Good Drivers Wanted in Memphis

We were warned before even moving here that once you cross the Mississippi River you'd better beware of Memphis drivers. Apparently, whenever signals were invented no one told the entire city of Memphis. Whether they're crossing 1 lane or 5 lanes of traffic they just kind of go where they want to & don't feel a need to let everyone else on the road know where exactly that is.
Another really exciting thing that happens a lot is people running red lights. For example, you can be sitting in the middle of an intersection with a green yield light & you'd better hope that you aren't the first car. The reason for this is because it's very likely that 1, 2, or sometimes even 3 cars will run the red light leaving you stuck in the middle of the intersection with lots of cars honking at you to get out of their way.
Now, I'm a big fan of go carts but I never knew I would live in a city where you feel like you're on a race car track while driving to work everyday. This has been a serious adjustment for us, but I am determined to keep my 'no tickets/no wrecks' perfect record so that I will continue to have proof that I am in fact the better driver between Ben & me.

A Whole Lotta Pictures

Here's some of the stuff we've been doing lately via all the pictures we finally got scanned, enjoy!
The Graceland Pics you've all been waiting for...
Monica & Elvis

What to wear, what to wear?
Elvis' white fur bed
Bobbie, Dante & Monica outside the Mansion

Dante & Mon hanging out
Our House Pics you've all been waiting for...
Livingroom

Diningroom
Kitchen1
Kitchen2
Bedroom

Ben's infamous desk
Backyard1
Backyard2

First Days...
Ben's 1st day of graduate school
Monica's 1st day of work

From Graceland to Chicago

It's fun to say that we are going to take a weekend trip to Chicago. From what we've heard, it's about 7 1/2 hours away--which is WAY better than the 12 hours it takes from OKC. We thought we needed to blog before we left so you wouldn't forget about us...but we didn't, & I'm telling you, do not try to get out of Memphis at 6:30 because we sat in traffic for an hour. The total trip took about 8 1/2 hours.


We do, however, have pictures of Graceland. I (Ben) didn't go, because I needed to do homework and because we couldn't afford for both of us to go. After all these years, they still want $16.20 for students and $18.00 for adults. Monica, Bobbie, and Dante went and toured the great mansion. I'll let Monica take over now and tell you a little about it.
Well our day began as usual getting lost. Graceland isn't as easy to find as you would think & even after we paid $2 to park we somehow ended up in the http://www.elvis.com/epheartbreakhotel/default.asp">Heartbreak Hotel instead of Elvis' mansion, which was our destination. Once we got there we emptied our pockets to see the fabulous mansion Elvis lived in. We put our interactive headsets on & we were on our way. I found out a lot of interesting facts that I had no idea about... such as that Elvis was a twin, but his twin died @ birth & that Elvis actually served in the army for a good amount of time. I just always assumed that when I saw pictures of him in his army uniform that he was entertaining the troops. We also saw his round, white fur bed as well as every outfit I think he ever wore on display. It's definitely an adventure & something to experience once in your lifetime if you're ever visiting us in Memphis. Here's a picture of The King's grave, there will be more to come.

Where have we been?

We just up & move to Memphis & quit blogging. Shame on us. We are definitely not hurting for things to talk about at all. We have really been waiting to get some pictures developed so we could scan them & put them on here, but we have just been lazy.
We really want to show you our house & other things. I will tell you that we stumbled on a Pottery Barn & William Sonoma outlet store about 1.5 miles from our house. It is incredible. I found a top (they called it a Belford Top) for my desk for $19.99--marked down from $149.99--& it is beautiful. We also bought a huge picture frame for $19.99--marked down from $99.99. You need to see the pictures to appreciate both the items.


My classes are going pretty well, & my first day of off-campus work starts tomorrow. I will be working at Memphis Integral Neurofeedback Institute about 9 hours a week as a receptionist. One benefit is that I get to float for free--see the Web site.
Monica has jumped right into the travel agent superhighway & it is not slowing down. By the way, Voicestream gave her the same cell phone number someone else named Shawn already had. Anyway, she is learning at light speed at Carlson Wagonlit & got a great deal for a sister of one of our friends to fly to London & back. I'm telling you, if you are traveling anywhere, you need to at least give Monica a call & see what she can do for you.


It took us 20 minutes to get our food at Arby's tonight. When will we learn? We promise pictures soon, as long as you allow "soon" to be a relative term.

Where did all the SUV's go???

Somehow we made it here & managed to get moved into our house (although it wasn't technically ours until today which is a whole other story). Talk about culture shock! The top 5 weird things about Memphis are listed below:

1. Customer Service - N/A meaning there is none.
2. 2 words: humidity & mosquitoes.
3. Imagine if someone took all the street names in a huge city written on little pieces of paper, shook them all up in a hat & dumped them all on a map, you have Memphis.
4. I've been to Wal-Mart 5 times already & haven't seen Elvis once!

5. People here honestly believe that everyone from Oklahoma is a cowboy (thanks Big Brother 5!)
We needed to get that out of our system because we are experiencing major culture shock. We are definitely on edge & constantly on each other's nerves, but that is to be expected in a stressful situation. We will try not to tell you all of our nightmare stories, like how the phone company only set up our service for a pulse dial phone (whoops, we must have left our rotary phone IN THE 60's), or how we get lost every single time we go out, or how we showed up on our closing date & were told we were not allowed to move in. We will try to show you some before & after pictures. Our house is really coming together & we are pleased. The wood floors are in incredible shape & the yard is making a dramatic turn around... so please come visit us!! By the way, we found out the couch we fixed up originally cost $450 new at Mathis Brothers three years ago.


Now that we have Internet, we will have to blog more to keep you posted. Please keep reading & commenting because we don't want to lose contact with any of you. We have our new contact information & will soon be sending it out as soon as we get our cell phones switched to Memphis numbers.