Familiarize

This weekend and past couple of weeks have been all about familiarizing myself with new things. I have adjusted to my new home in a new neighborhood with a new commute. I have adjusted to new roommates. I have adjusted to a new project at work involving field work.

Familiarizing with home:
My bedroom is all set and roomy. My curtains are up, my pictures are up and everything is put away. I’ve learned the ins and outs of keeping my room at a comfortable temperature during the day and night without driving up electricity costs.

Packing and unpacking forces reorganizing and I was able to throw away a bunch of old unnecessary things I had and I finally got all of the torn and mailed recipes I’ve been holding onto on recipe notecards and into my recipe book. I got a lot done around the house even with losing an hour of sleep on Saturday night for the time change. I even got my broccoli planted and starting in the front mud room. And I had time (hardly took any though) to make a delicious dinner of Moroccan chicken and chickpeas in the crockpot Monday for Bryan and I in between both of us working and…working.

Familiarizing with neighborhood:
My neighborhood is still new to me. I have now been to the Safeway and Trader Joes on top of the hill that are the nearest grocery stores to me. Thank goodness for a TJs I can actually walk to (.5miles away). The Safeway is a small one though. I have figured out which streets are one way streets and which streets are steeper than heck. I’ve learned to ONLY take the #4 bus, otherwise you have to take the stairway to heaven…it feels like 1000 painful steps.

And with the new location I am now closer to the Lululemon downtown store than U Village store and tested out their yoga, held at the same time as the other, on Sunday. Same, same. I found my new go-to eyebrow waxing stop thanks to friend and neighbor, Amy. Cheap, fast, and a good job.

Familiarizing with field work:
I had my safety training for the project on Friday morning and a walk through of the site Monday amidst a downpour. Met the flagger that I would be working with during the day and then had my first legitimate site visit Monday night from 8-10pm and met the nighttime flagger. Poor guy has to be out there until 5am. I was told that it is nice to bring them a snack or coffee because their job is boring. I went to what has become my go-to place for “snacks”, Specialty’s bakery. I personally love their cookies (peanut and chocolate chip for the win) and their giant muffins (not bran like Afternoon Delights but their carrot bran and alternating muffins like zucchini and banana walnut are still super delicious). It was well received. I on the other hand got off a little before 10pm and stopped at Molly Moon’s ice cream in Queen Anne for a kids cone of their Scout Mint that they were giving away free all day. First night shift done!

Thus concludes my orientation to home, neighborhood and project.

Chelsea