Guys... this won't mean the same to all of you, but I'm happy, really truly happy, for the first time since I've moved to Oregon. I need to remember that not everything is always good or easy in life, but I am in the place that I love to be. I love to be single and independent and very happy with who I am, and that is what I am now. That's what gives me the happiness that I so long for.
There's so much to say... I'll sum it up with just a few random musings for now, and maybe get into more details soon.
- Amanda and Vin went on a first date last Wednesday, and a second date this Friday. YAY for them.
- Hmm I'm talking to Russ right now and he disagrees... he says I'm not happiest when I'm single. I'm going to have to muse on that for a while. I said to him: I mean, I need to be happy with who I am BEFORE I can enjoy dating someone. And it takes a while for me to get to that place after I date someone. So that's an interesting caveat. Certainly the times I'm most unhappy are when I'm lonely, which has happened when I was first an RA and when I first moved here, and also when I've broken up with someone (Julius, Doug, Vin).
- Okay will have to muse on that one more still, but that was a good first thought. And I know that a lot of you enjoy the blogs that are about ME and what makes me me, and not about what I've been doing.
- Okay now Russ just said: "just remember, you're an awesome woman. God loves, and the rest is just details about chemistry" What a wise man. I knew I picked good friends!
- Random musing #2: why are all of my closest friends always guys? Vin, Russ, Andy? Exception is probably Adds... interesting. I miss girlfriends. I have a lot of wonderful girlfriends, but the people I always tell everything too are guys. Hmm.
- CABO IS AMAZING. I need to go back.
- I had been craving unloading all of my "Oregon drama" on the NU peeps, and it was so what I needed. After doing that the first day, I felt so much better and just GOOD again for the first time in a long time. The whole trip in general solidified my happiness I think.
- I decided to stop analyzing everyone's relationship with everyone. I will still listen, give advice, and share information where necessary... but the analyzing was what was killing me, because it's pointles. What's the point of analyzing "why did she say that she likes guys with glasses?!?!" or "did he say that he likes dating engineers?" etc..... NO GOOD CAN COME OF IT. Life goes on, and things happen for a reason, and analyzing things before they happen really makes no difference other than creating unncessary drama, which I'm not a fan of.
- 2 good friends of mine here said today that they'd consider going to church with me sometime. They were both kind of random and I didn't really even intend for that to happen or be the question, but it came up. That gives me so so so much joy... it kind of reminds me how good God is, cheesy as that may be to many of you guys.
- For the first time in my life I gave up something for Lent this year. As a child it was never really mentioned, and then in high school I kind of realized it was the "Catholic thing" and then in college I knew a lot of people who gave something up but I never wanted to. I've always been jaded by "rules" and by people who do things just to do them, rather than for real. And this year is probably as far as I've been from God in 4 years, but God and I have connected in interesting ways in the last 3 - 6 months. I decided that I wanted to give something up, for real, to really do it, so I gave up coffee. Y'all know how much I *adore* Starbucks, and so it's been a challenge (not to mention working nights). The first week or so, it wasn't a big deal, but the second week I started craving occasionally just wanting a Frappacino or something. I just kind of pushed it aside, but then in the next few weeks I started doing the right thing and thinking about the REASON I had made the choice and about the sacrifices Jesus made for me and all of that good stuff. I've never been able to get so excited by Easter... to me, Good Friday has always meant more because that was the day Christ died for my sins... and this year I'm SO EXCITED. Yes, I've had this very real worldy thing to remind me... but that was the intent. To remind me, get me excited, and remember the excitement of having a living God. I almost went to 24 hour starbucks at midnight tonight, for the record. I can't WAIT for after church tomorrow when I go to Starbucks!!! :-)
- Okay sorry for that rant. But you're my friends, so you should know the real me, and so I'm telling you all of the inside info. :-)
- Best memories from Cabo: Costco, Lindsey the Canadian BINGO queen, the little Mexican gnat that Dena tried to swat away and then kicked out of the bathroom, Jason, Martini Jungle, the Jungle Bar, Cabo Wabo, El Squid Roe, The Shrimp House, Dena's "boyfriend" and his mother and grandmother, The Nowhere Bar, the awesome restaurant where the waiter was in love with Dena, alumni challenge, meeting people from Sunset High School, chips and salsa every day, not getting sunburned even when I tried, the bouncer beatdown, tequilla shots, playing connections and kings, Jennifer Garner being the cut-off for who's hot and not, conversations in the lobby until 5 AM, playing in the pool and hot tub and on "Shamu", Jason, seeing Russ on the way there, and just literally having the all around best vacation of my life. Let me know if you want more details on ANY of that!!!
- I'm so happy and blessed to have the friends I have, around the country and in Oregon. I have people I can tell EVERYTHING to and that really understand me and want to be my friend. Vin is probably the first ex-boyfriend that once we've broken up, really wanted to stay me friend. I'm decent friends with Doug and Julius, but not in that same best friends way as Vin, where we absolutely get each other and are a part of everything in each other's lives. And Andy of course is amazing... we are getting to that point where we reveal more and more about ourselves to each other and are becoming extremely close, and I so adore that. I love spending more time with him and talking to him non-stop, and he literally I think is the most kind and giving person I've ever met in my life and I appreciate that so much.
- Anyway, I'm talking to Doug online now which is cool, just chatting about life (seems to happen a lot these days, but at least I'm understanding life as a 20-something better now), but I'm getting ready to go to bed. Allegedly I'm getting up in 7 hours for Easter church. I really like 5 PM church better, but I'm going to sushi Easter dinner with Vin, Mike (his brother who I'm sure you'll hear more about now that he lives here), and his mom (who I met in October). So tomorrow's agenda is church, STARBUCKS, grocery store, Easter brunch, Easter sushi. And maybe actually getting a run in there sometime if my ankle gets better (I twisted it running in Mexico). Alright. Sweet dreams, thanks for listening, and honestly, thanks for being such an amazing friend! :-)
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Trip to Brazil
So we use the Outlook calendar system a LOT at work. We all have it set up so you can see other people's calendars, and we use it for all of our social stuff in addition to of course our work meetings. So we planned out this trip to Brazilian BBQ in Seattle a few weeks ago, and Andy made the calendar invite and called it "Trip to Brazil". So the big joke for a few weeks was that we were going to Brazil. It's been fun! Anyway, so tomorrow I got home from work, watched The OC, went running (great run!), took a shower, and went tanning. Then I met up with Amanda and walked over to Andy's (he lives super close to us too, we feel like it's college again! I'm never moving...). Geoff and Vin were at Andy's already, so we hopped in Andy's car and headed north. I tried to sleep a little bit in the car ride up there but of course that didn't happen. But I did get to rest and got to chat with everyone some. So when we got there, we went to Pike's Place first off... yaaaaaay I love that place! Then we went and got food at one of the stands across from Pike's, then went to Seattle Center and went to the carnival near the CN Tower or whatever that thing is called... oh, the Space Needle I guess. Anyway, we chilled there, did the bumper cars and a kiddie coaster, laughed it up. Then we went back to the grassy area by Pike's and rested for a bit before dinner. Dinner was GREAT! Super yummy food, drinks, laughs, good times galore. I was a little tired so admittedly I was crabby, plus my tummy's been bothering me lately because my Remicade is due Tuesday. So that was a little rough, but other than that dinner was good. And Geoff once just kinda rubbed my back and asked how I was doing, which for some reason made everything okay. I love how guys can sometimes do sweet little things that totally cheer girls up, even if the girl is not interested at all. Friends are so great! And I love that guys are "fixers". The car ride home was weird... Amanda and Vin were sitting next to each other and got in this big deep discussion (sort of, really it was the same as Amanda and Geoff on the way up), but it was SO AWKWARD for me and Andy. Geoff was sleeping, and every time I tried to get in the conversation I was rejected (like 3 or 4 times). Vin was trying so hard and flirting and the rest of us were just sitting there. And I was in the back with them, and Andy was up front driving, and it sorta sucked. So after that we were all pondering what to do, and I was annoyed with Vin having sat on what felt like a first date because he was trying so hard, so I was just going to go home. It was awkward and no one knew what to do, and we all wanted just Vin and Amanda to go watch a movie, but they didn't want to and so finally I was going home and Amanda walked me home and then she asked me if I would do something else. It's a long story, but we finally decided to go to Old Chicago! I told him that he was being annoying before we got there, so he was nice to all of us and we had a GREAT TIME there. It turned into a sweet night, and it was awesome. And after 36 hours of being up (maybe 30 minutes of sleeping on the ride home), I went home and slept for 10 hours!! Gooooooood.
Vin called me at like 9:30 this morning, and wanted to go running (we had planned a 5 mile run today). But I didn't answer until he called back at noon... and by then he was sick. But he'd gotten a lot of errands done, even though he claimed to have been sick all morning. He didn't know what to do being all alone for a whole morning. Anyway, so we decided to get lunch, so he came over and collapsed on my couch to take a nap... so I watched the rest of 24, which he sort of got into. Then we went to Red Robin (formerly RRGBAS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Spirits, THERE'S an acronym for you!) for lunch. Then we went to REI so I could ask out REi boy, but to no avail... he was there, but much too busy with customers. I don't think there's a chance for that until I rent something again. Oh well, at least I did get a new hiking book! Yay! Then since I've promised Vin for months I'd take him clothes shopping, we went to lots of stores and made him SO CUTE. I fixed his hair like 6 months ago, now it was time for the clothes. So now he's a little hottie... hehe yeah right. But he's cute, and looks pretty good. Amanda will be impressed! After that he taught me how to drive stick shift... yay!! I got really good and tooled all around Hillsboro and Beaverton. Good thing because we're switching cars tomorrow so I need to know how to drive his. Then we went to Chipotle and got dinner and then I came home. It was such a fun day. I love shopping with him, he's actually a lot of fun to be in a mall with. The 2 times we've gone to malls it's been great. So yeah!! Goodness all around. Amanda called and we were supposed to hang out or go to the hot tub or something tonight, but it just never worked out. Hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday... I'm keeping my fingers crossed! When I go to Cabo next week I'll miss my friends... I'm so happy to be able to say that!!! It's so great to have not no one, and not just Vin, but lots of people to miss. But yaaaaaaaaaay to Cabo with the girls! Woot!!
Andy and I had a great conversation tonight. I love that he and Amanda live so close and that we can hang out and all of the goodness that I miss SO MUCH since college. I can be happy again!!
Quick family update... my parents are doing well. They put their house on the market and are thinking about moving to either Texas or Chicago, more likely it will be Texas. I'd love it to be Chicago because then I could see all of y'all when I come home for Christmas and stuff, but I'm guessing Texas which will be cool too. Anything is better than Iowa, right? (sorry McCracken) My sister is a Gamma Phi at Iowa and LOVES IT. She's kind of at the top of the heap at Iowa rather than just a face in the crowd at Wisconsin, if that makes sense. She gets like straight As and is in honors organizations and all of that cool stuff. She's of course still getting all of the guys and also almost fluent in Spanish and Portugese, and hopes to move to Brazil. :-)
Vin called me at like 9:30 this morning, and wanted to go running (we had planned a 5 mile run today). But I didn't answer until he called back at noon... and by then he was sick. But he'd gotten a lot of errands done, even though he claimed to have been sick all morning. He didn't know what to do being all alone for a whole morning. Anyway, so we decided to get lunch, so he came over and collapsed on my couch to take a nap... so I watched the rest of 24, which he sort of got into. Then we went to Red Robin (formerly RRGBAS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Spirits, THERE'S an acronym for you!) for lunch. Then we went to REI so I could ask out REi boy, but to no avail... he was there, but much too busy with customers. I don't think there's a chance for that until I rent something again. Oh well, at least I did get a new hiking book! Yay! Then since I've promised Vin for months I'd take him clothes shopping, we went to lots of stores and made him SO CUTE. I fixed his hair like 6 months ago, now it was time for the clothes. So now he's a little hottie... hehe yeah right. But he's cute, and looks pretty good. Amanda will be impressed! After that he taught me how to drive stick shift... yay!! I got really good and tooled all around Hillsboro and Beaverton. Good thing because we're switching cars tomorrow so I need to know how to drive his. Then we went to Chipotle and got dinner and then I came home. It was such a fun day. I love shopping with him, he's actually a lot of fun to be in a mall with. The 2 times we've gone to malls it's been great. So yeah!! Goodness all around. Amanda called and we were supposed to hang out or go to the hot tub or something tonight, but it just never worked out. Hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday... I'm keeping my fingers crossed! When I go to Cabo next week I'll miss my friends... I'm so happy to be able to say that!!! It's so great to have not no one, and not just Vin, but lots of people to miss. But yaaaaaaaaaay to Cabo with the girls! Woot!!
Andy and I had a great conversation tonight. I love that he and Amanda live so close and that we can hang out and all of the goodness that I miss SO MUCH since college. I can be happy again!!
Quick family update... my parents are doing well. They put their house on the market and are thinking about moving to either Texas or Chicago, more likely it will be Texas. I'd love it to be Chicago because then I could see all of y'all when I come home for Christmas and stuff, but I'm guessing Texas which will be cool too. Anything is better than Iowa, right? (sorry McCracken) My sister is a Gamma Phi at Iowa and LOVES IT. She's kind of at the top of the heap at Iowa rather than just a face in the crowd at Wisconsin, if that makes sense. She gets like straight As and is in honors organizations and all of that cool stuff. She's of course still getting all of the guys and also almost fluent in Spanish and Portugese, and hopes to move to Brazil. :-)
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Drama, drama, drama!
I can't believe I haven't blogged since Sunday! What nonsense. But it's been a BAD WEEK. Definitely some very highs and very lows, which to mean equals a bad week overall.
Monday during the day I went tanning, took a nap, relaxed, etc. I had planned on a hardcore run on Monday but Vin convinced me to let him make dinnner for me, so I finally agreed. He made Italian (of course), some sausage and pepper dish with the sauasge that I bought for him when I was in Seattle on Valentine's Day. It was a great night, we did lots of talking and it was absolutely wonderful. We chatted a lot about Amanda and how he liked her, etc. She called me to go into the hot tub with her while I was there, but I couldn't since I was at Vin's, so she invited me to watch Sex and the City with her and Polly the next night.
Tuesday I met Andy for lunch at Macaroni Grill! Yum!! I love that place and it was GREAT to be able to talk to him and discuss everything under the sun, including group dynamics and lots of girl stuff. It has been determined that I am the group information sink, and that I have all of the power because I have all of the information. I'm all about that! :-) Tuesday I also went tanning and running and stopped into REI to chat it up with my REI boy but he wasn't working. Boo, especially after I worked up my nerve!! Tuesday night Vin got done with work at 5 and we went over to Northeast to look at a hot tub he was interested in. On the way out there we saw Mt. St. Helens blow up a bunch of steam/ash... sweet! It was so cool looking. We had just come out of the tunnel and I'm like "there's our mountain! (referring to Hood)... and there's our other mountain (Adams)... and there's our other mountain (St. Helens)... woah, that mountain is smokin'!" Very amusing. The hot tub didn't cut it, so then we came back home. Amanda and I had arranged to go to dinner at Chili's before SATC, so she stopped by my apartment at 7:30. I was hoping to kind of feel her out for Vin a little bit, see what she thought. But it turns out, she'd invited Polly along, which was cool because I like Polly a lot. So we were chatting, blah blah blah, and Amanda and I both had a margarita... then she says "I think I have a crush on Vinnie". Oh man. I made a face, which was my first mistake. She was like "WHAT?!" and finally I told her that "he's interested". Well that brought up all sorts of questions, and we were talking and I was sort of answering them, but then sort of out of nowhere (in response to a question, but I probably could have answered it without this) I told her that we'd dated. She was like "yikes, I need to end this now, nothing's happened, this is fine". We talked a little more, it was weird, and then we just dropped it. Then we went to Krispy Kreme because Amanda and I wanted a donut, and then back to my house to watch SATC since I have it on DVD. Oh, and we stopped by her apartment on the way to grab some milke - it looks just like mine! Has my dining room table (exactly, only darker wood) and my couch (almost exactly), and just in general has a very similar feel! After we watched it I called Vin to just chat, then I realized I didn't know what to do about Amanda. So I got off the phone with him and went to call her, and her phone ran in my apartment! I was just getting ready to run her purse back over to her (don't know if I mentioned it, but she lives in my building) and she knocked on my door! Ha! :-) So she came in and we chatted... and she's SO good at reading people, so she got my very honest, very brutal reaction. We ended up actually getting really personal and emotional with each other, really hitting it off very well. She decided she didn't want to get involved with this, since I told her it might be weird for me and she didn't want to ruin our relationship or anything (way more complicated than this, I'm just giving you the very high level overview). So we decided to be honest with Vin, and I called him up and told him that I ruined his life. He wasn't happy. He talked me through the reasons I told her I'd be hurt, and I said I'd fix it. So I wrote her an email and asked him to come over so we could just talk about it. He came over at like 12:30 AM or something crazy... and was there until almost 2. But he was sweet and definitely made me feel better. So that was that.
Wednesday I decided to follow up my email by meeting Amanda for lunch and making sure she knew I was okay (sort of) with the whole thing. I mean, I am okay with it, especially on a logical level. I just don't know what it will be like. But she couldn't do lunch because she had a class, and Vin was waaaay stressed out at work and way mean. I'm not quite sure why he was nice the night before, but whatever. Anyway, so I finally went to bed (after like the WORST morning ever, and I know I use that phrase too readily, everything's worst or best with me, but this actually was a particularly bad morning). I did actually manage to leave the house to go tanning though, but couldn't bring myself to run. Ugh. So annoyed. So Amanda told me she'd meet me at work at 5, so I got up early for a Wednesday and came over here and talked to her for an hour. It took an hour to convince her that everything, including my own life, will be easier if she'll just give Vin the chance she would have before we met. So she finally agreed to. Thank goodness. It strikes me as very odd though, that a girl I barely know cares so much more about me than my alleged best friend does. Hmmmm??? Maybe it's just a function of he is REALLY REALLY into her. There's been a lot of conflict with me and Vin this week, he's been all over the place, saying he'd pick me over her, then putting ultamatiums on our friendship, then saying everything was okay... ugh. I dunno. I know, too much info for the blog. But then Amanda and I ran to Wendy's and got food, and I paged Vin and told him it was fixed.
Thursday I woke up at THREE to go to Vancouver and then Gresham to look at 2 hot tubs with Vin. Got them looked at and BARELY made it home by work at 7, but it's all good. Luckily we gave ourselves that extra time to do it. There was a lot of reflection and discussion of Amanda as well as my own relationship with Vin. Whatever, at least it's all out in the open now. Because of said hot tub trip (#2 of the week) I had to miss dinner... boo. So I was STARVING by the time lunch rolled around, yum. I also got a drunk dial from Vin about 12:30... SO FUNNY. I've never had such an amusing conversation from him... he kept saying "but why do you want to get off the phone with me". LOL. He didn't even remember it this morning.
Friday I got up at 4 to go running as usual... but I ran into Amanda on her way home from work and she persuaded me to go the pool instead (not that it was hard). So we sat around the pool and talked for about an hour and a half. SO FUN!!! I seriously love that girl, she is so great! We did NOT talk about her lunch date with Vin today, and that was ideal. I'm glad she didn't bring it up... I wanted to, but it was more important to me to just have some quality time with her WITHOUT freaking Vinnie involved. After the sun went behind the apartment we went in the hot tub for a few minutes... because WE actually have one, unlike Vin. So YAY for us. After that I went to Qdoba with Vin and got his take on the date... hopefully I'll get her take either tomorrow or Sunday. Tomorrow we're going to Brazil (AKA Brazillian BBQ in Seattle) and Sunday is hiking and girl's night at PCG!!!! I can't wait! :-) So lots of Amanda fun for the weekend. In some ways, I really do hope that they work out, because I adore them both so much. But she points out lots of reasons it will be weird, so we'll see. I could definitely see her as a roommate in the future, so my biggest hope is that that just might work out!! :-)
Monday during the day I went tanning, took a nap, relaxed, etc. I had planned on a hardcore run on Monday but Vin convinced me to let him make dinnner for me, so I finally agreed. He made Italian (of course), some sausage and pepper dish with the sauasge that I bought for him when I was in Seattle on Valentine's Day. It was a great night, we did lots of talking and it was absolutely wonderful. We chatted a lot about Amanda and how he liked her, etc. She called me to go into the hot tub with her while I was there, but I couldn't since I was at Vin's, so she invited me to watch Sex and the City with her and Polly the next night.
Tuesday I met Andy for lunch at Macaroni Grill! Yum!! I love that place and it was GREAT to be able to talk to him and discuss everything under the sun, including group dynamics and lots of girl stuff. It has been determined that I am the group information sink, and that I have all of the power because I have all of the information. I'm all about that! :-) Tuesday I also went tanning and running and stopped into REI to chat it up with my REI boy but he wasn't working. Boo, especially after I worked up my nerve!! Tuesday night Vin got done with work at 5 and we went over to Northeast to look at a hot tub he was interested in. On the way out there we saw Mt. St. Helens blow up a bunch of steam/ash... sweet! It was so cool looking. We had just come out of the tunnel and I'm like "there's our mountain! (referring to Hood)... and there's our other mountain (Adams)... and there's our other mountain (St. Helens)... woah, that mountain is smokin'!" Very amusing. The hot tub didn't cut it, so then we came back home. Amanda and I had arranged to go to dinner at Chili's before SATC, so she stopped by my apartment at 7:30. I was hoping to kind of feel her out for Vin a little bit, see what she thought. But it turns out, she'd invited Polly along, which was cool because I like Polly a lot. So we were chatting, blah blah blah, and Amanda and I both had a margarita... then she says "I think I have a crush on Vinnie". Oh man. I made a face, which was my first mistake. She was like "WHAT?!" and finally I told her that "he's interested". Well that brought up all sorts of questions, and we were talking and I was sort of answering them, but then sort of out of nowhere (in response to a question, but I probably could have answered it without this) I told her that we'd dated. She was like "yikes, I need to end this now, nothing's happened, this is fine". We talked a little more, it was weird, and then we just dropped it. Then we went to Krispy Kreme because Amanda and I wanted a donut, and then back to my house to watch SATC since I have it on DVD. Oh, and we stopped by her apartment on the way to grab some milke - it looks just like mine! Has my dining room table (exactly, only darker wood) and my couch (almost exactly), and just in general has a very similar feel! After we watched it I called Vin to just chat, then I realized I didn't know what to do about Amanda. So I got off the phone with him and went to call her, and her phone ran in my apartment! I was just getting ready to run her purse back over to her (don't know if I mentioned it, but she lives in my building) and she knocked on my door! Ha! :-) So she came in and we chatted... and she's SO good at reading people, so she got my very honest, very brutal reaction. We ended up actually getting really personal and emotional with each other, really hitting it off very well. She decided she didn't want to get involved with this, since I told her it might be weird for me and she didn't want to ruin our relationship or anything (way more complicated than this, I'm just giving you the very high level overview). So we decided to be honest with Vin, and I called him up and told him that I ruined his life. He wasn't happy. He talked me through the reasons I told her I'd be hurt, and I said I'd fix it. So I wrote her an email and asked him to come over so we could just talk about it. He came over at like 12:30 AM or something crazy... and was there until almost 2. But he was sweet and definitely made me feel better. So that was that.
Wednesday I decided to follow up my email by meeting Amanda for lunch and making sure she knew I was okay (sort of) with the whole thing. I mean, I am okay with it, especially on a logical level. I just don't know what it will be like. But she couldn't do lunch because she had a class, and Vin was waaaay stressed out at work and way mean. I'm not quite sure why he was nice the night before, but whatever. Anyway, so I finally went to bed (after like the WORST morning ever, and I know I use that phrase too readily, everything's worst or best with me, but this actually was a particularly bad morning). I did actually manage to leave the house to go tanning though, but couldn't bring myself to run. Ugh. So annoyed. So Amanda told me she'd meet me at work at 5, so I got up early for a Wednesday and came over here and talked to her for an hour. It took an hour to convince her that everything, including my own life, will be easier if she'll just give Vin the chance she would have before we met. So she finally agreed to. Thank goodness. It strikes me as very odd though, that a girl I barely know cares so much more about me than my alleged best friend does. Hmmmm??? Maybe it's just a function of he is REALLY REALLY into her. There's been a lot of conflict with me and Vin this week, he's been all over the place, saying he'd pick me over her, then putting ultamatiums on our friendship, then saying everything was okay... ugh. I dunno. I know, too much info for the blog. But then Amanda and I ran to Wendy's and got food, and I paged Vin and told him it was fixed.
Thursday I woke up at THREE to go to Vancouver and then Gresham to look at 2 hot tubs with Vin. Got them looked at and BARELY made it home by work at 7, but it's all good. Luckily we gave ourselves that extra time to do it. There was a lot of reflection and discussion of Amanda as well as my own relationship with Vin. Whatever, at least it's all out in the open now. Because of said hot tub trip (#2 of the week) I had to miss dinner... boo. So I was STARVING by the time lunch rolled around, yum. I also got a drunk dial from Vin about 12:30... SO FUNNY. I've never had such an amusing conversation from him... he kept saying "but why do you want to get off the phone with me". LOL. He didn't even remember it this morning.
Friday I got up at 4 to go running as usual... but I ran into Amanda on her way home from work and she persuaded me to go the pool instead (not that it was hard). So we sat around the pool and talked for about an hour and a half. SO FUN!!! I seriously love that girl, she is so great! We did NOT talk about her lunch date with Vin today, and that was ideal. I'm glad she didn't bring it up... I wanted to, but it was more important to me to just have some quality time with her WITHOUT freaking Vinnie involved. After the sun went behind the apartment we went in the hot tub for a few minutes... because WE actually have one, unlike Vin. So YAY for us. After that I went to Qdoba with Vin and got his take on the date... hopefully I'll get her take either tomorrow or Sunday. Tomorrow we're going to Brazil (AKA Brazillian BBQ in Seattle) and Sunday is hiking and girl's night at PCG!!!! I can't wait! :-) So lots of Amanda fun for the weekend. In some ways, I really do hope that they work out, because I adore them both so much. But she points out lots of reasons it will be weird, so we'll see. I could definitely see her as a roommate in the future, so my biggest hope is that that just might work out!! :-)
Drama, drama, drama!
I can't believe I haven't blogged since Sunday! What nonsense. But it's been a BAD WEEK. Definitely some very highs and very lows, which to mean equals a bad week overall.
Monday during the day I went tanning, took a nap, relaxed, etc. I had planned on a hardcore run on Monday but Vin convinced me to let him make dinnner for me, so I finally agreed. He made Italian (of course), some sausage and pepper dish with the sauasge that I bought for him when I was in Seattle on Valentine's Day. It was a great night, we did lots of talking and it was absolutely wonderful. We chatted a lot about Amanda and how he liked her, etc. She called me to go into the hot tub with her while I was there, but I couldn't since I was at Vin's, so she invited me to watch Sex and the City with her and Polly the next night.
Tuesday I met Andy for lunch at Macaroni Grill! Yum!! I love that place and it was GREAT to be able to talk to him and discuss everything under the sun, including group dynamics and lots of girl stuff. It has been determined that I am the group information sink, and that I have all of the power because I have all of the information. I'm all about that! :-) Tuesday I also went tanning and running and stopped into REI to chat it up with my REI boy but he wasn't working. Boo, especially after I worked up my nerve!! Tuesday night Vin got done with work at 5 and we went over to Northeast to look at a hot tub he was interested in. On the way out there we saw Mt. St. Helens blow up a bunch of steam/ash... sweet! It was so cool looking. We had just come out of the tunnel and I'm like "there's our mountain! (referring to Hood)... and there's our other mountain (Adams)... and there's our other mountain (St. Helens)... woah, that mountain is smokin'!" Very amusing. The hot tub didn't cut it, so then we came back home. Amanda and I had arranged to go to dinner at Chili's before SATC, so she stopped by my apartment at 7:30. I was hoping to kind of feel her out for Vin a little bit, see what she thought. But it turns out, she'd invited Polly along, which was cool because I like Polly a lot. So we were chatting, blah blah blah, and Amanda and I both had a margarita... then she says "I think I have a crush on Vinnie". Oh man. I made a face, which was my first mistake. She was like "WHAT?!" and finally I told her that "he's interested". Well that brought up all sorts of questions, and we were talking and I was sort of answering them, but then sort of out of nowhere (in response to a question, but I probably could have answered it without this) I told her that we'd dated. She was like "yikes, I need to end this now, nothing's happened, this is fine". We talked a little more, it was weird, and then we just dropped it. Then we went to Krispy Kreme because Amanda and I wanted a donut, and then back to my house to watch SATC since I have it on DVD. Oh, and we stopped by her apartment on the way to grab some milke - it looks just like mine! Has my dining room table (exactly, only darker wood) and my couch (almost exactly), and just in general has a very similar feel! After we watched it I called Vin to just chat, then I realized I didn't know what to do about Amanda. So I got off the phone with him and went to call her, and her phone ran in my apartment! I was just getting ready to run her purse back over to her (don't know if I mentioned it, but she lives in my building) and she knocked on my door! Ha! :-) So she came in and we chatted... and she's SO good at reading people, so she got my very honest, very brutal reaction. We ended up actually getting really personal and emotional with each other, really hitting it off very well. She decided she didn't want to get involved with this, since I told her it might be weird for me and she didn't want to ruin our relationship or anything (way more complicated than this, I'm just giving you the very high level overview). So we decided to be honest with Vin, and I called him up and told him that I ruined his life. He wasn't happy. He talked me through the reasons I told her I'd be hurt, and I said I'd fix it. So I wrote her an email and asked him to come over so we could just talk about it. He came over at like 12:30 AM or something crazy... and was there until almost 2. But he was sweet and definitely made me feel better. So that was that.
Wednesday I decided to follow up my email by meeting Amanda for lunch and making sure she knew I was okay (sort of) with the whole thing. I mean, I am okay with it, especially on a logical level. I just don't know what it will be like. But she couldn't do lunch because she had a class, and Vin was waaaay stressed out at work and way mean. I'm not quite sure why he was nice the night before, but whatever. Anyway, so I finally went to bed (after like the WORST morning ever, and I know I use that phrase too readily, everything's worst or best with me, but this actually was a particularly bad morning). I did actually manage to leave the house to go tanning though, but couldn't bring myself to run. Ugh. So annoyed. So Amanda told me she'd meet me at work at 5, so I got up early for a Wednesday and came over here and talked to her for an hour. It took an hour to convince her that everything, including my own life, will be easier if she'll just give Vin the chance she would have before we met. So she finally agreed to. Thank goodness. It strikes me as very odd though, that a girl I barely know cares so much more about me than my alleged best friend does. Hmmmm??? Maybe it's just a function of he is REALLY REALLY into her. There's been a lot of conflict with me and Vin this week, he's been all over the place, saying he'd pick me over her, then putting ultamatiums on our friendship, then saying everything was okay... ugh. I dunno. I know, too much info for the blog. But then Amanda and I ran to Wendy's and got food, and I paged Vin and told him it was fixed.
Thursday I woke up at THREE to go to Vancouver and then Gresham to look at 2 hot tubs with Vin. Got them looked at and BARELY made it home by work at 7, but it's all good. Luckily we gave ourselves that extra time to do it. There was a lot of reflection and discussion of Amanda as well as my own relationship with Vin. Whatever, at least it's all out in the open now. Because of said hot tub trip (#2 of the week) I had to miss dinner... boo. So I was STARVING by the time lunch rolled around, yum. I also got a drunk dial from Vin about 12:30... SO FUNNY. I've never had such an amusing conversation from him... he kept saying "but why do you want to get off the phone with me". LOL. He didn't even remember it this morning.
Friday I got up at 4 to go running as usual... but I ran into Amanda on her way home from work and she persuaded me to go the pool instead (not that it was hard). So we sat around the pool and talked for about an hour and a half. SO FUN!!! I seriously love that girl, she is so great! We did NOT talk about her lunch date with Vin today, and that was ideal. I'm glad she didn't bring it up... I wanted to, but it was more important to me to just have some quality time with her WITHOUT freaking Vinnie involved. After the sun went behind the apartment we went in the hot tub for a few minutes... because WE actually have one, unlike Vin. So YAY for us. After that I went to Qdoba with Vin and got his take on the date... hopefully I'll get her take either tomorrow or Sunday. Tomorrow we're going to Brazil (AKA Brazillian BBQ in Seattle) and Sunday is hiking and girl's night at PCG!!!! I can't wait! :-) So lots of Amanda fun for the weekend. In some ways, I really do hope that they work out, because I adore them both so much. But she points out lots of reasons it will be weird, so we'll see. I could definitely see her as a roommate in the future, so my biggest hope is that that just might work out!! :-)
Monday during the day I went tanning, took a nap, relaxed, etc. I had planned on a hardcore run on Monday but Vin convinced me to let him make dinnner for me, so I finally agreed. He made Italian (of course), some sausage and pepper dish with the sauasge that I bought for him when I was in Seattle on Valentine's Day. It was a great night, we did lots of talking and it was absolutely wonderful. We chatted a lot about Amanda and how he liked her, etc. She called me to go into the hot tub with her while I was there, but I couldn't since I was at Vin's, so she invited me to watch Sex and the City with her and Polly the next night.
Tuesday I met Andy for lunch at Macaroni Grill! Yum!! I love that place and it was GREAT to be able to talk to him and discuss everything under the sun, including group dynamics and lots of girl stuff. It has been determined that I am the group information sink, and that I have all of the power because I have all of the information. I'm all about that! :-) Tuesday I also went tanning and running and stopped into REI to chat it up with my REI boy but he wasn't working. Boo, especially after I worked up my nerve!! Tuesday night Vin got done with work at 5 and we went over to Northeast to look at a hot tub he was interested in. On the way out there we saw Mt. St. Helens blow up a bunch of steam/ash... sweet! It was so cool looking. We had just come out of the tunnel and I'm like "there's our mountain! (referring to Hood)... and there's our other mountain (Adams)... and there's our other mountain (St. Helens)... woah, that mountain is smokin'!" Very amusing. The hot tub didn't cut it, so then we came back home. Amanda and I had arranged to go to dinner at Chili's before SATC, so she stopped by my apartment at 7:30. I was hoping to kind of feel her out for Vin a little bit, see what she thought. But it turns out, she'd invited Polly along, which was cool because I like Polly a lot. So we were chatting, blah blah blah, and Amanda and I both had a margarita... then she says "I think I have a crush on Vinnie". Oh man. I made a face, which was my first mistake. She was like "WHAT?!" and finally I told her that "he's interested". Well that brought up all sorts of questions, and we were talking and I was sort of answering them, but then sort of out of nowhere (in response to a question, but I probably could have answered it without this) I told her that we'd dated. She was like "yikes, I need to end this now, nothing's happened, this is fine". We talked a little more, it was weird, and then we just dropped it. Then we went to Krispy Kreme because Amanda and I wanted a donut, and then back to my house to watch SATC since I have it on DVD. Oh, and we stopped by her apartment on the way to grab some milke - it looks just like mine! Has my dining room table (exactly, only darker wood) and my couch (almost exactly), and just in general has a very similar feel! After we watched it I called Vin to just chat, then I realized I didn't know what to do about Amanda. So I got off the phone with him and went to call her, and her phone ran in my apartment! I was just getting ready to run her purse back over to her (don't know if I mentioned it, but she lives in my building) and she knocked on my door! Ha! :-) So she came in and we chatted... and she's SO good at reading people, so she got my very honest, very brutal reaction. We ended up actually getting really personal and emotional with each other, really hitting it off very well. She decided she didn't want to get involved with this, since I told her it might be weird for me and she didn't want to ruin our relationship or anything (way more complicated than this, I'm just giving you the very high level overview). So we decided to be honest with Vin, and I called him up and told him that I ruined his life. He wasn't happy. He talked me through the reasons I told her I'd be hurt, and I said I'd fix it. So I wrote her an email and asked him to come over so we could just talk about it. He came over at like 12:30 AM or something crazy... and was there until almost 2. But he was sweet and definitely made me feel better. So that was that.
Wednesday I decided to follow up my email by meeting Amanda for lunch and making sure she knew I was okay (sort of) with the whole thing. I mean, I am okay with it, especially on a logical level. I just don't know what it will be like. But she couldn't do lunch because she had a class, and Vin was waaaay stressed out at work and way mean. I'm not quite sure why he was nice the night before, but whatever. Anyway, so I finally went to bed (after like the WORST morning ever, and I know I use that phrase too readily, everything's worst or best with me, but this actually was a particularly bad morning). I did actually manage to leave the house to go tanning though, but couldn't bring myself to run. Ugh. So annoyed. So Amanda told me she'd meet me at work at 5, so I got up early for a Wednesday and came over here and talked to her for an hour. It took an hour to convince her that everything, including my own life, will be easier if she'll just give Vin the chance she would have before we met. So she finally agreed to. Thank goodness. It strikes me as very odd though, that a girl I barely know cares so much more about me than my alleged best friend does. Hmmmm??? Maybe it's just a function of he is REALLY REALLY into her. There's been a lot of conflict with me and Vin this week, he's been all over the place, saying he'd pick me over her, then putting ultamatiums on our friendship, then saying everything was okay... ugh. I dunno. I know, too much info for the blog. But then Amanda and I ran to Wendy's and got food, and I paged Vin and told him it was fixed.
Thursday I woke up at THREE to go to Vancouver and then Gresham to look at 2 hot tubs with Vin. Got them looked at and BARELY made it home by work at 7, but it's all good. Luckily we gave ourselves that extra time to do it. There was a lot of reflection and discussion of Amanda as well as my own relationship with Vin. Whatever, at least it's all out in the open now. Because of said hot tub trip (#2 of the week) I had to miss dinner... boo. So I was STARVING by the time lunch rolled around, yum. I also got a drunk dial from Vin about 12:30... SO FUNNY. I've never had such an amusing conversation from him... he kept saying "but why do you want to get off the phone with me". LOL. He didn't even remember it this morning.
Friday I got up at 4 to go running as usual... but I ran into Amanda on her way home from work and she persuaded me to go the pool instead (not that it was hard). So we sat around the pool and talked for about an hour and a half. SO FUN!!! I seriously love that girl, she is so great! We did NOT talk about her lunch date with Vin today, and that was ideal. I'm glad she didn't bring it up... I wanted to, but it was more important to me to just have some quality time with her WITHOUT freaking Vinnie involved. After the sun went behind the apartment we went in the hot tub for a few minutes... because WE actually have one, unlike Vin. So YAY for us. After that I went to Qdoba with Vin and got his take on the date... hopefully I'll get her take either tomorrow or Sunday. Tomorrow we're going to Brazil (AKA Brazillian BBQ in Seattle) and Sunday is hiking and girl's night at PCG!!!! I can't wait! :-) So lots of Amanda fun for the weekend. In some ways, I really do hope that they work out, because I adore them both so much. But she points out lots of reasons it will be weird, so we'll see. I could definitely see her as a roommate in the future, so my biggest hope is that that just might work out!! :-)
Sunday, March 06, 2005
The Night We All Went Crazy in the Korean Ghetto
Andy asked me to make that title. He cracks me up... he was soooo funny last night and today. :-)
So here's the lowdown on the weekend... BEST weekend. I so need a day shift job. My life would improve by 1000%, no joke.
Friday I worked from home in the afternoon, which enabled me to get stuff like laundry done. Good stuff. Then I went to REI in Hillsboro for an awesome new hydration backpack that I wanted. It's soooo sweet, definitely helped me out later in the weekend. After REI I went for a quick run (decent run, not the best of the week though... and at the end of the run a bird pooped on my hand, ew). Then I jumped in the shower and Andy picked me up and we went to Crate & Barrel. I got a wine cork thing and martini glasses... YAY for non-crunchville. We were supposed to drive the like 20 minutes back to Andy's house, but Vin wanted to go to the REI in Tigard (down near C&B) so he went there with Geoff and we met up with them there, since it was like right next door to us. That makes 2 of the 3 REIs in the whole state of Oregon that I went to in one day. Then we headed downtown to Rock Bottom for some beer and food... yum. :-) Steve met us there and then Amanda came later. It was the first time I met Amanda and she was totally fun! After Rock Bottom we headed to Uptown Billards to play some pool... made up for how good I was Monday night by being WORTHLESS Friday. So sad! But, Amanda and I won 4 games in a row by default because the guys kept scratching. After pool I was soooo tired but I wasn't driving and I was kidnapped and forced to go to Vin's house to watch a movie. We "watched" Chasing Amy and by watched I mean I slept through the entire thing. Then we went home at like 4 in the morning and I couldn't fall asleep until 6 AM. BOO to that, since I had to get up for hiking the next day. But Amanda lives in my complex AND in my building, so that was cool to find out that I have a neighbor!
Saturday EVERYONE woke me up at like 10 AM. Andy, Kristie, and Vin all called... what the heck? I was sooo tired. But I got out of bed because Andy said he was feeling better than he had been the night before and he wanted to go hiking. So Vin, Andy, and I went up to Angel's Rest which is in the Columbia River Gorge area. It was a good hike, not too hard but definitely challenging and gorgeous at the end! So worth it... but I definitely need to get into better shape. Oh for the record, I went to Hillsboro REI in the morning before hiking because I exchanged the backpack I got for a different one that I eventually decided was better (the boys gave some good input at the Tigard REI). Anyway, when we got back we all went home to shower, and then were going to meet at 6 for dinner. But I needed to rent crampons and an ice axe so Vin and I went to the Hillsboro REI to get them. Turns out that they don't rent them in Hillsboro, but I did start talking to the rental guy who I've rented stuff from before... he's SO CUTE!!! I'm so smitten. So we went to Chevy's with Andy and Steve and the guys gave me such a hard time about REI Boy. They told me I had to go back to ask him out, they said I should just walk in and ask about crampons and an ice axe, and when he said they didn't have them say "oh, well that's okay, I really just was coming back here to ask you out for coffee." So cheez whiz if you ask me!! But I went back with Vin, and apparently he was following us kind of around the store and then stopped and looked at something for two seconds when we stopped and then walked back. Vin says he was definitely checking me out. But I couldn't randomly ask him out out of nowhere, so we left. Sad. I'm hoping to go back Monday or Tuesday to get in a conversation with him and ask him out for real. If not I'll have to rent some more stuff, which won't be a problem. Anyway, then we went to Vin's to drink / play x-box / etc. Amanda and I played drinking checkers which was fun and then we all played never have I ever... YIKES. Funny though, maybe freaked Andy out a little bit. Then I was so tired so I went to bed on Vin's futon and everyone else watched Top Gun.
This morning I woke up around 8:30 or so, no idea why so early. But Vin got up around 9ish maybe so we chatted for a few minutes and then got ready to go up to Mt. Hood for a day of tough snow fun. We had to stop by Portland REI (Read: 3/3 in the state of Oregon in one weekend, yikes!) to get my crampons, ice axe, and trekking poles, and then got lunch at Quiznos. Then we spent about 5 hours on the mountain... about 2000 feet of elevation gain over about 2 miles. WOW, kicked my butt. So worth it though! I learned how to self-arrest using an ice axe and I also got a good workout in. Hopefully I'll be ready for BCEP (my climbing class) by the time it starts by the end of the month. Lots of running, hiking, and conditioning are going to be necessary for that. I just haven't hiked a whole lot before the last 2 months (not like I've done that much in the last 2 months either) so I need to start being more hardcore!! We had SO much fun though, did a lot of chatting and lots of goodness. Then we came home and went to I Love Sushi (sketchy name for a sketchy place) with Andy and Daniel. Yum for sushi! Weird after hiking all day but it was good just to eat. That was when we all went crazy in the Korean ghetto... the sushi was a Korean run place in a Korean strip mall, and then we were all just nuts and crazy! Especially me and Vin, the ones who were sunburned, sore, and tired. Vin says I am a pansy, slacker, and wuss... that all came out about several different things at the Korean place. I think hiking, working, and eating wasabi, respectively. And then Vin and I chased each other and practically beat each other down for shotgun in Andy's car... that was amusing as well. I promised Andy a funny blog tonight after he made the hysterical night we all went crazy in the Korean ghetto comment, so here ya go. ;-)
So here's the lowdown on the weekend... BEST weekend. I so need a day shift job. My life would improve by 1000%, no joke.
Friday I worked from home in the afternoon, which enabled me to get stuff like laundry done. Good stuff. Then I went to REI in Hillsboro for an awesome new hydration backpack that I wanted. It's soooo sweet, definitely helped me out later in the weekend. After REI I went for a quick run (decent run, not the best of the week though... and at the end of the run a bird pooped on my hand, ew). Then I jumped in the shower and Andy picked me up and we went to Crate & Barrel. I got a wine cork thing and martini glasses... YAY for non-crunchville. We were supposed to drive the like 20 minutes back to Andy's house, but Vin wanted to go to the REI in Tigard (down near C&B) so he went there with Geoff and we met up with them there, since it was like right next door to us. That makes 2 of the 3 REIs in the whole state of Oregon that I went to in one day. Then we headed downtown to Rock Bottom for some beer and food... yum. :-) Steve met us there and then Amanda came later. It was the first time I met Amanda and she was totally fun! After Rock Bottom we headed to Uptown Billards to play some pool... made up for how good I was Monday night by being WORTHLESS Friday. So sad! But, Amanda and I won 4 games in a row by default because the guys kept scratching. After pool I was soooo tired but I wasn't driving and I was kidnapped and forced to go to Vin's house to watch a movie. We "watched" Chasing Amy and by watched I mean I slept through the entire thing. Then we went home at like 4 in the morning and I couldn't fall asleep until 6 AM. BOO to that, since I had to get up for hiking the next day. But Amanda lives in my complex AND in my building, so that was cool to find out that I have a neighbor!
Saturday EVERYONE woke me up at like 10 AM. Andy, Kristie, and Vin all called... what the heck? I was sooo tired. But I got out of bed because Andy said he was feeling better than he had been the night before and he wanted to go hiking. So Vin, Andy, and I went up to Angel's Rest which is in the Columbia River Gorge area. It was a good hike, not too hard but definitely challenging and gorgeous at the end! So worth it... but I definitely need to get into better shape. Oh for the record, I went to Hillsboro REI in the morning before hiking because I exchanged the backpack I got for a different one that I eventually decided was better (the boys gave some good input at the Tigard REI). Anyway, when we got back we all went home to shower, and then were going to meet at 6 for dinner. But I needed to rent crampons and an ice axe so Vin and I went to the Hillsboro REI to get them. Turns out that they don't rent them in Hillsboro, but I did start talking to the rental guy who I've rented stuff from before... he's SO CUTE!!! I'm so smitten. So we went to Chevy's with Andy and Steve and the guys gave me such a hard time about REI Boy. They told me I had to go back to ask him out, they said I should just walk in and ask about crampons and an ice axe, and when he said they didn't have them say "oh, well that's okay, I really just was coming back here to ask you out for coffee." So cheez whiz if you ask me!! But I went back with Vin, and apparently he was following us kind of around the store and then stopped and looked at something for two seconds when we stopped and then walked back. Vin says he was definitely checking me out. But I couldn't randomly ask him out out of nowhere, so we left. Sad. I'm hoping to go back Monday or Tuesday to get in a conversation with him and ask him out for real. If not I'll have to rent some more stuff, which won't be a problem. Anyway, then we went to Vin's to drink / play x-box / etc. Amanda and I played drinking checkers which was fun and then we all played never have I ever... YIKES. Funny though, maybe freaked Andy out a little bit. Then I was so tired so I went to bed on Vin's futon and everyone else watched Top Gun.
This morning I woke up around 8:30 or so, no idea why so early. But Vin got up around 9ish maybe so we chatted for a few minutes and then got ready to go up to Mt. Hood for a day of tough snow fun. We had to stop by Portland REI (Read: 3/3 in the state of Oregon in one weekend, yikes!) to get my crampons, ice axe, and trekking poles, and then got lunch at Quiznos. Then we spent about 5 hours on the mountain... about 2000 feet of elevation gain over about 2 miles. WOW, kicked my butt. So worth it though! I learned how to self-arrest using an ice axe and I also got a good workout in. Hopefully I'll be ready for BCEP (my climbing class) by the time it starts by the end of the month. Lots of running, hiking, and conditioning are going to be necessary for that. I just haven't hiked a whole lot before the last 2 months (not like I've done that much in the last 2 months either) so I need to start being more hardcore!! We had SO much fun though, did a lot of chatting and lots of goodness. Then we came home and went to I Love Sushi (sketchy name for a sketchy place) with Andy and Daniel. Yum for sushi! Weird after hiking all day but it was good just to eat. That was when we all went crazy in the Korean ghetto... the sushi was a Korean run place in a Korean strip mall, and then we were all just nuts and crazy! Especially me and Vin, the ones who were sunburned, sore, and tired. Vin says I am a pansy, slacker, and wuss... that all came out about several different things at the Korean place. I think hiking, working, and eating wasabi, respectively. And then Vin and I chased each other and practically beat each other down for shotgun in Andy's car... that was amusing as well. I promised Andy a funny blog tonight after he made the hysterical night we all went crazy in the Korean ghetto comment, so here ya go. ;-)
Friday, March 04, 2005
The Day Shift Week!
gosh, it's been so long since I've written! y'all must be duying to hear what's going on in my life... yeah right. I guess since I've been so busy working days I haven't had time to update you at 3 in the morning as is my typical habit. So this will be a long update on the entire last week.
Saturday: Went snowshoeing with Andy, Vin, and Steve. We were going to hit up Mirror Lake... but surprise, no snow! Mirror Lake is an awesome lake, easy hike (~3 miles) that has a gorgeous reflection of Mt. Hood. But, It's only at 4000 ft and there wasn't really any snow until about 6000 ft. It's just been such a warm winter here (it's been in the 60s for the past week or two). So instead, we drove to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood and just ran around and did some crazy snowshoeing there. We had to watch out for the snowboarders and skiers, but it was super fun! Saturday night we went to Salvador Molly's for Khoi's birthday party. I had a rough night since I hadn't slept since Friday at about 5 PM (other than an hour here and there when I could) and it just wasn't very good. I tried one of their famous habanero poppers (if you can eat all 5 with the sauce you get your picture on the wall)... I had about half of one with sauce, then I had about 10 glasses of water, cried, and was miserable for an hour or two. So that just didn't help the situation, not to mention the fact that the boys were all being nuts. After that we went back to Vin's and watched The Italian Job. Dominique, the COOLEST girl in Portland, sat next to me so we could be sheltered from the psycho boys. It was actually a pretty good movie and I ended up being in a much much better mood. :-)
Sunday: Went to morning church... ACK! I'm so used to evening church with no kids, no parking volunteers, and not as many people! But the worship and the message were AWESOME so I could tolerate the kids and the busyness! Yikers though... but speaking of the message, it was TOTALLY one of those weeks where you just feel like God is like "KELLY, this is for you... so listen!" And I was like "yeah God, I definitely get it. I'm with You on this one". So that just made me way way happy. Sunday night was my winter party for work, which Vin went to with me. He was all poopy about it and not wanting to go with me, but we ended up having a lot of fun and doing a lot of really good talking. It's really cool to have him as a friend and to finally have stopped playing my games and started being straightforward with him. Why do I ever play games? I know it's definitely not good for me... I'm too straightforward of a person to start with the game nonsense. Anyway even though I didn't win any of the prizes, I still had lots of fun and a great night!
Monday: Monday was my first day on day shift for the week... ohhhh so fun! I had dinner with Dominique at Thai Orchaid and it was GREAT. Seriously that girl is amazing. It was so cool to find a female here that I can totally relate to in so many ways. I was able to share things with her that I haven't had anyone to share with, and we totally bonded. I hope we become much better friends and that she introduces me to more of her girlfriends. I used to get along with guys better because I thought there was less drama and emotionalness -- WRONG. Guys are just all out to get the girls (and guys have pointed this out to me lately) and so it's not always that great to be friends with them. They're just in a big race for the ladies... UGH. Gag me with a spoon. So girlfriends are totally on my agenda. After that I had a "hot date" with this guy named Nathan... totally fun! He's a great guy, went to Wheaton College. I won't give too many details yet, but we went out for coffee and then went downtown to Henry's to play a game of pool. Totally fun night! When I got home at 11 I went for a 2 and 2/3 mile run with Vin -- farthest I've ever run in my life!!! It was so cool, I was soooo proud of myself! Maybe this hiking thing will work out after all!
Tuesday: Worked during the day again.. MAN I'm so into that! It's great to have something to do during the day. Then Tuesday night I met Geoff for dinner at Chipotle... I'm a huge Geoff fan. He's definitely a cool guy to hang out with, and I found out that his friend Tanya is taking the same Mazamas climbing intro class that I am in April. YAY for other climbers!! That got me all excited. Then I was supposed to go rock climbing with Vin, but he wasn't feeling all that great. So we went back to his house and he reminded me of some of the knots that I had forgotten about since my adventure ed (aka Crunchy 101) gym class that I had taken my junior year of high school. Then Andy came over and we chatted for a while... Yaaaay for Andy. HUGE fan.
Wednesday: WORK! YAY FOR WORK, seriously. I got so much done this week, and I'm just totally excited about having worked normal hours. I can't believe how much happier I am and better I feel. Right after work, Vin and I dashed to Red Robin for a light dinner, then went rock climbing. It's now almost 48 hours later and my arms definitely still feel it! Vin says you're just not used to using those muscles at all and after 2 or 3 times it gets better. I wish I had a climbing partner that I could go with Mondays or Tuesdays... I'm going to be on the lookout for that. It was definitely lots of fun. Then we came back to my house to meet up with Andy and watch the last 3 weeks of Alias that were Tivoed. And we all had a glass of wine, which made me happy because I'd been craving one all day. Yum. Made me tired though, so I fell asleep in the middle of the last episode, still have to catch up on that.
Thursday: Worked again, of course. After work, I went for a run with Vin... NOT a good run. We ran a decent distance but I just wasn't feeling it and got all whiney on him. He says (and I know) that I need to learn to just suck it up when I'm hiking/backpacking/climbing/running. It's not "easy" for anyone, and for some reason I've always thought I was the only one that struggled. What I am is the only one that WHINES about it non-stop. I just need to learn to deal with it, know that it gets easier with time, and I need to suffer through the next few months/years and it will start to get easier. The whining is just making me be an unfun workout partner and then I won't have anyone to climb with, and that's just not cool! So that's my goal for the weekend -- NO WHINING. Those of you that know me well know that will be difficult for me. ;-) After that though, we ran to Red Robin (yes again, Vin found some new burger he likes) and then I went to work for a few hours to do some stuff on shift. Then I went and read my mountaineering book at Vin's where he was available to answer all of the questions I had. Definitely learned a lot about rock climbing (just so happened that was the chapter I was on, cool!).
Friday: Had a great morning of work... met with my second level manager for well over an hour, he's great! Then I got some sweet work done on a project I've been working on... so I'm feeling really good about my work week. I just got so much done this week. This afternoon I'm working from home so I can get some laundry and stuff done that I've just been getting way behind on. My apartment is a mess so Monday and Tuesday are being devoted to cleaning, bills, taxes, errands, etc. I'm going to have to be way hardcore, especially since I'm going on vacation in a few weeks... YEAH! This afternoon I'm going to REI to get a new day pack and then to Crate & Barrel with Andy to perhaps spend my gift certificate that I have there. I'm excited to see him, it's been a while since I've really chatted with him. Tonight's plans *hopefully* include running with Vin if I didn't drive him too nuts last night, and then Rock Bottom downtown with the whole crew. And our crew is expanding... YAY! I invited like 9 people, which is way more than I normally have. That makes me smile lots. And the great thing is, it's all people I really want to hang out with. YAY FOR FRIENDS! :-) Tomorrow we have a hiking trip planned for 11 AM... we're going to Angel's Rest, which is near my favorite waterfall in the Columbia River Gorge. Sweeeeet... should be a good, not too challenging hike. Sunday Vin and I are going hiking on Hood... we're just going to climb up basically one of the ski lift areas... he wants to let me practice using crampons and ice axe techniques, and he wants to do some more challenging conditioning, hence Hood because of the steepness. It will be tough on me but I'm looking forward to it. It's one of the reasons I really really want a new day pack though, so I can get one with a hydration system that will make it easier for me to drink lots especially on the move and at high altitude. Sunday night is Portland City Grill with Vin, Andy, and Dominique... yaaay for my favorite place with my favorite people. See why I like day shift? I can feel good about work and have fun with friends, and that makes for a VERY happy Kelly. :-)
Saturday: Went snowshoeing with Andy, Vin, and Steve. We were going to hit up Mirror Lake... but surprise, no snow! Mirror Lake is an awesome lake, easy hike (~3 miles) that has a gorgeous reflection of Mt. Hood. But, It's only at 4000 ft and there wasn't really any snow until about 6000 ft. It's just been such a warm winter here (it's been in the 60s for the past week or two). So instead, we drove to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood and just ran around and did some crazy snowshoeing there. We had to watch out for the snowboarders and skiers, but it was super fun! Saturday night we went to Salvador Molly's for Khoi's birthday party. I had a rough night since I hadn't slept since Friday at about 5 PM (other than an hour here and there when I could) and it just wasn't very good. I tried one of their famous habanero poppers (if you can eat all 5 with the sauce you get your picture on the wall)... I had about half of one with sauce, then I had about 10 glasses of water, cried, and was miserable for an hour or two. So that just didn't help the situation, not to mention the fact that the boys were all being nuts. After that we went back to Vin's and watched The Italian Job. Dominique, the COOLEST girl in Portland, sat next to me so we could be sheltered from the psycho boys. It was actually a pretty good movie and I ended up being in a much much better mood. :-)
Sunday: Went to morning church... ACK! I'm so used to evening church with no kids, no parking volunteers, and not as many people! But the worship and the message were AWESOME so I could tolerate the kids and the busyness! Yikers though... but speaking of the message, it was TOTALLY one of those weeks where you just feel like God is like "KELLY, this is for you... so listen!" And I was like "yeah God, I definitely get it. I'm with You on this one". So that just made me way way happy. Sunday night was my winter party for work, which Vin went to with me. He was all poopy about it and not wanting to go with me, but we ended up having a lot of fun and doing a lot of really good talking. It's really cool to have him as a friend and to finally have stopped playing my games and started being straightforward with him. Why do I ever play games? I know it's definitely not good for me... I'm too straightforward of a person to start with the game nonsense. Anyway even though I didn't win any of the prizes, I still had lots of fun and a great night!
Monday: Monday was my first day on day shift for the week... ohhhh so fun! I had dinner with Dominique at Thai Orchaid and it was GREAT. Seriously that girl is amazing. It was so cool to find a female here that I can totally relate to in so many ways. I was able to share things with her that I haven't had anyone to share with, and we totally bonded. I hope we become much better friends and that she introduces me to more of her girlfriends. I used to get along with guys better because I thought there was less drama and emotionalness -- WRONG. Guys are just all out to get the girls (and guys have pointed this out to me lately) and so it's not always that great to be friends with them. They're just in a big race for the ladies... UGH. Gag me with a spoon. So girlfriends are totally on my agenda. After that I had a "hot date" with this guy named Nathan... totally fun! He's a great guy, went to Wheaton College. I won't give too many details yet, but we went out for coffee and then went downtown to Henry's to play a game of pool. Totally fun night! When I got home at 11 I went for a 2 and 2/3 mile run with Vin -- farthest I've ever run in my life!!! It was so cool, I was soooo proud of myself! Maybe this hiking thing will work out after all!
Tuesday: Worked during the day again.. MAN I'm so into that! It's great to have something to do during the day. Then Tuesday night I met Geoff for dinner at Chipotle... I'm a huge Geoff fan. He's definitely a cool guy to hang out with, and I found out that his friend Tanya is taking the same Mazamas climbing intro class that I am in April. YAY for other climbers!! That got me all excited. Then I was supposed to go rock climbing with Vin, but he wasn't feeling all that great. So we went back to his house and he reminded me of some of the knots that I had forgotten about since my adventure ed (aka Crunchy 101) gym class that I had taken my junior year of high school. Then Andy came over and we chatted for a while... Yaaaay for Andy. HUGE fan.
Wednesday: WORK! YAY FOR WORK, seriously. I got so much done this week, and I'm just totally excited about having worked normal hours. I can't believe how much happier I am and better I feel. Right after work, Vin and I dashed to Red Robin for a light dinner, then went rock climbing. It's now almost 48 hours later and my arms definitely still feel it! Vin says you're just not used to using those muscles at all and after 2 or 3 times it gets better. I wish I had a climbing partner that I could go with Mondays or Tuesdays... I'm going to be on the lookout for that. It was definitely lots of fun. Then we came back to my house to meet up with Andy and watch the last 3 weeks of Alias that were Tivoed. And we all had a glass of wine, which made me happy because I'd been craving one all day. Yum. Made me tired though, so I fell asleep in the middle of the last episode, still have to catch up on that.
Thursday: Worked again, of course. After work, I went for a run with Vin... NOT a good run. We ran a decent distance but I just wasn't feeling it and got all whiney on him. He says (and I know) that I need to learn to just suck it up when I'm hiking/backpacking/climbing/running. It's not "easy" for anyone, and for some reason I've always thought I was the only one that struggled. What I am is the only one that WHINES about it non-stop. I just need to learn to deal with it, know that it gets easier with time, and I need to suffer through the next few months/years and it will start to get easier. The whining is just making me be an unfun workout partner and then I won't have anyone to climb with, and that's just not cool! So that's my goal for the weekend -- NO WHINING. Those of you that know me well know that will be difficult for me. ;-) After that though, we ran to Red Robin (yes again, Vin found some new burger he likes) and then I went to work for a few hours to do some stuff on shift. Then I went and read my mountaineering book at Vin's where he was available to answer all of the questions I had. Definitely learned a lot about rock climbing (just so happened that was the chapter I was on, cool!).
Friday: Had a great morning of work... met with my second level manager for well over an hour, he's great! Then I got some sweet work done on a project I've been working on... so I'm feeling really good about my work week. I just got so much done this week. This afternoon I'm working from home so I can get some laundry and stuff done that I've just been getting way behind on. My apartment is a mess so Monday and Tuesday are being devoted to cleaning, bills, taxes, errands, etc. I'm going to have to be way hardcore, especially since I'm going on vacation in a few weeks... YEAH! This afternoon I'm going to REI to get a new day pack and then to Crate & Barrel with Andy to perhaps spend my gift certificate that I have there. I'm excited to see him, it's been a while since I've really chatted with him. Tonight's plans *hopefully* include running with Vin if I didn't drive him too nuts last night, and then Rock Bottom downtown with the whole crew. And our crew is expanding... YAY! I invited like 9 people, which is way more than I normally have. That makes me smile lots. And the great thing is, it's all people I really want to hang out with. YAY FOR FRIENDS! :-) Tomorrow we have a hiking trip planned for 11 AM... we're going to Angel's Rest, which is near my favorite waterfall in the Columbia River Gorge. Sweeeeet... should be a good, not too challenging hike. Sunday Vin and I are going hiking on Hood... we're just going to climb up basically one of the ski lift areas... he wants to let me practice using crampons and ice axe techniques, and he wants to do some more challenging conditioning, hence Hood because of the steepness. It will be tough on me but I'm looking forward to it. It's one of the reasons I really really want a new day pack though, so I can get one with a hydration system that will make it easier for me to drink lots especially on the move and at high altitude. Sunday night is Portland City Grill with Vin, Andy, and Dominique... yaaay for my favorite place with my favorite people. See why I like day shift? I can feel good about work and have fun with friends, and that makes for a VERY happy Kelly. :-)
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