nairb

May 25th, 1997 - I Graduate and move us to Texas

The last couple of semesters were packed. We decided that financially we couldn't afford another summer of my being in school. I carried 18 and 15 hours of senior level work my last year of school. I am sure it was as hard on Jennifer as it was on me. I ended up spending the night with friends in Stillwater a lot. There was too much lab work to come home some nights. She rarely complained. Finally in May I graduated. We were on top of the world.

In the months leading up to graduation I interviewed with companies as often as possible. I had a job nailed down at Halliburton in Duncan, OK. We had gone down and found a house to rent and placed our deposit. The starting salary was good, better than I expected as a new graduate. The job started the week after graduation. We only needed me to pass.

During dead week I got a call from Lockheed. They had been trying to get a hold of me. They wanted to fly me down to interview. So Wednesday of dead week I did it. By Friday they offered me the job. It was more in line with what I wanted and had a better starting salary. It was far away in Texas, but we decided it was a better option. We went for it. Now the problem was the job started in just a couple of weeks and we didn't have any place to stay. She had to pack for the movers to get our stuff the week of graduation. So the Wednesday of finals weeks I came to Fort Worth and found a rent house. I only hoped she'd like it. A couple of days later, graduation happened and we headed to Fort Worth. We got here late at night and when we got in the house that night we found out it had a horrible roach problem. To make matters worse we'd be sleeping on the floor. We all slept in the same room that night with a towel shoved under the bedroom door.

The next few months she came to realize all of her friends were in OK. The people here hadn't quite taken with us yet. She got very active in the Church. Friends came later. Our boys were growing. Eric started kindergarten from that house. Jennifer got ill and had to have surgery. It was a frightening time. We still didn't have much money. School bills were actually needing to be paid back now and we had to buy a new (to us) car. She eventually took a job at Walmart for a while. She hated it. We never saw each other. She knew it would help us and was always willing when that's the case. She made sure we had great Christmas that year.

At work there was worry. LM had a very big contract that everyone was waiting on. If it fell through nearly everyone would be let go. I thought we should stay in the rental until we knew for sure. She knew we couldn't live life in fear. DFW was a big place and I could definitely get a new job. She is always building me up. So we started looking at putting down some roots.

I Love my wife!

posted by nairb @ 8:30 AM