Current mood:	loved
Current music:	Sunshine - The Sundays

Winter in June and other things
I took the day today to clean and get things in order. It's amazing how trashed my apartment can get in the span of 10 days. I only own what I can fit in my Honda, and it seems like EVERYTHING was out of place - at least that means I've been busy! Going to vacuum when I get done here, can't wait to feel clean carpet under my feet.

It's been cooler recently. I've got the next three days on at work, after which I have a 5 day weekend. Friday night is Bar Night with the girls from work, and Saturday I have a wedding to go to - but I'm thinking of taking Thursday and driving to the coast. I spent a few hours on the beach a couple of weeks ago, and the beauty of the landscape and the ocean and the wildlife I could see just took my breath away. I get wonderment from the smallest things, honestly. :)

I've also been having a good time planning out the next year or so of my life. I'm planning on moving again in August, and my recruiter is jobhunting for me. I should know more in a couple of weeks, but it looks like Southern California is in my future. As a result, I've started listening to a "Learn Spanish" podcast that will hopefully prepare me for communicating with my patients a bit easier. It's not that difficult, and if I could learn Japanese I hope I can assimilate Spanish with the same degree of effort. If anyone has any suggestions of books or interactive media that can assist in this (especially medical Spanish), please feel free to post them here.

After SoCal I'm hoping to go overseas. Lots of money needed for that, so I'm working more and living even more frugally than I was (gas to the beach this week notwithstanding). Most everything is in order, but money will be tight. Kind of glad that I resisted getting a Little Kitty Friend so that I wouldn't have to part with them for any kind of extended travel that I'll be doing.

Today, as I was cleaning up here, I made a fresh pot of coffee (Millhouse French Vanilla - freshly ground beans, tyvm) and walked out on my balcony to get in some air. There's something in the woods that's releasing milkweed-like fluff and seeds into the air, and it's been coming down for the past couple of days. I stood there, leaning against the railing, breathing in the cool evening air that smelled like winter - cold enough to freshen and sting your nose a little, and open and crisp and clean. That, combined with the milkweed...I squinted my eyes a little, inhaled deeply looking up into the sky and imagined that I was back in Michigan, standing on my parent's dock on North Lake, pulled out of the water and onto the bank for the winter, my boots on and snow over the frozen lake in front of me. I could almost hear the cracking of the ice.

Made me miss my folks, called them and talked for an hour.