As always happens with blogs, I have neglected it. This time for almost 10 months. I swear I have some pretty good excuses, though. Since Christmas, I have barely had time to sleep or think, let alone go on awesome adventures and then write about them. Life- and a very busy one at that- has had to suffice as my adventure so far this year. And it doesn't really look like it is going to let up anytime soon, but rather only get busier. I thought I would get on and share some thoughts and some pictures that I have been meaning to put on here for a while.
It turns out my last vacation was at Christmas. Up until May, never even had a two-day weekend. Working two jobs, taking classes including Anatomy, volunteering, and trying to constantly improve myself physically and emotionally made for a very busy life. And I thought it couldn't get any busier. May through August was actually pretty nice. With very few exceptions, I actually had two day weekends. And on Labor Day, I was able to even enjoy my first three day weekend of the year. I made up for the lack of not working on the weekends by working a lot of overtime during the week, when I was averaging 60 hours a week in August. Now, as I am sure anybody actually reading this knows, I am on a permanent no-weekend, no-break schedule until the end of the year. In order to take the prerequisites I need for PT school, I am working my full-time hours between Friday and Monday each week and attending school full time Tuesday through Thursday. Now, if it was just classes Tuesday through Thursday, I probably wouldn't be that busy. But when you tack on taking two online classes, working on my PT school application, shadowing a physical therapist part time each week and still trying to find time to fit some exercise in, I really am reeling. Despite how busy I am, I am very thankful that my job is flexible enough to enable me to take classes and shadow a physical therapist as much as I am so that I can get all of this done in time to apply for this round of PT school admissions.
Also probably well-known to anybody reading is that I started a new job in May. I am now working as a Medical Technologist in the lab at the hospital in Lewiston, ID. It took a while to adjust, but I really love my job now and am very happy that I made this move. The people I work with are really great, and it is a great place for me to transition from pure bench work back to patient care.
I guess since I am mostly just writing down things that anybody actually reading this already knows, I'll throw up some pictures from the past 10 months or so. Pictures are roughly in order of most recent to oldest.
I nice sunset the other day in Lewiston as a lot of the smoke was clearing out of the sky.
I view from where I took my pitstop on my big ride over Labor Day weekend down to Oregon and back. I rode through three states and climbed almost 9000 feet that day.
I helped a friend work on his motorcycle. It was pretty fun.
At a bar in Lewiston, I found a guy that went to Montana State and frequented one of my favorite bars there around the same time I did. He said he actually has memories of me and my roommates stair dancing.
I saw some big horn ewes on one of my MTB rides in Lewiston.
Working on my truck has of course been a non-stop struggle. Here I am replacing the left front wheel bearing/hub assembly.
I got to pick some cherries at a friend's place up in Moscow. I got over 40 pounds of cherries and now have a lot in my freezer! Some of the best cherries I have ever had!
I went to a mud bog with some friends. It was a pretty good time. We know how to have fun in Idaho!
On the fourth of July, I drove up from Twin Falls (where I was shadowing a PT) to Stanley, ID. It is a great place that reminded me a lot of Montana. Here is where I drove right past a wildfire. The Northwest actually had a really bad year for wild fires because we had such an abnormally low amount of snowpack last winter.
Here is a view of the Salmon River headwaters valley on the way to Stanley. It was an amazing drive.
Of course I had to check out the Stanley 4th of July parade.
Here is a view of one of the canola fields I got to drive by every day while I was still commuting from Pullman to Lewiston the first month I worked in the hospital lab.
On my way back to Pullman from work one day, I saw this guy hanging out somewhere he probably shouldn't be (the Lewis-Clark Valley is way too hot for moose to be happy).
Here is a view of the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley on my birthday. The hospital where I work is right near he corner where those two rivers meet and then head right.
My pear tree that I planted in Pullman bloomed very nicely this spring and I even had two pears growing on it. They both fell off, though in some wind storms before they ripened.
Finally, when I was still driving to and from work between Pullman and Lewiston for a month or so, I got to enjoy an incredible drive every day through wheat fields, canola fields, up 2000 feet of elevation, and a 10 degree temperature difference between places. One day I tried to take a video of one of my favorite things from this region and that is the wind blowing waves through the wheat fields. It is kind of hard to see in this video, and hopefully one day you will all get to see this in real life. The area out here is amazing with fields for as far as you can see.
