Solution

I think I have found a solution to my lack of motivation: Techno! Best listened to in Evan's truck with the bass turned up but my laptop will have to suffice. Washing dishes is going to be way more fun now!

Lonesome

So Alex just left for school and my parents don't get off work for 5 and 1/2 hours...what is there to do?! Truthfully, there is plenty I can do but I have very little motivation. I never really thought of myself as an extremely social person, but when I am in Redding, where I have no friends, I get so bored and lonely and the days go by so slowly. I look forward to my parents getting off work (weird) and to Alex getting home. I have no friends here because all my high school friends moved away and I'm not around enough to really make any new ones. I miss being in McKinleyville where my best friends were a quick 10 minute bike/bus ride away. Or even being in school where I got to see my friends and classmates everyday. And of course Evan isn't here and the fact that I only saw him once for less than 24 hours in the last 2 weeks doesn't really help. It must be bad if I miss school.

Evan and I might have the opportunity to live in a big house with 1 or 2 other couples in Mallorca and I get so excited at the thought! Because I am going to be across the world from the people that have been in my life for the last 22 years I want to make sure that I don't feel isolated and lonely for 8 months. I want to make new friends and have a fun social life. It would be great to have a kind of "family" over there. Yes, I have loved living with just Evan and having our privacy and that would much less if we lived in a house. But, providing that we all get along, the payoffs of having a feeling of family-away-from-family would make me feel so great. Evan is much better at being by himself if he has his best friend the Internet at his side. I get bored with the Internet, which I know is really weird, but I do! I need people! He also didn't grow up with a sibling constantly pestering him. Without that pestering I feel alone. Which is why I am happy I'm living with my brother even though he smells bad, is dirty, and never picks up after himself.

We will figure something out and now I need to get motivated and be productive to get ready for the party in 5 days and my dad's birthday in 4! The awesome thing about having my dad's birthday the day before my wedding reception is A. There will be people there ready to party B. Copious amounts of food and alcohol and C. Ummm I think the first 2 pretty much covered it haha.

Here are some pictures of an exquisite house in Mallorca that we could afford to rent if we lived with several other people....drools.....

Yes, that is the Mediterranean Sea in the background....Now who wants to come and visit?

Leftovers

Here are some random pictures that have been taken recently and I haven't posted or that I found on Evan's computer.

The girls and I wine tasting in Trinidad for my Not-a-Bachelorette-Anymore Party.

My adorable new cousin Beck and I when we were down in Costa Mesa for my cousin Grant's wedding reception.

No that is not a wig, it is a massive clump of a lichen that is called Old Man's Beard! This is up on Spyrock and this is me trying to imitate those pictures that fisherman take with their fish.

My gorgeous finished ring! I absolutely love it! Unfortunately, I am also terrified of breaking it so I don't wear it when I'm doing work with my hands. Which is most of the time.

5 days until my dad's 62nd birthday and 6 days until the wedding reception! Pretty much everything is ready except a couple food things to finalize.

Our visas are pretty much in order and should be ready on Sept. 19th, which is 9 days before we leave the country! The visa experience was completely awful due to the fact my wonderful husband forgot to take his passport pictures AND fill out his visa application and we left from Alameda for San Francisco a complete HALF HOUR LATER THAN PLANNED!!! I was on the verge of a panic attack, no thanks to the coffee I drank on an empty stomach, and was trying not to murder Evan while he was driving across the Bay Bridge. I had to call the Consulate and say we were going to be late and they said it was fine surprisingly. Yeah, we were late all right. WE COMPLETELY MISSED MY APPOINTMENT!!! BASICALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT APPOINTMENT OF MY LIFE THAT WOULD ALLOW ME TO GO TO SPAIN!!! Evan's was right after mine and we ended up going back together, which only makes sense because the only reason he is going and can go is because of my job. Our applications were perfect except for my medical certificate because they wouldn't accept an electronic signature. But I was able to mail a different one in last Friday. Alls well that ends well.

Evan is enjoying his Not-A-Bachelor-Anymore Party in Las Vegas and hopefully he will have some brain cells left to help get ready for the reception later this week.

I just finished Harry Potter 7 and those books are just as great at 22 as when I was a teenager.

Food and life

Here is Evan when he was an adorable little kid. I think anyone who has met him could immediately tell that this is Evan.

My parents adorable and rambunctious new kitten Rocky! He is named thus because my mom says he looks like Rocky the flying squirrel when he jumps off the couch. He is super tiny because he is only 4 weeks old.

Yum. Delicious wine, cheese, bread, grapes and balsamic vinegar from my girls weekend in Humboldt.

Onions from my mother-in-law's garden.

Delicious salad with all home-grown ingredients!

Mmmm apple crisp with apples from my house and my mother-in-law's apple tree. It's weird because I guess I have always thought of Evan's parents as my in-laws, what with living on and off at their house all the time and having known them for so long, but it is so weird actually calling them my in-laws!

Apple Crisp

I made apple crisp last after picking apples from the tree in the backyard and trying to find ones that weren't full of worms. That tree (it is a Granny Smith tree) has a worm problem so the apples usually all fall off before they become ripe. It also hasn't been watered or pruned enough in the past. I am trying to reverse a little of that in the short time I am here in Redding. But anyways, I made apple crisp and it was super easy, healthy and DELICIOUS! I just used apples, oats, sugar, spices, and butter/vegetable oil. I am SO domestic. Haha.

My Beautiful Ring!

This is my gorgeous wedding ring that will hopefully be done in the next couple days! I picked out that beautiful opal today and I think it goes quite nicely with the sapphires and the gold from my Nono's ring. I can't wait to wear it! All that is left to do is set that puppy in the ring! Oh yeah, and pay for it. That will not be so much fun. :)

Muddy Bike Ride

These pictures are from last summer when Dad, Alex and I went camping at Prarie Creek.

A large redwood in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove

We also found these very large mushrooms on the way to the beach.

We rode our bikes from the campground to Fern Canyon and back. I think it was about 21 miles round trip and it was VERY muddy.

Fern Canyon

Blackberries

It is blackberry season here in Redding so I have riding my bike to all the prime blackberry bushes! I am trying to pick as many (free!) blackberries as I can and freeze the extra that I can't eat. I love delicious, healthy and free food!

These are the not-so-sweet-but-huge blackberries from the bush in the backyard

The frozen blackberries that I picked

Pickles!

My mom and I made dill pickles today from the cucumbers in the garden. We also used the garlic from my mother-in-law's garden!

I can't believe how domestic I am becoming. I have made zucchini bread twice in the last week and I am planning on making apple crisp tomorrow. Mostly I am baking/cooking lots of things to get rid of excess zucchini and apples from the garden. What has become of the girl who swore she would never cook and would only eat fruit and cereal!?!

Engorgement

I just thoroughly gorged myself on delicious raspberries, cherry tomatoes, peaches, plums, and strawberries from the farmers market. I also nicely supplemented those with blackberries that I picked yesterday. And here is the assortment of veggies that I picked from my garden this morning:

The zucchini are on the way out, while the tomatoes and eggplant are coming into their own. The lemon cucumbers are going to blow up shortly and the refrigerator is still heavily stocked with cucumbers and zucchini. I'm going to try and make pickles today and more zucchini bread!

New Tattoo!

These pictures are so mixed up but you get the idea. Jordan came to visit me in Redding and we wound up getting tattoos and spending some quality at the lake!

Oh yeah, and eating blackberries

Trilliums!

Brandy Creek at Whiskeytown