Again with catching up! I was in Seattle Friday and Saturday, with not much down time.  So, I will catch up now.  I suppose I should give myself some flexibility, updating is hard when I'm running all over the place. Seattle was good, very quick, saw a lot of people, and was undoubtedly emotionally draining (social meeting with V maybe played a part in that).  It was also a productive trip, so for that I am thankful. Now! Onto bidness:

Friday:  Friday I was meeting with advisors at UW to learn about their programs, and what I should be doing to be able to go back to school as a post baccalaureate student.  It was super interesting, left me with a ton of questions that I will need to research the answers for, and was a great big step in the right direction of me getting back to school.  I'm thankful that I'm finally able to start down the road of actually being able to go back to school.  I have no idea when I'll be able to apply to an actual University and enroll full time (vs going to a community college part time, which I'm starting in Jan), but - baby steps.

Saturday: Saturday I woke up at my friend, T's, house, in a comfy warm bed.  T lives south of seattle, and a block off the sound.  Her house is gorgeous, her mom (who she lives with) is a doll, and I'm thankful that we are friends.  I've known her for 11 years, we lost touch for awhile, but reconnected when we realized we both were living in WA.  I'm glad for her friendship, and her and her mom's hospitality!

Bonus: I am thankful I made it home safe last night! about 15 miles from home I ran into bad weather, it had been snowing for awhile, and freezing cold.  In a one mile stretch I saw four bad accidents, at least 2 were flip-overs.  It was slow going those last 15 miles, but my lil subaru was great!

Today: I finished my christmas shopping! At least, the store-buying portion of it.  I totally slacked this year, and waited far too long - but everything that requires actually entering a store, is done! I still need to do some online shopping, but maybe I can get that  taken care of tonight.

Night.
xo
MK

Graphically adhesive tartufo memories.

My god it's been cold this week. Most days when I've left for work it's been right about 10 degrees. NOT OK. I'm more of a 70+ degree weather type of girl.  Anyhoo, that is no excuse for me slacking the past few days on posting...oops.  It's barely a week into this project and I'm already slacking - not good! It seems hard to focus myself to do this every day, but I think I've mentioned before that's the point.  I need to focus on this stuff everyday, and this blog is supposed to be the tool to make that happen. So, let's work on catching up!

Mmm...I can still taste tonight's Otsu.

I'm not sure if it's winter, stress, normal wear and tear or a combination of all of those things, but I've been exhausted lately. I came home tonight with the full intention of making dinner and then heading to the gym, but instead have been camped out on my bed since I finished dinner. Just exhausted and having no desire to go to the gym. Oof. Whatever this malaise is, I hope it passes soon. At least the Winter Solstice is only 2 weeks away! I can't wait for more daylight and moving toward warmer months.

Tonight I am thankful for having others to cook for. I love cooking, I love cooking from scratch, and I love sharing the product(s) with other people. Cooking for one is okay - but so many recipes aren't meant to halve, or you just make make a-little-enough for one person (even with leftovers for lunch!). Plus, it is so much more enjoyable to share a meal you've spent time and energy on with others, rather than eating it all alone. I enjoy being able to cook for my parents, they both work very hard all day and neither is much in the mood to cook when they get home, so I'm glad that, for at least a few nights a week, I can take care of that task for them. I enjoy introducing them to new foods (my dad is eating, and enjoying tofu!), recipes and styles of cooking. I think they enjoy it too.

Night.

xo

MK

Have you ever felt incredibly selfish?

I know it's a cliche, but I really can't believe how fast the weekend goes by. This one was rather productive for me though, I finally tackled a few chores that I've been meaning to tackle since I moved here (6+ months ago). Namely, I started sorting through boxes in the garage, boxes of toys, knickknacks, photos, "stuff" and other paraphernalia from the first 18+/- years of my life. Lots of work and lots of memories.

Tonight I am thankful for the opportunity to reflect and think about my life so far. Things I'd forgotten about, or had distorted memories of, came back all too clear today. I think, I have a lot to think about. So for tonight, I will be thankful for the chance to sort through these portions of my life, and reflect on them and how they've impacted me, and my family.

night.

xo

MK

RWF -1, NYSC -0

This project of mine is a bit harder than I thought it would be.

I figured "oh hey! It can't be that hard to find something in each day that I'm thankful for, it'll just take a moment to sit and reflect on the day"

LIES.

Keeping in mind that I'm trying not to use the frequently thanked: health, family, friends, etc, etc, etc. Those things that we should be thankful for everyday, no matter where we are. I'm trying to find things that are unique to my life right now. Granted, I said my cat in the first posting, but really, he is AWESOME and truly wonderful in my life. That's the point of this project though, I know there are great things about my life right now, and I need to focus on them.

SO.

Today I am thankful for my gym. Yeah, I know, I will probably have some form of a gym membership wherever I am living throughout the rest of my life. HOWEVER, there are a few things about this gym that make me truly happy and thankful. Let's list them, shall we? I do love lists.

1. $20/month membership, no contract. OH YES. Coming from an average of a $100/month membership, PLUS the joining fee, PLUS a contract in NYC, $20 a month is a bargain. Especially on MK's current budget.
2. It's open 24 hours. NOTHING in this town is open 24 hours (save the grocery store!), so there is always something for me to do.
3. I am usually the only person there. No kidding, that place is always empty. No waiting for machines, no fighting over weights, no shoving for stretching space. I think the most crowded it's been anytime I've been there is 6 others plus myself. Even my anti-social self can deal with that.
4. I love working out. I never, never thought I'd be the kind of person who enjoyed cardio or lifting heavy objects, repeatedly, but I do. Quite a bit actually. There are days that the only reason I stop running is because I know a) I'll hurt myself if I keep going and b) I won't be able to work out the next day. Give me my ipod and the elliptical and I'm a happy girl. It clears my head, destresses me, and makes me smile. Sometimes those 35-50 minutes of running is the only time my brain will shut up long enough for me to enjoy my day. I cherish it.
5. It's maybe a 3-minute drive from my house. So convenient.

There's more in my head that I want to write, but I'm exhausted and there are cookies to be baked-off and put away.

Night.

xo

MK

Horchata Noir

It's Friday, and I am so thankful for that fact alone. I haven't slept well the past few nights, and I am looking forwarding to swallowing a couple Advil PM and passing out until my body wakes me. (hopefully later than 4am tomorrow...). But it being Friday can't be my reason, it's too easy.

Coming up with something to be thankful for today was kind of hard. While there is plenty I'm thankful for in my everyday life: friends, family, health, job, etc. I also think those are too easy. Perhaps they'll make an appearance at some point, but I'd rather look for something less obvious.

After work today, I picked up my car, Horchata Noir, from the auto body shop. Her hatchback was dented and scratched a few weeks ago while in Seattle. That guy I was dating? We'll call him V. Well, the car was parked outside his apartment building, his motorcycles parked behind the car. Somehow, one of the motorcycles FELL into the back of HN, denting and scratching her hatchback. V was very apologetic, felt awful and offered to pay for it. Frankly, if my car was a bit older than 2 months, I probably wouldn't have cared and would have passed on his offer. But HN is just a sweet young thing, and too young to be zipping around all banged up. V broke up with me four days later. OUCH. Perhaps I'll talk more of V later, but for the purposes of this post, know that I really like(d) him and was not happy when things took the turn that they did. He was my closest friend out here, the person I spent the most time with, talked with the most and felt the closest to. Losing that friendship at this fragile point of life was painful, and I still miss it and him. Adding insult to injury was that my brand spankin' ass new car was fucked up.

ANYWAY. I finally took HN to the shop this past Monday to be prettied up. The shop did a great job (sans missing one of the back emblems, which they destroyed while removing it to paint the back, but promise to replace it, it's on order), and there is no evidence a motorcycle, V, or any reminder of that crappy week left on my pretty, pretty HN. $527.40 isn't so high a price to have that reminder erased, and have HN sparkle and shimmer like she should.

Where am I going with this? I'm not thankful for spending $527.40 that I decidedly do NOT have* to fix my car that was fucked up through no fault of my own, I am also not thankful for being without a car for 4 days. I am thankful I have Horchata Noir at all, and all that she allows me to do. It seems silly to be thankful for something so materialistic, but she is so much more than a material good to me.

My living situation doesn't offer much privacy, or much in the way of alone time, which is something I greatly desire, and need to keep myself happy. Horchata Noir can provide this for me. I can plug my ipod into her and create my own little world while I just drive and drive. She brings me a sense of freedom; an ability to escape the town I'm in and explore anywhere I chose at the drop of a hat and $40 on a tank of gas. She is always ready to take me wherever I go, and I am so, so thankful I have that freedom.

I am also very thankful for Advil PM, but to use that as my reason, would also be cheating.

Night.

xo

MK

*V crashed his other motorcycle into an SUV about 2 weeks after the HN incident. Most importantly, V is okay. I've dropped the issue about my car, assuming if he wants to own up to it, he will. I am broke and don't have the extra $527.40 lying around, but I'll manage, HN needed to be fixed.

Day: Not Sure. Try: Let's not keep count.

I started this Blog six months ago when I moved from Brooklyn, NY to Richland, WA. By “started” I mean I set it up and then promptly did nothing with it. I thought it would be an entertaining way to fill my ample free time, a good way to remember this transitional portion of my life, and possibly even funny to record and share the many culture shocks borne of moving from a metropolitan epicenter of 9 million people, to a sprawling cultural and culinary wasteland town of 150K people. While it would have been all those things, I didn’t do it. I can’t tell you why, exactly – I thought about it a lot. But I was also travelling a lot (Portland, Seattle, Hawaii, Denver), consumed with family weddings, friends birthdays, unpacking, repacking, unpacking again, and then I started dating someone, and then I got a job and all that ample free time was gone. I still thought about it every once in awhile, but not too deeply. I was consumed with new-relationship giddiness and stupidity, and new job stress and brain-deadedness at the end of the day. It seemed any free time I did have was better spent preparing for one of the aforementioned activities, not musing on my new small-town life. Now, I’ve stopped dating someone, still have a job, but the stress and brain-deadedness has fizzled out (mostly), but once again I have too much free time on my hands. The free time isn’t what is motivating me to try this out again, the free time has given me the opportunity to realize how completely miserable and unhappy I am in this sprawling cultural wasteland town. I’ve swallowed the bitter, bitter pill of realizing I’m going to be here another 6 months (at least), and I’ve got to get through them without being a miserable bitch. I mean, I could go through them being a miserable bitch, but I live with myself everyday and that’s no fun to live with, and less selfishly, my family and friends don’t deserve to (and flat out won’t) deal with that version of me for a week, let alone 6 months. SO, that (along with a string of other unrelated but equally motivating events) brought me back to my blog. I know I don't have the time/patience right now to regularly update with tales of small town life, but I do have the time to record some of what my life is right now.

Every day, I will write about something I am thankful for that day. I’m hoping this will keep me in a better headspace for the next few months by focusing on the positive aspects of my life right now. It’s super easy to focus on what sucks (oh, everything?), or how great my life will be once I leave (I can hear the universe mocking me now), but not so easy to see what’s great about life, today. Enter: the power of the internets and Blogger. A nice public forum for me to spew my thoughts and force myself to be honest and accountable. So that’s what this is.

I’ll kick off today with two things, just because.

1. Pilates. I have an awesome Pilates instructor that kicks my ass and makes me laugh while my abs burn, all at 5am, pre-caffeine for either of us. He shares my distaste for Christmas music and will indulge my requests of “anything metal” when asked what kind of music I’d like to listen to while pushing and pulling a variety of cables and springs. And it costs less than half of what it would have cost me in NYC. After pilates I always feel refreshed, and limber, and worked out, if not a bit sore. It’s a good feeling and I do love it so.

2. My cat. I’m sure he’ll make an appearance or two on this list, but deservingly. I can’t look at my furry little friend without feeling happy and thankful he’s with me. He’s awesome. And you know who doesn’t give a rats ass if you’re grumpy if he wants attention? A cat. And it’s REAL (impossibly) hard to ignore 10lbs of purring fur and claws when they want to be loved on.