End of training

Today was my last day of training as a server for Slappy Cakes. I even took the two last tables under my own name (got my own first bad tip too). I'm pretty excited because I'm working 5 days next week and two of them are serving shifts. That seems like it's going to be a pretty good deal for me. I'm certainly looking forward to it.

From training I went straight to the Restore and then did a bit of a bike ride for cross training. Tonight, I'm getting together with my friend Marika and, possibly, her boyfriend, Mathew. We're going to eat some dinner and then go out to get some cheap brews. It should be pretty good.

Things that I am thankful for as of late are having friends to hang out with, good weather, and plenty of work. It's been a pretty good week (I know it's only Tuesday but I have tomorrow and Thursday off this week so it's the end of my work week).

Hope you all are having a swell time from wherever you might be reading this.

Working hard at hardly working

Hey guys,

How's it going out there? I've been at work for the past three days which is still a new feeling for me. I also work Monday and Tuesday, although probably not very many hours. It's, actually pretty nice to work at a breakfast restaurant. You can work every day and still have every night free. Tomorrow, I don't even have to be there until 9:30 so I might even get my run in before work (but if not, no biggie. I'm just training to serve which isn't hard).

Last night, I went to a show that my friend's band played. It was pretty fun to get out. It was nice to meet some of my friend's friends too. I feel as though, I'm starting to settle in even more as a part of Portland. Knowing people to spend time with, and even meeting members of their friend group. It's a good thing for sure. The nice weather is really helping me feel at home here as well :).

I'm recruiting people to visit me this year. As you know, Dan came for a visit, which was awesome. I'm looking forward to Jon-Mike and Jackie coming down to visit me after they visit in Seattle for a little bit. I'm trying to get my friend Jamie to come visit me in June and I have a friend Monica who is planning on taking a trip up here from the bay area sometime this summer too. I am looking forward or hoping for each and every one of these visits to happen. It would be great to get all that visiting in.

I hope that all of you have some exciting plans in store for the spring/summer time frame.

Toodaloo!

Free day: AKA sweat pants and cookies

Today I made Risotto as well as peanut butter cookies with cinnamon and nutmeg.

These cookies almost turned out disastrously because I almost forgot to put peanut butter in them #absentmindedbaking! But luckily they didn't go without peanut butter and they do, indeed, taste delicious.

Look at them! Don't they look delicious?!

Thursday, easy day.

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.