Looking for a place to live....

SUCKS!

so I am starting once again to look or a place to live when I come back to chicago and it is not going well. I really just want to find a place where I can be friends with my roommates and yet the place is decently clean and nice to live in. (along with having natural light, washer/dryer somewhere in the building, and an outdoor space) And yet, I can't seem to find that. granted I am trying to get this through craigslist which of course makes it hard enough but seriously....I just want a nice, fun, awesome place to live!

blah blah blah i know this is a ridiculous post, but I'm frustrated and tired of it... if anyone has any better ideas on how to go about finding a place to live in chicago please help me out!!!

Plans, schmams, and some Weather

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir [women's] blood"

I'm reading Devil in a White City and the head director of works for the World Exposition, Daniel Burnham, was quoted saying this. I of course changed men to women because seriously, but I thought it was a very cool quote. Life is funny because even if you do plan it has a way of sending you off in a completely different direction but it's completely true that to make just small boring plans means you are living a never-changing life.

I make big plans but then keep them quiet so that if/when they change everybody doesn't know. But really who cares if my plans change??? It doesn't signify failure or defeat but just a curve in the road that I never saw coming. Yesterday I told ppl that what I really wanted to do down the road was be an investigator and be out in the field checking out fires that have occurred. Unfortunately for me, in my field a position like that requires you to have years of experience because you need to know EVERYTHING. But in 10 years or so I would really love to break into that. So there you go, my flimsy 10 year goal is out! And hopefully before then I change the focus of my job a few times...but that is a completely different can of worms.

As for now, it is HOT! I mean so hot I can't get out from in front of my fan!!! And my and the fam are going to head to the lake and chill on the boat for the day. Yessir! Wakeboarding please? Hope everyone finds a way to beat the heat.

How to kill a spider the New Hampshire way

Step 1: Find a broom and boot

Step 2: spend 15 minutes gathering the courage to knock spider down from ceiling

Step 3: scream and run away when said spider is finally locked down

Step 4: carry broom, with attached spider, out to dirveway as quickly as possible

Step 5: smush, smash, & crush spider into miniscule bits and pieces

Coming home tonight with the sibs we found a HUMONGOUS spider in the corner of our porch ceiling. I of course had already seen this and tried to erase it from my mind because good lord do I hate spiders BUT my sister was unable to forget about it and insisted that we kill it. Now me being sensible and having many more years of experience in spider killing said no freaking way! that spider will jump off the ceiling, onto our heads and kill us with its freaky orangutang legs and fast crawling.

So after I have locked myself in the house (along with the dogs because what if it got on them??) they devised a plan to knock the spider off with a broom and then smack it with a shoe. Does anyone want to guess how long this took them??? like 20 minutes...and though the spider did end up being dead by the end (THANK GOD) they were utterly ridiculous making it happen. Picture a 23 year old hiding behind a front door with a crazy 16 year old jumping and screaming around and a silly 14 year old running around with a boot just making noise. Yes it is quite the scene.

*I would put a pic of a spider up just for fun but I'd have a heartattack every time I'd look at the post so now way jose!

That time of year :)

I am 23 today! Yessirre I am moving up another notch on the 20 yardstick and it feels eh. There have been so many firsts this year such as trying a new area of work (in china!), beginning this whole blogging lifestyle (including writing & meeting other fellow bloggers!), completing my Master's degree, becoming single, accepting a fulltime job. Overall, so many that I almost got used to everything being new and nothing normal. Not a bad thing at all but very interesting.

But beyond all that, I have become so happy figuring out what I want and how I can make that happen. I also feel like I relax more and allow life to just happen! so all is good and now I have another great year to look forward too. who knows where I will be at the end of that!

So today I am going to treat myself to something pretty, maybe a lovely coffee and then go partay it up in the city tonight. Wish you all an awesome Hallie Birthday Day!

Texas Love

When in Texas, do as the texans do and go two-steppin! Thas right ya'll, I am heading out to do the two-step. wish me luck!! Lets hope those numerous drinks just work to make me even more graceful :)

Tripping down the Road

I finally found internet! uh huh yes I did!

Ive been on Jewlz and Hallie's road trip extravaganza now for about a week adn a half and finally convinced her to spend a night at a KOA campground so that I could get online. cause seriously here, I was jonesing.* And really only reason I was able to convince her? I had to finish a project for my class that is due thursday and we will not be getting back to internet till sat. AHHH! lol

guess i'll live though becuase we have been having such a fantastic time I can't even describe it. Thus far we have hit up

LA

Yosemite

Las Vegas

Grand Canyon

Zion National Park

Bryce Canyon

Lake Powell/Glen Canyon Dam

Hoover Dam

Sunset Volcano National Park

Wupatki National Park

Are you tired? cause I'm tired just thinking about it! haha, but seriously we've even been able to get in a solid 2 hikes a day and not kill each other!!! :) I'll totally write more about it all and have pictures, cause yes I"ve taken a least a thousand already, but for now I need to go crash because my assignment has just been submitted and we are waking up early so that we can check out the petrified forest before driving to the Gila Cliff Dwellings! Then it's on to

Big Bend

The Alamo (San Antonio, TX)

Houston, Tx

New Orleans

Great Smokey Mountain National Park

Saco River, Maine

And somewhere in there I have to do one more project, and one more assignment before I am done with schooling forever! yes, this gal will have her masters, knock on wood. that whole thing is still surreal to me, not sure what I will do when I'm not constantly thinking about whne I have assignments due!

so anyway, keep enjoying that summer! and think of me sweating my life off on my fabulous, awesome, incredible hikes.

~Hal

*KOA campgrounds are really awesome chain campgrounds taht can be foudn pretty much anywhere and have all the amenities you could want. right now I am sitting out at our picnic table with wireless typing this up. trust me, this is not the norm. plus they have hot water, flush toilets, shower, laundry and really nice sites. All for cheap!

"It's like we're always stuck in second gear..."

Tomorrow morning I fly out to LA where I will be spending the celebration of america's freedom with my two college roommates.

After that, after what will be, a fabulous party time, I start off on a road-trip with one of the fantastic roommates through the southern half of the US. Have to be back in Maine by end of July for a weekend of rafting/tubing our way down a river while camping with a pack of amazing swimmers! gonna rock that river! Getting home one night, I take off the next weekend for 2 weeks of the family vacation. Might sound boring to some but I love it! not too mention I am totally bringing a number of friends off and on which will be so fun!

so ultimately, the whole point of this rambling is I will be way off grid for the next month or so, and when I will be on, I will be finishing up this bitch of a class that I am taking. Can NOT wait for July 30th! From then on I am free and clear of the schooling shit, thank the universe! But I will also be having the most hectic/crazy/awesome next month and will not be up to posting/commenting/reading unless incredibly driven too. So live up the summer people! It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Beyond that as well, this post was supposed to be about friends if I remember correctly, at least when I started it was. And I know that cause I was watching an episode of friends when joey moves out of the apt cause all of a sudden he's a soap star, and then he and chandler are so sad about being apart. Episode makes me crack up every time...i'm that nerd who is obsessed with "Friends."

soooo anywho, know what tells me this is going to be a good month? not only do I get to see the two above I"ve talked about, but I saw this lovely lady just today as well and we had a great time checking out the taste as well as hanging about just chatting. This gal has made so many steps forward in life that are miles above where I am even close to and for a second there I was scared that maybe she had stepped too far ahead of me. But today has just proven that no matter where we are, or what is happening, she has always understood me in an impossible way (and vice versa) and we are gonna go strong through everything. Not too mention they might be moving out here in a year or so!!!! woot woot. And here to prove is a pic that got taken our freshman year, maybe halfway through the year. I didn't even realize how much this one girl would change my life or how important she would become, but man look how happy we look with each other already!

I think she looks gorgeous, and though I'm looking slighty chunky I think our shirts(jackets?) set our eyes off amazingly, not too mention us being fabulously coordinated. Anyway I love her to death and am so excited that I won't need to wait another 6 months to see her! And until then I'll be with the other amazing 2 roomies. How much better could it get!?