1. Movies movies movies - since school has gotten out, I have been watching movies GALORE! I canceled my TV during school to eliminate distraction, so now I thrive on Redbox. So far my two favorites are The Help and Friends With Benefits. Love!
2. Passing stones - as most of you probably know, I have been spending some extra time in the ER for horrible kidney stones. The pain from kidney stones is horrible, and this episode caused me so much pain that I threw up for an entire day (TMI?). I'm ready for this to be OVER! Thanks for the support friends!
Wish I could have screen-captured everyone's comments - I have some supportive friends!
3. Pledge 4-in-1 Hardwood Floor Cleaner - I love this stuff! This is the type of clean that you just squirt on your floor and mop up. It's super easy, and I love the way it cleans my hardwood floors.
I'm laying in bed after recovering from an entire day of stomach flu or food poisoning. Judging from the fever, I believe it was the flu. This was a lovely way to spend the first day of the new year!! Luckily, my mom came over to watch me hug a toilet (TMI?) and help around my house.
I know most people right now are making blog posts on their new year "resolutions," so this post may be a little cliche, but sometimes cliche is fun.
For beginners, I don't typically make "resolutions." They're difficult to keep, and most people never follow through. "Run every single day" is not realistic. "Lose 15 pounds" can happen quickly - then what?
So I decided to post things that I am looking forward to in this upcoming year.
Moving to Portland - in less than 1 month, I will be packing my belongings (again), renting a moving truck, and driving to Portland. We have an adorable apartment that the boyfriend is currently living in, in a great part of town. Now the only question is where on earth are we going to put all of his climbing stuff!?
New Job - I have only been at my current job for a little over a year, however I feel like I have been there forever! When I left my last job, I was just an intern. It is expected for interns to leave. They're not highly valued as an actual employee. At my new job, I put in my notice with my boss as soon as I estimated a moving date. Since I have put my notice in, I have had so many people approach me about how they enjoy working with me, congratulating me on my new move, and so much more. I feel like an asset. I have only just begun applying for new jobs in Portland, however I am excited to see what it's like to work in a big city with so many different opportunities.
Baby - ok ok ok - not MY baby, but one of my best friends in the entire world has a bun in the oven. I CAN'T WAIT to meet him!
Working Out - this past semester was absolutely brutal to me. I worked full time and took four graduate level courses, so my personal health and fitness was put on the back burner. My dinners consisted of chips or cheesits, and my lunches consisted of Rockstar energy drinks. With that being said, I am excited to begin working out again and eating real meals!
Bloggy - I believe my bloggy needs a new look. The whole half-naked-mermaid thing is cute, but I'm not in a sorority anymore and that picture doesn't fly. Now that I'm school-less, maybe I'll have a little extra time to dedicate to my bloggy!
That's it for now! I have a few more, but they're not too terribly exciting so I thought this was good enough :-)
It has been a while since my beautiful Noki baby was killed.
This is a difficult post to write, but for some reason I felt it was needed to raise any awareness possible.
I always thought if my Noki was taken from me and my family, it would be due to
A coyote attack (which he miraculously survived)
An owl attack (which happens in my parents neighborhood!)
Or him being hit by a car (something common for any neighborhood)
I never ever ever ever ever suspected my Noki baby would drown.
But that's what happen. I drove to my parents house and both my mom and step-dad walked up to me... a little less chipper than usual. I looked at them and rolled my eyes and said, "Whose dog died?!"
Mine, apparently.
I am still devastated. My mom is heart broken. Our family friends are shocked. Why was he taken so early?
What happened was Noki drowned in an irrigation ditch near my parents house. I'm not sure if it had anything do to with the water levels this year compared to years in the past, however my step-dad was taking Noki for a walk and decided to let Noki play in the water because he LOVELOVELOVES water. Unfortunately, he was a little too close to the hole-that-goes-under-ground (sorry for my lack of irrigation ditch jargon) and he was sucked under, instantly.
It was a freak accident.
The reason this topic needs awareness is this:
Roughly a week later a little boy decided to play in the water in the same exact spot. Before he realized, he too got sucked in the ditch-hole-area. Fortunately for the boy, since he was larger than an 8 pound Yorkie, his head stuck out of the water. However it took 4 grown men trying to pull this boy out of the water with no success. They finally had to cut the water supply up the road in order to pull him out.
That's how strong the current was!!!
Please please please, if you have dogs, DO NOT LET THEM PLAY IN AN IRRIGATION DITCH! Not near the hole where the water goes under ground. Not if there is a strong current. Noki has always played in the irrigation ditch - this has never been an issue before so this has caught everyone by surprise. Our family is devastated that we lost our Noki Baby, Nokermeister, Noki Poki...
I am 47.89 days away from completing my LAST EVER FINAL EXAM!!
I am not quite as bitter as I was this time last semester - if you recall some blog posts, I was extremely bitter and here's why:
I WORK AND GO TO SCHOOL FULL TIME!
I get extremely angry when I hear people complaining who:
Only go to school with 4-5 classes. Good for you. Now try it with a job simultaneously.
Only work and get to go home after work. And work out. Or put on pajamas. Whereas I'm in class. Till 10pm.
Go to school with a few classes. And work Part Time. I hate you. And your life. Not fair.
I honestly can't believe I am mentally stable this Fall. I thought I would have had several breakdowns by now, and I've only had ONE (shout out to my mom who sat on the phone with me while I cried and pouted).
With that being said, here is what I have this semester.
Work (obviously) 40+ hours per week
BADM 781 - Strategic Management what?
BADM 791 - Leadership leadership leadership
BADM 750 - Information Systems rocks
CEP 613 - My random education/telecommunications class
It's not an ideal schedule. It's grad student suicide. But guess who only has 47.89 days left... THIS GIRL!!
So with that being said, these are the things I'm looking forward to in 47.90 days:
Working out again
TV
Sleep
My family
TV
My boyfriend
My friends/Lou
Using my weekends to do fun stuff - not homework and preparing meals for the upcoming week
TV
SKIING
Pajamas after work
Movies
TV
Cooking
Reading for fun, not pain and misery
Shopping
Not climbing because it's cold outside and I'm a wuss
This is for a class, and unfortunately because the application doesn't allow you to share the video easily, I am uploading this to my blog. For my followers- please disregard.
After our lovely reunion, Aaron had everything planned for the next day! I LOVED THIS!
We drove up to Seattle and stayed at a BEAUTIFUL hotel with a view of the ocean. This room was amazing and I purposely looked away when Aaron paid the bill (I don't even want to know what he paid - ignorance is bliss right?). We dropped off our bags and played around in Seattle until dinner.
We had dinner at an adorable place called Poppy. Aaron researched the location we were staying and the restaurants in the area so we were able to walk to the restaurant from our hotel and not have to worry about the Washington drivers :-) I can't even describe what Poppy was like - the menu creations were... interesting... BUT DELICIOUS! I was so impressed with Aarons initiative to make this day a wonderful day for my visit - it was short but definitely sweet.
Dinner!
Dessert Menu?
We stayed in our wonderful room then booked it out of Seattle the next day. Short and sweet :-)
On our way back to Portland, we took a mini-detour and went to the TILLAMOOK CHEESE FACTORY!! I lovelovelove cheese so I was so excited!! Apparently - at the Tillamook cheese factory there is epic ice cream so we started off our cheese tour with some yummy ice cream:
Then ended the cheese tour with FREE CHEESE SAMPLES!
Leaving the cheese factory I was a little ready to get back to Portland, but Aaron suggested visiting the coast since the cheese factory is a good 5 minute drive to the coast. We decided to go to Cannon Beach (boyfriend saw a post card in the cheese factory for this beach and decided this is where we were going to go).
The beach was AMAZING! I have never seen boyfriend so happy where there weren't any mountains! There were, of course, two rock-type-of-formations that he was ENTHRALLED by. Naturally, we had to visit the rock formations.
I'm slowly learning to like Oregon. My very first trip to Oregon I spent one day a few hours in the city, then got so scared that I hid in the hotel room for the rest of the weekend (keep in mind that I was alone). In the few short hours I spent in the city I had:
Witnessed a drug deal
Been followed by a mentally unstable man who pointed at me and said, "I want THAT one."
A bum follow me to my car
I hated it.
So my next trip to Oregon was to move my boyfriend to his new home. Again - I hated it. His apartment hallways smelled like incense (sp??), the actual apartment smelled like fish, and the weather was muggy. Fail.
So this was my most recent trip - we had a BLAST! I loved it! My boyfriend pulled out all of the stops and made sure I had a wonderful time. We started with a little hike to the top of Multnomah Falls. It was beautiful!!
After the falls we went to the FISH HATCHERY! I love love love fish!
And on our way back we stopped on the side of the road to view the beautiful Oregon sunsets.
We decided to go on a movie-date because that is something we both definitely took for granted. I love love movie dates - I'd rather watch a movie at night than party at a club any day. So we went to dinner (see my Yelp Review of Broadway Grill and Brewery) then caught a movie down the street. I was in HOG HEAVEN spending so much time with my honey :-)
As all of my friends and family know, my life has been crazy-whacko-nutso.
Not only am I STILL homeless (and by homeless, I mean I'm paying a mortgage on a home I purchased but can't live in), but my boyfriend took a job up in OREGON.
And I swear - if I hear "When does he come back?" one more time I'm going ape shit.
He's NOT coming back. He. Took. A. Job. In. Oregon. What part of that screams "I'M COMING BACK!" ????
So with that being said, at the beginning of July we got to move all of his stuff up to Oregon. We packed up a UHaul, sent his dog to his moms, and began our epic 1-way road trip to Portland! Thank goodness I wasn't moving up there - otherwise we may have needed 3 UHauls for all the CRAP I have apparently accumulated throughout my life.
His mom and Dommy Salami (aka: One of the brothers) came up the night before to say their goodbyes. I was the photographer.
Unfortunately, Aaron is unable to have his beloved mess-of-an-animal dog in Portland until next spring-ish, so he had to pack up his puppy and send him off with his mom.
We then started our road trip the next morning! We stopped at Crater Lake one day. Crater Lake is just as beautiful as all of the pictures. It's a beautiful location - but a ZOO on the 4th of July weekend. I was also extremely surprised to see that there was SNOW in JULY! What a crazy year it has been.
Then the next day we stopped at Smith Rock. And rock climbed. Because it wouldn't be a trip with my boyfriend without rock climbing.
It was a great little trip! I miss my boyfriend dearly and don't get to talk to him that often, but I am used to him being gone on climbing trips so it's a little easier than I thought it would be.
One thing I have always always always wanted to do is visit one of the MANY hot springs in the Eastern Sierra. I always hear about them, I always read about them in books, I JUST WANT TO GO!
So one day Aaron and I decided to seek out some of these hot springs. We visited 1 just to find out we were lost and had no idea where to find it.
1 down.
We visited a second one just to find out it is only filled in the morning so by the evening time the water is cold.
2 down.
We visited the third one just to find out it was PERFECTLY WARM and big enough for several people. This is great because I love making friends!
Except...
All of these "friends" were naked.
I didn't make any friends needless to say. Or take any pictures (is that appropriate to take pictures of yourself with naked people in the background?). I guess I'm a little modest - but it was awkward looking up and HELLO FULL MOON!! PUT THAT THING AWAY!!
So many of you may know that my best little friend is a Bolivian bombshell (ok - I think she's a bombshell).
Anyhow - because she's from Bolivia, occasionally she mixes up words or doesn't always get words right. So the other day my little Lou (only I can call her Lou) posts on her facebook:
Emphasis on "Porter Potties." Now when I see Lina make these little errors I laugh and tell her the correct way to spell or pronounce the word. In this case, I told her via Facebook Chat why some people were making comments about the "Porter Potties" and here is her response:
Ok - so she actually looked it up online! Well then shame on Google for not telling her.
Except when I googled "porter potties" something completely different popped up.
