papers!

It was a very simple project. I just folded the papers into different sizes of triangles and slipped some into each other or over each other. After those were all attached at the center of the cupcake-paper-triangle-pie I used another brad to attach them to the paper I had already smoothed out a little then glued the entire flower to the box that I had already stamp painted.

I have more little crafts to share, but right now I need to head to the store so I can bake the yummy cake cookies my sister talked about on her blog!

ALSO, CONGRATULATIONS TO MY SISTER AND BROTHER-IN-LAW! I CANNOT WAIT TO MEET MY TINY NIECE OR NEPHEW!

PS: My friend Stefan got engaged to a lovely girl named Lauren on New Year's Eve. They are finalists in a contest to win free photography for their wedding. Please read their little love story (who doesn't love a little love story?) and vote for them (they are couple #11) if you have some time :) The info is all right here: http://www.tracyturpenblog.com

Also: just in case you received multiple notifications about this post being new...let's just say I had some struggles with this post and the pictures, etc...because I was eating the stickiest doughnut ever made. I needed one of those packets of wipes you need with ribs or wings or babies. Anyway, I am sorry if your email told you that this post was up. Three times.

Nickname Acceptance

Butter bean.

Laura bean.

Baby bean.

Daisy bean.

Bean.

Beanie.

Beanie button.

I know what you're thinking. Whoever this "bean" nicknamed person is must be be a lady of extreme refinement, dignity, maturity, class, and sophistication, right? "Beanie button" especially gives one the sound of being very glamorous. Well, I do always hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you actually agree with the aforementioned statements then you are sadly alone in this world. I'm trying to think of someone who hasn't giggled when they heard my family call me BEAN in some form or fashion. I haven't found anyone in my memory so far. I'll be sure to keep you all updated on that.

The point of this ramble is that I have decided to accept my nickname(s). After a certain little tiny girl and a certain moma have been using such silly names for so long it makes sense to just go with it. On that note of acceptance, the title of this will be "Bean Here and There". I go here and there pretty often, and now I will blog about it. Also my crafting kicks. Look for cupcake liner flowers coming up soon!

Also, yes, I did start this blog because it looked like it would be such fun to design it and use lots of colors and pretty pictures. AND IT WAS. So fun.