I went for my drug test yesterday. I will start work on Tuesday. If anyone is interested in who/what I work for, the website is http://www.c-a-m.com/ compressor systems division. All of my benefits and insurance start on DAY ONE of employment. Mom didn’t believe me, but my employment offer letter even said they do. Best of all, I get my tuition reimbursement. If I don’t like it, I am going to stick it out til I finish school so they will pay for it all! I even get my own company issued laptop.

I am taking Sociology and Computer Science this semester. I am way more excited about the computer science class. We will study office 2007. I get to put it on my personal laptop. Also, it will be what I am using at my new job so I will get to learn it twice as fast. Pretty awesome!

So the latest and greatest on the wedding: Hilary has officially agreed to sing live at the wedding. I am SOOOO excited! That makes for two live singers! I am having a REALLY hard time finding a photographer. That seems to be the hardest part of this! Dad said he had a Polaroid he would take pictures with. Good ol’ dad…

I am keeping Sierra today. I got her some princess crayons and two coloring books. Between coloring and watching Sponge Bob, she hasn’t made a peep in the last 30 minutes. I have been picking Travis up every day from school and he loves it. He and Sierra both call Dewayne’s apartment “Larriat’s house” I am going to let him come over for a while today while Stacy is at class. He loves to come over and play with Dewayne and with Dewayne’s new job, he gets to come home more in the evenings. Trav sat in Dewayne’s lap all through church last night. HA! Sierra just looked at me and said, “Are you finished writing your knee mail?” :)

Today...

Dewayne started his new job today. I really think he was excited about it because he knew a few guys that worked there. A lot of the people that quit JW (his old job) either went to Express or Wood Group. He picked Wood Group. It is still a wireline company, they just don’t do work in Fort Stockton which is amazing!

Still waiting to hear from my job… I can’t take it anymore!!!

BIG NEWS!!! I declared my major! I am stoked! I decided to major in sociology and minor in criminology.

I am getting so excited about the wedding! Only 194 more days to go! I am busy, busy, busy! Still trying to find a photographer that doesn’t charge a million dollars for photos. We have decided to go with the Elegante as our venue! I hope to go put the deposit down on Thursday. I have started a little list of nit-picky things that need to be done and it is FOREVER long. I officially have three things marked off it. :) Wedding planning is a LOT more stressful than it seems!

Forks.

Well things are finally starting to look up. Dewayne got a job with the company he wanted to be with. The pay is amazing and he won’t have to work so far away from home. He will also have service on his cell phone on the locations that this company works on… so I won’t have to sit and wonder about him all the time! He is getting his drug test and physical this morning. Hopefully he will start on Monday!

I am still waiting to hear from Cameron Compression. I have never had to wait this long to find out if I got a job or not… the stress is killing me! I would just rather know than have to sit here wondering! But maybe it will be worth the wait. I talked to HR about their tuition reimbursement program. They put a guy through law school. How awesome is that?! I may be old and feeble by the time I get my degree… but I will have it and I won’t have spent a dime nor have one single student loan!

My last day at the Foundation will be the 20th of August. My boss decided for me. If I don’t get the job at Cameron, I will work temp jobs through Manpower until I find something permanent. The staff is taking me for my good-bye lunch on Wednesday. I am supposed to decide where I want to go. I am thinking about going to the Petroleum Club. I really don’t care much for it but it will probably be the last time I ever get to eat there. I could never afford it on my own! It’s one of those places that you have to make sure you don’t rest your elbows on the table and there are 12 different forks at your place setting: one for your salad, one for your meat, one for your veggies, one for your dessert…

Wedding plans

Friday was a good day. Mom and I drove around to almost every bridal shop we could find but all of them were those “independently owned” stores and didn’t have much of a selection to try on. They all had the books to just order the dress out of and hope you like it. I learned that was a bad idea when I took three print outs of dresses I loved to University Bridal with me and ended up hating every style I thought I liked. But my dress has been ordered. It was more than twice what I was hoping to spend but I am in love with it!

We also got prices on venues. I am waiting on a final price but I believe we will go with the Elegante Hotel. It is very pretty and a lady I used to work for is now the event coordinator for the hotel so I hope she can really hook me up within my budget. But it includes set up, clean up, tables, chairs, linens, plates and silverware, etc. Mom decided it was more than worth the extra money so that they weren’t responsible for clean up. We would also get the family a nice group rate if they decided to stay the night at the hotel.

(Also, if it makes any difference to people’s travel plans… Dewayne and I plan on copying Beth and Josh and staying in town that evening and hanging out with the family. We can’t go to Brick Town or anything even close to that cool… but we can figure something out. )

We rented my arch, candelabras, and Corinthian Columns and bought my invitations. Stacy is so creative. Dewayne actually is the one who found the invitations and when I showed them to Stacy, she had a vision and we decided to make the invitations ourselves. I picked out my flower girl dresses. Oh, update on the wedding party. Sierra and Randi both agreed to be my flower girls and McKayla is going to be a greeter, my ring bearer’s escort down the isle, and a Jr. Bridesmaid. She is going to be exhausted!

Excitement in Larriat's world!

So, my job interview went GREAT this morning! I really think this is the one I want! I go back for a second interview on Tuesday with HR! David (my would-be boss) said he would make a final decision by the end of next week for sure. Ahhh! I just can’t sit still! This would be a much needed change and a HUGE pay raise. Keep praying guys! God has heard them!

More good news… I have another job interview this afternoon. It is with a wind turbine energy company. I guess they have expanded a branch to Odessa because they are hiring lots of positions. They are the nation’s third largest wind energy provider. www.suez.com They better be REALLY good to top the other position I interviewed for this morning though!

I know you all are wondering… so yes, the spaghetti was good last night. J After church, Dewayne and I drove around and looked at a list of houses that a realtor pulled for us in our price range. Guess what we found? Absolutely NOTHING! But if I get either of these jobs, I really believe we can up our price range and really get what we want! Maybe even build on a few acres of land!

Ahhhh! I don’t think I can sit here all day! I will leave around 1:45 to go to my next interview. Then I am off til Monday… woohoo!

Spaghetti

I have another job interview in the morning. I am so excited I can hardly stand it! It is with an oil and gas pressure control equipment company in Odessa. He is meeting me for breakfast in Midland so that I don’t have to miss work for my interview. Pray hard for me! If he offers the job on the spot, I will hand in my two weeks notice when I walk into work tomorrow morning! Stacy even helped me draft my notice.

We went to see The Dark Knight on Monday night. That is definitely the night to go see movies. There were hardly any little pre-teens out causing problems! Anyway, the movie was forever long. Even Dewayne was kind of ready for it to end. And who knew Heath Ledger could be SO creepy?! It was even creepier knowing they finished that movie without him. But a good movie!

We are going to eat spaghetti at moms tonight before church. I’m not a fan of it, but Dewayne is and I never make it since I’m not too crazy about it.

I am so excited to see Jenny and the girls!! Scotty too...but mostly just Jenny and the girls! I hope we can do some wedding stuff with Jenny while she is here. Dad’s family reunion is on Saturday though. I think Dewayne and I will just attend the lunch part. I hope they aren’t having spaghetti…

We drove around looking for houses last night. There had been talk of getting a two bedroom apartment or a town house because we will need more space when I move in, but I think he wants a house. The market is just too crazy right now!

Okay, I am starving. Maybe I will post again later for all you blog-lovers!

Good days and bad days

I have been told that if you go into a day with a positive attitude, you will have a positive day. I had a great attitude on Friday. Friday was a horrible day. It was both Rhonda and Julie’s last day. I cried when I had to say bye to both of them…

Then I realized I had a flat tire on the way to the bank. Dewayne had to drive to Midland to put on my spare for me so that I could get back to Odessa… only for Mitsubishi to tell me that because I didn’t get my oil changed EXACTLY every 3,000 miles, I voided my free tires for life warranty. Hello…? What do the tires have to do with the oil? So we got the flat fixed at Sam’s for FREE… only to find out that my tires cost $197 EACH.

Yes, I am done complaining. Oh, except one more thing. The air conditioner went out at the apartment yesterday. Thank goodness it was in the evening. Apparently that isn’t considered an “emergency” and you can’t call out a maintenance man on the weekends for that reason.

Today is a much better day though. I had an email from my boss this morning that said:
“Effective Tuesday, Aug 5, for approx 90 days, we are going to try new office day start at 8:30 AM. Thanks.”
Which is cool I guess… since I am the only one that actually gets here before 8:30…

*Wedding*
So mom and I are taking off work this Friday so that she and Stacy and I can do wedding stuff. We still have to decide on a venue so hopefully we can get that done Friday. I need to get fitted for my dress, taste cake and book the date with the cake, rent my arch and candelabra, make a final decision on invitations, engagement pictures… blah blah blah… the list just goes on and on! It’s like it never ends! But we have lots of fun and I kinda think Dewayne is getting a little more excited about it!