The battle with being an adult

Lately we have come to realization that we are now considered “adults", and though we have tried fighting it at every turn, we have lost the battle. Over the past week Madelyn and I have noticed that our carefree days with no worries or stresses are a thing of the past. It’s been a slow transition, and we were pretty oblivious that it was happening most of the time… But we have realized that we might as well put up the white flag…it’s too late to try and go back!

Here are some examples:

We work everyday, and not so that we can buy new CDs, or go on trips with friends. We work because we have to pay rent and bills. If we work hard enough then maybe we can go on a trip, but we have to make sure to have vacation saved up. Any remaining money we want to save… The key word here is want, I actually WANT to save! I don’t know when it happened (probably around the same time that I left Madelyn in control of my finances), but one day I woke up and thought to myself, “We could be earning 5% interest!!!” It was only two years ago where I was thinking “If I don’t go to Taco Bell tonight, then I can buy a new DVD next week.”

The last time we went to a concert we felt like we were completely out of place. Both of us couldn’t concentrate on the music because the whole time we were completely frustrated at all the teenagers. I kept saying to Madelyn that the teenyboppers at the concert were being completely rude for talking on their cell phones the entire time. I felt like an old man! I might as well of said “crazy kids, get off of my lawn!!”

I no longer get excited about the newest video game, or the new video game system. Now I get excited about the new bookcase we bought and how nice it looks in our living room. If the Cody of 2 years ago saw the Cody of today he would make fun of me.

Today I was in Best Buy, I ventured into the CD section where they were playing the latest popular music and actually thought to myself, “This music is really obnoxious.”

Madelyn and I were so excited to move to a city like Austin because of all the nightlife and weekend activities. So far, Madelyn and I have not partaken in much of the nightlife or weekend activities. By the time we get home from work, and cook dinner (yes we actually cook dinner!) we don’t want to leave. It seems like we would much rather watch 60 Minutes or Law and Order…… THOSE ARE OLD PEOPLE SHOWS!!!!! By the way, Madelyn and I have a standing argument about which part is called law, and which part is called order. Are the police law and the court room order, or vice versa?

I have a 401k……. that’s all I have to say.

We are both bugged by the dress of the teenagers. The last time we went to the movies (which was for a special occasion!) we said things like, “what parents are letting their middle school and high school students leave the house like that?!?!?” Mostly we are confused by how the boys keep their pants on, they are riding so low.

We can no longer eat whatever we want. We have words like “partially hydrogenated” and “trans fat” in our vocabulary.

If we stay up past 10:30 we won’t make it through the next day.

Every weekend Madelyn and I come up with some really fun plan, but each weekend we are so busy running errands, we don’t have time to do anything else. We spend all our free time at Target, IKEA, and Home Depot.

Last weekend I bought a Bird Feeder. I have no idea why I wanted one so badly...

I get excited when I learn how to do something new in Excel. When a really great looking Excel spreadsheet is the highlight of your day, it’s sad.

We can’t go to movies that start later than 8:00 pm.

No offense to any of our friends, but… WE HAVE FRIENDS WITH BABIES! It feels like not that long ago that we were all in Junior Choir.

We need new Tupperware… That is what we will be doing this weekend.

People in stores call me "sir"...

I no longer have any interest in the shows on MTV.

Expensive purchases for us are things like car batteries, tires, and groceries. Last weekend we splurged on a CD tower that we found on craigslist. It matches our new bookcase and looks awesome!

Anyway, that’s all I can think about right now. I’m sure that the people who read this will know exactly what I am talking about. Madelyn and I DID get out this weekend; we took a hike to Mt. Bonnell, elevation 700Ft!!! Can you believe it! 700! Wow! Anyway, we took some pictures…. Enjoy.

These houses have garages on the water for their boats…… being filthy rich would be really hard

The hike had a HUGE staircase; on the way down I slid on the railing.

The new McAustin McPartment....

Sorry for the long delay in between the blogs, but we’ve been busy moving into our new apartment. It’s been a long time coming, but we finally have a place of our own in Austin. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a lot better than C116 Public Storage. At least this apartment has more than one light bulb! The new apartment is in a great area with everything nearby. It has two pools, a fitness center, and tennis courts. It's also really convenient because Madelyn and I both work on opposite sides of town and this apartment falls right in the middle. It took us all of last weekend to move all of our stuff in, but it would have taken a lot longer if my dad had not come in town to help. I left my dad to move our stuff from the storage unit to the apartment on Friday morning, by Friday afternoon I got a call from him telling me he had everything done. I couldn’t believe it! I think I'll just call my dad eveytime we move in the future! It took us the rest of the weekend (and most of this week) just to unpack all of the boxes. We did take a break this week to go out to dinner and a movie for Valentines Day. I took some pictures for the blog, hope you enjoy…

This is the view when you first walk in the door…

This is another angle of the living room, with the front door in the background…

This is our dining room, which we had to turn into an office/dining room…

This is our “bar” with the kitchen behind it; unfortunately our kitchen is too small to get a picture…

This is our bedroom, which is a lot bigger in real life…

Here’s another one of the bedroom…

The last picture is of our awesome deck! It faces what the people in Texas call a “canyon”. Madelyn and I get to watch the deer in the woods every morning; it’s pretty awesome to have something like that in the city limits…we are only 10 minutes from downtown (with no traffic).

Come and Visit! We have extra beds!

First week of work and I need to get better at foosball

I struggled with what to call this blog, my other option was "Girl Scouts are nice, Girl Scout Cookies are Evil". Hopefully I choose the right title….. But seriously, what’s with the Girl Scout cookies? I bought them from a guy I work with for two reasons. The first, and most important, is because they taste really good. The other reason is that the money goes towards his daughter going to camp. This was all fine….. until I read the nutritional information on the box. I only wish I had done this before eating an entire row of peanut butter patties. One row of Peanut Butter patties is the equivalent to a Big Mac. Just thought I would give everyone a warning before you dive into a box….. the Girl Scouts are out in full force, and they won’t stop until everyone has a box in their house! Today while I was sitting in my half-a-cube (this is a term I invented to describe my small cubicle) I thought I should share some of my new work experiences with everyone. Anyone can read this blog, so I will not use the name of my new work place, because I don’t want to get in any trouble. I think I’ll call it Lled…..

Work at Lled is the complete opposite of my previous job.

I showed up on my first day having no idea what I would be doing, who I would be working with, or who my boss would be. When I interviewed for this job I called a woman in Chicago who conducts interviews all day long. She takes the best candidates, sends them to the manager at Lled, and based on her notes the manager makes the decision on who to hire. She then calls the candidate back, offers them the position and tells them when to show up and who to ask for. Basically I took a job knowing absolutely nothing about it, besides a very vague job description that’s probably used company wide for many different positions. I half expected to show up and be put in the mailroom……

This company has 8 buildings (actually 6 because #4 and #6 don’t exist) at this location. I thought it would be a funny joke to tell a new employee to meet for lunch at building 6….. Unfortunately that new employee is me, and I don’t want to give anyone any ideas. Each of the buildings is about 3 stories high and about the size of two East Highs (a reference everyone can understand!). Each of the floors is packed with people, all of which are in cubes. The cubes are actually a really nice size; accept for my half-a-cube, which is not too roomy and hopefully not too permanent. If I had to guess I would say there are 1000+ people on my floor, which would put about 3-4,000 per building. There isn’t one office in the entire building, which I think is great, it puts everyone on the same level. As I was walking around today I noticed that there are no permanent walls, which got me wondering how the building was standing. But I forgot about the big cement pillars, which display numbers, so that you can find someones cube more easily. It’s like a giant cubicle parking garage.

Working here reminds me a lot of high school, you can wear whatever you want (tennis shoes, t-shirts, flip-flops, shorts), it has a cafeteria, the hallways are big and filled with small groups talking, there’s is a gym, a field with Frisbee, basketball courts, and the longest part of my commute is waiting in line to get out of the parking lot. The cafeteria is really cool, it’s equipped with foosball and ping pong, and each day there is a lunch tournament. At my old job I was “written” up for being 5 minutes late, but at my new job I have nobody closely watching my hours, I can arrive when I want, and leave when I want, as long as the work is finished and I don’t abuse the freedom. I thought going to work for one of the largest companies in the world would be much more controlled, but it’s the exact opposite. Everyone I have talked to here loves their job, and would do anything to see the company succeed, which is much different than any previous job I’ve had.

Working for a company this large is also a lot more difficult than working at a company of ten. Every request I make is to another department, each one has there own form, and each one has their separate response times. Phone trouble, computer trouble, server clearance, HR….. These are all different processes. I also found it strange that my old job had much newer computer equipment. You would think that a computer company would have state of the art computers for their employees…… unfortunately this is not true. If you want a mouse then you must go and find one amongst the piles of used computer equipment.

I have only been here a week but so far its been a great experience, and hopefully its somewhere I will be working for a long time. It’s a breath of fresh air to come to work at a place with such a nice environment. Anyway, that’s my little private blog, I’m sure I will have more on it in the future. If you want to hear about Madelyn’s work than convince her to come on here and write! So far she only proofreads the posts I put on here…..

Since this blog post is all about me here is a quiz someone sent me.... its kind of fun..... Madelyn will make one soon I'm sure. She likes quiz's

Create your own Friend Quiz here

RETRACTION: I did not fill out my quiz correctly, I re-calculated everyone's scores.... they are:
Madelyn 100
Barb 60
Eric 40
Cady 70
Lacy 50

Madelyn's Quiz! Yay!


Create your own Friend Quiz here