I think too many years in customer service scarred me in some ways.
Yesterday morning, I stood in the usual line to catch my usual bus to go to work, but when said bus arrived it took the driver a really long time to open the doors and let us all on. When he finally did open them, he stood in the doorway and announced to all of us that the meter thing that takes money wasn’t working, so we didn’t need to scan our cards or pay any money. “Just get on the bus”, he explained.
While I felt that his instructions were rather straightforward, this turn of events apparently stirred a deep need in many of my fellow riders to ask clarifying questions or make their glee at not having to pay bus fare known to the driver. “Are you sure I can’t pay you?” one woman asked. “What a nice gift for us!” a man in track pants enthusiastically said.
During these exchanges, I eye-rolled so hard it’s a miracle I didn’t hurt myself, all the while thinking just shut the hell up and get on the bus already, quit stopping in the doorway to act like your stupid joke is the funniest thing the driver has ever heard in his life, oh for the love of god people just freaking sit down already. Lady, he already SAID not to pay, so stop making such a show of searching for coins in your Louis Vuitton knockoff bag and SIT YOUR ASS DOWN ALREADY. My inner voice was getting decidedly shouty.
Naturally, the majority of the people who got on at the next two stops repeated the exact same stupid comments, because of course they did.
When I was but a starry-eyed teenage cashier back in high school, I quickly learned that any item that didn’t ring up would prompt the customer to say “I guess it must be free!” because, yeah, that’s exactly what happens now, Susan. Look at you, finding the hidden free stuff in the store, you clever clever girl! It was at that young age that I learned the valuable skill of pasting a smile on my face and forcing a “haha” while quickly calling for a price check. Another one I grew to know all too well was during my call center days, when customers would shout the very triumphant “Thanks for nothing!” right before hanging up on me when I couldn’t make whatever thing they wanted happen.
Lest I seem completely persnickety, let me pause to say that I really do enjoy funny people and witty comments. On more than one occasion, an angry customer would hit me with a one-liner so good that I would chuckle appreciatively before I could stop myself, and when they’d demand to know what was so funny I would reply honestly that their comment was clever and I appreciated their sense of humor even when they were mad. Those conversations would typically end pretty well, and I think that’s probably because witty people are usually smart too and they can appreciate reasonable explanations even for things they don’t like. The “thanks for nothing” crowd, on the other hand, seemed to feel that reasoning and logic was a lot less valuable than giving them whatever they were demanding.
Perhaps these experiences left me hopelessly jaded and unable to experience the joy that comes with telling the cashier, “Yes, and many things I wasn’t!” when asked if I found everything I was looking for. We all have our burdens, and I suppose this is mine.

Over the weekend, my husband and I decided that we wanted to start working out more than once or twice a week, and pledged to ourselves that we would work out both days of the weekend and at least two days of each week. We dutifully followed through and did Beachbody workouts in our living room both Saturday and Sunday morning, and on Saturday we even had salads for lunch from the salad bar at the fancy grocery store where we went to do our shopping for Thanksgiving, and we feel pretty good about our efforts. Today I wanted to keep the momentum up so I went for a walk at lunchtime with one of my new coworkers. We went to Bellevue Downtown Park and walked around the little trail three times, and I’m pretty sure casual passers-by probably thought that I had something slightly wrong with me because my legs are super sore from the squats I did over the weekend and so right now when I walk is sort of looks like a duck waddle, but not as waddle-y as the real duckies that were playing in the fountains so I guess there’s that. But I also ate cookies and bagel pizza bites and drank some nice scotch over the weekend, because I don’t want to get too healthy too fast, after all. Balance and such.
Anyway, back to Saturday. I haven’t done a proper Thanksgiving shopping in, well, probably ever in my life, because I’ve only ever hosted for the holiday once before, and that was eleven years ago and if I was along for the shopping portion of planning I have zero memory of it whatsoever. I think I’ll remember Saturday’s experience though, namely because it was one of the few times in the last few years that I can recall going grocery shopping without feeling at least a little bit anxious about being in a crowded store. Normally I hate grocery shopping unless it’s during one of those rare times when the store is nearly empty and there isn’t really anyone around me. I’m not a fan of being in crowded stores – I don’t like it when there are too many people in an aisle and I’m not able to walk through it, and I’m constantly feeling as if I’m in the way. But Saturday was actually pretty fun.
We went to Central Market, one of my very favorite grocery stores. I had a huge list of the things we needed to buy, and I was actually able to enjoy browsing shelves and looking at all the different spices and vegetables and available meats at the meat counter. Normally I have a short list of the things we need for meals for the week and try to rush to grab the things we need as quickly as humanly possible, causing myself to somewhat resemble a human tornado. This time, though, I was able to slow down, and thought more about which ingredients would best enhance the flavor of the things I wanted to make, not really giving a damn if I was in some dude’s way while I read each label.
About two hours after entering the store and sitting down with our salads, Husband and I emerged victorious with two shopping carts that we triumphantly pushed through the parking lot. We loaded up the car with what was probably more food than I’ve ever purchased in one trip, feeling pleased with ourselves and very accomplished. I’m super excited for Thursday, when I get to make all the dishes I’ve planned for people I love.

Remember blogging?
I do. I remember writing my very first blog post back in 2004. That was before I knew what WordPress was, when the platform I used was the little blogging section of my MySpace account (ah yes, I remember MySpace too, and fiercely maintain that in its heyday it was far better than Facebook has ever been). My audience consisted of my friends, because I seriously doubted that anyone else cared about my little MySpace account.
Blogging got more popular and more platforms became available. I switched over to a Blogger account in the mid-2000’s and started writing Angry, Young and Poor. It was fitting at a time where I was coming into my own and finding myself increasingly irritated with the state of everything around me from my boring call center job to the wars that then-president George Bush charged the US into after September 11th. On my blog I could talk about anything from a stupid driver in traffic on my way home from work to how helpless I felt as I watched the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina unfolding on my TV every night, with no resources to personally help the victims. It was an outlet. It helped me figure out what I wanted.
V in the Northwest was born in 2010, when I made the move from Southern California to the Seattle area. I had no idea what I was in for, but I knew that I wanted to write about what I was experiencing. Now this little blog has seen eight and a half years of my life unfold; it’s seen me go through some of the best and some of the hardest times of my life, it’s connected me with other amazing bloggers that I never would have known otherwise (shout-out to you, Jill!). It’s a living history of how I got from who I was then to who I am now.
We bloggers don’t really write as much as we used to. A lot of us have slowed down and don’t post as often as we used to, if at all. Some lucky bloggers are published authors now, and tell their stories in their books. People tend to use Instagram stories and YouTube rather than traditional blogging to share their lives and their stories. But what about our blogging community? What about the connections we built and the good that we’ve done?
Today Jenny Lawson, writer of the Bloggess, posted a call to all bloggers to celebrate our community and to reach out to each other. She encouraged us to write, and that encouragement was just what I needed to start working on this post. I thought of all the blogs I love, of all the writers in the blogging community that I love. Some have gone silent, and I miss reading their posts. Others are still here, sharing their lives with any who want to read what they have to say. So here I am, inspired to start writing more, just in case some of you missed me too.

Last year, I wrote a blog post revealing that I had enrolled in college at Western Governors University (WGU) and was recommitting to finally achieving my dream of earning a Bachelor’s degree. I had wanted it for so long, and I was hopeful that I had found a college with a program that would work with my busy schedule and that I could do it this time. And now, that dream has finally come true – I submitted my application for graduation on Monday, after submitting and receiving a passing grade on my final project.
It hasn’t really sunk in yet that I’ve done it. I’ve been told by colleagues that have recently graduated that it may not fully sink in until I attend commencement next spring, that for them at least it was walking across the stage and receiving their degree that cemented the accomplishment for them. I can definitely see how that would be the case!
I did everything out of order, getting a job and dropping out of college after one semester, and working through my twenties while my friends attended universities, graduated, and began their own careers. Now, at 34, I have an established career and I finally have the degree to go with it. Being able to check that last box will afford me opportunities that I may not have been considered for without it, and I am so very glad that I did it and so very proud of myself. Earning a degree later in life is no less an accomplishment than it would have been if I’d done it directly out of high school; in some ways, I think it’s more of an accomplishment, because I had to work harder to do it. I’m also relieved to graduate without having to worry about a pile of student loans, because I was able to take advantage of tuition assistance programs at work that paid the majority of my way through school.
I don’t think I could’ve done this without the support and love I received from my husband along the way. He knew how important finishing college was to me and he was very encouraging when I enrolled in school. He always made sure that I had time to study, and was more than happy to take on much more than his share of laundry and other household chores so that I could focus. Each time I had to take a test, he kissed me good luck and then celebrated with me when I passed. When I cried tears of frustration over hard classes, he comforted me and assured me that I was smart and that I could do it. He believed in me every step of the way, even when I doubted myself.
Now I am left with a sense of accomplishment and a whole lot more free time than I’ve had over the last year. I’m excited to read books for fun again, instead of using all my reading time for studying. I’m excited to get back to writing blog posts now that I no longer need to write papers. I’ve been promoted at work and am excited to start my new job on Monday, knowing that I can focus completely on what I’m learning at the office and that I don’t have any homework waiting for me at the end of the work day. I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, and now all that hard work is paying off and I’m enjoying every second of the life I have because of it.

This Saturday is my birthday. I will be 34.
I think there are people who look at their upcoming birthday and the year ahead and have ideas for what things they would like to do and how they would like to improve their lives and themselves as they embark upon a new trip around the sun. Maybe I’m lazy (okay, the ‘maybe’ part is probably a stretch), because I don’t have any grand plans for things I’m resolving to do as I officially turn one year older. I like myself and my life, for the most part anyway, and I’m quite content to just let it continue to be the way that it is.
Now, there are some things I would like to NOT do in my 34th year, to be sure. I do hope to continue to not have any grey hairs, because keeping up my roots when my hair is this blonde is already a pain and I don’t need to add any other shades to the mix.

I would also like to not go on any diets because I love food and I also love alcohol and I think anything that prohibits me from having things I enjoy is stupid. Furthermore, I would like to not put any pressure on myself to be good-looking or busy at all times or to do too many things that I don’t like doing just because someone else feels I should be doing those things. I honestly don’t know how many birthdays I’ll get to have in life, and when you don’t know how much time you’re going to get, it’s just silly to waste the time you DO have doing or thinking about unpleasant things. And if I do happen to be lucky enough to advance into old age, and I certainly hope I do get that lucky, I don’t want to look back on my life and realize that I could’ve had a lot more fun if I’d concerned myself more with what I like to do than with what everyone else thinks of me and my life. I already primarily spoilt my high school experience by trying to live up to other people’s expectations and it seems crazy to waste my adulthood in a similar fashion. And, doing too many things I don’t like or listening too much to what other people think of my life makes me enjoy being alive a lot less, and since being alive is a temporary condition I don’t have time for people and things that lead me to stop appreciating life fully.
Also, I don’t want to do any running because I hate it. There are so many things that I love to do that are healthy and active things, like dancing and riding my bike and taking walks. I like doing things that make me feel good and running is not one of those things.
I think that pretty well sums up the things I don’t want for my 34th year of life. I do always want cookies though, if someone so desires to bring me some.

Last week, my friend Marie declared that 2018 shall be the Year of No Bullshit. I love this fierce mentality for going into a new year and adopted this new mantra immediately.
Of course, the YONBS will mean not feeling obligated to tolerate others’ BS, but for me it will also mean not allowing myself to fall into the same old BS either.
I confess, I am not where I would have liked to be at the end of 2017. I fell short of my health and fitness goals, and I’m not as far along in my degree plan for college as I would like to be. I can make a choice now: cut the BS and get back to working for what I want, or wallow in my failures and continue to disappoint myself. The former seems a lot more productive.
After flying through my first four college classes this semester, I enrolled in a fifth. I was so confident that I would complete it and maybe even finish a sixth class by the end of the semester. Fast-forward to two weeks ago, when I was panicking because I had put off studying and was now in a bind. I really don’t know why I let myself procrastinate so much; I suspect it was because I felt like I had all the time in the world to study, until all of a sudden I didn’t.
I wanted to drop the class and pick it back up next semester, but my mentor pushed me to try and finish it. I thought she was smoking something when she said it was achievable, but ultimately I (grudgingly) agreed to try. I drew up a rigorous study plan that had me covering all the course material and taking the final exam by December 30th. I wasn’t at all confident that I could pass the test, but as my husband pointed out, better to fail than quit.
I stuck to my study plan and devoted more hours to this class than I probably have to any schoolwork ever in life. And today, just a few days before I take the final, I’m able to pass the practice test with a score of 98%. I proved myself wrong. I actually CAN pass this test and finish my class this semester. I feel extremely confident that I’m going to do well on my final exam.
I learned so much from this near-miss. Now I know that I need to make myself a study plan so that I have structured due dates to keep myself on track. The experience also reaffirmed to me that I am smarter and more capable than I give myself credit for, and that I can achieve the things I want if I really put my mind to it. Once I cut out all my BS reasons for not doing what I needed to and just focused on doing the damn thing, I started succeeding.
Sound familiar?
It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling with my weight for the last few years. It’s also no secret, to anyone paying attention, that a big reason for this is because I wasn’t putting in the work to get what I wanted. When the scale showed me numbers that scared me, I went on crash diets that guaranteed me fast results, but that did nothing to help me build better habits. Not shockingly, repeating this BS cycle just left me heavier than I was when I started dieting. Earlier in the year, I was very dedicated to my exercise plan, but after Bill and I got back from Cabo I fell off the wagon and kinda just let it roll right on out of town without me. I let starting school be an excuse for skipping workouts.
Excuses are BS. Diets are BS. They are no substitute for just plain old putting in the work. And they have no place in my life, starting now (because really, why do I need to wait until 2018 to banish the BS from my life?).
Last night, Bill and I got home from work and immediately changed clothes and worked out. After we exercised, he made dinner while I studied. And at the end of the night, I went to bed feeling AMAZING, because I had dedicated time to achieving goals that matter to me.
I won’t always eat healthy. I won’t work out every single day, and I’m not going to study every day either. I’m not going to tell myself that I will. Going to extremes is also BS, as it isn’t satisfying or sustainable. But what I am going to do is put in the work to get what I want.

Back in 2009, I became obsessed with the show Six Feet Under. I was late to the party (the show first aired in 2005), which was a good thing for me because I was able to binge-watch the entire series on DVD and wasn’t forced to wait between seasons.
For those unfamiliar, Six Feet Under followed the Fisher family, who owned a funeral home in LA (originally called Fisher & Sons and later changed to Fisher & Diaz). The funeral home also served as the family home, which may seem a bit disturbing to anyone who HASN’T lived directly above a steady parade of dead bodies and funerals, but is something the family and their friends are totally used to.
Although I lived in Southern California at the time, I never thought to find out if the house used in the series as the Fisher funeral home was a real place. When I discovered that it was indeed real and actually was located in LA, I had already moved to Washington and didn’t think I would ever get a chance to see the house in person.
Last September, Bill and I ended up in LA while on our road trip, and I knew I had a chance to finally see the house. As we drove toward the beach one afternoon, we made a detour and found it.
Thanks to the Internet, I was able to find out that the 6,324sf house is located at 2302 W. 25th St. in LA. It was built in 1905 (according to Zillow) and is currently owned by the Filipino Federation of America.
There was no one around when Bill and I arrived at the house (another benefit of being behind the masses in discovering the show was that people weren’t exactly lined up to take photos of the house). We snapped several shots from the sidewalk before I decided I was going to go perch on the front porch for a photo.

I think blogging comes in waves for me. There are times when I feel like I have so much to say and that I need to write, and then other times I can go months without even logging into this site. It’s not that my blog isn’t on my mind, it’s just that I don’t feel like I have anything meaningful to say. I’ve thought more than once about stopping, but that idea just makes me so sad. Writing is a huge part of who I am. From my spiral notebooks filled with journals and stories in high school, to my first blog (on MySpace, of all places) and now to this one, I’ve always had some writing project going. 
Sometimes it’s not about writing something mind blowing and powerful. Sometimes it’s just about getting back into the habit of writing at all. So here I go; here’s what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks. 
In September, Bill and I took a long road trip from Seattle to Las Vegas to attend my sister’s wedding. It was a small ceremony and (in my opinion) rather perfect. Vegas weddings don’t really get enough credit; there are several beautiful venues that definitely don’t fit the stereotype of shotgun weddings performed by Elvis. 

After the wedding, Bill and I spent some time in California before heading home. My parents hosted us for a night, and we spent two nights in Hermosa Beach. 
I never really did tourist-y things when I lived in California, but on this trip I really wanted to find the house that was used for the Fisher Funeral Home in the show Six Feet Under. Bill humored me, and we tracked down the house (it’s located in LA). I thoroughly geeked out and took a ton of pictures (geeked out face on display in the photo below), and even went so far as to queue up “Breathe Me” by Sia as we drove away. 
 
Back in Washington, I started a new position at work and finished up my fourth college class. Technically, I’ve completed my semester, but I want to keep pushing forward so I enrolled in another class. 
It’s crazy to think that it’s almost November, that soon the holidays will come and go and 2017 will be over. I’m hoping the rest of the year is just as pleasant as the first ten months have been, and that I’ll regain my inspiration to write more often as we finish out the year. 

This week is a big one for me, as I re-join the academic world as a full-time undergraduate student yet again. I’m no stranger to the full-time student/full-time employment combo, so it’s not new territory for me. I do remember how much work it is, but I’m ready for this new journey. Finishing my degree is something I’ve always wanted for myself, so here I go!
I dropped out of community college after only one full semester, and ultimately earned my Associate’s degree online while working full-time. It ended up being a good thing for me, because I was able to use my company’s tuition assistance program and graduated debt-free in 2010. Since then, I’ve stopped and started a few times as I worked toward my Bachelor’s degree. I tried University of Phoenix, but didn’t like the group-work format (why on earth an online school requires so much group collaboration is beyond me). After taking some time off I enrolled at Washington State University, only to find that it’s really difficult to be an online-only student at a school that is really designed for full-time students who can attend classes. At most, I was able to manage two classes at a time, and ultimately it just felt like I’d never graduate and I tabled the whole idea.
The idea of finishing my degree never really left my mind. Last year, after being with my current company for a year, I became eligible for their tuition assistance program. It would have probably been a good idea to jump back into school right away, but I was busy planning a wedding and taking classes was NOT in my plans. Now that the wedding is over, I feel like I can handle balancing work and school, and I’m ready to try yet again to finish college.
Since my real goal is to just be DONE already, I decided to enroll at Western Governor’s University. The courses are online, the classes are individual and completing them is based on a competency assessment, and there are no traditional class schedules. I can take as many courses as I’m able to per semester, and each semester’s tuition rate is flat – meaning that the more classes I complete, the less I pay (or my company pays) for school in the long run.
The enrollment process at WGU wasn’t a walk in the park, I admit. When I decided to move forward, I applied online and was accepted, but never heard anything further. I did some research online about next steps, and proactively ordered transcripts from my previous schools to be sent to WGU. I could see online that they’d been received, so when I still hadn’t been contacted I reached out and spoke with an enrollment counselor. Although he was very nice, he wasn’t a lot of help in the subsequent enrollment process; I did a lot of researching online until I figured out what I needed to do.
Financial aid is no picnic, either. In the past, I’ve always had company tuition assistance programs that issued Letters of Credit to the university I was attending, so I never had to pay. This time, the program is tuition reimbursement, so I have to pay upfront and then seek reimbursement after the semester ends and I pass my classes. Not wanting to drain my savings to pay upfront, I decided to apply for student loans, knowing that they will come due six months after I graduate and that I can simply use my tuition reimbursement money to pay them off. While this sounds simple enough, you can’t just apply for loans – you have to apply for financial aid first. I knew this was going to be a waste of time; my husband and I make far too much money for me to qualify for assistance. Still, the rules are the rules, so I filled out my required FAFSA and got my reply that I qualified for $0 assistance, then was finally able to move on and apply for my loans.
Once I got through all the admissions requirements, things got a lot easier. Yay! I was paired up with my Student Mentor, a former student who has successfully completed the program herself and who will check in with me weekly throughout this process. She got me set up with my orientation, and helped me with a road map for what my degree program is going to look like. She gave me a bit of an overview of what I could expect in the next year and a half (hopefully I can be done by then!). I completed the online orientation, and I’m all set to start my first class. Whew!
I really want to finish this time. Wish me luck!
 

After a six-month bad-weather induced hiatus, my husband and I dusted off our bikes last Saturday for our first ride of 2017. It felt so good to be biking again. I knew I had missed it, but I didn’t realize just how much until I was back on my bike with the warm breeze in my face.
For our ride, we chose to start in Kenmore at Log Boom Park, and take the Burke-Gilman trail down to Seattle’s University district. We stopped at Agua Verde Cafe for a nice lunch and enjoyed both our burritos and the view of Lake Union. Once we were full of delicious Mexican food, we rode back to the trail and continued on to Ballard, where we treated ourselves to a refreshing beer on the patio at Stoup Brewing. It felt so nice to sit in the warm sun after enduring months of chilly weather!
It was mid-afternoon by then, so after our visit to Stoup we decided it was probably time to head back to the car. We did take one detour along the way, cruising down to Magnuson Park. We had hoped to visit the infamous ‘A Sound Garden’ sculpture. Soundgarden named their band after the sculpture, so we were curious to visit it after Chris Cornell passed away last week. Unfortunately, we found out that there is no weekend access to the sculpture, but we were able to see it from a distance and it was decorated with balloons, flowers, and other items left by fans.
We left the park to bike the last seven miles to our car, and by then I was beyond tired. My legs were totally fatigued and it took some stern conversations with myself in my head to keep me going. I was a little surprised at how much weaker my legs were; I know I haven’t been biking regularly, but I felt like I was in pretty good shape from the Beachbody workouts I’ve been doing in the mornings! Apparently those exercises aren’t helping the leg muscles I need for biking.
After what felt like an eternity, we got back to the park where we’d left the car. In total, our ride on Saturday was 32.8 miles – not bad for a first time out after a long stretch of not riding, but about half of what I’d like to be able to do by the end of summer. Now that the weather’s nicer, I want to spend my weekends on my bike!