I don't know much... but i know i'm blogging...

I'm in San Diego.

You may be asking yourself a combination of the following questions:

1. Weren't you in Oregon?

2. What happened to Texas?

3. Is San Diego as fabulous as it seems?

4. What did you see on the way down?

5. What is your plan for the next few weeks/months?

6. WHY DON'T YOU BLOG MORE?

SO. The reality is: I just don't feel like typing out a long blog about everything I've been doing since early January... so here's one really long run-on sentence for you to glean the overall story from:

we left oregon and got on the coastline drive and stopped through eureka, ca and then spent a few nights in san francisco with the lovely leah rybolt and saw ren phillips and visited "hot cookie" and smelled a lot of weed and walked the golden gate bridge and rented and rode a tandem bicycle around golden gate park and loved the warm weather and sunshine and i want to go back to san francisco a billion more times and then went to lake tahoe for 2 nights and met my dad's college roommate then went back to san francisco and visited alcatraz and ghiradelli square then stayed in monterey, ca then drove the PCH (pacific coast highway) down to los angeles and stayed with the woo family and did a driving tour of the city and i kissed nicolas cage's handprints in the cement then drove to san diego and thats where i've been for a week basking in more sunshine and warm weather but i hear everyone else got snow and im scared to come back east and have to wear a coat again.

Whew! If you want details, I dunno just ask... or look at Leslie's pictures on FB or something.... because that's all I have in me.

San Diego is wonderful. Laura Boyer, with whom I'm staying (that grammar is for you, Lezbo and Kata), is wonderful. I have spent the last week in sunshine and 70-75 degree weather, biking around the beach and the bay, hiking around Torrey Pines, visiting with old and new friends, reconnecting with some JMU girls I hadn't seen in years, exploring new coffee shops, watching surfers, getting the sniffles, sleeping 12 hour nights, and figuring out what's next. And on that note:

You may have heard TX was the goal. Well, it ain't happenin'. Neither Lez nor I were happy with the placements being offered by the recruiting companies, so we made back up plans and mine (motivated by majorly deflated savings account and tiredness of the living-out-of-the-car scnenario and desire to get going with some grad school applications) is to fly back to NC on Monday 2/7/11. Where will I live? Not quite sure. What will I do? Also not quite sure... but the GRE is in there somewhere as is getting a job so I can afford things like food and housing and health insurance. You know, the little things.

Lots of unknowns, which is the life of twenty-somethings in general, and me in specific.

So, once I get back. Let's hang. I will come up/down/over... but need a bit of time to get settled in.

As is all coming/going... the time is bittersweet. I am thrilled to see familiar faces. I am sad to leave the west coast. I am excited to get moving on grad school and job stuff. I am bummed that my domestic partner will continue on without me...

And I guess I'll have to change the name of my blog, huh??

To the comments!

Oh, the blogging outside is frightful.

Why hello! Almost everyone I know right now is home on a "snow day" or has been in the last week because the east coast: 1) has gotten more snow than us in Oregon (at least Dreadford, I mean Methford, I mean Medford), and 2) does not know how to handle even a dusting and closes down life at the first flake sighting. We've gotten a mini glimpse of snow in the valley out here but we are located in what the smart people call "an inversion layer" - aka - foggy all the time, no snow, and basically a bubble of pollution in the middle of beautiful mountains that taunt us with their snow caps.

HOWEVER. We will gratefully step out of the inversion layer in about 3 days and make our way south through a bunch of states for a bunch of weeks! I will post next about our itinerary for the next several weeks... as sugar momma and I are about to embark on a 30-day total road trip, that will likely end in Texas. We are crossing our fingers for Austin!

But before we go there, I wanna talk a lil bitty bit about Christmas in NC. I was home for about 10 days, bouncing around from Gboro to Atlanta, aunts to brothers, grandbinkis to g-mommies, nieces to moomykins. It was great to come back and see familiar faces and frolick around the 'boro, though. Seemed like so long since I'd been home!

Here's some stuff I/we did and why they were fun and/or weird:

My aunt/uncle/cousins came into town from Florida. I see them SO seldomly and they are just fabulous. I dragged TayReg along and we all went to see Bodies Revealed at the Natural Science Center. The NSC is the place we went on field trips when I was in elementary and middle school and they still have the SAME ROCK CANDY 15 years later. I had to restrain myself though. Also, that weird space ice cream? What the dump is that stuff and who buys it???

Anyway - Bodies Revealed looked like this:

And in case you didn't know... turkeys look like this and are disgusting... and I can't believe I gave this one a thumbs up because that red warty, saggy stuff on his face just ain't right.

It snowed a bunch on Christmas! Which was a blast! We (my mom, dad, Philip, Hillary, and I) dug out stuff from the very old, very moldy, very outdated Tester Family Golden Ski Collection. Let me tell you... we found some gems in there. Which of course, Philip had to try on and demonstrate to the rest of us.

That 80's "Aspen" hat has fleece ear flaps, for the record. Suspenders and basically-latex ski pants. I think the pastel yellow turtleneck may be the worst bit of the bunch though. But for real though Philip, was that a Tester Family Golden Ski Collection find? Or did you bring that because I don't recall seeing it in the bin. Just sayin'.

Here is Philip again with his lovely (and puffy) wife Hillary, and their adorable, snow-savvy dog Ella.

My parents dog, Hobie (better known as Hobiewan or "the Wan") did not quite live up to Ella's wonderful snow skills. Hobie was basically frozen solid on his legs after 30 minutes in the elements and could not move. I looked over. Hobie is inactive in his tracks. Looking at me with this Gob Bluth expression that screamed "I've made a huge mistake." I laughed a lot, then saved his life.

After a warm bath and a rub-down, The Wan was good to go for a game of Red Ball, the daily house-wide freakout game.

Aside from the dog near-distaster, my mom and I made a snowman!! We used all stuff from her garden to decorate him. My favorite part was the red beady eyes (perfected by the cherry tomatoes), almond sliver mouth, and the adorable broccoli stalk arms. The hat he is wearing also came from the Tester Family Golden Ski Collection... it also had fleece ear flaps, and a picture of Micky Mouse on skis. I think that's what I wore in Colorado that time I sunburned my eyeballs, they swelled shut, and the lady on the airplane audibly gasped at the poor blind 12 year old with eyes the size of tennis balls. Cute.

Now, as I mentioned, I went to ATL, where my other brother lives with his wife and 6 month-old sweet thing, Naomi, and ohmygoshshesadorable and i just want to eat her and tried. I can't stand it... but actually, the Tester family men can stand it even less. They are melting into vats of Naomi sugar and can't contain themselves. It's really quite cute. I mean... can you blame them????

Here we are all together in ATL, prior to Matt and VA getting their newest addition to the family -- Pepper. Check the underbite, and love it.

Lastly, I must give a "we missed you" shout-out to Emily Beidler, who we missed dearly over Christmas and NYE 2010 at the Register's house.... Wasn't the same without you there, nicey! But don't worry, we left your spot open.

So yea... all that is behind me and in front lies lots of road travel, big questions of what's next, and possibly even the GRE once we get settled. On the cheesy side of things, I really am so blessed by the support of my family and friends on this adventure... and for those of you I didn't get to connect with over Christmas (aka almost everyone but my family) -- I'll be back soon!

Lovelove. To each of you.

Quit playin' games with my blog.

THE BLOG. SHE LIVES.

I am getting kinda tired of starting my posts the same way... i.e. - apology for the appalling lapse of time between posts, obligatory excuse for my absence, and incredibly well-intentioned promise to do better next time... which I have no doubt is received with a "yeah right" and audible sigh. It's okay. I agree.

Or maybe you only look at this thang once a month. And in that case, I'm right on time!

In case you haven't noticed, I have not posted since River Wolf. That post was a zillion miles long, and if you actually read all of it, I am equally thrilled that you care enough about my life to commit 3 hours to scanning that story, and thrilled that no one (to my knowledge) converted to Mari-ism after the detailed description ofhow the world was formed by aliens and the complex mythical creature/dimension interactions through that whole vortex thing. I do, thankfully, feel that I have recovered from that experience overall, and honestly don't ever really want to tell that story again. If you ask me,I will say, "READ MY BLOG."

I will divide this post into short sections for your convenient perusal:

1) BIRTHDAY.

I turned 26 in December. 26. Late Twenties. Still mid? Either way -- Highlights from the day:

- I babysat, and the 4 year old threw up on me. Full-on vomitiousness all over my adorable birthday outfit (probably an unwashed t-shirt, jeans, and the 1 hooded sweatshirt I brought out west). "All over" may be an exaggeration. Enough to spark my gag reflex is all I know...

- MINI ICE CUBE TRAYS! Leslie may have given me the best (and audibly assailant) birthday gift ever. Let me clarify that the trays themselves are not actually mini, but the ice cubes that they make are!!! Crushed, tiny ice cubes are a decade-long proclivity of mine, and it's not stopping any time soon. Ihave about 4 trays a day on average. Judge me.

- Twilight Saga's "Eclipse" viewing

[notice how I move on quickly from that? you're welcome.)

2. SKIING!

Take 1: Lez and I went up to Portland again before I left Oregon for the holidays. We headed over to Mt. Hood with some Portlandian friends (who are expert skiers I might add) and I managed to convince Leslie that: no, she does NOT hate skiing with a burning passion and she will love it once she tries it again in the context of beautiful Mt. Hood and fun friends (including a bonafide ski instructor -- which is clearly not me). She gave it a valiant effort... only took out 1 child... which compared to my skiing disaster with Taylor in New Zealand, is a step up!!!! :) Tay, I kid. You and Lez can battle out the "who hates skiing more" debate some other time. We took zero pictures of the day, but here's what Mt. Hood looks like from Portland's perspective, thanks to Google image.

Take 2: The weekend after, I decided to take myself on a mini birthday vacation and head down to Mt. Shasta in northern CA to ski for the day!! Mt. Shasta is a 14K footer, HUGE MOUNTAIN, and I was stoked. I was armed with a front-wheel drive Saturn that weighs about 100 pounds, thrift store ski attire, sunglasses for goggles, and a willing heart. Too bad that doesn't really cut it when there is a massive whiteout and you drive in THIS for 2 hours trying to make it up to the ski resort.

When I got to the parking lot, and couldn't even see the ski lift that was about 200 yards away, I knew I had two options: turn around and go home, or die on the mountain... with no cell service or skiing buddy to put my body back together during its inevitable disintegration.

I chose option 1.

3. PORTLAND SHOPPING. We found some diamonds in the rough. Check 'em out:

obviously, my favorite aisle in Powell's city of books.

a warehouse of weird.

yes, that says "romeo"

I almost bought that sweater for real.

all connected in one glorious piece.

one piece. acid wash.

"it's beginning to look a lot like vampires"

On the next episode of my mighty-mighty-blogtone: Christmas/NYE in NC.

And as always...

Peace and Blessings.