Well this has been a really fucking weird holiday season.
Well, my anxiety has subsided enough that I’m back at it again with the “life lately” posts!
Where’d we last leave off? Chicago? Oh boy. If you don’t know or remember, my “life lately” posts were kind of started as a way to talk about some of the smaller moments that have happened throughout the past few weeks/ months. Kind of minor events and things that aren’t really worthy of their own blog posts. New restaurant excursions, new recipes, new purchases. That sort of thing.
Now that I’m settled into my new home in Arizona, I figured I’d start them back up again, on a quarterly basis. I’m not sure how interesting they’ll be because we’re still in a pandemic, but I have a few small things to share so let’s go ahead and give this a try.
Alright. Well. We’ve reached the point of quarantine — for me — where I’m starting to go stir-crazy.
Quarantine started off eh, OK. Still wouldn’t recommend it or anything, but it wasn’t bad. At first it was a fun two-month-long all-expense-paid vacation to the United States. Then it was a two-week work-from-home Netflix binge spent smoking a ton of weed and eating a ton of nachos on my sister’s couch. Then it was five months of unemployment, dog cuddles, daily runs in the park, endless amounts of time to read, camping, kayaking, and outdoors time with my mom and sister. Then it was a cross-country move to Arizona.
Now? I’m alone. I know exactly three people in the state of Arizona — all of which are my coworkers — and I’m working remotely 98 percent of my time. Everything is closed, it’s impossible to meet new people, and — because I’m living alone — I spend a lot of time with just my thoughts to keep me company.
No. I do not like that. No.
OK, I’m being a little dramatic. I FaceTime with friends back in the Midwest a lot. I’m still learning the ins and outs of my new job, and because I’m endlessly curious, I spend a lot of time Googling very niche topics. I’m still studying Ukrainian and Spanish, practicing yoga every day and reading books. I was in the Peace Corps, ffs, I’m good at keeping myself company.
But you guys know me, and you know that I am never satisfied unless my schedule is jam-packed with work, volunteering, yoga teaching, freelancing, brunch dates, fitness classes, language lessons and association board meetings.
Basically, I have a lot more free time, and I’m really sick of spending it all doomscrolling.
So… I got drunk and ordered a ukulele off the internet!
…Because the world DEFINITELY needs another white girl who plays the ukulele.
In my recent post about Hilton-hopping down in the Valley, I mentioned that I took a day trip to Saguaro National Park during my Thanksgiving weekend.
I just wanted to share a quick post (that’s mostly photos) of the few hours I spent wandering around in the desert among the cacti.
So, clearly, I’ve moved around quite a bit in the past year. Understandably, many of my friends haven’t really kept up with my nonsense.
One of those friends is Robbie, one of my friends from grad school.
Robbie currently works for Hilton in Denver. Because his work includes hospitality administration as it relates to his hotel’s convention center… he’s currently on furlough, given that the convention center has been temporarily converted into a COVID center.
So, Robbie’s been using his time off to explore all the National Parks in and around Colorado.
How do I know this? Well, he posted on Facebook that he was on his way to the Grand Canyon. Because I’m tactful and classy, my automatic first response was to text Robbie “BITCH, I LIVE NEXT DOOR TO THE GRAND CANYON. WYD.”
One of the things I’ve been working toward since coming back from Ukraine is becoming more sustainable and eco-friendly with my actions.
In Ukraine, eco-friendly isn’t really a thing. It’s not safe to drink the water, so I was blowing through bottled water on a daily basis. Packaged goods are triple-wrapped in plastic (seriously, you’ll buy a plastic bag of milk, which will then be put into one of those flimsy little plastic produce bags and THEN put into a normal grocery bag) and recycling… is a joke. While Ukrainians are great at reusing a lot of things, there is SO much (avoidable!) plastic waste in Ukrainian society.
So, when I got back to the U.S., I put more of an emphasis on being eco-friendly. I’ve always been good about recycling and relying on public transit, but now that I’m driving a gas-guzzling SUV and living in a city that doesn’t offer up the same robust recycling program that Chicago did, I started looking into new ways to scale back my waste.
I’ve stopped buying Ziploc bags and Saran Wrap and use Pyrex and beeswax wraps instead. I carry a HydroFlask with me everywhere so I don’t have to buy bottled water. I bring my own reusable grocery bags to Safeway and Whole Foods and I don’t use straws.
But, still. There’s always more to be done! And, while Flagstaff doesn’t accept most recyclables the way that Chicago did, there is one thing Flagstaff offers that Chicago didn’t…
Composting! Which I do now after I make… vegetable broth from scratch!
I mean, yeah. The title pretty much says it all.
You mean you haven’t ever been last-minute invited to a stranger’s mountaintop elopement that required you to off-road your brand new vehicle across five-plus miles of rough terrain?
No? That’s just me? Well.
Well, I’ve lived in northern Arizona for roughly a week now, which means I’m overdue for a trip to the Grand Canyon.
Hi. So. I moved to Flagstaff, Ariz., for a new job!
Everything happened so slowly and so quickly at the same time. Talk about “hurry up and wait,” right? I applied for, interviewed for and informally accepted a job in the span of about 48 hours, then sat around doing literally nothing (except watching Netflix, kayaking and camping) for five straight months. Then, I got my formal offer and had about two weeks to finalize my Jeep purchase, find an apartment, pack up a UHaul and move my entire life across the country. In a GD pandemic.
Boy lemme tell you. Everything that could have possibly went wrong during this move went wrong.
Some exciting news today guys, ready?
YA GIRL IS NO LONGER UNEMPLOYED!
