Week 2 in WV. An embarrassing moment and a scary experience.

This is the end of my second week in West Virginia. This has been quite a crazy week, once again.
Here are some of my experiences here, and what it has been like adjusting to living in West Virginia for the summer. I'm telling it all with the good the bad, the embarrassing, and the scary.

 After much begging, my landlord finally sprayed pesticides after I had a close encounter with my first and (we will just go ahead and say only) black widow experience. I went to get the mail a couple of days ago, reached my hand in the mail box, and saw a black spider. I thought I would be brave and try and kill it myself, so after the little bugger continued to thread itself down through a hole outside of the mail box where I was unable to smash it, I asked one of the young men for assistance who my landlord had hired to power was some of her property. (She owns a few houses around us and behind her house). It turns out, the black spider, was a black widow. The young man killed it for me, but I was so freaked out, I went and had my car washed and swept out just in case (the mailbox is in the driveway, just a little to close to my car).

     I decided I needed to get out of the apartment for a while. Ross works all day and I am stuck in the house working on my Art History 2 summer class and mostly surfing the web. I am enjoying not having to work right now, and I should be studying spanish a little bit more before my spanish 4 class next fall, but I am just so in need of a break from school, it's hard to always study all the time. I haven't had a semester off of school in over two years now. This is my second year taking two summer classes in a row, so I'm feeling a bit burnt out from school, and trying to work would only burn me out even more. Not to mention, I feel really guilty lying to someone to get a job here when I will only be here for a couple more weeks. Anyways, I decided to go to T.J. Max and check out their deals. I'm not sure I have ever mentioned this before, but am quite accident prone. I'm not sure if I have terrible depth perception, or don't always pay attention to things, but I seem to get hurt a lot. Normally though, I do this in the privacy of my own home. But this must have been my lucky day. I'll just blame it on being shaken up from sticking my hand in a mail box with a black widow inside. I saw a really cute pair of shoes...see below.

I looked around and there wasn't a place to sit down and try them on in that aisle, so I just took off my sandal crocks, and slipped on the first pair and fell in love with them, then as I attempted to put on the second shoe while balancing on one foot, I lost my balance, the heel of the shoe got caught in the cuff of my cropped jeans, and I literally fell right over in the store on my side, and it hurt. Of course there had to be a woman standing right next to me when this happened. She was really nice and asked me if I was okay, and I told here my ego hurt more than anythings else. Ha! Another woman who was in the next aisle over popped around the corner and asked "Did you just fall?" She seemed legitimately concerned, but once again I was beat red and felt like an idiot. "Yea, I'm fine," I said rolling my eyes at myself. Really? Did I just fall over trying on a pair of heels right in the middle of a store? I am awesome! Ha. "They look really cute on you though," the lady next to me said. "Yea, they do!," the other woman said. If the were just a bit cheaper, I would have gotten them just for spite of the fact I suffered embarrassment over putting them on. Instead, I decided I would take it as a warning and put them back. 

There's really nowhere to wear heels in West Virginia anyways, and when I go back to our small town, I can't wear heels when I walk around campus with a heavy book bag. I hardly ever go out anywhere, so why do I need to have heels? I guess I'll stick to flats and flip flops for now. 

     

     On a more positive and lighter note, Ross and I went and checked out the local WV tourist stop called Tamarack.  It's a place full of locally handmade items such as knitted scarfs, woodwork, homemade jams, wine, and other food, blown glass items, figures made out of coal, food, live music, jewelry, and other homemade knick knacks. It's a bit overpriced, but I did get two postcards, a birthday card for my dad, and a blown glass ring holder that is really pretty. The shop is right there and you can watch them make the blown glass. 

Ross rocking at Tamarack.

     After we got home, Ross and I watched The Green Hornet, and it was one of those funny stupid movies. I was really surprised that Cameron Diaz was in it.

     Ross and I made tacos tonight. I had a failed attempt at making guacamole. I tried to follow a recipe online but the avocado I used didn't seem to be ripe enough. Does anyone have any advice when it comes to picking out a good avocado? 

Fail. (Yes this is supposed to be guacamole at the moment,
sad I know)

Our taco's turned out good though! Ross used some kind
of really healthy beef, and I put just a teeny tiny bit on mine,
 though I couldn't stand the smell when he was cooking it,
 I attempted to eat a little bit of meat tonight to make him happy.
(He is not taking to my desire of vegetarianism well).

After dinner, Ross and I went for a bike ride on the bike path in our neighborhood before sunset. I decided that for now on, it might be best it we ride our bikes a bit earlier in the day. That's the one thing I miss about our small town back in Ohio, it's safer. There may not be as much to do, but we can ride our bikes out at night without coming in contact with some suspicious characters. It's give and take, and it really makes us think about where we want to live one day. The more there is to do in a place, the less safe it seems to be. I'm sure there are places that are more of a happy medium. 

     On the best note of all, I am doing really well on keeping up with my exercising and eating healthier, as well as recycling. You don't have to wait until the new year to start doing the things you have been meaning to improve on. It helps that we actually have recycling available to us in this apartment though. The one thing I still miss, is having a washer and dryer. We really thought we would be sharing a washer and dryer with the person who lives in the top part of the house above us, but apparentally only she gets to use it, and we have to go to a laundry mat. Let's just say, going there is a very humbling experience, and it makes you count your blessings more. I know there are people who have much less, but it rather sucks paying to do your laundry, it's not cheap! Having one parking spot and two cars, and all of the other issues we have, makes us wish we had better options for staying somewhere else this summer. But the truth of the matter is, we just didn't have a lot of options. Not many places will let you sign a lease just for a summer, and if we had stayed in a hotel, we wouldn't have had a kitchen, and could have had a lot more noise to deal with when random people would come and go in the middle of the night. The best part is, we only have to be here for less than two months now. I'm so looking forward to going home next weekend for the 4th of July. I'm only sad that my best friend will be driving right past me to go on vacation next weekend. But I will get to see my dad on his birthday weekend, so that's pretty nice too. 

     For now, my next feat will be passing my two summer classes, starting my first novel, studying up on my spanish, working out, eating healthy, recycling, and spending some quality time with my boo. A.k.a. Ross. I'm really hoping I can get more practice with our new camera while we are here too and take some great pics of some of the sights! My next feat with also be finding a new furry friend for us to either adopt or purchase at the end of the summer. We have decided on getting a Siberian cat/kitten at the end of the summer when we move into our 3rd apartment back at school where we are allowed to have a pet. Trust me, if I could have one here, I would get it now! In the meantime, I have to keep doing my research and seeing if I can find a retired breeder, or a mix that Ross won't be allergic too. The adventure continues. Until next time!

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XOXO

~Ashlie~