Trimmed up

Our yard just got its version of a haircut and I can tell it feels kind of naked. The way that you feel naked after you cut off all of your long hair and you go to wash it when you shower and it's all gone. This is how my yard feels. It feels like all of its beautiful hair is gone. And when I say beautiful hair, I mean blackberries.

The landlord came over today and "cleaned up" our yard which, to me, means that he cut down all of the beautiful and productive rose and blackberry bushes. Our yard looks stunted and a little bit pathetic. But, it'll grow into itself. I'm just going to miss having those blackberries to great me every day when I get home from work. I'm going to miss them a lot.

It's ok. The good news is: I got off of work early today. Also, I bought my ticket back to the east coast. The running joke right now is I'm just going to move back since I have yet to purchase my flight back to the West Coast. Don't get yourself too excited. I'm not actually moving back east. I'm trying to establish some in state residency for myself here so when I figure out what's good I can go to school for it. But, I am looking forward to seeing you lovelies and to eating at some delicious Richmond restaurants (shout out Black Sheep and Kuba Kuba with maybe a little love to Strawberry Street Cafe and some 8 and a half pizza).

I hope you all are having a lovely weekend.

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 :).

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.

Burning ball of excitement.

Like a small sun.

A very small but hot and excited sun.

That's how I feel right now.

I am on fire with excitement.

There are so many things to look forward to.

Landing in Philly and getting lunch with my friend Matt, going home and seeing my Mom Dad and brothers, getting to see my sisters and get ready for Jon-Mike & Jackie's wedding, Wedding!, Mamaw!, Uncles from all over, Mom's birthday, Riding in a car, Richmond VA, Friends, Family, Friends, and back to the west coast.

I am currently waiting in the airport and writing this blog. I have started to send out my Facebook feelers and text alerts. I can not wait for the east coast and me to be one again.

Hope you all are sleeping soundly as I type.

Return to Portland

I'm back in Portland. It turns out that it takes forever to fly to and from Portland, OR.

Thankfully, however, my day of travel was broken up by a really great lunch with my parents!! I found out at about 8:00 am that I had layover in Philadelphia on my way back west from Augusta, GA. Upon notifying my dad about my flight itinerary we decided to meet in Philadelphia. Luckily that was my longest layover and I had a few solid hours to spend with them. I'd like to say now. Thanks Mom & Dad for lunch, snacks, and my birthday gift! All are/were greatly appreciated. And seeing you made my day (maybe even my week).

Other than that sweet moment of happiness, most of my travel experience involved me falling asleep with my mouth open on planes and waking up very, very thirsty. Still, eventually, I returned to what is now my home town of Portland, OR and what I found surprised me. The weather was beautiful. I caught the MAX train back into town and from there rode a bus home. All in all, I got the the airport in Augusta, GA at just past 9 in the morning EST and arrived home from the airport in Portland, OR at around 2am EST. It was a long day.