Back on my own

Here I am back on my own in Portland, OR.

After a fun packed but tiring round of visiting and being visited I am both happy and sad to be alone in Portland. I learned during all of the mayhem that I am pretty set in my ways. I know what I like and I like to do things a certain way. I didn't realize that about myself so much before I spent so much time out of control or sharing what I did with other people. Sometimes during the visiting I got to feeling a little bossy, honestly.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time with everyone. I love that Dan came and helped me recuperate from the homesickness that hit me like a train when I flew into Portland and the sweat adventures we got to go on while he was here. I loved hanging out with Family and seeing a ton of friends in my free time while I was on the East Coast.

Now that I'm on my own though I can catch up on some things both big and small. I got my bike tire fixed on Friday. My tube was old and the valve wasn't really working anymore so when I came back from the east I had the sad experience of deflating my whole tire when I tried to pump it up. Now everything's in working order so that's good. I also caught up on some quality alone time on Thursday and deposited a few checks so that I can pay for my family trip to CO (can't wait!) and some bills. Friday I worked a short day, and got out to enjoy the sunshine that the land of ports, in a brief fit of benevolence, had decided to share with us. I spread out in the sun (with a serious layer of clothing on) and listened to some podcasts that I'd gotten behind on and then I went for a wonderful 5 miler.

Today was an easy day of work, and some serious planning for my next friend dinner. I'm inviting some people that I've never hung out with before which makes me both excited and a bit nervous. I'm sure it will be fine though. On the menu for Monday night is a delightful sounding shepherd's pie and some kale.

Also, the new job still isn't starting. The opening date was moved back to May. But, on the bright side, I am being trained as a server at Slappy Cakes. Which means I'll be working at least 4 shifts a week pretty soon. One shift every other week as a buser (which is double the $$ of hosting) Two shifts of hosting and one of serving. Serving will also, probably, be more money than hosting, even if it's slow. So, I'll probably end up making a lot more money even though some of my shifts are still going to be the same old hosting shifts. In the end, I might not even need this 2nd job. We'll see what happens though.

Wow guys! That was a big update. Hope you all didn't get too bored. I'll catch you up more later.

Tired Thursday

Today, is a tired morning. It's 6:39am and I've been up for almost two hours now.

I thought that Dan's, my friend who's been visiting, flight left in the evening when he told me his flight left at 6:30 but it turns out that it leaves in the morning which is good because it makes it possible for me to work today and earn some money but is not good because it involved leaving the house before 5 in the morning. Yuck! Not my favorite thing.

This is really just the beginning of my work week as I work from today through Sunday at the ol' Slappy Cakes and then am supposed to start training for the yogurt shop on Monday. If that goes through I'll be working at least 5 days in a row and then volunteering on Tuesday. I may even get more yogurt shop time in than one day and work most of next week. That would be both good and bad because I am very tired already but it would be an awesome problem to be tired from working too much. That, in fact, would not be a problem that I've faced in at least 6 months.

So, here I am, at the begging of my day looking forward to the problem of having too much work. Let's hope things are as troubling as they look like they'll be :).

Oregon Coast

When you have a friend come visit it's always a good excuse to go do something you've never done in your area. Yesterday Dan and I went to visit the Oregon Coast. It was raining pretty bad but we managed to see some epic rocks off of the shore and most of a cute little oceanfront town before being completely soaked through to the bones.

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach

Posing next to a fisherman

Dan posing next to the beach man

Haystack rock and some ocean

If you notice a lot of grayness in these pictures that is rain. We were getting totally soaked. After the coast we warmed up on the drive home, chilled at home for a bit and then went to one of my favorite 2nd run theater's The Laurelhurst Theater to watch The Illusionist which was a really pretty if not very uplifting film.

Today we're off to get some groceries picked up before we walk over to volunteering (for me) and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (for Dan). After that we're going to try some officially cheap tap beers at East Burn. Fun stuff.