passing through states of consciousness...(and states that suck)

so we made it...sara and i successfully made it through west georgia, alabama, mississippi, louisiana, texas, new mexico, arizona...all the way to my new home...costa mesa, california.

people keep asking if it was everything i hoped it would be, so here is your answer: i honestly didn't have huge expectations other than to enjoy time with sara (check), take lots of pictures (triple check), see the grand canyon (check) and to make it with no major problems (check!)...i'm so glad i can now say i made the trip. i feel as though everyone should be able to say that at some point in their life. whether it's from east coast to west or from top to bottom....get out and see our country...and not just the tourist destinations because you will never know how nasty monroe, louisiana really smells unless you stop and have dinner there....you will never know how horrible of a state texas really is until you have to drive across it for 12 hours....you will never know the beauty of new mexico unless you spend some time there (because, let's face it, who really goes to new mexico?)...you will never know how beautiful trees are until you get it to arizona (nothing like our georgia pines, however...) and you will never know how much you really miss the site of water (even a puddle!) until you finally make it to california.

the only real emergency (well, potential emergency) we faced was when i left our only set of keys to the camry on the rotating tray *thing* at the glorieta conference center...you know when you're finished eating and take your tray to be cleaned...yeah, almost a big problem. luckily, we left our rotting bananas by the tray and when we went to retreive those, i realized i was missing something. and luckily sara's eyes work better than mine (well, that's debatable when it's late and she's driving) but she found them and we were back in business.

so many great stories to tell, but i will probably save many of them until i am elderly and have some grandbabies sitting in my lap because sometimes stories should wait to be told...

we finally made it tuesday night and were lucky enough to go straight to my new apartment...and all i'm going to say about that is you must come visit me!!

got up wednesday and spend the day at manhattan beach with william....of course that was wonderful. my take-away from that day? skin cancer....yeah, i'm serious. my left leg is still not quite right after the day in the sun. it really looks like i'm a burn victim (which i guess in a way, i am...) but it looks like i'm going to have to be 'that girl' and bust out the spf 50 from now on because 30 didn't do the trick. the sun is a brutal thing to a fair skinned, light haired, blue eyed girl...but you knew that.

so, fast forward to now....

i am in my sweet hotel room (back in atlanta) i know it's complicated....i flew back to atlanta on thursday so i could begin training at the cfa office for the next few days. it has been nothing short of wonderful and everything you could imagine it would be working for chick-fil-a. the stress and unethical dilemmas faced at my old job are now gone (but not forgotten) and i feel like a new person. what a contrast it is to be part of a company based upon biblical principles where the people lov at the office and a day spent at the winshape campus doing team building/high ropes things. i love it and i'm SO ready to get back out to orange county, ca and get started.

i know this update is long overdue and i'm not making anymore promises...i will write next time i have the urge to because forcing it is never effective. sara has all our pictues, so i won't be able to share for a while. but i will leave you with this one...a picture of the CSI. haha...the california sales impact team that is.

later lovelies.