Decade in Review

I have lived in 7 cities in 4 states, "completing" 4 of the 6 regions of the US I plan to live in in my lifetime.  I've had 13 leases for rooms or apartments and had 16 roommates!  I met Dre!  I have held 14 jobs (wow).  The worst was selling cars; the best was guiding hikes.  I have slept/overnighted at sea level, 11,200ish feet and many altitudes in between.  I have owned 2 cars, 5 bicycles and 2 pairs of hiking boots.  I earned a diploma and college degree.  I adopted 2 kitties!  I have fallen in love and gotten my heart broken... multiple times.  I won the Pedro tournament twice!  I started most of my favorite hobbies: wasting time on the internet, running, knitting and fencing - discovered in that order.  I've taken 2 major trips by myself.  I've visited 44 of the states.  5 of the 6 missing are in New England, the 6th is North Dakota. 

Looking back at my journals, I can tell that I have gotten much more awesome, beyond measure.  That is what will happen when the starting point is a 16 year old, I suppose...

Kinda Laid Back

Christmas was laid back here in Portland, just like everything else.  Quite suitable for me.  Kyle and I slept in after playing video games late into Christmas Eve/Early Christmas morning.  I got a lot of knitting done on the arm warmers, too!  I made monkey bread for breakfast, and it was good even though I didn't manage to get that carmely layer to form like Mom usually creates.  I only had one minor disaster: I realized that my Ashleigh's Christmas DVD case is EMPTY!!  I freaked out, Kyle got the "Ah, she is freaking out, oh crap" look on his face, and I called home on his advice to make sure there is a spare copy somewhere in the world.  There is; I calmed down.  After large doses of hanging out, we decided to hang out more, but with video games and knitting (again - whee!).  I made spaghetti with alfredo sauce and Kyle worked on beating Brütal Legend.  Also, sooo much stockinette knitting.  I am almost done with the first armwarmer's knitted portion and soon to begin the duplicate stitching.  As usual, solid black yarn is difficult *pout*.  We topped off the day by getting doughnuts in the middle of the night.  Yum!

I got wonderful gifts including a new needle holder made by Dre (to replace the one that was in The Box) and a bracelet made out of nuts from my parents.  Also, I have mukluks cozily waiting back in my apt in Vermont.  I decided not to bring them to Portland.  That was a mistake, and have been missing them dearly.  They will be excellent here in the future, I'm sure.
Gifts I gave were well received, too, I think.  I got totally awesome tee shirts for Dre and for Kyle.  Also, Kyle wore his birthday socks.

This pic taken pre gift giving... I did weave in the ends, and they fit his feet better than mine :)

After all my worrying, Mom assured me that the hat fit!  Yay!  And she was able to wrestle it away from McK, who, it seems is quite the hat aficionado.

The visit here on the whole was an excellent Christmas decision, apart from making me sad that I don't live here anymore.  Vermont is extremely nice and all, but...

Portland

Made it!

Off Like a Dirty Shirt!

Today, I will be heading off to Portland!!  I won't actually get there until almost tomorrow (or very much tomorrow here in EST), but I am leaving today, and that's what counts.  I don't think I have expressed publicly how excited I am to have such a tremendously long break.   UVM is officially on break Dec 18 - Jan 19.  It's crazy - over a month!  For comparison, I am used to University of Mich breaks, Dec 23 - Jan 6.  I plan to read a bunch, and work on sorting out a thesis topic, so I'm glad for the time.  Also, and this is why I am writing this post:

I WILL KNIT RACHEL'S ARMWARMERS!

Please, dear readers, hold me accountable.

A!

I just got my first UVM A!  Whee!
(ecological econ)

Today, I have my micro final, on which I am not sure what to expect.  I think our prof is mad at the class as a whole (I know this sounds like a paranoid delusion, but everyone agrees with me!), so hopefully that doesn't affect things.

Tomorrow is my flight to Portland!  I have one more paper to write, and now I need to edit the ecological econ final... and then I will be done with the term.  Exciting.

Icing on the Cake!

Pouf on the hat, snow on the everything!