No Jacket, Short Sleeves

I'm sitting outside in the sun talking to a friend via gchat. I'm not wearing a jacket, I'm wearing a lightweight short sleeve shirt. And I am happy. Did you know that all it takes to make me happy is sunshine? I'm tying to move south after this :).

It doesn't hurt that I trained to serve today so I'm getting ready to start making some money. But, I think most of what's doing it is that I'm sitting in the sun.

Other things I'm looking forward to are: My afternoon bike ride for cross training, A visit in the near future from my brother and his wife, cheap drinks tonight with my friend Marika.

Tomorrow is another day of training and then I've got a day off before the weekend starts on Friday morning with work. It's nice to have a five day work week too.

In general this day is just something I'm enjoying. If I had to summarize this post. It would go like this

Things that I'm happy about right now:

1: sunshine

2: no jacket, no hat, no gloves

3: future visits

4: friend time

5: prospective money

6: internet conversations with friends

7: five day work week

8: the warmth on the back of my neck which comes from sunshine.

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.

Flying in

My good friend Dan is flying in tonight. Although it means I'll be at the airport for the 2nd time in as many nights, I guess that's OK. No, in real life I am very excited to have Dan come visit me.

I've got things all set up for him. Clean sheets on the bed, a clean towel in the dryer, and some easy foods to make in someone else's house (sandwich foods). I've also reserved one of the couches in our house to sleep on. A lot of people are at our house right now so I was starting to get a little worried about my own sleeping arrangements.

Who knew there could be so much to prepare to have a friend stay with you for a few days?

I'm excited for him to get here so we can both go to sleep. Since we'll each be on East Coast time I figure that is pretty much going to be our first priority.

Good night folks.

Thursday

Today, has been a bit of a sleepy, rainy day.

After a spectacular dinner out with my good friend Krista and then some quality couch hang out time with some buddies from art school I was ready for bed last night. And that feeling has kind of leaked into today. I'm trying to convince myself that I need to go on a run (because I do need to go on a run) but so far that convincing has lead to nothing. Both Mamaw and I have been in the same boat AKA lounging on the couch under blankets for much of this morning.

I did get the house vacuumed though. So, there's one thing. I'm also looking forward to some quality hang out time with Chrissy who if you don't know personally you may remember from the blog that I went to her wedding in October.

I hope the rest of you are being a bit more productive with your time than I am and are having a wonderful morning.

Where to even begin?!

This weekend passed by in a whirlwind of excitement!

I went from visit's with friends from Philly and the DE family, into wedding prep and then, even better, the wedding! It was beautiful and I'm both excited and a little jealous about the adventures that Jon-Mike and Jackie are embarking upon with their lives.

The wedding itself was filled with; moving prayers and speeches; beautiful dresses, flowers and setups; an open bar, dance floor and delicious cookies (plus, of course, wedding cake with gelato!) and plenty of aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and family of all sorts.

The husband to be and our wonderful uncle Eddy.

Jon-Mike and Jackie dancing

After the wedding I had more quality family time as I rode down to Richmond, VA with my Uncle Roger and Aunt Sarah and beautiful grandmother. We watched VCU move into the final four by winning against Kansas and then I went to visit friends from school.

The week has been radiation treatments in the afternoon and family and friends all around that. Mamaw and I have gotten in some walks and I have many a plan to see some great people. Looking forward to continuing with my visit for the rest of the week.