Lists are taking over my life

So basically, as you can probably gather from the title of this blog, my life has been compartmentalized into various lists. Besides the countdown to Moldova, all I can think about are lists or the things on them. I have lists for packing, of things I still need to get, of people I need to see, things I want to do, places I want to eat, movies and TV shows I want to take with me, music I need to download, people to invite to my going away party, things that I'll miss, and the list goes on. While this sounds really whiny, it has actually been nice getting through at least a few of my lists. For example, getting to do the things that I want to do and spending time with the people I care about has been amazing.

Last week I went to Santa Cruz with my sister, Maelyn, to take her dog and my brother's labs to dog beach. I sometimes forget how much I absolutely love the ocean and everything about it. I love its vastness, the smell, the sound, the sand. There's just something so soothing about it. It's going to be weird not living near an ocean for 2 years. I've never done that before. Even in Scotland I could see the ocean from the windows in class.

Anyway, I think the only one more excited than I was about going to the beach was Ellie, the older of the labs. I have never seen her so excited in my life. I guess I should explain that she is an old girl who usually lays back and keeps to herself. She also tends to look sad...except for around water it turns out. Seriously, she turned back into a puppy as we exited off 17. It was pretty cute.

After the beach we went to Marini's for candy apples and salt water taffy. Mmmmm, delicious. We also saw a guy wearing a black cape. I'm fairly certain he was going for the vampire look. Oh the weird people of Santa Cruz, I will miss you. I'm almost sad that we didn't see the pink umbrella man. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, he is a man who cross-dresses in pink and holds a pink umbrella and walks unbelievable slow through downtown Santa Cruz. Seriously, my dad walks faster than him and the right half his body doesn't even work properly. This man is widely known through Santa Cruz.

Running with the dogs.

My sister running with the dogs.

The dogs playing in the water, obviously.

Nevada and Bentley looking goofy.

So then that weekend I went to my cousin's kid's baptism. I decided that when you are 1 out of 24 godparents, things get embarrassing when the priest calls all godparents to come up to the alter. It's like half of the church ends up getting up out of their seat to watch the baby get doused with water. Well, it was a successful baptism anyway. And the reception was kinda crazy for a little baby. There was this crazy Filipino DJ who pumped up the volume and decided to play hip hop, which is weird for a 1 yr old kid in the first place, but man! he did not stop talking. It was like he loved the sound of his own voice. And then to be totally stereotypical Filipino, he busted out the karaoke. Yup, it was embarrassing and loud and painful. Although some people seemed to enjoy it, most of my family ended up hanging out outside. It was a pretty good party though. The food was yummy.

Speaking of food, I've been eating so much I am actually kinda worried about fitting into my clothes by the time I leave for Moldova. It's been a food marathon for the past month! Seriously it's been so delicious, but I feel like a turkey getting fattened up for the big Thanksgiving feast. I figure that I won't be able to get Mexican, sushi, Thai, bbq and all of that good stuff in Moldova so I might as well get tired of it now and appreciate it for what it's worth. The good thing about eating so much is that I get to do it with other people and so I can get some good hangout time.

Tonight I had one of my last friday night dinners at my grandparents' house. You may be thinking, "Wow, what Gilmore Girl biters." Well, I'll have you know that we've been doing weekly dinners at my grandparents since before I can remember so I say they bit off of us. It was the typical dinner full of confusing stories, talk of pop culture, and lots of laughs. I must say, this is one of the things I will definitely miss for the next couple of years. My family is full of characters and even if you don't participate in conversation, you will end up dying laughing. We are that ridiculous sometimes.

So I guess that's all for now. I'll try to wait so long before my next post so that it won't have to be so long.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to everyone! This weekend has been so crazy, but I'm glad that it ended well. First of all, how fun was it to watch the Sharks shutout the Red Wings?! That was such an intense game to watch. I love how when people text me to ask what I'm doing and I say "watching the game," they know exactly what I'm talking about and respond with a "Me too." Moving on to Western Conference Finals! Yay!

Besides the game, I spent half of yesterday trying to figure out what kind of point and shoot camera to invest the little money I have left on. I'm still going to bring my digital SLR with me to Moldova, but I figure that a small compact one will come in handy on some occasions. Also, the fact that these little ones can do video also is a big plus. Should I get the smaller newer one, or the bigger one with more functions? Decisions, decisions. Oh, and I kind of want to get an external hard drive to load up movies, TV shows, and music on for entertainment when things get slow out there. Plus, I figure it might be good to back up my stuff anyway. I don't want to be that kid who loses her computer and then feels sorry for oneself for not being smarter about these things. Also, I'm debating about getting a Kindle or iPad to download books so that I can stay literate. JK, I'm sure I'll still be literate regardless...if I'm not, there's something very wrong with my brain. I don't know about all these electronics. I think maybe I'll wait on an electronic reader until I meet up with my family over Christmas and have figured out what internet access is like before committing to anything.

So all of a sudden it feels like I'm running out of time and still have a million things to do. I need to get some stuff for winter over there and I haven't started that yet. I need to get my H1N1 vaccination. I should have done that when my mom was bugging me about it, but I figured since she got it and I never did, there was no need to. I mean I really don't think I could get in closer proximity to the virus, but since it's required in order for me to go to Moldova, I'll do it. That should make my mom happy. I also need to figure out my luggage situation. It is starting to feel like I'm running out of room and I haven't even started packing yet! Maybe I should do some pilot tests on that so I have an idea what to leave out and what else I need to get. Man, I thought packing for a year in Scotland was tough...this is crazy.

As for today, it was a nice day spent with family. Started out by waking up and going out to lunch with the parentals and my younger brother, Chris and ended with a Mother's Day Dinner with pretty much everyone at our house. Ended up being more work than I thought it would be because I honestly thought we were going to buy food for dinner, but my mom decided that Chris and I should make a couple entrees for dinner. We didn't do too bad considering we started to shop for ingredients at like 3:00 and dinner started at 6:00. Oh, and things got sticky when we went to get crabs for the crab dish my mom requested and they had zero crabs...we decided to improvise with lobster. I'm not going to lie though, it was nice to work on a project with my little brother and not argue about anything. Actually I thought it was comparable to Top Chef or something. Chris liked the idea of Kitchen Stadium better. Either way, we didn't do too shabby and we managed to finish before everyone got to the house and it was not only edible, but pretty tasty. Yup, I am tooting my own horn. Toot toot!

And while it was super fun hanging out with my aunts, uncle, cousins, grandparents and siblings tonight, I'm going to have to give my mom a shoutout. It is Mother's Day after all. If anyone else is reading this and doesn't want to read a mushy note to my mom, just skip to the next post.

To my mom, whenever you get the chance to read this, I just want to thank you for being, well, my mom. I meant to get you a card that I could write all of this down on, but since I got busy in the kitchen and didn't have time, I'll just put it down here. I just wanted to thank you for everything. I know you don't get enough credit for it, but you did a good job raising me and Chris. Even though you're not really a single parent, I consider myself being raised by one, at least for the latter half of my life. It wasn't easy and we definitely have had some bumps in the road, possibly even blown out some tires on this crazy life path, but we've come out pretty well and good. It's crazy to think that I was once a sullen teen angry at the world and now I'm out to do my best to save it and everything in it. I couldn't have made it if you hadn't tried your best and I do appreciate it. I know you're sad and worried about my leaving, I am too, but try not to worry so much. I'll be in good hands, and I'll be doing good, hopefully doing good well. So Happy Mother's Day.

Busy, busy, busy...

So since I last posted, I received my invitation packet from the Peace Corps. It was very exciting since I've been waiting to hear what country I am going to be sent to. So my official assignment is to be a Health Education Specialist in the country of Moldova. I know what you're thinking, "Where the hell is that?" or "I've never heard of it." Yeah, that's basically the response I've gotten from everyone I've talked to.

To give you an idea of where I'm going and what I'm going to do there, the basics on Moldova: It is a small country in between Romania and Ukraine. It was at multiple points in history part of the former Soviet Union and once a part of Romania. The official language is Romanian, but in some areas they speak Russian. It's a mostly agricultural country and their economy depends mostly on the goods they export to Russia. I am supposed to teach health education in school and also work with organizations in the community promoting health awareness. I will live with a host family for at least the first 6 or so months of my staying there, including my first 3 months of training.

Now, since receiving my invitation packet I have accepted the invitation, applied for my special passport, and turned in my revised resume and aspiration statement. It seems really crazy that after months of waiting, all of a sudden there's so much stuff to do in such a small amount of time. However I am glad that I did read the many handbooks they gave me because it makes it a lot less scary and it makes it feel more real. I can't believe that I will be leaving in a month. But for now, all I have to do is wait for my staging information stuff to come along, so I'm done with paperwork again for now. However, I'm kinda feeling anxious about what to pack. I feel like I have a lot of shopping to do.

As for my life outside of doing things to get ready to leave, basically I spent the weekend with dogs... Dogsitting for my brother, Royce's, dogs and our little family corgi. Normally, not a huge deal, but Nevada, one of the chocolate labs, was a hot mess from paws to ears. Literally. Basically I spent some time chasing her down, jumping on her and wrestling to get her ear medication in ears. And Tala, the corgi, gets neurotic when my mom leaves. Poor girl does not know what to do with herself. But I'm not going to lie, when I wasn't getting run over by an 82 lb lab with a cone on her head or waiting for my hearing to come because of the yappy little dog with a big bark, it was kind of relaxing. I'm going to miss my fury friends when I leave. OH...and watching the Sharks kick some Red Wings ass during the playoffs was nice too. Game 3 today should be a good one. I hope. Also, I'm going to spend as much time with my family and friends while I can. Let the good times roll...