Criss-Cross Applesauce

Good morning everyone.  By the time that I end up hitting the 'publish' button, it should be at least an hour since I made my last post.  If you haven't read it yet, you should really rush back and check out 'Stay Tuned.'  Joey and I both went 2-5 on our football picks last week, so there's a very good chance that we'll end up finishing somewhere between 0-7 and 7-0 this week...  If you're here to catch up with what's been happening in my world, then you're in the right place.

I can say with very little hesitation that the reason that I haven't been posting much is that I've been waiting to get settled into a new place before I once again fill the internet with my wisdom.  I find it very difficult to come here and type while I'm looking for a place to live.  It's that feeling of guilt that I shouldn't be on here while I'm apartment hunting.  Today I received my second paycheck since I returned to work, and I recently learned that there might be a few apartments available close to campus.  After doing a pretty extensive online search of what's available for rent in the greater Austin area, I can confidently say that I would once again like to live close to the UT campus/downtown area.  The time saved commuting to and from work and being close to the heartbeat of Austin outweighs the more expensive rent in my opinion.  To this point in my life (somehow I just set this keyboard on italics, and I'm not going to spend any more time trying to change it back) I've always relied solely on myself to hunt out my future home, but I wasn't able to get any leads on apartments within the vicinity of campus until I met with an apartment locating company this past week.  Thursday was actually a very interesting day for me as I was shown two vacant apartments that are both currently occupied.  Yes, you read that right - the agent picked up keys, drove me to a couple of separate units at completely different complexes, and both apartments are still being lived in...  :)  However, I'm still holding out hope that I'll find a place to live that's close to campus.

In the meantime, I have some amazing friends that are putting me up (putting up with me) and are housing my belongings.  If you only had any idea how much I hate imposing on people and hate feeling helpless...  I am so grateful to have people that are looking out for me while I get resettled in Austin.  Rents continue to rise throughout the city as more and more people flock to the ATX, and yet it's still difficult to find a place to live.
Some unexpected and completely amusing material for this post came to me tonight as a result of staying here with my friends.  In elementary schools throughout our nation, sitting with your legs crossed is no longer referred to as sitting "Indian style."  For quite some time (as I discovered tonight - wow, I see that the normal print has returned), sitting in this position has come to be known as "criss-cross applesauce..."  I can be pretty creative (okay, the italics are back now), but I kid you not - criss-cross applesauce...  OH, and it continues with "spoons in your bowl" (to get the exact positioning just right).  I'm dead serious right now...  It's probably the hardest that I've laughed in quite some time.  The entertainment didn't stop with the new knowledge from my friends Brandi and Chad - being very wise, I decided to post about this in a facebook status.  That's where my friend Amanda introduced me to, "Tootsie roll, lollipop, we've been talking, now let's stop..."  And evidently the kids love this...  Yeah...  :)  

Okay, so since I'm not making any football bets now that I'm back in Austin, Chad is letting me help sabotage his fantasy football teams in addition to giving me a place to stay.  If you're unaware, I decided against fielding any fantasy football teams this year since I'd be making wagers, which would get me into sufficient trouble of its own accord.  Now I get to live and die through the football games based on the teams that Chad and Brandi are fielding, and on the Steelers inability to beat teams like the Bucs and the Jets.  Don't get me started...  I should also mention that as I'm typing this, I have two cats and a dog proofreading my work (we're going to blame the italics on them)... 

Once I do get settled into my own place, I do plan on summarizing my Las Vegas (and Reno) experience, and you'll probably get many more pieces of the life that I've lived as we move forward.  I'll also start incorporating the experiences and wisdom of my friends into my blog entries again once I'm back to doing all of my entries on a computer.  This post is being done on a computer and not on my phone, which is the reason that it's being typed so much faster and with added mystery italics...  

Well, it's 1:00 a.m. here now and I'm pretty tired (oops, I did it again), so I'll let you begin your weekend.  Let me thank you once again for following along, and apologize to you for the limited entries lately.  This post is actually going to be the one that puts my little blog over 80,000 total views - pretty cool...  :)  Have a good one and I'll see you soon...