Things are rolling

Well, my car was picked up by the shipper yesterday. As usual, the driver has a thick accent (this time Russian) and says he is “at your house” when he is clearly NOT “at your house”. Yikes! Then he types it into the GPS and finds where he needs to go. Umm… yeah. *pause* Come on, buddy. And his face looked so stiff! I mean, granted he was driving a truck for hours upon hours (so I SHOULD cut him some slack), but hello stoic! I was just waiting for a smile of greeting, but I don’t think we got one. Actually, I thought “have you been drinking?” – but of course a drinker would be more quick with a smile. Oh well, lets just hope he can find the destination without being difficult. Back when I shipped my car out here, we had a guy named Roman who was so vague when telling us where he parked (and we had to find him) – and then just started repeating himself but in a higher and louder tone. Haha! I had to pass the phone off to my boyfriend, my Dad… I couldn’t take the guy yelling about how he’s been waiting for 45 minutes on Market Street when he was really on an Old Route blah blah blah.

In other news, I am OFFICIALLY a Beta Sigma Phi sorority pledge! We had another meeting and we did the ritual which makes me an official pledge. There were a few candles, yellow roses, and hand shakes and whispers. *No, not secret handshakes ;)* It was wonderful. It definitely makes me sad I’m leaving because I can’t be a part of this chapter, but I’m so glad I met them. They are so generous in the way they welcomed me and made me feel part of their group. I hope I can find a good chapter after I move, but I’m sure it won’t be the same. 🙂

In silly news, I’m still getting a strange thrill from using up containers of products. I usually have so many different shower gels, shampoos, makeup serums, etc- all going on at once that I rarely use things up. But since I’m moving, I’ve been using things up. And it’s FUN! Well, my very favorite products that are super expensive, I’m still hoarding… like Sunday Riley’s Juno Serum and her Good Genes serum. But everything else I’m using! I’m thinking today I will finally be able to throw away a shampoo bottle that I have had for WAY too long. It’s Redken’s All Soft. It’s like the bottle never ends!

There could be a Woodinville Winery trip in my soon future. I can’t wait! I’ve been before with a friend and got the MOST adorable souvenir wine glass from DeLille Cellars. If you click on the link and look at the cute little emblem in the upper right corner- that is on the wine glass. SO cute. It’s my new favorite glass. Basically, I want more. More! I love to collect things. Some women in the past collected commemorative plates or spoons… some gals collect shot glasses… i love wine glasses from wineries! And T-shirts too. Dang it, I’m just a sucker for a souvenir from travels. Sweatshirts too! Yea!

And in Washington news– there was a landslide on Whidbey Island! It wiped out a road and destroyed 1 home and is endangering more. I love Whidbey Island. It’s small and quaint. I’m glad that not more damage was done.

KITTY NEWS: The black neighbor kitty who is SO vocal and loving… and has so much personality it’s insane (and almost scary)… it’s name is Sam, but we always call him Jake. It’s our personal nickname for random animals. Anyway, He laid down at our feet for the first time and Ho Ho ho! Jake is a girl! So thus our nickname has been changed. We will call him/her JoJo 🙂

I end with kitty pictures. To leave you with cuteness.

Me with Jake/Sam/Jojo

Modest little Ruby kitty

 

Ruby Kitty in a happy moment 😀

 

Fabulous Queen Anne

View from Kerry Park

The Queen Anne neighborhood in Seattle is so lovely. It’s filled with normal sized homes of varying styles (lots of little homes I would call bungalows!) and little neighborhood shops around many corners. There are TONS of stairs in this neighborhood. They are known for their stairs, in fact. I bought a hand-drawn map of the stairs to frame, even! Here’s a fun article about the stairs, if you like history. http://seattletimes.com/html/outdoors/2008757914_nwwsteps19.html

I’ve been to Kerry Park in Queen Anne numerous times, but hadn’t done any other exploring in the neighborhoods. Yesterday, my friend & I did just that. What a great day! I wasn’t sure where to tell her to meet up with me, so I chose a boutique I found on Yelp called Meadow. This ended up being the boutique of the CENTURY. We are talking boutique clothing at NOT boutique prices. *pause* Seriously.

I found adorable shirts at prices of $28 and $35. These lil puppies would’ve been $48 and up at stores like Anthropologie. They had lots of little decorations and stationary and tons of cards/paper stuff from http://riflepaperco.com (which my friend got me addicted to). Actually, almost ALL the boutiques we stopped in had stuff from Rifle Paper Co. It was pretty cool.

I wish I could order things online from Meadow! Aaaaargh!

*long sigh*

Anyway. We also stopped in an amazing bakery called Macrina Bakery. They had little cupcakes with birds nests on them.

We finished off our day with an alehouse in the neighborhood. It was a day to remember. Definitely the type of day that can make a girl feel sad about leaving. But what can you do. We can’t all live within Grey’s Anatomy – especially when we haven’t been to Med School 😉

Happy First Day of Spring!

Happy First Day of Spring! From what I see on Facebook, my friends in the Midwest are getting snow flurries today. But where I’m at, the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. STRONG. As in, when I drive on the highway later, I may have to be careful. However, I’m not worried. I love it when it’s windy. When the wind blows and rushes around me, I’ve always felt like it was God reassuring me of His presence… saying “I’m here”… so yeah. Wind makes me smile.

What have I been up to? PACKING. You know, the more frequently you pack, the less stressful it is. Seriously. So it’s really not that bad for me, right now. I’m rooting through stuff and finding things to donate… it’s pretty awesome, there’s a service out here that comes and PICKS UP your donations. For free! You sign up online and tell them where you’re leaving the bags and pick a day and they pick it up. It’s amazing. I wonder if more areas have that… maybe I was never aware.

And I did a “Total Body Conditioning” class last night. And guess what? I was a wimp! Seriously, I was that chick in class who had to TWICE tell her teacher she was really light-headed (and or was sick to my stomach) and sit down for a few minutes. Hmmph. Oh well, I suppose it happens to everyone. I’ve only done one workout in 3 weeks, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it kicked my butt. Heck, I WANTED it to kick my butt. But this was super high intensity and my heart rate wasn’t slowing enough in between each exercise. Like I said, wimpy. I need to build up my endurance again. I recognized almost everyone in class as die-hard class go-ers and they probably hadn’t taken 3 weeks off, ha… 🙂

I’ve been researching bootcamps for back in the Midwest. What I’m finding is that a lot of them are mega expensive! Most are in the $15/class range… some higher. Some give you unlimited classes and you pay a fee equivalent to a personal trainer! Well, around $100/mo. I suppose the difference is that you don’t get unlimited sessions with a trainer. And these bootcamps (at least the most recent one I found) DO give nutritional and physical goals coaching…. The prices are discouraging to me, I guess. I mean, the most recent one I found looks SO amazing, they rent out a gymnastics place or something and have these obstacle courses.. The videos look SO fun! And the courses mostly include bouncy mat stuff you jump over, so it’s not like a bunch of tires set on the grass… this is similar to an adult indoor playground! So I get why it’s priced higher… What would be perfect, is if I could find a gym that has bootcamp TYPE classes. Because those are likely to be priced at $7-10/class. Or I could get a membership (if I liked the gym enough).

Meh. Oh well, I’ll figure it out later. Or make a list later. You know how I love planning! And lists!! 😀

I’ve also been reading “The Cutting Season” – by Attica Locke. It’s a murder mystery set in Louisiana. I love fiction books set in other areas of the country. Or world! Anyway, the book is good. Not great, but good. I’m into it. But not eating it up, like cake. If that makes sense. 😉

DVR-less

What does a TV loving girl do when she’s without a DVR? She gets behind in her shows. BUT she spends a lot of time with friends and family. And that one always wins in importance level.

I did watch a little True Blood and saw the movie The Great and Powerful Oz. The movie was good. Really good. But I’m feel meh about it because I’m just not a fantasy movie type of girl. As wimpy as it makes me sound, the suspenseful parts make me tense! Just like when I was little and I didn’t like the movie Alice and Wonderland. It gave me nightmares. As a little girl, one of my biggest fears was being lost- and that movie was all about it! As was Fievel Goes West – loved the songs but so darn sad! Enough with the children getting lost!

And also one of my favorite songs from The Cabbage Patch Dreams record was about Sybil Sadie and Ramy trying to find their way back home. Seriously, adults. Is that the only story line we can come up with that is appropriate for kids movies? We’ve got kids misbehaving and kids getting lost. Maybe it was a way of teaching kids to be good and stick together.

I also went on an interview. With psychological testing! Yippee! I really do like psychology, personality tests, and even filling out forms- but this was a little much. I have one more set of psychological testing (or profiling, as I like to call it) and if I pass, maybe I’ll get the job! I’ll be interested to see if I’m the right fit for this company. There really is no way of telling! If not, I’ve got a lot of job postings that I will start applying for.

I’m obsessively looking at apartments on craigslist. It’s completely an addiction. The hunt for the perfect apartment is ON! Unfortunately because it’s barely Spring there aren’t that many options available yet. But I’ve faith there will be soon!

When I was at Whole Foods last night, I picked a full size bottle of the EvanHealy Rose oil (was previously using a trial sized bottle)- and I used it last night and this morning. OH! OHH! sorry to make you awkward. My face feels SO much happier than it has recently! I haven’t used the rose oil in over a week and I was experiencing dryness in my cheeks and I thought it was due to traveling! Maybe because of the region change. But whew. So glad I’m back on that stuff! If I could, I would buy ALL of my friends a bottle of it and beg them to give it a try.

Could you believe though, I was staring at the oils at Whole Foods for about 20 minutes? I’d wanted to try a different Rose Oil but they only had one other that seemed to be a majority of Rose oil and it was around $12. The EvanHealy was $26 and I felt with such a big price difference that I should go with EvanHealy again. I was eyeing serums from Suki, Juice, Jurlique and they were all more expensive and had blends. They included a lot of safflower oil, which I’m sure is good… but I felt wishy-washy and ended up buying what I knew. Afterall, I’m not in a financial place to throw them all in my cart 😉 Perhaps someday. Though that’s not a very good mentality, is it? It kindof cheats people out of having to make a decision. 

I also picked up a bottle of facial toning spray. The directions from Evanhealy’s Rosehip Serum say that you should have a damp face (from using a toning spray) when you massage a few drops of oil on your face and neck. You can always add more of either oil or water. They say that after continuous use, this method helps purge congested pores! But I admit, I feel like it’s such a waste to spend good money on a watery spray. So when I found a spray on clearance for $9, I picked it up. I really like it. In fact, I’m becoming obsessed with how luxurious and lovely it feels to spritz a freshly cleaned face! Especially when the spritz has calming scents in it.  My purchase was Blossom + Leaf Toning Refresher from Andalou Naturals. And like I’ve said, I think it’s pretty silly to spend a lot on these- I only picked it up because it was so affordable. I’m betting it might be easy to make our own too! If only I had a large house and had a room set up for making cosmetics… and one for Zumba and ballet workout videos… basement for scrapbooking/card-making… Yeah. That’s really all I need. I mean, a huge bathtub and a wine cooler are just assumed in that too… 🙂

As a side note (or ending note) – I was craving a new lip balm SO bad while I was there. And not a pretty colored one like I normally go for- like a THICK lip butter that coats and moisturizes and makes you feel like all is well with the world. But I resisted from purchasing another for my arsenal. “Another time, another time” ❤

Sunday Night Updates

Reads: 

I started the book The Hunter by Richard Stark. I have NO idea what review convinced me to buy it but I wish I could slap them. I got 40 pages in and didn’t feel like wasting any more of my time. It was all about a vengeful man and from his point of view. What a waste of effort! I’m glad I didn’t pay much for it. Now I need to get to the books that are actually fun to read!

Supplements:

I went into a local health food store to pick up some more Enzymatic Therapy – Thyroid Control and had an informative conversation with the store owner! She was mentioning that if you think you have a problem with your thyroid, you should take your temperature when you first wake up in the morning (still in bed and everything). And that if it runs lower than 98.1, then you might have a bit of a thyroid imbalance. After researching this online, it’s called your basal temperature- and it’s normal if it’s a bit low in the morning. If it’s below 97.6, THEN they say you are likely to have hypothyroidism. But apparently that test is controversial because it can be inaccurate in terms of diagnosis. Well, duh! We’re trying to avoid going and paying $200 for a blood test, people! She recommended a Kelp capsule supplement, but only if I have a thyroid imbalance (because kelp contains a lot of iodine, which nourishes the thyroid and if you overload the thyroid- it could start to swing the other way and be hyperactive). By the way, I still love the Enzymatic Therapy – Thyroid stuff SO much! It’s main ingredient is B12 vitamin – and a bunch of other stuff.

Workouts:

Zero so far. For shame! I’m away from home and haven’t done anything yet. I was going to do some bootcamp classes, but the timing of them was keeping me from being able to save evenings for different friends. If I lived here again I would find a way to balance friends and fitness… but since I don’t yet, I will choose friends 🙂 Though I HAVE discovered a gym with some good classes (including Step- YAAAAY!!!) that only costs $7.50 for a day pass/class pass. That’s awesome! Club Fitness or the YMCA charges $10/day pass. 😦 So… tomorrow will include a call to a job headhunter, a hair trim, a step class, and great wine and talk time with one of my close friends. Can’t wait!

Movies/TV:

Since I’m at a location that does not have a DVR, I’m relying on my laptop to help me stay caught up on my favorite shows. I just watched Nashville tonight. Oh how I love that show. And I didn’t use to! It grew on me though. And recently I acquired Season 1 of Suits and Season 3 of True Blood!! I watched the Pilot episode of Suits and then couldn’t find the old episodes anywhere (for free) since the USA website took them down at beginning of Season 2. But now we’ve purchased them and I’m excited to get started. I think my Dad will like the show too 🙂

Vampire Diaries – okay I know the Season Finale was a few weeks ago, but I’m still thinking O.M.G. Is he really dead? What will Elena be like without her humanity? Will Caroline EVER end up with Klaus??? (Probably not since the CW is starting that new spin-off show The Originals that will likely have Klaus, Eli, and even Rebecca probably)

Diet:

Oh good heavens. Being back at my parents house is always the biggest challenge for my diet. Because I see goodies everywhere. In the silverware drawer, on top of the fridge, under the coffee table, on top of the side table, in the pantry. And of course, I want to eat them. And I have decent restraint… until I cave. But that’s okay. Just confessing this online is giving me further resolve to do simple substitutions. Like drinking a cup of thick almond milk instead of eating 5 of my Dad’s vanilla oreo cookies… with every meal 🙂

Company: 

It’s been so wonderful to be back around my parents. I suppose it was only 2 months, but it felt like longer. We’ve got 3 fluffy kitties here and they are all wonderful. I love how kitties have their own personalities, just like people! Kindof 😉 And it’s been great seeing my friends too! I went to a friends baby shower yesterday and it was full of super close friends of mine… it felt so wonderful to be around them again. It’s awesome to have friends that see you in so many different stages of your life- and you see them in all their stages… and you’re all growing and maturing through various struggles, trials and blessings- yet you’ll always be there for each other. I love family, friendship… and cats. Hahahaa, so fluffy and sweet. How can you not love things like that? If I had a bunny rabbit, I’d be obsessed with it too. Speaking of which, do bunnies make any sounds? Certainly not hippity-hoppity.

Products:

I’ve only tried a couple new products recently and they are from the drugstore. The way I organize my skincare routine is AM: Facial scrub (while in the shower) and PM: Oil cleanser (or at least something nourishing). My new facial scrub from Walgreens is the Eclos Instant Radiance Facial Scrub.

It’s VERY finely ground bits of scrubbies for your face. That being said, if you rub hard enough you could damage your skin- so keep it gentle! It says to use it every other day. I really like it! Seems just as finely ground as some of my favorite exfoliators like Kate Somerville’s.

I also picked up an exfoliating cleanser from Say Yes to Carrots.

I’m a little disappointed. But only in the amount of exfoliation. It says on the bottle that it will be nourishing, so that’s exciting. And it did feel nourishing, but it had a severe lacking of granules to exfoliate. So perhaps I’ll start using it at night since it won’t pack a punch for scrubbing my face. I was also intrigued that it had a lot of carrot root powder. I’m not informed on what carrot root powder does, but I’d been reading about carrotseed oil and it being beneficial in lotions. And given my obsession with rosehip seed oil, I got excited. However I can’t seem to find many people on the internet rubbing it all over their face like they would rosehip seed oil. I found an informative blog page that helps talk about different kind of oils for your face!

http://www.darlaantoine.com/3/post/2012/05/how-to-use-natural-and-essential-oils-as-part-of-your-skin-care-regimen.html

In other exciting news:

I’ve decided to move back to the Midwest. I’m SO excited about this. I’m exuberant when I think about being back with my friends and family- people that are close to my heart and love me (and I love them!). I’m even excited about job hunting and finding another apartment! I don’t think they will compare to my previous job and apartment (and how awesome they were) – but I’m okay with that. Everything can happen step by step.

And if you don’t know the right step- be praying that God would reveal it to you and then lead you… trust that He will. Because He will. God is faithful and our ever-present help in times of trouble or need. ❤