MIA

So, I've basically been missing in action for the past few weeks. The thing is, that both my phone and my computer went down at the same time. At said time, I entered into a technological void.

In truth, It wasn't that I had no access to the world of technology (I had a borrowable, roomie computer and many people with phones around) but none of that was mine. Soon, I returned to the land of cellular phones but it was not such a quick process to find the right computer. After much deliberation, I have my "new" macbook pro off of the apple refurbished web site. I can only describe it as buttery. Everything is so fluid and beautiful, it makes me wonder how I made it through the two past years without a mac. This, simple and intuitive, design is what I am made to use. I think I'm in love.

So, what has happened in the past couple of weeks? So much... My sister, and most ardent reader, Katelyn, visited and then skipped town. We went to the highest point in Portland, to the famous international rose testing garden (where they breed new types of roses and keep roses from all over the world), to the gorge for a beautiful hike, on many a run and bike ride. We put fall crops in the ground for the garden and we made sun dried tomatoes and harvested a boat load of grapes and asian pears from my back yard. Also, we went on my personal favorite September activity, swift watching.

Now, if you have been reading this blog for some time, then you have already heard of swift watching but if you haven't you can read about it here. Make sure to check out that picture. It is beautiful. Since, I went with Katelyn, I have gone one more time with Alex- the gentleman that I am dating- as well as some friends and coworkers and I plan on going again on Friday. This year, I will get the most out of swift watching.

Outside of that, I have been getting sweet mail from friends and loved ones. Alex went away for a week and sent me three pieces of rad snail mail. Natalie, who lived in house for the month of August, sent a beautiful handmade card, and Rachael sent a sweet postcard from NH. All in all, it's been a good mail week (not to mention I got a computer in the mail).

Work has me by it's talons for the next couple of weeks. Today will be my 9th day at work and I have 5 more days to go before my break on Tuesday but believe you me, Tuesday will be a sweet lazy day.

Running is getting more intense as we prepare for the longest of our pre marathon runs on Saturday. It will be a 20 miler. But, right after that we go into tapering and I am, as of yet, undecided about what will follow the marathon. Maybe a half in December? Maybe for the winter, I will transfer to an indoor exercise program. Back to yoga perhaps... There is plenty of promise about, as the air grows crisp and fall approaches. Anything goes.

Sorry for the helter skelter fashion of this post. I avow to update more concisely and frequently in the near future.

All the best sweet ones.

Into the Wild and other Christmas Adventures

Katelyn and I spent Christmas morning hiking at a spot called Angel's Rest. Much of the time, we were wondering about what in the world we were doing outside, in the rain on Christmas day.Some of the photos may reflect that.

Katelyn, unsure about the babbling brook. 

 Me "why are we doing this"

 Katelyn's finally coming around to the hike (in the background is the beautiful Colombia River)

 A beautiful tree burnt in a past year's forest fire

 A little gnomey doll we found on a tree.

 At the peak of our hike

 There was a lot of fog but we know the view would have been spectacular

Bracing against the cold under this tree.

 Frowning at the cold, in front of the void.

A window into the void through these rocks

pictures really can't do it justice

We spent the rest of our day baking labor intensive cookies, making (and eating) curry and coconut rice and watching Christopher Nolan movies with my friend Jon. Making cookies, eating curry and watching movies is my and Jon's new Christmas tradition. We did it last year and hopefully we'll do it in years to come. After Jon left Katelyn gave me some delicious looking canned foods to eat. We got into one of them this morning. 

Canned goodies

To continue our Christmas festivities we will be opening a package we received in the mail today from home.

Hopefully you all are having safe travels and fun times out there over this holiday season.

The Big City

This past week I visited San Francisco. I spent some good time with the little sis, and some sweet but fleeting moments with the elder of us kids too. I went on an impromptu date, ate so much delicious food, checked out downtown Oakland, and spent a few nights with a good friend from back in school. I also got to see a bunch of cool things and experience what a beautiful city San Francisco was.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

The sisters in front of the "golden" gate bridge

Delicious pastry I couldn't resist eating a bit of before photographing.

The view from Buena Vista park (you can kinda see the bridge in the distance)

A buena vista park bench

Coit Tower, where I met my impromptu date

A mural of naked people I stumbled upon

A "yellow tree" with yellow leaves walking away from the famous part of Lombard St.

Don't park here, I guess

The Tenderloin area had awesome murals

Mural in the Tenderloin

Same mural

The kind of close together housing that I miss about Richmond

A shop sign on Haight Ashbury

A carousel in The Golden Gate Park

Store in Haight Ashbury

I think this is a eucalyptis log

Plant in Golden Gate Park (everything grows there)

One kind of San Francisco architecture.

The view from some famous pier where there are sea lions

Giant Yoda statue made out of Legos

I'm about to turn in for the night. Trying to wake up and go to a morning Yoga class tomorrow. We'll see if that happens. Trying to be productive with my free time these days.

The give and take of it

So Halloween has come and gone. I ended up not getting a picture of my exact full blown costume but I did get one picture (thanks to my friend Marika) which shows you a good approximation of what I did end up looking like.

Cruella-Lite. I'm not wearing my real dress or using my long cigar

but this is pretty much it.

Since Halloween it seems like a whole lot has happened. I guess it has been almost a week since my last post.

Firstly, despite my lack of Halloween candy eating, I did go to the dentist only to find that I have approximately 1,000 cavities. I was flabbergasted to say the least. Up until this point I've had perfectly good teeth with not a one cavity. It's kind of a bummer since I hate to end a positive streak and really it's only been this year that I've really come to be responsible about taking care of my teeth by both brushing and flossing on a super regular basis. So, it seems like the worst year for my teeth to fail me. Oh well, what are you going to do? I'm going to drill 'em out and fill 'em in, is what I'm going to do. I've already gotten some of them filled and I go in again on November 8th (the day after my birthday :( whomp, whomp).

Secondly, I met a boy on Halloween, well I've met him before but I really talked to him on Halloween while I was out at a show. He invited me to this lecture series that he had organized.

It was about food issues, especially in relation to where we live in Portland and it was really interesting. He also inspired me with his go-getter nature to look into more things that I can do in my community and now I'm going to volunteer with a tree planting group called Friends of Trees

If I like the organization I may look into being a community or team leader of sorts for a following planting season. Go get it, I guess.

I don't want to keep starting my paragraphs with numerical placements, so on top of all that, I have been planning my birthday party. This is something about which I am very excited. I am almost too jazzed up to sleep at night because of all of the planning and and anticipation. I'll just give you a quick menu peek here.

A) pigs in a blanket

B)home made tomato soup and Italian seasoned bread

C) Butternut squash Mac n' Cheese

D) roasted carrots

E) Something green

F) Honey Cake and cinnamon-coconut ice cream.

Don't worry, I'll take some pictures for you all to salivate at.

Also, I invited a cute boy to my birthday dinner. He works at the Restore and I just met him yesterday but he left me his number when he left the restore in the afternoon and we had a long text conversation immediately after. So, I think he's pretty interested in me. We'll see how he fields my friends at my birthday.

Not the least important but maybe the furthest in advance, I am working on a trip to San Francisco in two weeks. It wouldn't be a very long trip (I'd probably get to San Francisco on a Sunday evening and leave on a Thursday at some point). But, I've been meaning to visit a friend down there for a year and now that Katelyn is down there I just can't resist the trip! Travels Hurrah!

Wish me the best of luck on everything coming together appropriately from dental work to travel plans. I hope you all are staying healthier in the mouth than I, and are having just as much fun this week. All the best to you all. Thanks for reading.

IPad

Rising with the sun

6:30am is the time I've been getting up for work the past couple of days.

Needless to say, I've been tired and grumpy. Waking in the early AM is not really my cup of tea (although speaking of tea I've been drinking it to survive the mornings). Thankfully this early wake up time is because I've served the past 4 shifts that I've worked so I can't complain too much.

Today, I get to volunteer and hang out with my friend, Monica, who's in town. She actually just called. Hurray for visitors!

I'll try and keep you guys caught up on what's going on but things are starting to get busier here so be patient with me.

Side Note: Shout out to dad for a belated Father's day. I love you Dad!

Keeping it busy

Wow, The last week or so has flown by.

When I got back into town from some delightful family time, I went straight to work. After work I set into getting my house ready for my guest Jamie.

That was Friday.

Saturday, after work, Jamie got into town and the festivities began. Sunday I worked some more (luckily Jamie had to work every morning he was here anyways so it worked out well). We did all kinds of things in our free time though. We made dinner together (I made him make my household banana bread). We went to the highest point in the city and looked out over the beautiful vista while eating delicious sushi. We got food from food carts, we got $2 local beers (and I almost convinced Jamie to go to a Hamercize themed dance party). We went to the Rose Festival and saw a show. We visited Voodoo Donuts and tried three different kinds of donut-Bacon Maple, A little Voodoo doll one, and a vegan oreo one.

Now after working the today and yesterday and running my long run (10 miles) I am off to a Prom Bike ride. Yay for Pedal Pallooza!

back on track

Saturday update! What?! What?! Getting back on track.

All right, here's the scoop. I've been watching this show called Firefly on Netflix and reading East of Eden in my free time. Both fortunately and unfortunately, I haven't had so very much of that free time recently (although I've still managed to blaze my way at a pretty healthy rate through both of those pass times). The reason why I've been so busy is 5 days of work a week and one at the restore as well as some much appreciated visiting time, some much needed runs, and the regular chores.

What I've been coming up against from working and running are some pretty unfun shin splints. I'm working on helping my legs out against those by wearing some insoles. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm training for a race in July and am not trying to get behind on that. Also, I don't think they're really from running as they got much worse in the past week when I was standing on the hard floors at work so much more than usual.

Outside of that I had been waiting on a 2nd job to start but I decided not to take it since I'm working so much at this job and have a guaranteed 4 day work week as well as two consecutive days off for my "weekend" which is not something I'm trying to pass up.

My calendar for the week to come is spotted with work. Monday: serving. Tuesday: work meeting. Wednesday: off. Thursday: serving. Friday: busing. Saturday: serving. Sunday:hosting. Notice- only one of those days is a hosting shift. It's going to be a good week for me!

Any other updates you should know about... Oh yes! Another friend is planning to visit me. It's not for a long time and it's not 100% for certain but I'm feeling pretty excited to have so many people coming to visit me (or at least wanting to) as of late. AND! it was a beautiful day today which made biking to two different grocery stores nothing but a pleasure.

Hope y'all's weekend is heading in the right direction.

a whole lot

Last time I updated I felt like I had nothing to tell you and this time I feel like I have so much to share.

As you may know, last week I trained as a server. Monday was my first serving shift and Thursday is my second. The exciting thing that I learned at my first shift is that I'm going to serve the weekend after next. What that means from a monetary viewpoint is that I'll be earning at least twice as much that weekend than I usually do in just tips add that to my base of minimum wage and I'm going to be sitting pretty.

That's big news for me but still kind of boring. What's exciting right now is that Jon-Mike and Jackie are in town and staying at my house. That means I get a whole lot of hang out time with them (some of it we're sleeping but what can you do?) which is awesome. I'm so happy to have them here with me. I only wish that I could be a slightly better tour guide for the beautiful city of Portland. Since I've been working or volunteering every day that they've been here I have fallen a little short on that front.

Tonight we're going out to get some cheap brews and I'm looking forward to actually taking them out on the town.

Hope you all are having a great week so far too.

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.

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.