It has been a little while since my last post. Things did get better with me -- I ended up picking shifts up with no problem, I got a second job, and I even started exercising a little bit more, but no, I still haven't gone to a yoga class, but it's on my list!
Alan's work schedule got a little bit better and we have been able to take a couple of fun trips outside of the city. One to Hood River, and one to Bend. Hood River was just a day trip, but super fun driving the Fruit Loop where you get to go cider and wine tasting, pick fruit and flowers, and go antiquing.
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| Fox Tail Cider Company |
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| Flower Picking at the Gorge White House |
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| Wine Tasting |
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We ended the day at a little beach along the river and Alan went for a little swim. Even though it was about 9pm, it was still hot out and the water was perfect.
Our Bend trip was the most recent and was super fun. I don't think we have ever been so outdoorsy together. We went hiking (and almost died) at Smith Rock, white water rafting along the Deschutes, and took the lift up Mt Bachelor and hiked around a little bit.
Other than that we did what we do best and ate our hearts out...but the food or the drink wasn't very good :(. We went around to several places that had very high reviews, but we just weren't impressed. I hate to sound so stuck-up, but even our burritos at Parilla weren't satisfying. Have you ever heard of an unsatisfying burrito? I was badly missing Pepinos back home. One of the nicer restaurants we went to, called Zydeco, was supposed to be super good and the place was packed -- which is a good sign! Or so we thought. Alan ordered a sazerac cocktail, which was on the menu by the way, and there was no sugar in it, plus it was shaken and so watered down. This same sazerac experience happened at another bar, but they added sugar, and it just wasn't good! Now it's not like we were calling out classic cocktails playing stump the bartender, these cocktails were on the menu! So sad. At every place Alan could hardly contain himself -- and not in a critical way, but they needed help and he wanted so badly to jump behind the bar to supply it.
Overall, I say my best meal was our hot continental breakfast at our hotel. Oh how I loved our hotel. It wasn't anything fancy, just a Best Western, but the beds were comfy, breakfast plentiful, and the pool, oh how I love that pool. We stopped at a used book store where I bought the Bourne Identity and Alan bought a book on psychology and we lounged and swam and it was so relaxing. Except a little bit later after we were back to our room and realized that we had some serious sunburns. But it was all worth it. If I had to, I wouldn't change a single thing about that trip and would do it all over again, bad cocktails and all.
The rest of my summer has been filled with:
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| Tiny Desserts |
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| Large Margaritas |
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| Lightning Storms |
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| Cocktails (Negative Cycle) |
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| Concerts at Edgefield (Foster the People) |
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| Cooking |
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| A visit from my bff, Gina |
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| And an awesome trip out to Beaverton (Ramen at Yuzu) | | |
I must say that even with all of the ups and downs, I have still had a lot of fun. It is important to remember these things and document your life because it is so easy to forget and only remember the negative.
What the Fall holds for me is still in consideration. I am registered for a full load of classes as in my heart I want so badly to have a path to follow, but for some reason I keep doubting it. Is it because I am unsure of what exactly my path is supposed to be? Why do I get excited about something in the short-run, but then lose interest? Am I still trying to figure out who I am? I felt so content after I decided on the PA path -- it felt so good to have direction in my life and tell people, yes, this is what I am doing. But 3 months later here I am having doubts and thinking about other career paths. I just wish I could honestly figure it out. Maybe there isn't one path and I'm just supposed to keep working my serving job for a while...but that doesn't feel right to me. I am supposed to do something else. Something different.
I guess only time and patience with myself will tell.
