Working, Top Gear and Piers Morgan.

Yeah things aren't bad all things considered.  At least I don't have to worry about shows like Eastenders coming on the TV and I still get Top Gear and the good things is that we're only a week behind you lot over there in that cold, snow covered country they call England (it's been pretty darn warm over here recently getting up to 75 degrees.  And they call this winter...pfft, clearly these yanks know nothing about winter...at least down here in Texas.)  That's right, on Sunday nights the UK get the best motoring show...in the world. called Top Gear and at the same time, we here in America get...Piers Morgan.....help me...

I've been driving a lot over here and I had my test booked in for tomorrow (Tuesday) but I now can't take it as the driving people (DPS) still need to verify my legalilty in Texas so I now have to wait until they can do that before I can take my test!  I'm not going to have any trouble passing though as driving here is very easy as the roads are a lot more open and even the freeways are bigger and easier to drive on (especially as the speed limit is 75! but I normally go 80 unless there's a police officer reading this, in which case I definitely do 70-75 MPH)

Still looking for work, well I say that but I do have a job but it's only a crappy little job waiting tables in a seafood restaurant getting paid $2.25 an hour plus tips, but I don't start until the 25th.  But I'm hoping that I'll find something else before than.  I went for an interview this morning for a maintenance technician at one of the plants which would be great if I can get on there as they have good benefits like health insurance etc.  But if I don't get that job I'm probably going to take a job working with Heathers dad Randy at an oil rig (there's a lot of them round here!) I'd be away from home a lot but it pays well and by well I mean very well!  I'd probably be getting close to $100,000 a year doing that so it kinda makes it worth it, but that job is really only a last resort as I don't really want to be away from home for weeks at a time.  The company is M I Swaco - Google them if you want! Haha.

As for our house, it's pretty good now it's clean!  It was absolutely filthy before we moved in, now it's clean and livable, it's real nice with a whole bunch of land around us so when Caydens there, he can run around out there.  I also have a gun in the house now after Randy gave us one of his so I now feel a lot safer out there (we live 30 minutes from the closest Police station so if anyone broke in, we'd be screwed without a gun!) It's a little .45 pistol (but it'll blow a 5 inch hole in something!) but randy wants to get us a shotgun as that would be better in case Cayden got his hands on it as he won't be able to point it at himself and reach the trigger.  

And our little dog Bella is doing fine too!  We're still treating her for Heartworm which is just one pill a month for 18-24 months!  We have discovered though that she would be a fantastic guard dog, just so long as the burglar was highly allergic to affection!!  As she just jumps up on anybody who comes in.  She'll jump up and lick them to death and then jump some more but at least she pees outside!!

I also got to watch the Superbowl a couple of weekends ago and for the first time ever, I didn't have to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning to watch it!!  And I got to see all of the commercials (The M&M one was my favourite!) and WHAT a Superbowl it was too!  Was a real close game and I'm so pleased the Ravens won it, I really wanted to see Ray Lewis win one more time before he retired and heads to the Hall of Fame!

Anyway, I'll leave you to it as you're probably bored of reading by now but I'll keep you updated.  We have no internet in our house at the moment so we have to come to Randy's place to use it which is why I haven't updated this blog sooner so sorry about that.

Bye for now!!

Cars, Oil Leaks & Smashed Potatoes

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of my blog.

First of all, apologies for the lack of pictures on this post, there will be some in a few days.  It's just I haven't had a chance to take any yet!

So what's happened since my last post? I hear you ask. Well let me think, Heather and I got a car that was given to us by Mimi's preacher man (reports of him being the son of a preacher man and the only one who could ever reach her are yet to be confirmed) So thank you Brother Raymond. It's a 95 Dodge Intrepid in silver, it's a nice car, needs a bit of work doing to it, but it was free!

It has an oil leak coming from somewhere, the drivers seat back doesn't go up and down and it had a very long brake pedal when I drove it yesterday so pretty sure it needs some new brakes as well but there's nothing majorly wrong with it and there's nothing there which can't easily fixed so it's all good. Oh and it could do with a good wax too but that's probably going to be a job for Heather and Cayden because, well. I hate waxing cars! Haha.

Some more big news!! We're moving into a house next week too! It's a nice house too (always handy!) 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a kitchen diner and a huge back yard which also happens to back onto a field! Yes, we're still going to be living in the middle of nowhere so our internet will still be rubbish and slow but it works for now!

(This bit is for Mum – or Mom as they say over here – and Dad – they still say dad over here, you'll have to call us on our mobile/cell now as when we move into the house, we're not going to have a landline phone)

Now because neither of us have jobs just yet my Father in Law Randy and his wife Linda are going to be paying the rent and the rest of the bills for us just until we get on our feet. Hopefully I can find a job this week, I know of one place which is definitely hiring at the moment. And I know that because I happen to know someone who already works there and he told me that they had 2 guys quit and they fired another so that's 3 positions they have open at the moment. Wish me luck.

On a rather selfish note, I kind of hope that I'll have a job by the time we move into the house, that way Heather will have to put everything away!! Well, I might help a little. Maybe I'll put my underwear away or a pair of jeans.........

….......Okay, I just got a slap for typing that. What I meant to say was, I'll be putting everything away all on my own whilst Heather sits down and watches TV and apparently I'll also have to make dinner...apparently.

Anyway, Cayden said something else that was very funny earlier this week. We were in the car after picking him up from daycare, and on the drive back home, he was asking what was for dinner so we told him we were having fried chicken with mash potatoes and carrots. Now we were thinking that he would throw a fit and say that he doesn't like carrots but no! He said that he didn't like Mashed potatoes or as he called them – Smashed potatoes – when we asked him why he started by saying that he didn't know and then when we asked him if he had had them before he said no. So I then asked him how he knew he didn't like them then? To which he replied after a few minutes of thinking “I don't know, God made me this way!” You probably had to be there but it was very funny at the time!

Anyway, that's about all that's happened this week. So thanks for reading and come back soon for the next exciting instalment. Same bat channel, same bat time etc etc.

Update on the car situation. The oil leak is still not fixed, but I do now know where it's leaking from! (Hurrah!) It's coming from the crankshaft as there appears to be an oil seal that is missing, now I'm assuming that it perished and just fell apart but there is almost no sign of one having ever been in there! So what I was hoping was going to be a fairly simple job has turned out to be a little more complicated. It's fixable, just a little more complicated!

Saving The World One Potato Chip At A Time

Well it's been another exciting couple of weeks over here in Texas! This is going to sound really clichéd for an Englishman to say but we've had all sorts of crazy weather here!

We've had hot sunny days, cold days and I don't just mean cold for Texas, it's been cold like England cold! And we've had some crazy storms. The storms have been fun though! Being from England the storms I'm used to usually just consist of rain and maybe one clap of thunder, but over here a storm is a LOT of heavy rain, lots of thunder and lots of lightning! So it makes for great storm watching, the only downside really is because we live in the middle of nowhere, the power has a habit of going out when we have a storm which means I have to do things like talk...to the wife!

Bella The Dog

Still there was one good thing about the big 'ol storm we had. We gained a dog out of it! During the storm we obviously had some very heavy rain and Heather's Grandma had opened the front door just to look out and see what was going on outside. While she was out there this little dog came walking up to the front door looking all wet and making pathetic sounding whimpering noises so we brought her inside and dried her off because she was absolutely soaking wet and we gave her some food as she looked quite skinny. We didn't know who she belonged to so we went to the local post office and asked whether anybody had lost a dog because she's clearly a well looked after dog – she has a shiny coat and well groomed claws, she has stinky dog breath but that can be easily rectified – we also took her to the vet to see if she was chipped but she wasn't so she's ours now.

She's part Dachshund which is cool so she's only a little dog but she's such a sweet dog who just wants attention all the time, we named her Bella as she just looks like a Bella. We don't know how old she is but she can't be much older than about 3 or 4. We're going to take her to the vet next week and get her shots done and make sure she's in good health.

It's funny though because before we moved here we were talking about getting a dog at some point because we've always wanted a dog but could never have one in England because we lived in a flat. However, I always wanted a slightly bigger dog as I've never really been a fan of little ankle biter dogs but Bella has changed that and I love her!

I Think She Had Just Woken Up

One other really funny thing that happened this week was something Cayden said. Just before he was about to go to bed he had asked us whether he could have some chips (crisps) for a snack as he had a packet which he had started earlier but never finished. But as he had just brushed his teeth, Heather and I obviously both said no which was meant with the usual moaning that you would expect from a child, but anyway he got over it and walked away and started playing with Dexter in the kitchen whilst we were sat watching TV. Anyway after a few minutes Cayden walked in chewing and crunching on something and he stood right in front of us and said

“Did you know that if you don't eat chips they go bad?”

to which we both replied

“Yes, why?”

“Well I had to eat the chips so that they wouldn't go bad and have to be thrown away”

What can you say to that?? The little brat had eaten the rest of the chips as he didn't want them to go off and be thrown away! I liked the way he was thinking though, very clever!

I guess he was saving the world one potato chip at a time.