My New-ish Bed

I'd been wanting a new bed (and needing one pretty badly) for quite some time. The one I slept in for years used to belong to Christine, so it was older than me and getting less and less comfortable.

Then Uncle Jeff and Aunt Donna (Dad's youngest brother) asked us if we wanted the bed that used to belong to their youngest daughter, Cousin Lexi, who got married not too long ago. It's still in pretty good shape, and since it was free of charge, we said yes. 

They were nice enough to come to our house in person and set it up as well as cart out the old bed. 

I will admit, it's a big change of scenery that will take some getting used to. 

There are a lot of memories associated with Christine's old bed. Butterscotch and Pippin took plenty of catnaps on it, and until I got my desk, that was where I sat and drew pictures or used my laptop on a big cardboard box in front of me.

At least this newer one is nice and comfy. I had a decent sleep last night, despite waking up a few times. 

Out with the old, in with the new, as they say. But there's no shame in feeling a bit nostalgic about the old. 

Speaking of which, today was the last day that one of our coworkers (one of our very best, too, I might add) worked with us before she leaves for college. Her name's Chloe, she's about 19-20 years old, and I personally trained her on the cash register. She told me she's majoring in marketing and her ultimate goal is to own her own business. 

From what I saw since she first joined us, she has a fantastic work ethic and catches on quickly. I'm happy for her and I wished her luck, but I'm going to miss her. I'm missing her already. 

It's a little weird. As of right now, I'm the one who's stayed at Kneaders the longest, five years and counting. Everyone I work with now came after me, including my current boss. 

I always had a fairly solid idea of what I want to do with my life. I still want to write and draw, but this is my little backup plan. It keeps money coming and gets me out of the house every so often, so I'm not just cooped up in my room all the time. 

I finished school ages ago, and while there are some parts I do miss, I'm quite content to leave it all behind me. I don't miss the bullying, the loneliness, those awkward teenage years (Mother Nature was pretty rough back then), the math or the science (although my teachers were very nice), and I most definitely do not miss being in debt when I went to Weber State. Even for stay-at-home students who take the city bus to campus, tuition is not cheap and I had to rely on money from the government. It doesn't help that Dad died just one month after I graduated, and I was only able to pay off all my debts in time because of money we got from my grandparents after they died. 

But I'd say school has done me a lot of good on the whole, especially college. It's safe to say college is the place where I officially grew up. That's where I learned to be less timid and more resourceful, to do more things for myself and not expect someone else to do it all for me or hold my hand all the time, and I learned to manage my time very well, which sure came in handy when I started work. 

And while you technically don't need a degree to be a writer or artist, I gained a lot of knowledge and self-confidence and the quality of my work has improved dramatically. So, I'm a pretty big advocate for higher education, although I'll also be the first to say it's not for everybody and those who do enroll in it must understand what they're getting into. 

Didn't mean to stray off-topic, but once again, out with the old and in with the new.

Park City

Just got back from vacation. My mom's been wanting to do a big family vacation for quite some time. 

At first, we made plans to go to California. We wanted to try to go to Disneyland and the beach, and I was both nervous and thrilled because I'd never been on a plane before, or, indeed, outside the state of Utah. My uncle was going to help cover the cost of our flight and hotel. I made sure to give my job plenty of notice.

Unfortunately, there were too many of us (we invited Christine and Joel and their kids to come with us) and so the price would be way too high, even by Uncle Scot's standards. He's a generous man, but not that generous. 

So, we stayed in Utah, but we went to a place called Park City, where we rented a condominium for two nights. Uncle Scot did take the liberty of paying for the condo. 

It wasn't all I thought it would be. We thought there would be a pool and we wanted to try to go on the Alpine Slide, but there wasn't a pool anywhere nearby, the weather was a little too fickle anyway, and almost everything cost an arm and a leg, since this is a more upscale town in the mountains. Mom was horrified at how much our first dinner cost. We ended up splitting the costs among everybody.

At least the food tasted great, so I feel I got my money's worth there. The spaghetti and meatballs, and the Annex Saloon Burger and fries, were among the absolute best I'd ever had. On our last night, we ordered Domino's pizza and crazy bread to be delivered right to our door. That was very tasty, too.

And there was plenty to see, we were able to buy at least a few souvenirs, and we sure got plenty of exercise. We had to pay for parking, so most of our sightseeing took place on foot. My body's killing me, yet it was surprisingly hard to sleep at night. 

The condo itself was very nice. Rustic luxury, you might say. We had super-comfy beds and amazing shower stalls (the one I used was a glass box) and there was even a little office nook in the kitchen, the perfect place to set up my laptop. 

But as I said, I had a tough time settling down to sleep. Maybe it was because I was in an unfamiliar place, or my biological clock was a little off. Either way, I just kept waking up, and it rained both nights, so the rain kept me awake, too. 

By the time we had to go home, I'd pretty much had my fun, although leaving was still a bittersweet feeling. We made sure most of our stuff was packed and ready to go the night before. We ended up leaving an hour ahead of time; we had to be out of there by 10:00 and it was just a little after 9:00 when we drove down the mountain.

We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast. I'm used to their burgers and fries, but their breakfast stuff is really nice, too. I had a bacon and egg McGriddle, so it was essentially an egg patty with bacon strips between two pancakes engraved with the McDonald's "M."

Then we went to the Olympic Park, but again, everything cost too much there, although we did get a few more souvenirs, so at least we didn't walk away empty-handed.

That's when we finally headed for home. 

I was sure glad to see Pippin. We asked our friend Kayalauna to come feed her, and she said the poor kitty really missed us; she let Kayalauna pet her for a good while. 

Overall, it wasn't a fantastic vacation, but it wasn't bad. I'm glad I went, but I'm glad to be home, too.

And, of course, I took as many pictures as I could. All I had was my Smartphone, but I think I managed to capture some pretty cool shots.