Give me a break....or five.

Let's just say I put the "pro" in procrastination. I'm not sure how to go about getting any sort of studying done during the summer. It's hot (too hot) and I'm uncomfortable and all I want to do is just sit around and not have to worry about studying for a test. Alright, that sounds lazy. Even lazy for me...but still, summer school is such a bittersweet aspect of my life (a little more bitter than sweet). Anyway, all I want to do is travel. My main goal is Portland, Oregon this summer. Let's hope it happens! After all, it's only a four hour drive or so. I think I can arrange something like that. Can the next goal be Greece? That's really all I think about these days. What I would do if I was in Greece. Sigh. Until then, I'll stick to eating lots of feta and hummus on a day to day basis.

Well the countdown continues! Whenever I don't feel like working on school nonsense I start cleaning or packing little by little. Three and a half weeks until I'm moving! I cannot wait! That means roughly three weeks until my dad comes to help haul my stuff a few minutes away....and also enjoy a few days off? I'm not sure what he'd prefer but since I know he has a great background in moving his children from one apartment to another, I know I'm going with the right guy for the job!

Well, I suppose I should get crackin' on my studying. Thanks for listening.

Best,

Anne

Hello, July!

I woke up this morning with a great attitude to be completely productive. It helps when you go to bed before ten and wake up at seven. Plenty of hours to accomplish various tasks, right? Well, for the most part. I only have twenty-nine days before I have to move out of my apartment. Such a bitter sweet thought but I am certainly excited to move in with other human beings. Why not take advantage of it? I have a feeling that packing up and cleaning will take me awhile and I’d rather not rush it. I’m starting to slowly get rid of things I don’t need. Even though these magazines are what keep me up to date with the more important things in life, (Food, Exercise and Celebrity gossip) I decided it was time to recycle. :-D

So back to today, I began with my closet. It was time to get rid of some of those clothes “I may wear sometime…if I was doing something….that would require that certain outfit”. Well, if that day ever comes along then the joke is on me! I have two bags of clothes to give away and…a whole bag of shoes I sadly must get rid of before I look at them any longer. If you know me, I love shoes. Don’t worry, not the expensive ones. If I see a good deal I don’t think twice (even though I should). Now it is time to get rid of some of those deals from way back when.

After the clearing out of clothes and tidying of the closet, I thought I’d move on. I went to the refrigerator. It’s not that bad, but I REALLY needed to get rid of some older food in there. No mold yet, but certainly not edible. What? I’ve been busy! Once that smelly process ended, I began to gather all of my laundry to head downstairs and look forward to clean clothes. I had a lot of laundry that I’d been stacking up. It’s not that big of a deal because I’ve had plenty to wear but it was time. I had three loads to wash and dry so I got right to it. When I knew the clothes were washed I headed back downstairs to transport them to the dryer. I noticed one of the washers said nine minutes to go when the others were done. Some sneaky person must have bumped it and stopped the wash. I decided it was fine and put everything in the dryer (thinking in the back of my head that I’d probably have to add extra time to the dryer since they were more than soaked still...hence the puddle of water in the washer). Fifty minutes later I went to grab the dry clothes. Sure enough, the sopping wet ones were still as wet as they had been at the start. Great, another 50 minutes of waiting around for dry clothes. I paid another dollar and went upstairs. Meanwhile, all these household chores were catching up to me and I was getting a bit tired. Finally, the time was up and I went back down to get my clothes. What surprise greeted me? Soaking wet clothes. Still. Guess who found out that dryer didn’t even work in the first place? I’d had just about enough with that laundry room so I threw the very wet, not damp, clothes in the laundry basket and bitterly walked upstairs. I refrained from snapping a picture, but there are clothes hanging from every inch of my bathroom and kitchen right now.

Needless to say, I have had a somewhat productive day but not completely. I enjoyed a late afternoon run and pancakes for dinner. That in and of itself is perfectly productive J Have a happy 4^th of July weekend all. (JULY!?! Goodness gracious, time flies!)

Best,

Anne

Excellent!

Happy Father's Day, all. A special shout out to my father! Wish I could be there to celebrate but once again, I am a few states too far. I guess you'd tell me I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, huh Dad? You are a man of many catch phrases (Don't worry...I know you don't make them up yourself. But you may be the only one that still uses some of these catch phrases so I'm not sure which is better). Either way, you never cease to provide comical relief in the Vurdelja family. I think I can speak for everyone and say, we appreciate it (most of the time). Thanks for being great, Dad. I can't wait to see you soon.

Best,

Chickadee

The things we do...

I realize just how difficult it is to get a job right now. I have heard of many people that have no idea what to do now that they have graduated. Not only graduation, but in general. I hope I don't have to deal with such problems after college but I wouldn't be surprised if they happened. Instead, I have to deal with my current summer job. Before you say, "you should be lucky you have a job, do you know how difficult it is to find one right now?!" let me just say I am thankful. Believe me! It's very nice to be able to make money and essentially not be so bored throughout the summer. I'm currently working at a country club snack shack. Sounds harmless, right? I look out one window and see a golf course and look out the other window and see a warm pool but the problem is I'm looking out these windows from a square shack of everything I try as hard as possible to steer clear of and not have to see everyday. Before we get to the inside of the snack shack, let's talk about my responsibilities before the day begins. Since I am always scheduled for the opening shift, I have to make turkey and ham sandwiches, stock up on everything we need, count money, other miscellaneous things, you know...not too difficult. As a vegetarian I am not itching to take a bite out of the sandwiches I make but it's not the worst thing in the world. I'd rather not have to deal with the sandwich meat but it's my job so I won't make a big deal of it. Since one of the chefs is "so nice" to slice the meat for the snack shack, the person in charge of opening (me) has to thank her. When I say thank her, I do not mean go up to her and say "thanks for slicing the turkey and ham! High five". I wish that's what it meant! Actually, thanking her means cleaning the meat slicer for her. Excuse me? Clean the meat slicer? Does that sound like something I'd fancy? To answer your question, no it does not. So here I am, soap, water, sanitizer in hand ready to complete this daunting (and disgusting) task. Not everyone would be so turned off by such a task, but I am and I'm not afraid to continuously complain about it. Can vegetarians get immunity? Only 3 more months of this right? Anyway, after that's clean as can be ("because if I miss any little bit who knows who long that will be there!") I get to start cooking hot dogs, burgers, and more. Please excuse my complaining but I think we are all entitled to miniature complaints every once in awhile. Let's just not go overboard (unless we are discussing cleaning a meat slicer). Unless I'm working for Ellen DeGeneres, I don't know if I'd find a job that I couldn't complain about a tiny bit.

Moral of the story: When you get offered a job, first ask if there is a meat slicer that needs to be cleaned. And then run.

Best,

Anne

P.S. The good news is I have topics for blogs now! ;-D

The end's not near, it's here.

School is out tomorrow. Plenty of posts to come this summer! Thankfully none of them will be about training for a marathon! Back soon...

Best,

Anne

I hope you don't mind that I put down in words...

Today is my ONE year anniversary of living in Bellingham. So naturally, it's a good day. I cannot believe how fast time has whirled past me! Wasn't I just in Iowa, hating every minute of it? Wasn't I just packing twenty boxes to ship here? I guess that's the funny thing about time. It goes by so fast when you aren't thinking about it...or you are enjoying everything in the meantime. Which is exactly what I have been doing. Sure, I have had a few hiccups every now and again but the whole experience in Bellingham cannot thoroughly be summed up in words. This picture above is the fabulous South Hill Apartment complex. I live there! You can even see my blinds that are closed in the front. I cannot believe how lucky I was to find this place. Everyone is so kind...well, everyone I know. Don't get mad at me but I don't actually know some of my neighbors. Oops! Either way, the place is located in the cutest neighborhood flooding with children and gorgeous houses! Not to mention it's a two block walk to campus. How convenient! I've loved this place...even if my walls are completely bare and my kitchen is the size of a yoga mat. I've survived! There are worse things...really.
The view behind my building is alright...I guess. It makes it extremely difficult to not be thankful.
I have had several visitors over the past year! I am so glad that my family and friends have been able to see this glorious place. Sure beats those cornfields! Unless you prefer cornfields to mountains, then that statement doesn't pertain to you. You should also seriously reflect about that point of view.
The weather last summer was phenomenal. Almost unreal. If I had a penny for every beautiful sunset, I'd be rich. God's beauty folks.
The experiences I have had here significantly affected my lifestyle and way I see things now. Certainly for the better. I am so thankful for everything that has happened to me in the past year. I have met incredibly people that I will never forget and cannot wait to spend more time with as well as meet more people! School has been...an experience. Mostly fantastic but I cannot lie, it has also been the culprit of some of my worst experiences. But, let's not dwell on that. I'm surrounded by (some) family and friends and therefore, life is great. Don't worry, I miss my family and friends at home. I'm lucky I can travel home every so often to give them hugs and laugh until my belly hurts. There you have it. One year down. Many to go! The Pacific Northwest is not going to get rid of me that fast! They can try, but I put up a pretty good fight.

Finally, I'd like to thank my brother John for coming up with the name of this blog. Not only is it clever and witty in the same way that John's personality is, but it's literally true. Bellingham has saved me. I would have never thought I'd be here several years ago but taking a cross-country leap of faith has made the biggest impact on my life. So thanks John. Thanks, Bellingham.

Best,

Anne

May I have another weekend, please?

This weekend has been jam packed with obligation after obligation. I wouldn't go ahead and say that it has been terrible but I wouldn't say that it has been fun either. It's okay because that happens every once in awhile. Homework, studying, researching have been piling up in school. I have been extremely busy trying to tackle all of those thrilling tasks. It's especially a blast when the weather is 65 outside and sunny! Saturday was my busiest of days. I woke up at six a.m. and got ready to help set up a garage sale. Our Community Health class has a community service project this quarter. We have to raise $1000 jars of baby food or $1000 dollars for the Food 4 Tots program at the Food Bank. It's incredible how many jars of food babies go through in a week and they are certainly in need of them. We have been doing a number of services but yesterday was the garage sale. I didn't have anything to contribute unfortunately, but I helped set everything up and used my immaculate upper body strength (HA!) to carry desks, tables, bags, microwaves and more. We had way more stuff than I thought we would have! I haven't been to a garage sale in awhile, so I forgot about crazy garage sale goers. Example: A lady walked up at 8am asking if we had books. We had a smallish pile with some textbooks in the mix. All of a sudden she pulls out her hand held scanner and goes through each book and the bar codes to check the prices. Um, excuse me! This is for the children. Can you just pay a dollar per book without seeing what other people are asking for it? She ended up reluctantly shelling out a few dollars. I'm sure she had other motives for those books. Then, another lady (probably her garage sale competition) came looking at the books. She pulled out a scanner TOO! Who are these people? She kindly told us that one of the textbooks we were asking 10 dollars for were going for $9.95 online. Thanks, lady. We ended up making over $500 yesterday! It was successful!

After learning about the garage sale crowd, I headed straight to CPR/First Aid training! I couldn't wait to spend five hours inside on such a fantastically beautiful day! I haven't been CPR certified since high school so I had forgotten a lot of the information but it was much easier to learn this time. I'm older, wiser, and you know...that helps. I can also do those chest compressions like a pro! 1 and 2 and 3 and 4....and 30. Two breaths. Repeat. Currently knocking on wood (or what looks like wood) so that I don't have to give CPR to anyone! Eee! After an exhausting five hours, I headed home. I planned to go for a run but thought I wouldn't make it without a quick nap. The time was 3:30pm. Alarm set for 5:00 pm. Woke up at 7 pm. Oops! How did that happen? Then it was time to catch up on shows that I missed this week, laundry and all of that homework I hadn't had a chance to get to yet. Oh life...

Now it's Sunday and I have a full day of homework and studying with a little Zumba! in between. More on Zumba later...I can talk about that forever. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and continues to enjoy the rest of it!

Best,

Anne