updater? I barely even KNOW her!*

Wow. It's been a hot minute since I've posted on here. 

Things have been crazy lately, and here's four reasons why:

1) Rob and Mandy are gone, and consequently we've all been having to adjust to only 4 roommates rather than six. Andy's slated to move in soon (not sure when, but we'll see what happens), but in the meantime we've been getting the feeling that this house is just too big for four people. In reality, it's the perfect size for four people; but we're all so used to never being alone at the house--not necessarily interacting with someone, but at least having another person in there somewhere--that the long periods of having the whole house to yourself just make the loneliness greater and the house emptier. All this to say, this has put me in a kinda "funk" mood lately where I don't really have the energy to do much (even if I had the time). Call it a bout of depression, if you will, or even just "having the blues" (I prefer the latter), but it's not conducive to me being a go-get'er.

2) With Andy moving in soon, Blake and I moved into our new rooms earlier than expected (by only 'bout a day). Last Friday Blake moved all his stuff out of his room into their room, and I moved all my stuff into his (old) room. It's nice not to have the walk-through room (a better title would be "glorified hallway," as Amos eloquently observed): I like the privacy, having my own space, not having my "alone time" constantly interrupted by a barrage of people treading in and out. The wording makes it sound severe, but it never really upset me; I can remember only two to three occasions--which lasted for a good couple mins each--when I loathed the walk-through room and hated people going in and out, but there were extenuating circumstances (and these "circumstances" weren't what you may automatically assume, all you who love making assumptions). When I was in the walk-through room, I was using Isaac's bed; Isaac decided to give it to Andy (which is fair, and convenient for me), and since Mom (1) lent my bed away to someone in need and (2) was so filled with compassion for the boy using my bed, that she decided to buy me a new one to replace it. I ended up getting a European-style memory-foam mattress bed: low to the ground, on slats, soooo comfortable. And it's a full-size, an upgrade from my twin. I'm so thankful to have great parents who are eager to help out even when they don't need to; few have that. 

3) Work's been balls-to-the-wall crazy, too. The transition between Rob roasting and Ryan roasting has been excellent, but we lost another barista to Coffee Emporium, and in the meantime we've been trying to jump-start our own baking via Tiffany, who's one of our morning baristas. What this means is that throughout the week we've generally been understaffed, and with Tiffany baking 2 days, it was as if we were short two people. The nice weather at the start of the week kept things relatively calm and manageable, but the weather cooled and the swarms have flocked back in, and we've been crazy-busy. It's a bittersweet thing to say that we've been running out of stock and lowering waste: it essentially means (1) we've been busy enough as a business to actually use everything we buy, but at the same time (2) customers get irritated when we're out of things, and I'm usually the one who has to deal with them in the middle of the lunch rush while there's a line stretching out the door. I got better things to do than deal with a customer who's enraged that we don't have this or that, and wants to talk about it for five minutes. In addition to this, this week's been a little crazier at work as well because last week we full-out changed our menu, and we don't yet have updated menus with updated prices for the salad bar, and customers can't seem to remember what goes on their South Meets West salad that they've gotten for the past four months straight (for the record, it's only five ingredients: pepper-jack cheese, corn, red peppers, black beans, and cajun chicken). How do people not remember these things? I know I'm unobservant as all get-out, but at least I generally know what will be found on things I get day-after-day, month-after-month. Also, we've had all sorts of meetings and stuff 'for all sorts of reasons, and that's added to the busyness. 

4) I won't dive too much into this now, but just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been writing. I've done much writing over the past week: Saturday I wrote about forty pages that I'm really happy about. Sneak peak for an upcoming post you'll probably skim: Act III in my zombie serial has reached its final moments, and thus the majority of Book One will be complete; I've already gotten rough sketches for both books 2 and 3, and I'm confident the story is definitely on the upswing in general from Act 2 of Book 2, a necessary evil. If you skimmed that, just imagine how much skimming you'll do here in the next week or so when the full-breadth post hits the blog!

These things have made my life quite hectic as of late.

Again: I apologize for not posting sooner.

Here's a picture to make this post complete

(as if it weren't already long enough):

The mountains in Oregon. Photo courtesy of Amanda freakin' Hoos.

* And, yes, I'm wholly aware that the title doesn't really "work". The joke's lame, it probably shouldn't even be considered a joke. It's more a veiled, referencing quip meant to be humorous but failing on every conceivable level. I simply didn't think it through, and I just wrote what popped in my head. And instead of deleting it, and naming this post something different, I'm just saying, "To hell with it" and sticking with it. I'm kinda like Amanda Hoos. Or the honey badger.