life is hard.
my biggest PLD lately is not speaking my mind. About a lot of things.
I've been so incredibly frustrated with myself and who I'm becoming lately. I went from being a sassy, independent, pain in the ass young woman to some sort of domestic type who puts up with a lot more crap than I ever have before in my life.
It's so upsetting.
I am happy. I am happy, and healthy, and in love. I have a new job-that so far I love. It's just little things that press my buttons.....and I'm worried that someday they will press the spontaneously combust button.
My crazy used to come out in little bits. Little spurts of "I'm not a pushover because I am LITTLE". I was a bamf.
Now it's going to come out in one big explosive burst and take out an entire village.
Frick.
note to self: even good choices can have unknown consequences.
today's life lesson comes from my darling lauren:
Lauren Laws's Life Lesson Learned Today: Don't let men fight over you or you just might get tackled into the concrete causing head injuries to all parties involved
Lauren's a champ.
Off to Smith Rock State Park for the weekend, for some epic climbing.
see y'all Sunday!
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
in the world of PLDs, the "equal and opposite" is ALDs (AWESOME life decisions).
I made one, and it came to fruition today, so I thought I'd share.
As you know, I recently relocated to Portland, Oregon. I love it here! The job market is not so hot lately, and ALL of my work experience is in either Barista-ing, or Outdoor Education (primarily the latter). Needless to say, my value in the world of work is slim.
So, I started thinking of great local businesses that I was passionate about: Stash Tea, about a MILLION microbreweries, and outdoors companies like Columbia Sportswear. So, I started applying to them, kind of on a whim.
Imagine my surprise when Columbia Sportswear called me in for an interview! You are now reading the blog of the newest employee of Columbia. I'm so excited to start working for Columbia, because I grew up using their gear, and I'm really passionate about the company and their mission.
I start on Monday! Let the games begin!!!
Taking a Nine a.m. climbing class with my boyfriend.
There are two indisputable facts about my life. 1) I love my boyfriend to pieces. He is my better half, my other half, and my life partner of choice. 2) I love climbing, particularly of the ROCK and ICE variety.
These facts being purely stated, I must say that there are two additional facts that are currently frustrating in my life. 1) I am horribly out of shape (by MY standards at least), and I'm not climbing as well as I used to. My senior year of high school I was climbing a 5.12, leading about a 5.1o-5.11. Now, I'm climbing a 5.8-5.10, and leading a 5.8-on a good day. A combination of not being on rock anymore, and ice climbing has made me loose a lot of my technique. Taking a climbing class makes me tremendously happy, but...I can't climb well if I feel like I'm EXPECTED to do well. By this I mean that when I climb with new people, I often am worried about making a good impression, and the pressure causes me to make stupid mistakes. C'est la vie. I love my class, my professor is amazing, but it's a stressful experience for me.
2) my boyfriend does not wake up at a reasonable time. If he doesn't have to wake up, he'll sleep all day. He suggested we take this nine a.m. class together, and I agreed. 9 a.m. isn't that early for me. In theory I get up at 7:30, shower, then he takes the shower and we are out of the house by 8:30 at the latest, so we have time to pick up our friend Dan, and get to class.
in actuality, the schedule looks a little more like this:
7:30: I get into the shower
7:40: I get out of the shower, and tell Tanner to get up.
7:50: I tell Tanner to get up. I am almost fully dressed.
8:00: I tell Tanner to get up, he says he is, I go downstairs to make breakfast.
8:15: I go back upstairs to get my bookbag together. And Tanner is still in bed. I tell him it's 8:15, and he swears and gets out of bed.
8:45: Tanner is out of the shower. I hand him his breakfast, and we leave the house.
9:10: we roll into class.
Over the past few years I have become an incredibly punctual person, so this drives me crazy. Every morning he apologizes, but every morning we have the same problem. I love him. I love him. But this is so stressful. It was a poor life decision, and I will henceforth remember that morning classes are not to be taken with Tanner Joseph.
PLD #1.-Convincing myself that I have the gumption to write a daily blog.
I assumed this would be plausible, but I am clearly failing miserably at this. I will try to do better, I will. It's just that life is so.....hectic. Sometimes even if I have the time to blog I totally forget that I have a blog because I'm so focused on my other responsibilities, sleeping, etc.
I really am going to try to do better though. I think I'm going to set a reminder so I don't forget.
PLD #2.-Eating Meat.
I have been a vegetarian for 12 years. For two of those years, I ate a primarily vegan diet, but found myself struggling to be a healthy vegan without eating processed foods. Plus, I'm a local foods girl...and it was hard to find good vegan food that stemmed from rural Vermont. For the past few months my boyfriend Tanner and I have been living together, and he is a meat eater. I didn't realize how MUCH of a meat eater until a few weeks ago when we moved in with his parents (speaking of PLDs....that's a story for another time). They eat meat with every meal, which isn't necessarily a bad thing-they eat realistic proportions, and always have side dishes with plenty of the other happy food groups. I just don't eat meat, so it was new to me.
When Tanner and I moved in together, I started considering making amendments to my diet for a lot of reasons. For starters, I was BORN anemic. My low iron intake due to my vegetarianism wasn't helping that, and it also wasn't conducive to my outdoor lifestyle. It's hard to climb mountains and shred gnar when you're woozy because your iron count is low. In addition, I love him, and I didn't think it was fair to ask him to make ALL of the dietary changes. He was willing to, but I didn't think it was right.
So, I decided to eat fish. I am not one of those vegetarians that will try to state that fish doesn't count, because it DOES, but I felt that it was better to eat a little bit of Salmon (lucky me, being back in Oregon, I can have LOCAL Salmon) every once in a while, than to pass out on a backpacking trip because my blood was so thin.
Little did I know just HOW MUCH fish I would be eating. Because Tanner's mom is a fantastic cook, and she loves to feed us...she wants me to be able to eat the full meal, and has been making a lot of fish. My little digestive system is overloaded. I'm horribly gassy and pooping my brains out, and I know it's because of all the fish.
The moral of the story is this: I was a strict vegetarian for a good reason, I should cut back on fish, and I haven't been writing because I've been on the toilet.
See you soon.
a lot has happened in the last month.
I am back in Oregon, somewhat reluctantly so. I am glad to be home, but I left Vermont due to a variety of issues at my college (particularly the residence life department, who are refusing to acknowledge domestic partnerships as legitimate relationships). I was sad to leave GMC, but so far Oregon is treating me well.
This new blog is going to be a different project for me. A documentation of what we at GMC called "PLDs" or "Poor Life Decisions". These are things we all made frequently, and ranged from going home with someone we shouldn't, to skipping a class, to painting ourselves green and drinking Franzia by the gallon. My life has changed drastically in the last month. I am no longer a "co-ed". I am attending a local college, but it's not residential. My partner Tanner and I are living with his parents for a few months while we get things sorted out. Partying will no longer commence. I am an adult now....whatever that means.
That being said, I know myself well enough to know that I will undoubtedly made a wide array of PLDs. In this forum, I will share them with you. Little snippets of life lessons, in the immediate gratification of the world wide web. I'll try to update daily, but I'm out in the outdoors frequently enough that I know this isn't possible. Please enjoy the vulgarity and utter ridiculousness that is my life.
That's all for now,
Candy Jean