One week, I can hardly believe it.

My parents just left not more than 20 minutes ago. Quite a sad time, if I do say so myself. Now it is just me and JJ living in this apartment. I can hear him snoring from my room – even with his door closed.

Friday we went to visit Michael. Pretty much spent the whole day doing so. We went to Wal-Mart to return an alarm clock that I picked up earlier on in the week. Michael was good, we talked and caught up on everything that has been happening in the family. The visit ended at 9pm and we didn’t get back to my apartment until a little past 1:30. JJ didn’t come because he has not yet been approved for visits. We left in the morning not seeing him much and then my parents left before he even got up. (even as I type this now its 10:10am)

I have this overwhelming feeling of sadness. I don’t like it at all..

Let’s go over the past week before I end up forgetting it all.

The last week of work was cool, they kept me on all the special projects and I was UAT testing most of the week. They had a pot luck for me on Thursday and on Friday my manager let me go at 2:30 (but because of goodbye’s I didn’t end up leaving until 4:20)

On Friday (one week ago) we went to get the truck at Enterprise. We told them we were going to Oregon and they informed us that we could not take the vehicle outside of any bordering state (Oregon doesn’t border Arizona). We were stuck, not able to do anything. We drove to drop the dogs off (as they were boarded for the week my parents helped me move) and then went home after eating at McDonald’s. I didn’t have much because I didn’t have a good feeling in my stomach and I didn’t like how things were turning out so far.

Later on that night, after my mom calling Avis, Hertz, Enterprise Corporate, we found that Avis is owned by the same company that owns Enterprise. The corporate people told us to go to one of the stores and explain our situation to Avis. So that night we drove down to the airport and asked Avis to match the rate that we had with Enterprise. They did so… and low and behold we had our truck to move. The only problem was – now it was 9pm (and we had plans to leave in the morning).

We got home and loaded up the Truck, we probably didn’t start until 10:15 or so.. and ended up finishing around 11:45. Out of any move I made – packing the truck was by far the quickest. JJ stopped over around 11:15. He and his mom remained for a good twenty minutes packing a few boxes and a mattress pad. JJ left shortly after because he apparently didn’t have enough time to pack everything he had. I found out later that he was up until nearly 3:30am packing and finishing up things. Still to this day JJ says he didn’t get everything he wanted to have packed. He was too rushed…

Finally, Friday night- we went to bed. I had no bed to sleep in so I slept on the chair in the living room. My dad came down and laid on the Couch and went to sleep, my mom slept on the love seat. I thought it was sweet of them.

The next day JJ his mom and her boyfriend came over and gave some last items to pack that JJ couldn’t fit in his car. Then we started our way up into Oregon at 8:25am Saturday morning.

At about noon we stopped in Flagstaff for Lunch at Pizza Hut and to pick up some more secure straps for the load we were taking. We tied everything down with Jute but it kept breaking – so we had to stop more than once to tie everything back down.

That afternoon we stopped for gas and I was still putting in a CD in my car while my parents and JJ left, I was also attempting to charge my phone so VZNavigator could help guide me. By the time I got on the road my parents and JJ were nowhere to be found.

About an hour or so later JJ calls me and tells me that nobody knows where I am. I told him to keep going, that I’m not that far behind them (if at all as I sped to help catch up -upwards of 100mph-). My parents I guess didn’t get that exact message and turned around to go wait for me at a Chevron gas station. I kept going, and a little later on they called again and I once again told them to continue to the next city and we could just meet up in that city.

That night we stopped in Cedar City, UT. It was a nice town. I got into town about an hour or so before everyone else did – due to the miscommunication. I booked a room and my parents booked one as well.

On Sunday we left the hotel at about 8:30 and a little less than an hour into our travel we saw speed limit signs posted of 80mph. It was beautiful. For about 15 miles and then another additional 6 or 7 miles they were testing pushing the speed limit up from 75 to 80. During this stretch me and JJ got up to 106 at one point (I only know because JJ’s speedometer goes up that high, mine tops off at … 95?).

12:30 that day we were in Salt Lake City, and by 3 we were already up into Idaho. During this whole time JJ was getting pretty badly sun burnt. We stopped for the night in La Grande at about 9:15.

Monday morning we got off at about 8:50 and before we knew it (3 hours later) we were looking at Mt Hood. We arrived at the apartment complex at about 2:15. The manager to the apartment complex informed us that we needed insurance papers and our deposit before we could begin to move in. We got the papers and went to the bank where JJ was able to get the money for us. She said she was getting negative vibes from us and wanted to know what was up. We told her our concern with the consistent bad reviews the apartment complex had received. She told us that we did not have to sign the lease if we didn’t want to. We ended up signing, but she was not reassuring in the least bit.

The rest of the day we were moving and unpacking boxes. Comcast set our services up with no problem. Then we stopped to go eat at Burgerville and went to Costco (looking for furniture for the place) and during the process got JJ a membership. We ended up getting to bed at 1:50am.

Tuesday we checked out the apartment and found that our heating didn’t work correctly. When we would switch the circuit breaker to on – the living room’s heat would run constantly and not turn off. The thermostat wouldn’t work for that room. The heat in my room wouldn’t turn on at all, the switch (to turn on a light) didn’t work- and the light in the kitchen buzzed like a swarm of bees. Finally, the bathroom didn’t have a toilet paper holder (it looks like the last person took it with them). We told the apartment complex and they told us it would be fixed either the same day, or at the latest the next day.

This day was mainly used to pick up things we didn’t have. A vacuum cleaner, microwave – pots and pans.. cleaning supplies, basic stuff. By the end of the day Tuesday our problems with the apartment had not been taken care of.

Having already been to Target, Wal-Mart and Costco we were not sure what was left for our options. We stopped at furniture place (a local shop in Beaverton) and looked at some furniture. It was a good price – but he couldn’t get the color we wanted for over two weeks (we tried to get everything big before my parents left, as they had a truck we could use). We explained our situation and the owner said he would drive the couch to our apartment when it came in because we didn’t live far. With that in mind – we bought our furniture at that store.

Then we stopped at Fred Meyer (like Fry’s in Arizona) and picked up a nice kitchen set we had seen at a reasonable price, also picked up our silverware while we were at it.

On Wednesday we registered our cars with the DMV and got our licences. We also returned those straps we had previously purchased in Flagstaff. We washed our cars then went to Shucks to pick up some hardware to attach the licence plate to our cars. We also needed to buy a longer screw to finish the kitchen table set. We went back to the apartment Wednesday evening and nothing in the apartment had yet to be fixed.

On Thursday I went for an interview at ACS. It is a company that takes inbound phone calls for Sprint. I got sick to my stomach when I walked in the building- and everything that I learned about the company grated on me. In addition it took me almost 45 minutes to get to the place. I finished the interview (after telling them what I thought of how things were) and went home. We then took a trip to the coast, went to Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City, also to Tillamook to get some ice cream. On the way home that evening we ate at Shari’s. After the job interview was over my day was good for sure, things went smoothly.

I have already went over Friday, and that brings us to today. My parents left about an hour ago – JJ wasn’t up to say goodbye and now I feel ever so lonely. I guess that’s it..

Things I didn’t mention:
The day before my interview I got a haircut and my mom made two apple pies.
It was surprising to me that JJ had a month or two off from work (in Arizona) yet wasn’t finished until after me and I worked to the last day. I understand procrastination but come on.. – and then to say it was because you didn’t have enough time? I’m not even sure he likes it out here. His most recent myspace status update said “living in my own personal hell”
Our Verizon DSL has not been working, but because we are able to get free Internet from someone else JJ hasn’t really done anything about our DSL (that we are paying for) not working.
The first day we moved in the manager told us that she would check into parking spots for us to have assigned parking (because parking here is Horrible!). She has not gotten back to us.
Last but not least our apartment has not been fixed, nothing has been done.

and now I have to get dinner for myself??
Oh please let things improve from here on out…

Tonight I’ll probably be going to Living Hope Church – if I can stomach it (feels very sick to my stomach).

just Pray.