Thrihyrne

My work trip to SF went incredibly well, I'm so glad to say. By my choice, I declined free beer, wine and other alcohol and didn't feel deprived. A welcome state of mind, to be sure.

Evan and I did something unexpected this Saturday morning; he came with me to Mod Physique and dropped me off and got the oil changed in his car while I took class. He then came by and met Jessa, the instructor, and got to see the studio where I've been going 5 days a week! Having a visual helps. :) Then we drove across state lines to go visit winnett and pick up a free sewing machine! She's moving for the first time in 15 years and was ready to rid herself of some things she didn't use. Like this sewing machine, complete with its own case. She and I were talking at snottygrrl's birthday party last month and Winnett either asked if I wanted a free sewing machine or if I knew someone who would— and since I've been machine-less since 2010, this sounded great. I've plugged it in and it does work, though I think it would help for me to find a booklet (if possible) to figure out the proper way to thread it, and it needs a tune-up. But I'm thrilled. A hand-me-across sewing machine of similar heft and style to mine that I'd had since 1988!!! :D

A ring also arrived that wasn't exactly designed for me to particular specifications, but was generally designed with some elements that I told this particular jeweler I liked, and I'm so smitten with the outcome. With a shop name like this, how could I not have been at least intrigued?

Pics would be linked below, but after spending way too much time on this, I'm linking to a Tumblr post I made so you can see the damn photos. I seriously tried to link into Photobucket, Snapfish, and Flickr as well, and couldn't get links to work. ARGH!! So here you go:
http://frealasruadh.tumblr.com/post/77533389874

Oh, and I decided today to give up playing Candy Crush for the month of March. Instead, I shall endeavor to do other things, including working on my two fics. :P

It's early (5:25) but a common time to be awake for me on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays when my work schedule and Evan's are in sync. I'm taking 2 days of PTO this weekend, which means this is our first 3 days together without working some of it since last October. WOOT! And I need it. I'm on the threshold of a work-free weekend (we're using 'koala' as a sort of reminder word if I find myself talking about work, and I absolutely will not even log in to see how many emails I may have), and it's much needed. :P

Yesterday was an absolutely delightful usual day off. It was unexpected in that I had company! evannichols was home because he'd come home sick midday Tuesday, and was still not feeling well yesterday. I took the opportunity to sleep in as much as my body needed, which was a lot: didn't wake up for a final time until 9:30. So no ballet, but I was certainly rested. I enjoyed a leisurely morning, including writing a letter to Evan's mom, then ran a couple of errands with Evan before leaving him at the apartment to rest while I went out and did my own things. First on the list was a truly lovely hour visit at my former residence on 79th. I met up with Gail and Robin, had tea, shared some of my knitting projects, and just enjoyed their company and seeing Cooper, the boxer [dog] again. What made me particularly happy about that whole scenario is that they are the first people since my Years of Struggle (approx 2005-12) whose residence I've left as a tenant under positive circumstances. They have enthusiastic roses in their side yard, and Gail sent me home with a stunning bouquet of a dozen, which are gracing a table now.

Other adventures included going to Value Village in search of sandals. Instead, I bought a pair of flip-flops (o_O), and a unique pair of side-zip quasi-dress shoes in a kind of rich grey. They need a lot of love, and some thoughtfully-chosen shoelaces, but I bought then for $5.99 and 20% off. I've decided to invest up to $40 in them to bring them back to life, and I'm oddly attached to them already. I rounded out the day with a wonderfully long phone call with Jen in Eugene, then a few episodes of season 3 Project Runway Evan and I are watching (my second go-round, his first) before going to bed. All in all, just a splendid, enchantment-filled day. And it was overcast/some rain, the perfect Portland day for me. :)

So today is work, and then 3½ days off as my Monday schedule is 1-10. We're trying to keep much of our time unstructured and free for spontaneous activities, but there are a couple of planned events on our docket: I bought a Groupon for a 2-hour jewelery-making class for 2 at a studio in Newberg, so Evan and I will take a bezeling class tomorrow from 2-4. I'm taking a years-old pendant with 2 circular peridots and a teardrop citrine and will plan to convert it into a pair of earrings with the peridots. But we'll see! The other thing I really want to do and have brought up on occasion is for Evan to show me around the Lewis and Clark College campus, as it's his alma mater and I've never been out there. I applied to several jobs there during my time in Portland, but was never invited for an interview and consequently have never gone to see the campus. I think it will be insightful to go through the buildings and on the grounds where young!Evan spent some formative years. And, like my alma mater, it often shows up in top lists for beautiful campuses. Maybe there will even be a picnic. ♥

I returned last night from a 5-day (including basically 2 days of travel) whirlwind trip with evannichols to Harrisonburg, Virginia. This was a 'business' trip, to go through a large closet of my belongings that have been there since 2005 when I was filing for divorce from my to-be-wasband and my stepdad came to Nashville and we got a small U-Haul trailer and moved all of my belongings from Nashville to Harrisonburg. Since then, I've moved to Verona, VA, to 2 other locations in Harrisonburg, and various places in Portland. Now, at last, I'm stable in a wide variety of ways, including my residence. So it was time.

This was also the first time I'd seen my mother and stepfather since my acrimonious departure in fall of 2011. Since then, I've had a 180° turnaround in relations with my mother (I've never had long-term issues with my stepdad) and we've been communicating much more regularly. Still, I was a bit unsure about whether or not there might be awkward questions, or awkward expectations, and to my relief, there simply wasn't any. It was a very busy and purposeful three days, but there was also a fabulous reunion element to do with the choir I'd sung with in Staunton. We had lunch with a couple of my dear friends, there was a massive hug-fest and introductions of Evan to, well, everyone. Not only that, but my dear friend persephone100 came down to stay for a day and visit and assist. She also got to go 'shopping' for free through my stuff! So many items went to a happy new home. :) Heaps of things will go to a new home eventually, as the Harrisonburg Goodwill got another motherlode of my stuff that I simply wasn't emotionally tied to.

So now we're back, having checked 3 bags on the return flight, and shipping one rug and one plastic bin via UPS. That's it. All the rest was recycled/trashed/given away/scanned. What a relief, and a harbinger of this amazing life I lead now and plan to have for years. Now Evan knows I have a past! He had a super-saturated experience of people and places and proof that I really have received a tremendous amount of written correspondence since 1986. It's good to be home, and to return to my current life, which is a gift unto itself.

We received our first official week of work schedules yesterday, with a huge helping of caveats, including that the days and time of day were not at all necessarily coordinated with what we'll really be doing. This is encouraging, as mine is 8-5 (not bad, just early) and since their work week runs Saturday-Friday, as of yesterday I'm working seven days in a row. :P This also means that I may not be around that much, especially since I'll be catching a bus at 7:00 a.m. each morning until next Tuesday. That said, what better way to continue to get a bit faster in working on email situations with our users?! And, yay compensation. :D I'm going to our temporary home for the next two months, about seven blocks from where we were doing our training. They had an open house last night, but I'd pre-arranged to meet with my friend Jen, with whom I have become reconciled.

I'd reached out a few times since January, but apparently she didn't get those messages, and granted, she hadn't known what to say. But she reached out to me last week and we met at Starbucks yesterday, then came back over to my place to continue talking until I needed to have some downtime before bed. I'm very grateful that she's come back into my life, even though she's moving out of Portland today. She'll still be relatively close, and as she and I both noted, evannichols is primary in whom I want to spend time with when not at work, and basically whenever possible. So, perhaps all for the best. It has been a huge relief for us to be back together as friends and we'll move forward into a renewed friendship as time goes on.

And a major plus: due to exhaustion and more slats under my mattress, I went to sleep at 10:15 and slept completely through until my alarm went off at 5:25. Woot!!!

And perhaps a wee bit of text. ;)
( it's been a really frakking fabulous few days )

So!! I am so very, very happy and feeling validated and cherished and thrilled about my present and where I'm headed. I am indeed a beloved child of the Universe. ♥

I've been regularly engaging in positive visualizations and affirmations, something I've been referencing in recent posts. My affirmations tend to focus on three specific areas: my health and happiness; fulfilling work with meaningful compensation; my life with evannichols. The visualizations range around in those areas as well, though in the past two weeks I'd found that something in particular kept cropping up: I wanted to treat myself to a maple iced doughnut. But every time I was in a grocery store, either their bakery didn't have them, or it was around 6 o'clock in the evening and I didn't think they'd be fresh. I'd even admitted to evannichols about this desire and had decided that after I received my first paycheck for my current assignment, I'd treat myself to a bus ride down 82nd to an actual Krispy Kreme location and get a couple with coffee and write a letter or work on a story or something.

Yesterday, the universe manifested itself such that I was at the company where I have a multi-week assignment in the morning (which is unusual in and of itself due to me sharing a computer with a part-time graphics employee) when a maple doughnut (actually, a maple log!) came to me at my cubicle. I kid you not. There's a new Controller there, and he'd brought 2 boxes of doughnuts and some o.j. to a couple of meetings but hadn't had a lot of takers. So he came by the marketing suite and there it was: one lone maple iced selection of doughy goodness. Which I ate and thoroughly enjoyed.

I've now decided that with as effective a message to the Universe like that, I will take it upon myself to think much more about evannichols winning the lottery. ♥

☹ Firstly: My dreamlife. Goodness, gracious, the long, convoluted, mind-numbingly detailed dreams that I've been having this weekend. For Friday and Saturday night I had three of those per night. Last night I only had two. But still. In one of them from Saturday I'd misplaced my backpack (in which I keep my vitals these days and have it with me all the time) and some woman brought it to me, gave me a vindictive look, and dumped it out on the floor before running away. When going through it, I realized my wallet was gone, and (still in the dream) had to reprogram my phone to call evannichols and tell him that I was going to have to replace all of my cards and cancel my credit cards. I was so incredibly relieved in the morning to be able to go to my backpack and see that, in fact, my wallet was there. Having so many experiences, whether experienced in the common reality of being awake or being asleep, can be really challenging. It's why even though my various therapists have been really intrigued and wanted me to write them down, I refuse to do so. Too many 'realities'.

☺ Secondly: BACON. Yum. Birthday-weekend bacon, at that. Which is a lot like regular bacon, but enjoyed especially much.

☺ Thirdly: One of the things that is so amazing to me about spending time with evannichols is that even what would be considered mundane activities have an aura of marvelousness to them. This morning it occurred to me that the word to describe that is evanescence. With a new meaning, of course. ;)

☺ I heard from the recruiter at the company where I've been interviewing, but when I returned his call, he was on holiday until tomorrow and specifically not checking email or voicemail. But I did speak with the person there that he said to contact in an emergency and she said she'd let him know, and I also sent an email anyway. So I hope to hear from him early this week and maybe I'll even have an offer. That would be pretty great.

☹ I'll be heading back to my house this evening, and that always makes me a bit melancholy. But… ☺ it's been a really, really wonderful four days with my beloved. I'll focus on that.

I'm with evannichols serving as official Minion during the two days of Stumptown Comics Fest here in PDX! Since DW doesn't have a scrapbook function (probably my only disappointment with it) there won't be a picture here, but I'll include one in the LJ entry. I won't be around much until Tuesday, in fact, because I'll be taking my driving test at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning (aie!) and then I have an interview for a part-time box office position at a theater company Monday at 5:00 before Evan takes me back to my place. I have two art modeling gigs this week as well on Tuesday and Thursday, so a busy week in general.

So I'm posting and dashing off, but it's great fun to be at my first comic-centric con, especially spending two days with a bona fide webcomic artist! :D