Leaving with a Bang

It always seems that when one chapter is quickly coming to an end, the best parts always seem to twirl together at the end to wrap the stage up in ones mind as "great and wonderful". This happens I believe so we will not be afraid of the constant change and transition in our life. One end always meets another beginning with a party; it is life's natural celebratory toast to the onward call of the future.

At least that is how I envision my life. I love these moments of "ends", and I always find myself really nostalgic and thinking, well more like writing lists, of all of the "things" I need to do before I leave.

Last week I had a awfully fun night with some of my friends from work. A perfect example of the type of Party Hardy you live only once, gotta do this attitude that comes only at the end.

I think the pictures will describe the fun, and no we were not a strip club, just a dance club, I know, they do have poles there--in dance clubs! Where have I been?? Apparently not in any dance clubs ever! But they are fun to play around on, I don't know if that is the rum and coke talking or my true dangerous spirit. We are dressed up as Charlies Angels, and yes my friend Alexis (red head) for some reason had three corsets on hold for Ermila and I to wear. Put on corset, and man you'll love female liberation more than you do now!

Change is coming

It is official. I am on my way out. I am leaving Eugene, OR. My first home away from home. I have 2 weeks left in this town. However I am ready to go and ready to plant my roots (which always are more than happy to be up-rooted and transplanted) to Portland!

Scott and I will be spending the first week of June in California with his family and then attending the wedding of Scott's best pal from childhood. June will be the transition month AKA month of crazy moving, job search, apartment search, trying not to get lost in new city month.

Get ready Portland because here I come!

I finished!

Half Marathon. 13.1 Miles. 1:57.04. 557th place!

Track Town USA

I did it! I ran a half marathon and I am really proud of myself. I feel just like I did when I got a tattoo; it hurt so bad but I want to do it again, and heck maybe even again and again! I never knew I had it in me. Judging from the Cross Country days where I felt like I wanted to DIE at 3 miles and I cursed the sport saying "I'm never particiapting a running as a competition again!" I do not know what has changed inside of me, maybe the lack of competition in my life for the past years has built me up to want to compete in anything and everything from now on--or maybe it is still the endorphone high that I am on that is speaking, but I think that half marathon is a great race for me. No, as many of you are thinking and the marathon.....Never a full. I am a half kind of girl.

The training that I did 3-4 months prior to the fateful day of April 29th all paid off. The day could not have been more perfect. It was a sunny morning at 7 am and the streets were full of enthusiastic spectators and runners from all over the country that arrived safely to the runner's mecca, Pre's town, Track Town USA-better known as, Eugene, Oregon. It was the first marathon in 25 years that Eugene has hosted. The course was smooth, winding in and out of the beautiful Eugene neighborhoods and biking trails alongside the Willamette River. I finished feeling strong and good without any problems during the race, expect for the huge hunger attack that hit me at mile 7, and I drank some water to hold me over at mile 8, until I was able to eat some real food afterwards.

It was a family event. I had an uncle run the Full Marathon in 2:34 and another aunt and uncle run the half with me and we all finished with in seconds of each other.

You can go to www.eugenemarathon.com and look me up under the half

or you can go to www.registerguard.com and look at the picutres and news on the event, from days April 29th, 30th, May 1st (it is a small city, when something big like this happens, it is in the news for 3 days.)

Viva Pre!

Three Things.......

Happy

Dont Listen!

Yum Yum

Want to Go!

Scary Self-Indulge

Three Things That Scare Me:
1. Ocean, Waves, Boats, Tsunamis-
2. My addiction to MySpace and stalking people from High School and gawking at their big boob pictures
3. Baby mice that live in my oven mitts
Three People Who Make Me Laugh:
1. Becca-YES you are funny!
2. Lindsay and Lara the mama and baby –they are one
3. Borat
Three Things I Love:
1. Picturing Liam squeezing into Becca and Billy and all loving families for that matter
2. Lara coming home to me in the summer
3. Sweet Lifes’ vegan chocolate silk cake, a bottle of wine and Sex and the City-pure self indulgance
Three Things I Hate:
1. War
2. Standardized Tests
3. Cars that don’t have well maintained defrost systems
Three Things I Don't Understand:
1. Internet!
2. High-heeled shoes
3. How to build a tunnel under water
Three Things On My Desk:
1. Don’t have a desk
2. Only a futon that hurts my back
3. And a free orange retro chair I stole from work
Three Things I'm Doing Right Now:
1. “Working” Pretending that I am typing an important report for work, with a telephone head set on
2. Listening to footsteps of potential co-workers from down the hall
3. Wishing that I drank more water, but just hate going pee all day, I’m too lazy to get up

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. Go to Africa
2. Make a baby
3. Swim laps
Three Things I Can Do:
1. Pretend to be diligently working
2. Successfully avoid people in supermarkets
3. Make my hair super curly or super straight
Three Things I Can't Do:
1. Dive
2. Rent a REALLY good movie with Scott
3. Talk on a cell phone using an inside voice
Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
1. All of the positive thoughts and feelings that go through your head each day
2. Silence
3. My Co-Worker’s babies’ giggles
Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. The person that has massive Diarrhea in the stall next to you
2. Rush Limbaugh! And other bigots previously mentioned. Bill ‘o Riley --Or basically any old white conservative man--That includes the ones that run this country and disguise their power hungry World Domination plot with “Christianity”-What would Jesus Do George Bush?? How many lives lost now..? (now stepping off of my soap box)
3. Negative thoughts from people and/or society that make you feel anything less than the beautiful and wonderfu humans that we are
Three Things I'd Like To Learn:
1. Italian
2. Interior Design
3. Rock Climbing
Three Favorite Foods:
1. Strawberries
2. Ceviche
3. Tamales
Three Shows I Watched As A Kid:
1. Math-net
2. Seasame Street
3. Mr. Rogers
Three Things I Regret:
1. Not sticking with soccer
2. Lying to Scott about my feelings for him when we first met
3. Stessing out about grades my whole life
Three People I Tag:
1. Lori-I know you are out there stalking me, don’t pretend you are not reading this!
2. It made me laugh, so I need to re-write it-Baby Girl Fetus, haha why is that so funny? Trying to picture a fetus typing?haha

3. Adam ClarkHelm

My New Job

Ok I know I know......Does it always feel that every three months I have a post that says I have a new job!?!?!

Well in February I left my job with Property Management at St. Vinnies and got a job with the Oregon Social Learning Center. A part-time job---yeah that is right I am the queen of juggling part-time jobs....I am a bilingual assessor for the Adolescent Acculturation Study.(ALAS)

I do enjoy the new job! So here is a foto of one day when more than half of us wore green to work, even the dog is wearing green..on his collar. And no it was not St. Patrick's day.

I miss Lara

Now speaking of nostalgia, as I looked at college pics, I found these........ Lara and I took these the night before I left for Peru in 2004. The intent was to mimic a) how we were feeling at the present moment b) what we would look like in two years after being re-united and c) what we look like when see each other on a regular basis.

Now I think these three pictures still hold true. Only a couple of thing have changed.

Yep, back in 2004 I felt that way, and I still do. Life without Lara makes me look somewhat similar to a meth addict with a yellow face.

This is seriously what I can't wait to do with you again, when I see you for the first time- have you squeeze my head so hard that my eye gets stuck into my cheek, and I love it when you are so happy that you try to catch things in your mouth that are being thrown to you from far away.

This is what I remember my days like with you, and how I hope they will always be. By the way whatever happened to that sweater that I am wearing and Lara our heads look the same size in this picture. Why is it typing in blue underline, make it stop please, i don't know what is wrong.

Lara I hope you are having fun in Argentina, I do miss you, but I am so proud of you and what you are doing. I also hope that your new job is making your life meaningful still. Did you watch the Duck game? Have fun with your bro too! Ill miss seeing him around Eugene.

Clubhouse Nostalgia and Discovery

My last year in college was one of the best years of my life. It was a perfect way to end one stage of my life and gracefully be pulled into the unknown abyss of my adult life. I lived in a little white house and it was later named the "clubhouse". Many firsts happened for me in this house; I fell in love, I became addicted to TV, I painted my toe nails regularly, I got drunk and smoked my first Cuban Cigar, got a piercing infection- just to name a few. Here is a picture of our little abode.Now it is true, she was a little bent out of shape. But we loved her dearly. After graduation Tina and Andryce and I left for Europe and while we were away, we thought our friends were playing a prank on us by saying the Clubhouse had mysteriously walked away. When we returned from a party abroad we went to visit our old home and sure enough, our good ol pal was missing. Where could she have gone so quickly..????
A couple years had passed, and we heard things through the grapevine like "It was torn to pieces" Or it had found a new home on River Road. I thought she was gone forever, never would have I guessed that she was just disguised but living amongst us so closely. One day I was stopped at a stop light, that I stop at every day, between my house and Scott's house. I was looking around at the surroundings and then BAMMM.....I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The car in back of me was honking, but I shan't not move. I stayed and stared, and blinked and squinted. No matter what way I looked at, there was no denying, she was close, and I had failed to notice her for a whole year, she was living so close to me. You can change here color and location, but you can never take her spirit away and the memory she means to us! So here is to you, Clubhouse, a walk down memory lane a salute to the fun that was had between your walls.

Romantic Get-Away

Last Weekend Scott and I went to the beach at
Florence for a nice little romantic weekend to celebrate our 3 years as being enamorados and to just escape for a while and relax! My landlord has a beach house in Florence that he lent to us for the weekend. He told us that it was in a gated community with a hot tub. We were both thinking, wow this is crazy. First off because he is such a down to earth guy, your total typical retired hipee Eugene man. It just didn't make sense that he would own a house in a gated community. Second off I for some reason didn't feel as though I should deserve such free treatment; a huge beach house in a gated community all to ourselves for the weekend!
However when we arrived, we realized what that meant--a gated retirement mobile home park! My landlord bought the trailer for 17.000 and fized it up all nice and cozy and put in a little hot tub and a sweet garden. It was just what we were looking for for the weekend a quiet get-away. I learned that, well, retired people living in mobile homes sure are quiet! The only people around the whole park that I heard or saw were us.

Here I am with my Tio Escotch. Below us at the bottom of the cliff were two sea lions trying to mate. (They could sense an in love couple around so they just had the urge to do it!)

We went on a hike and met Sally Our Scary Slimy Salamander friend....Cute, but also looks like the salamander from hell..

Judging by Sally and this picture, it really looks like we were in a spooky I now What You Did Last Summer hike. The name of the hike that we went on was called the "Hobbit Trail"..........I guess now I understand why, it looks like it is straight from some sorta spooky weird story. Speaking of which, have you seen Pan's Labrynth, o el laberinto del fauno?

Book Clubs!

Future Book Club!

As I think I have mentioned in an earlier blog, I have joined a book club in Eugene. It is actually quite fun and one of my goals, after graduating from college, was to join a book blub so that I would stay somewhat smart! Katie Kohls had a connection from college here that invited us to her group. We meet once a month and read a book a month. Each month a different host takes the responsibility of hosting us all at their place. I really enjoy it! (of course i never host because my place is WAY too small) Everyone is very different in the club and all at a different stage in life, so it brings a lot of neat perspectives. One of the recent books that we read was Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross ( www.popejoan.com ) and it was one of the best books that I have ever read, and one of the most engaging conversations at the club that I have had in a long time. It is a definite read by ALL. So I urged Andryce to read it, and she loved it so much that she started a book club just so more people would read this amazing book and so we could all discuss it! Last weekend I attended her inspiring get together at her new, very cute apartment, and of course the book to discuss was Pope Joan. I say this is my future book club because if I ever leave Eugene and travel north to Portland to live in the future, (or very very near future like within the next 3 months) I know that I nice book club awaits my arrival with new friends.

PS READ POPE JOAN

More Birthday Photos

Just a few more pics......