no news is good news, i promise

The less I blog, the more you know I'm out and about having fun... or just at least out and about. ;) The Christmas party season is upon us and Jordon's has been pretty busy accordingly. Today was my first full day off in two weeks (my paycheck better reflect that!) and I realized it has been just as long since I last wrote you. AND I forgot to tell you how I spent Thanksgiving! So that first...

Plans sorta fell through for a 617 Thanksgiving (or so I thought...) so I was a bit bummed out about that. A mate from work has an American housemate and had invited all the Americans at Jordon's over to his place for a celebration. Allie, Jordan, Brittany and I went and ended up having a BLAST! I made the broccoli rice casserole that I love and brought it along. Good thing too because all the other girls brought desserts (which are always appreciated!). The guys got a turkey and it was spot-on. Wow, it was really delicious! We also had mashed potatoes and rolls, so we were missing some important elements, but it was wonderful anyway to be around friends and celebrate the holiday. We drank wine and had good conversations and it was an all-around very pleasant evening!

Since then I've been working and hanging out a lot. I have decided to move out of the 617 and into a place that is closer to work (hard to imagine, but it's true!) and a bit cheaper. I haven't met my new roommate, but the other guys in the apartment seem really cool. I move on Monday so after that I'll be able to tell you more. Packing up all of the things (mostly new dresses...) I've accumulated already will be interesting. How have I gathered so much STUFF?

I've also joined the Ian Thorpe Aquatic and Fitness Center and could literally spend all day there I love it so much. It is absolutely the best place to work out! I haven't even spent any time in the pool/sauna yet so I'm really excited about doing that soon. I went to a yoga class today and it was okay (the first thing I haven't LOVED about the place... it was only okay) but I still feel so much better now that I'm more active. Not like my job isn't enough of a work out. Dang, for real, being in hospitality is hard on your body. My legs are almost always dead by the end of a shift and my arms are definitely stronger than before I started. At least when it's busy you don't realize how tough it is physically.

As far as travel plans go... I bought my return ticket home! I'll be flying back to Austin on May 25! Just in time to have a blow-out combined birthday/coming home party, yeah? You're invited. :) Besides that, I've signed up for an environmental conservation program for two weeks in Thailand where I'll get dive certified and I will participate in reef checks and cleaning up the beach, etc. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing every day yet, but it will be for two weeks in April. After that I'll probably travel around Cambodia (maybe volunteer in an orphanage there for a week or two?) and Laos. Most of March I will be in New Zealand (hopefully with Allie and Clark!). That's as far as I've gotten, but I think February will be for around Australia and maybe some more of that in May before I come home. I just hope I can fit it all in/pay for everything! Ugh, side note there: my credit card got used online by someone other than myself and I've been dealing with that for the past couple of days. Lame. It's made even more complicated by the fact that I'm in a totally different time zone. At least I had internet and can check the status of things like that. I'm fully thankful for that.

Today I listened to a podcast from the Austin Stone and it was about honoring the sabbath and it totally hit home with me since I've been working so much lately. I'm going to try my best from now on to have a day where I devote the whole day to honoring my physical and spiritual rest. If you want to listen to the podcast too it can be found here: http://austinstone.org/resources/sermons/ It's the November 1 one.

Hope y'all aren't too cold there in winter! The weather here is not as hot as you'd think most days. I don't think it can really make up its mind. One day will be cloudy and chilly (today, my day off, of course) and the next will be hot and sunny and a perfect beach day (usually saturdays when I work a double). And now I just realized how boring I am talking about the weather... I'm going to go have crepes with my French roommate now, Nutella and all. ;) LOVE YOU!