Rafting Fun (?)

Now that I'm virtually pain free with the small exception of a slight twinge in my abs here and there, I feel as though I can more successfully blog about the busy busy weekend. It was fun, although I think it honestly wasn't as fun as I had hoped it would be, mostly due to extenuating circumstances. And exhaustion. Friday we had a garage sale, so late Thursday night and early Friday morning my procrastinating family was running around trying to put things together, and then Morgan and I sat around all day in my garage, attempting to sell off knick knacks. And surprisingly to all of us, we even made a couple hundred bucks! Definitely a big surprise for sure, especially since we had to cut things short because of the hail. My mom was worried about her car, so we had to drag things to one side so I could run and put her car in the garage. I ran out and got immediately soaked and hit with hail, and of course by the time I got her car in the garage the hail stopped. Typical Colorado weather.
Saturday was, of course, the prime reason for all the pain: white water rafting, class IV rapids in high water, the highest it has apparently been since 1955. That makes for high adrenaline and massive rapids. For me, I think that sent me into more of a "oh crap, massive fear" mode instead of a "ah yeah, sweeet" mood, lol. I've seriously got holes in my memory of the "more awesome" moments of our rafting excursion, like when we apparently went over some sort of huge rapid and almost capsized. I have no idea what anyone in my raft is talking about when they mention it. The fear was pretty big for me, especially since I can't swim and the water was COLD, but I definitely did have fun. How can you not, flying over rapids like that? Irene and I, the only girls of our raft BOTH fell off the raft (so much for girl power) though, which was slightly pathetic. I still have no idea how I fell off. I even have bruises on my knee and shin from trying to "dig" my foot into the raft. Well the shin bruise is from that anyways, the knee I think is from rubbing the corner so much while paddling. It's faded to a lovely multicolored stage now, half purple and half green.
Unfortunately, all that rafting fun meant Sunday I was sore all over. I couldn't even walk properly, and had to sort of shuffle along. My family went to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra concert at Red Rocks (45 min late due to a broken radiator :( ) and it's a pretty far walk from the car to the actual amphitheater, and I had to sort of limp/shuffle along. I probably looked like I was drunk! But due to our lovely broken radiator on the poor Accord, it made for a long Sunday too, so I feel like I've only now recovered from all the long days of the weekend. Just in time for DC!

Freedom Plans..with fireworks!

It's 8:20am on a work day, and what am I doing? Not rushing around to eat because I spent too much time getting ready (again). Not trying to find a pair of socks or grab my lunch. Why? Because I'm freeeeee! But it is definitely a weird feeling, just as my coworker warned me it would be. Even though I have a full month off, it's still going to be busy in a good way, with a couple short trips and fun 1 day activities, but it all makes me nervous, because I know what's coming afterwards: a TON of studying and most likely frenzied panic with moving and settling in, and dealing with more exams and memorization than I've ever had. And this time, all the facts and information I soak in isn't just to make a grade, it counts. Big time. Sure it's to make a grade and pass the boards, but a large majority of it needs to stick for the next 40 years or so. Eeek!
It's sort of intimidating to think about, so I'm trying not to, at least for another couple of weeks. Until then, my house and especially my room needs cleaning. I figure it's probably easier to figure out what to pack up and take and what to leave and/or toss if it doesn't look like it got hit by a mini tornado. I was planning to take care of it yesterday, but in honor of the holiday I went to go see fireworks in Westminster, and they were AWESOME! Morgan and I sat in a field, and it was sort of like watching a 3-D movie because the fireworks looked like they were coming right at you. I've never sat so close to the fireworks before; usually I've sat pretty far away so I never got the in-your-face-it-looks-like-sparks-are-about-to-fall-on-your-head effect. But I highly recommend it, although we found it would have helped to be armed with some mosquito spray. It's a good thing we weren't any closer though, because at the other edge of the field, some of the sparks actually didn't go out, and set some bushes on fire!
At least I got to strike one of the things I wanted to do before school off my list: watching fireworks. Until then, all my other things shall remain active: hiking, Canvas and Cocktails, white water rafting, boating, and sleeping (which shall always be active, of course). Must get all the fun out of me so that I'll actually want to go back to school :)

Let the Free Times Roll

My blogging habits have slowly gotten lazier and lazier, which is, as I recall, sort of what happened years ago when I used to update this thing a lot in high school before I revived it from blogger cemetery recently. But this is (hopefully) about to change! I left my job two days ago (end of the month) so it seems for random parts of the next month I shall have free time! Freeee!!!! I think it's been a long time since I've had vacation for an extended period of time. After a pretty productive year including two publications, two first author publications on the way and happy med school with options(! hehe), I get a month to "chill". Which shall hopefully include cleaning my room thoroughly instead of just cleaning the immediate messes, exercising (thanks Irene for the two week 24 hour pass, which I shall activate Tuesday), cooking, vacation-ing, learning Mandarin (again, thanks Irene :) ) and...blogging! hehe.
Unfortunately, along with free time unfortunately comes...spending money, or wishing to spend money. For a sort of stingy person like me, that's not happy, especially because I like to window shop and buy pretty things, but then sort of regret it when I see all the money come out of my checking account, lol. I already totaled the amount of money I want to spend this month on makeup/tool items, and it's almost $70. Add that to rafting, canvas and cocktails and a nice dinner or two with the bf, and it's gonna be like $200+ this month, without my usual other random life purchases that are unplanned and inevitable, and my two travel vacations this month. Noooooooo! *Shudder*. Lol. I don't know why I'm so weird with my money because I do spend quite a bit each month, but I guess it's time to just suck it up and have a little fun with it before I go 160 grand in debt. So I guess I'm going to shut my eyes to my bank account, ignore all that current and future red, hang with my friends and the good ole bf, and let the free (and good, because I know that's how the saying really goes) roll :)