BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

puppy :)

♥ mood music ♥

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Best of 2009: Part One

Now that more than half of 2009 is in the books, I thought it would be fun to sort of go back through the past seven-ish months and compile sort of a collection of memories. These are in no particular order except how I happened to remember them.

  • "I like how you tear into those things. You're like a freakin' fire truck!" - said by Brian during dinner at Lucky Fortune one weekend when I managed to make it home from Eugene. The fire truck reference comes from the Family Guy episode "Petarded."
  • Office party night, April 9, 2009. - This was the first time I had ever been introduced to the real game of life, which we played at Cameron's apartment while waiting for The Office to start. Thus began several months and counting of playing the game and sharing it with a bunch of other people, and the game has only become more and more fun.
  • Finishing the SOJC pre-major requirements. - Finally, I can consider myself a true UO journalism major. Info Hell, Duncan McDonald and J101 are all things of the past and now I can focus on bigger and better things...like trying to figure out what exactly I want to do with my news-editorial degree now that all the newspapers in the country are shutting down.
  • Concerts. - Beginning with Jason Webley March 19, continuing with OK Go March 30 and The Decemberists May 21, and most recently Relient K May 29, this was a busy spring as far as my live music intake is concerned. All of the aforementioned are among my favorite musicians, so I didn't consider any of the shows to be a bad deal, although having someone to hang out with at the Decemberists show would have been fun.
  • Turning 20. - Although not nearly as eventful as next year will likely be, this July 14 was nevertheless a milestone - I am no longer a teenager, although I've been an adult for two years now. Now I have a full year to carefully plan out my next birthday, as it has the potential to end either good or bad...let's hope for good.
  • Finally making it to the Melting Pot. - For the past couple of years, I have had to deal with Bess and Brian continually mentioning how amazing the Melting Pot is and satisfying myself with continuing to mention how much I really wanted to go sometime. Finally, for my birthday, Bess and Brian took me out to dinner at the best restaurant in the world (well in Portland anyway) and we enjoyed: Quattro Formaggio cheese fondue with bread, apples and vegetables; California salads (lettuce and tomatoes with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese, walnuts and raspberry black walnut vinaigrette); Coq Au Vin fondue (fresh herbs, mushrooms, garlic, spices and burgundy wine) with shrimp, duck, teriyaki sirloin, pork, chicken and potstickers; and S'mores fondue with cheesecake, strawberries, bananas, Oreo- and graham-cracker-coated marshmallows, pound cake and brownies. Plus the atmosphere is super sexy: the restaurant is underground, so you descend down a winding stairway into a dimly lit wonderland.
Hopefully the rest of 2009 will have more fun times!

Update: July 23, 2009

  • I found a bed for my apartment. Now to go pick it up tomorrow morning!
  • I'm rereading Walk Two Moons. It's pretty good.
  • The Old Fashioned Festival is once again upon us. I'm looking forward to watching Ben Rice perform, eating an elephant ear, getting free stuff from the vendor booths, watching the parade and watching the fireworks!
  • I'm in the process of weeding out more excess stuff from my bedroom. My goal is to be able to either store things at my parents' house for later on in life or move it into my apartment in Eugene (and then move it back to the berg at the end of the school year.) So basically if it's not important enough to move around with me and I won't need it in five years, I'm getting rid of it.
  • I'm toying around with different design ideas for newsletters in my head...just because I sort of randomly do that sort of thing from time to time. I don't have anything specific in mind though...maybe next time I'm at PCC I'll pick up a few really interesting ones and make up an inspiration binder or something.
  • I want a bigger corkboard. Currently, my ticket stubs live on a French-style bulletin board in the shape of a semi-formal dress. This is all well and good, except I have all sorts of other small paper memorabilia items -- stickers, programs, etc. -- that don't really belong with the tickets and/or don't fit on the dress board. Hopefully I'll find something soon so I can move all my random treasures out of drawers and shoeboxes and put them on display.

Yuppies annoy the hell out of me.


People who:

  • live in Sherwood.
  • buy cell phones for their elementary school-age child.
  • have a country club/golf course membership.
  • drive a Prius (for environmentalist cred), which they park next to their SUV in their spacious two-car garage in their immaculate gated community.
  • live in a house that's less than 1000 square feet, two stories tall, six inches away from the identical house next door (if they don't share a wall), paid $300,000 for it, and considered it a "bargain."
  • dress their young children in Abercrombie and Fitch or Hollister.
  • take yearly vacations to places like Hawaii.
  • decorates their home with ridiculous, meaningless crap like fake fruit, sconces and dimmer lights.
  • have an all-white living room.
  • I'm sure I'll think of more...

Thursday, July 16, 2009

I said Hey! What's going on???

Here's a bit of what's been going on and what's to come:

I have an apartment!!!
My friend Brian (who will be my roommate this upcoming school year) and I went down to Eugene a couple weeks ago to hunt for somewhere to live. We looked at several complexes near Autzen Stadium and finally found somewhere to apply. We went down to Eugene again two days later to turn in our applications, and we even got a look inside the apartment we hoped to get. That Friday, we found out that our applications had been approved and we got the apartment. We will be living in the Parkgrove apartments, which are next to Ducks Village and across Kinsrow from Chase Village. We get to move in August 14, after which I will be posting pictures documenting the move-in process.

Claire and Melissa got married! But not to each other!
The weekend before my birthday, I was super busy. Two of my friends had weddings in as many days.

The fun started Friday night with Claire's bachelorette party. We went to Washington Square Mall, a shopping trip which included Icing (for the all-important "Hot Bride" sash), Spencer's (for body crayons, which we used immediately upon exiting the store), and Victoria's Secret (for a couple of surprises for Ian).

It continued the next day with Melissa Kelley's wedding, on the Cammack farm just south of Salem. Our families have been neighbors for a few years now.

Sunday was the longest day of my entire life. Brian picked me up from my house at 9 a.m. for the two-hour drive to Rockaway Beach. When we got there, it was starting to sprinkle, which gradually become harder and harder rain as the time for the wedding drew near. Claire made an executive decision to keep the ceremony on the beach as planned, although everyone got fairly wet. Luckily we got inside for the reception just as the monsoon started. :)

Brian was in charge of the music, and we danced to all of our favorites from high school dances and ice cream orgies. They had two cakes: a coconut cake and a champagne cake, both with lots of raspberries. I caught the bouquet...which should be really lucky, right? And when it was time for Claire and Ian to leave, the crowd that had gathered outside the city hall (where the reception was held) made so much noise that a passing driver who had turned to see what was going on ended up driving off the road...haha :)

So basically, it was the biggest party weekend ever.

I turned 20!
My actual birthday was fairly uneventful, although my parents took me out to dinner Saturday night at McCormick & Schmick's. I slept through the entire morning (the craziness of the previous weekend had finally caught up with me) and had class that night, so I couldn't do much. However, I did get lots of lovely birthday wishes, beginning at 2 a.m. when Josh and Cameron both texted me (Josh actually texted me, emailed me, wrote on my facebook wall, got on facebook chat and sent me a message on Twitter). After chatting with Cameron for an hour or so, I slept for about four hours until Mom and Matt came in to give me my gifts (a card, five pairs of earrings and a new Oregon hoodie). After they left, I tried to go back to sleep, but I was soon bombarded with six text messages and a ton of Facebook notifications. Thank you so much to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! And I still need to figure out a date for Bess and Brian to take me to dinner at the Melting Pot!

I got an A on my first psychology test!
Because my birthday is in the middle of summer, I usually don't have class on my birthday. However, because I'm taking PSY 215 this summer at PCC to get some science credit, not only did I have class on my birthday; Tuesday was the date of my first test. Luckily, I did well, considering I finished the thing in 15 minutes. Even better news: I looked up the transfer equivalent online, and my PSY 215 class counts as PSY 210 at UO! Yay!

More to follow!

An attempt to revive my poor wilted blog...

Sorry, it's been busy the past few weeks, with class, two weddings, a bachelorette party and my birthday...Hopefully later tonight I'll have time to post something groundbreaking and thought-provoking. :) Stay tuned!