Big Girl

I went to my first job fair yesterday. Educational - now I know what to expect and how to better prepare for the next one.

I did feel like a big, fat faker dressed in this:



Friend Now Living Here stopped by after dropping her kids off at school. I love having her close - we've been friends for 12 years! Since Beast at USMA! That's like, before husband, before kids, in then out of the Army! Its great to be able to live life with her again, spend time with her kids and have them know me.

I'm such a nerd. {Warning! USMA reference} I was getting dressed, turned to her and asked for a dress-off.

Breckenridge

We took Friend From DC to Breckenridge - Friend Who's A Lawyer and Her Husband rent a house outside Breck with a group of other people, so we drove up Saturday morning with plans to stay the night. My snowboard is still at this other guy's house and it was a lot more effort to get and prep than I was willing to put into it. I dropped them off and went snowshoeing for a few hours.



Drinks in the afternoon with other friends, then dinner in town. Us girls were so tired (probably from the sushi and then martinis the night before), we were showered, in pjs ready for bed at 8.

The drive home takes us through South Park, CO (for those who didn't know, South Park really is a town - small, but real). We got a pic with Mr. Hankey. Ha ha ha!

Weekend.

Ugh. I'm so tired! Could be all the wine I've consumed in the past few days with friends (mostly with Friend Now Living Here, you know, catching up). Oh, and Friend From DC came to visit.

Anyway, we took Friend From DC up the Incline the other day. Seriously, Friend Now Living Here looked at me at one point and said, "I don't think she'll ever visit us again."



But here we are at the top, all smiles (because we're done with the hard part!)

Stuff.

The movers came with my crap yesterday.

Furniture went in my bedroom, boxes were sent to the office. I'm so fortunate to have great friends - Friend From DC is visiting for a week and she single-handedly organized my closet. Friend Now Living Here stopped by and sliced open boxes and helped me dump the contents. Roommate walked in on this chaos and jumped right in. All the boxes are emptied, in a pile waiting for recycling.

The contents of the boxes, however, are in various piles around the office. Ugh. Why am I such a pack rat? Why did the movers pack a Gu gel packet in with Army orders putting me at Fort Hood? (Those orders were revoked, by the way, when I agreed to extend my tour in Korea for 4 more months). I think the movers would have packed my trash can if I hadn't supervised them!

Despite the mess in the office, my room at least looks like my room again - my bed is made, pictures are up on the wall.

Yay.

Lemongrass

reminds me of growing up. Only recently have I been able to identify Lemongrass with the sweet, distinctive fragrance of my childhood. Mom and her sisters cooked many many meals with this herb and the slightest smell of Lemongrass shoots me back about 20 years.



I was up in Denver with Sister last weekend and we went to Savory, this amazing spice store near the big REI just off I-25. I had been without real spice for 12 months, and had rid my pantry of any spices before deploying - had to restock. Savory has an amazing selection of spices, and we went nuts - and only spent like $30! We picked up _Cambodian Lemongrass Curry_ and used it on some fish Carol had. Oh. My. Goodness. So. Good. We talked about how the smell of the curry reminded us of Mom and of her cooking. Mmmm.

Pancake Rocks

The great thing about having a roommate who works at REI is all her gear I get to borrow :) She outfitted me with her extra set of snowshoes and we were off.

Yesterday we drove past Woodland Park towards Cripple Creek and parked here:

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Roughly 2 hours later we find ourselves here:


View Larger Map

It was so so nice to get out and be outside and the morning just made me appreciate living in Colorado.



It was cold, but we were dressed properly and once we got going I was at least comfortable. Exerting myself at 9500ft and climbing to a high of 11000ft was rough, but the views made it worthwhile.

I still have lots of crap to do, to go through, to process but being able to spend time with friends and be out there in this great place gave me some room to not worry or stress about being back home.

...decided to clean the refrigerator

I just got back.

Like, a week ago got back.

My room is a disaster. All I really have are the boxes of crap I mailed from Iraq and the stuff Sister stored for me. Instead of unpacking and attempting to organize said crap, I chose to clean the refrigerator.

I wanted something that I could begin, and then finish.
Task = accomplished.
Not
Task = waiting or Task = incomplete.

I'm so overwhelmed I don't know what to do! I have some sort of attention deficit as I'll move from one room of the house to another accumulating tasks and projects as I go along - when really, all I set out to do was brush my teeth!

Refrigerator clean = Check.

What am I going to do with the rest of my life = waiting.