My Life in Pictures and Bullet Points

• I love my friends and I will miss them immensely while I am away in Germany over the next year. I was so grateful for the time I was able to spend with them last weekend at Hanna’s bridal shower. It was so much just being together and laughing… oh my God, we didn’t stop laughing for a second. That’s why I love them. It was a Saturday of ‘that’s what she said’ jokes, outdoor exploration, bonfires and flaming marshmallows, mini road trips, and Phase 10 Masters Edition. I won’t trade these moments for anything else and they will keep me warm on those lonely nights in Munich when I’m missing home. I’ll hold onto these memories until time brings us back together again. Cheesy, I know, but I love them.
  
  
• Regarding the bridal shower itself, it was beautiful. Hanna and Jordan are going to live a happy, beautiful life together and I can’t wait to see what Hanna does in her NEW HOUSE!!! with all of the gifts that she got. Someday I will go visit her…

• Over the weekend I rode a horse for the first time in 15 years. And it will be another 15 years before I get back on again. I am just not a horse riding kind of girl. Too big, too scary, too confusing. I’ve never felt more confused by left and right directions. Poor horse to be stuck with me; I was about to have an anxiety attack. I only appear happy and composed in this picture. I was trying not to cry. 

• Wazowski now has a BFF. Nala is our house guest for two weeks while her loving mother is in Portugal on vacation. We worried that Zow wouldn’t appreciate Nala being all up in his business but he’s taken to her and I don’t think he’s ever had so much fun. These animals are making us crazy with their adolescent energy. Needless to say, Hanna and I are constantly amused. I recently discovered that Nala loves lasers and will jump five feet to try to catch them. She is with us for another week or so and although the cat hair is slowly disintegrating my nasal passages, I do like having her around. One more cat for me to talk to!
  
  
• I don’t have a picture for this but it’s exciting nonetheless. I found out that my friend Helen, who currently works as an au pair for The Frau and takes care of Die Kinder, is going to be my room mate in the Munich Mansion (maybe it is, maybe it isn’t but…. new label!!) until the end of August. This is exciting to me for a number of reasons. Mainly because I love her and haven’t seen her since September ‘08 and also because I won’t be alone for my transition into European culture. She won’t be working beside me with Die Kinder but there will be chances for her to show me around, she can introduce me to her friends, help me figure out what I am supposed to do for this whole au pair thing. I am very grateful to have her there when I arrive. I can’t wait to start our little foreign life together. Ha.
  
  
• At the current moment in time, I am jobless. Kind of. I lost my job with the baby, anyway. I think I wrote about that already. Last time. So this week I’ve been babysitting (three different families, four different nights), and am spreading my work experience between the children’s museum and the candle store (where I still remain on the payroll after one year of not working there). So I am very much a workaholic this week but the payoff will be great as I am going to visit my mom for six days next week. I won’t get to spend much time with her before I leave for Germany and since I’m not working, I figured why not take a vacation? My cousin is driving up from So Cal to spend half of Mother’s Day weekend with us and we’re going to play at the beach with her kids, spend time with my aunt Michelle too. It will be a nice relaxing way to get over this crazy work week…
  
  
• And the fact that I am sick yet again. You’d think that after last month’s bronchitis slash sinus infection, I would be safe for at least a few months. I picked something up from one of the children that I am in contact with on a daily basis and now my lungs are working overtime and breathing is hard work. I’m not going to the doctor though because all they do is screw me over. I hate our campus health center, they’re self righteous a-holes and last time I went to Doctors on Duty under CSUMB’s student protection, they charged me $200. No thanks. I’d rather be sick and hacking up a lung than paying you money to laugh at my diagnoses and give me drugs that don’t work.
  
  
• Guess what? 24 days until graduation!