more lasagna.. and 22

it has been forever since I've written. I got caught up in working approx 70 trillion hours a week.. then our lease was up and finding a new place/moving/packing/still unpacking has been a big process as well. now I'm back to normal 40hour work weeks and a new apartment that's slowly becoming home. oh, and I'm a new age! the big 22nd birthday came and went last week. spent a couple of days with my parents and a rented Wrangler. we ate homemade lasagna and cake for my dinner (I declined eat out, I'm still a college kid in the sense that Mom's cooking is my craving) after taking a dusty drive up to the Alpine Center on Trail Ridge Road. I spent the actual bday in the Springs cleaning and doing laundry- that made me feel oldest of all. welcome to the real world, ha!

the new apartment is in a super nice complex, complete with pool, spa, and waterfall. Molly loves the huge open field right down the street- she wakes me up at exactly 6:00 every morning with the tennis ball in her mouth. I stay half asleep as I throw it for ten minutes, and then force her back to bed with me :) today we went to the dog park to get some of her energy out.. she, as always, decided it was necessary to steal every other dog's tennis ball. the dogs' owners would have been upset except they couldn't stop laughing at my crackhead who managed to cram three tennis balls into her mouth. goof.

summer has been HOT and I can't say I'm not looking forward to fall. I'll be back to school in November but until then, it's work work work and maybe a few camping trips thrown in there. tomorrow I have big plans to pretend I don't have adult things to do and instead drive into the mountains to take Molls swimming. I stand firmly on the idea that most people don't have to be as responsible when they live in CO. too much fun stuff to do :)

time to shower and head out.. I'll be picking up Ry from work, figuring out what dinner might be, and then heading to a friend's front porch for a few beers. cross my fingers, it won't be months before I write again.

LASAGNA

my mom reminded me tonight that I haven't seen her since Christmas... I was home in early March but my mom was in Chicago so I only visited with my dad. weird. sometimes growing up can suck- when I was younger, the longest I went without seeing my mom was one or two nights.

but here I am now, sitting on my parents' couch watching Seinfeld and having a beer with my dad. Mom made incredible lasagna for dinner and we took a long walk with the dogs.. tomorrow we'll hike and maybe play raquetball. I love days off, and I love being home. my goal is to come home once a month from now on. it just feels right.

and my parents are hilarious! my mom is ragging on my dad for "sneaking" ice cream. he will go have a yogurt before bed and then come back with another full yogurt container.. little did she know that he was actually filling the empty container up with ice cream! so funny. I love my parents.

love, love, love. as long as we're on that note, I love the mountains and Estes Park. and Colorado. I live in the best place in the world.

I may take a break..

but Molly does not. she is still being a crackhead. today I came home to find shredded cardboard all over the living room. she smelled the container Ry's french fries were in last night, dug it out of the trash, and shredded it into tiny little pieces. I don't even know how I saw the cardboard because she was jumping all over me, so excited that I was home. in her mouth was a rock (per usual) and when I looked closer, I realized that her teeth were black. BLACK. I looked around the room and noticed something long, skinny, and chewed in the corner. yep, Molly chewed a marker pen and now she has black teeth. sigh.

Ry is taking me out tomorrow night for our 9month. so funny- Monica and I were talking today about how the first few months, every 17th we would be like happy anniversary (!!) and now we're like oh yeah, another month. we are already old people :)

FROZEN CAMPING

it has been so gorgeous in the Springs this week, and the boys have decided they're kidnapping me and we're going camping on Friday night. I continue to state that it's going to be freezing up in the mountains at night, but they say who cares, we're building a fire, let's go. this post is to say my goodbyes if I turn into an ice cube and never return.

ps- I cant wait for my paychecks to start arriving. Lord almighty, I have bills to pay.

life has been busy

(comparatively)

well, I got a job, which has been a major stress load off of my back. I started last week and have been working 8-4 this week.. everyone thinks I am going to hate it pretty soon but so far, I am just happy to be putting my energy toward something. I would make a horrible stay-at-home mom-- I do a good job cleaning and cooking and all that, but I get crazy by approx 1pm. having a job makes me feel like there is purpose for the day.

now I'm car shopping, which is almost more painful than job hunting. I've found a number of vehicles I thought I liked but in person there were problems. then I've found perfect vehicles that are too expensive or worse, someone has snatched up right before me. that's where I'm at now-- the Wrangler isn't perfect but it's fairly close to what I want and literally 20 min before I got to the dealership today, someone else put an offer down. sigh. hopefully the right car/Jeep will come around soon. :)

I am so lame

my life is uninteresting and therefore I have nothing to say.. except that it is about to snow AGAIN here and I am extremely unhappy. where is summer, damnit?!!

the beauty of Colorado

is that we can have a raging blizzard all day and night... and the next day, the roads are only wet because the freakin sun just melts everything in hours! love it. I was boxed into the house for nearly 24 hours there (since the PT Cruiser is not the most compatible with snow/ice) and almost went crazy. now it is sunny and going to warm up even more this weekend. woohoo! I am ready for spring.

in other, completely superficial news, I have been trying out a pointer finger ring. I have always been a ring person and usually I wear three- one on my left middle finger, one on my right ring finger, and one on my right thumb. lately, though, I've been trying the left ring finger and the right pointer finger (this is mesmerizing and fascinating, I know). can't decide if I like it.. first I wore the thumb ring but that was too big, and now I'm on my Africa ring, which I like more even though it's a little tight. we'll see. there's something about wearing rings that makes me feel more complete, and sometimes a little more elegant. when I don't wear them, I feel a little lost. I even wrote this story once about a time in Africa when my thumb ring fell off right at the water's edge on the beach. it wasn't the ring I had the longest or the most expensive one, but it was my touchstone, the one I couldn't imagine NOT wearing. ..although I think that story had less to do with the ring and more to do with, well, other stuff. hmm.