My New Job

So far, all things are going great in my new job. It is a whole new industry that I am learning, and of course, I have to start at the bottom. Lately I have been going out over the weekend doing promotions for my work. I basically go to different events and promote our health plan.

It's always on a Saturday. Usually in the morning....at 8am. Which is not a big deal compared to my 5:00am workout alarm, but still; it's one more day I don't get to sleep in. Anyway.

Here are a few pictures from an event I went to. I've been to a handful, and have a few more scheduled. Needless to say, me weekend will not be that exciting in the next few weeks ;)

Me and our mascot, "Be BEARY Healthy" (a new name is in the works haha)

What my Saturday mornings look like. Those are two of my coworkers, a bunch of marketing giveaways and materials

Our mascot gets all the attention. This little girl tackled him to the ground! The poor intern wearing the mascot ;)

All in all I am getting great experience and learning the ins and outs of my work. It really is interesting to learn, and I get to see a lot of different areas of the city (some of which I will probably never go back haha) and I also get to meet a lot of new people....which is always good :D

Hope the end of summer is treating everyone well!

The Ranch

I am almost 100% positive that you will be hearing me refer to "the ranch" in future posts. To avoid confusion, I decided to explain to you what exactly "the ranch" is...and what my weekend mostly consisted of.

Kyle's work, PCI, recently purchased a lease down in south Texas.  This basically means that whomever owns this land in south Texas decided to "lease" it out to someone who is willing to pay X amount of dollars per year. If you do pay, the ranch is basically yours for the year. Hunting rights, house maintenance, land, etc. It may sound like a lot of work and kind of silly, but I have heard the amount of requests come through to go "hunting in Texas" and it will be well worth it. For future reference, that is "the ranch" that I will be referring to.

This is the house, and some of the yard at the ranch

So where does this play into my weekend? They recently purchased it, as in, a month or two ago. Since then, there has been one trip down to check out the property, make some "to-do" lists, etc. Guess what was on the "to-do" list? CLEAN. Fill feeders! Dirty work. This past weekend all the "young guys" from the office made the 2 hour trip south to do work on the ranch.

This is the scenery in South Texas. Wonderful, isn't it?!

This is what that scenery looks like up close. Again, how wonderful! HA. Snake books should NOT be apart of my wardrobe.

Kyle and I cleaned. I was sneezing every other minute from the inch of dust that coated the place. I scrubbed years of grease off of the kitchen doors and cabinets. I dusted shelves and furniture. I folded sheets and blankets. Kyle swept floors, all thousand dust bunnies included. He mopped all wood floors, having to change out water consistently due to how dirty it got. We cleaned.

When that was all done, the "other young guys" came back from filling the "back lot" feeders. The ranch is  divided into the back and front, so the front was left to do. Since 2 guys had to head back to San Antonio Kyle and I were put on the truck to help do the front. Filling feeders basically means that you drive around this land and find all the "feeding" spots. You put corn in there. You set a timer. When the timer goes off, animals come to eat. When you want to hunt, you sit 20-100 yards from this feeder and wait for it to go off, luring the animals to you. (This is Texas hunting in a nut shell). So that was hot and dirty and lots of manual labor, but it was ok. I need more of that as I sit behind my computer 40 hours a week.

The 1-ton pickup we used to drive around the ranch with. FULL of corn and protein pellets for the feeders.

Here we are filling feeders! Once it's full of corn, we hoist it back up in the air and set the timer. The corn then shoots all around that gated part. It is gated low enough for deer and other animals to jump, but high enough for the wild hogs to not get in.

Proof that I helped! I even have the sore arms to prove it ;)

After the feeders were done and the house was cleaned, we went to the shooting range on the ranch and shot some clay pigeons. I did, too! I even hit some. Its been YEARS since I shot a gun, so it felt good, actually.

The boys at the shooting range on the ranch. We eventually had to tie up the dogs because they were contastantly running out and searching for the "birds that we shot."

Again! Proof that I shot! Capped it off with a beautiful sunset.

Now that you are knowledgeable in Texas lingo/lifestyle, and know all about "the ranch" I'll leave you to wrap your head around all that I just wrote. Have fun ;)

Can it be...Spring??

Could it really be here already? Spring? I can't believe it is March, let alone the year 2012. Anyway. I think Spring is really here. Kyle and I spent the weekend at home, spring cleaning and crossing off items on the "honey-do" list.

One evidence of spring is our tree in the backyard. In just two days over the weekend it exploded in buds, getting more and more green every day. See?

Another dead giveaway is our bushes. They are called "red tips," (not sure if that is the correct name or not), but that is what everyone calls them. Either way you know seasons are changing and things are in bloom when the tips of the bushes are red. And they are RED!

And of course, the best indication is the weather. This entire weekend was low 70s, small breeze...just amazing weather. We actually had neither the heat nor the AC on (it was on last week believe it or not!). We opened all the windows (cleaned them, too!), fixed our screen patio door, put up a new ceiling fan in the living room, did some yard work, and of course, played with Tucker. It's hard to avoid him when you are outside, so if any of you have met him, you know how much he LOVES to play fetch. He will literally do it all day long, constantly bringing you a ball and placing it at your feet. So we took some breaks to play with the pup.

He is SO happy when playing fetch, or playing with any ball!

Lately he loves to jump and catch it in his mouth!

And then of course he gets hot and pants like crazy after we run him so much, so he goes for water. Although this dog does not drink as gracefully as he playes catch. He slurps and dunks his head and drools and slobbers all over the place. No water for Tucker inside the house! Again, if you have ever been to our house you probably know what I am talking about. If not, I captured a picture. Observe the drool. And water. And slobber. Its like playing a hop-skip-runaway game when he gets done drinking to avoid getting soaked as well!

Do you SEE that waterfall coming out of his mouth?!

 Even though he is a putz, we love him to death and he keeps us busy.

It was an excellent weekend at home enjoying the weather and doing housework. Hopefully everyone had a beautiful weekend as well!

Kyle's "Man Cave"

Kyle and I both know this house is not our "dream home," but we both love making it into something we want, helping it become the best house it can be. This weekend, Kyle went to work on something that had been bothering him since we moved: The Garage.

My work had an enormous annual sale, so I had to work the whole weekend. I was able to sneak away on Saturday for an amazing lunch with Kyle...we went for sushi! (Yum). Anyway. back to the man cave. Saturday I come home from work and pull into the driveway to see the garage door up, 2x4s  across the floor of the garage, the saw over to one side and our furniture give away pile out in the front yard.

Kyle was building.

It is a hobby he would love to get more into, but he knows enough of it to build basic things. On Saturday alone he built a work bench, storage for the rakes and shovels, etc, and put up peg board (so he can neatly organize his tools!) Most of you know how anal Kyle is about organization and 'neatness' so this was like a big therapy project to him.

Here is what it looked like at the end of the day Saturday:

  Its true. Tucker was there in the garage with Kyle all day long :)



Sunday was left to finish up odds n ends and build the shelf. Again, I was at work, so Kyle worked away with nothing else to think about or do besides the garage. It really was a therapy weekend! After a night of organizing, here is the final product. All the tools are in line. All the coolers are finally tucked away neatly in place. Tuckers kennel is finally out of the way. And Kyle even built himslef a "sports shelf" that contains all his golfing and softball equipment. I forgot to take a picture of that...sorry.

We still have all the built-in cabinet space in the garage as well, so now we have more than enough storage in the garage. Excellent job, Kyle! This will for sure be a place he can "retreat" to if he ever needs it...I can see him tinkering out here for hours, with Tucker at his side, of course :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend and is adjusting to the time change!

Snow Day

On Thursday night, light rain fell, and froze. That was followed by a light dusting on snow.

Yup, that's right. I am still stuck with snow, even in South Texas! It turned out a little different than up north, though. Less than a 1/4 of an inch fell, and the city shut down. Literally. There were over 300 accidents reported by Friday AM. There were semi trucks, pick-ups, and cars left abandoned in the middle of the Interstate. Kyle's work had a 'snow day,' as did mine.

Credit cards were being used as ice scrapers. Laundry baskets and boogie boards were being used to go sledding. I saw pictures of people making 'snow men' that totalled about 12 inches in height. Crazy, right? I know it's hard for all the people up North to picture, but here are some visuals:

(I do need to clarify, there was a layer of ice under the dusting of snow, so that was a major part)

Here is what my yard looked like. See that white stuff in the grass? That is the snow. All of it was gone by 11 AM.

And (in my opinion) the best of all...the family that was trying to sled down the golf course hill in our backyard with boogie boards. I think the dad was more into it than the kids were!

Never thought I would say that I had a 'snow day' here in San Antonio; but never say never, right?!

grown-up jobs...

For a little change of pace, I thought I would show you were Kyle and I work. I do not think these two places could be more different, but they are both fun, nonetheless.

My employment is called Stowers Furniture, here in San Antonio. It is the only store (not a chain) and family owned. In 1893 the store was opened here in San Antonio, and has been going strong ever since. It is a very high-end furniture store, some have called it "the Lexus of furniture." There are local celebrities that shop here, like Mrs. George Strait, Eva Longoria Parker, Mr. and Mrs. Red McCombs, just to name a few. (Sadly, I have not seen any of them! haha) The store is 85,000 sq. feet-- all full of furniture. We specialize is special orders and can get you just about anything, in any color or fabric you wish. I am learning a lot, and it has been quite the switch from Bobcat construction equipment to furniture. I am currently in charge of all advertising/marketing efforts, and trying to get the store updated in technology. Someday...maybe with the help of my employee discount...I will be able to purchase something from here! (even if it is just a decorative vase) ;)

Here is what the outside of the building looks like:

Kyle's work is a little different than mine. He works for Performance Contracting Group, (PCG) and is loving it. PCG was founded in 1987 and is one of the leading specialty contractors in the United States. PCG is employee owned and currently has more than 50 locations throughout the US. Kyle recently became involved in the "Firestopping" specialty, which is basically everything needed to contain flame, smoke, pressure, and radiation as well as reduce tempurature transmission in buildings. Currenlty he is working on a handful of projects, which keep him busy! He is also starting to really enjoy the company benefits of taking clients out to keep them happy-- just this week they went on a Clay Tournamnet Shoot, and they have a hunting trip scheduled for the beginning of October. (Hunting down here is like golfing up north).

Here is the outside of his office building, however, the more exciting part of Kyle's job is the actual worksites:

Hope that helps you get a little bit better idea of what we do during the work week!