Adventure #3: You Drive, I Drive--But Mostly I Just Ride

The day most look forward to the most:  Friday.  Yes, it was Adventure Day.  I had been looking forward to it for this reason in itself.  But let's just say, it was a rough start waking up at 7a.m. yesterday morning after only a few hours of sleep the night before.

Why would I do this to myself?  Adventures were to be had!  Brother to be taken to school, secret errand, and new job fingerprinting, among spontaneous garage sale fun times.  I'm jumping way ahead--let's start at the beginning...

Woken up by Mom 15 minutes before my alarm.  I appreciated her concern for me waking up to take the Brother to school, but with each passing Summer day, I'm appreciating each minute of sleep more and more.  There's always tomorrow, though, right?

And who sets an alarm for a Summer day any way?  Me.  Because in order to have a vehicle for the day, I needed to ensure Littlest Brother got to school for his second-to-last week of class for the year.  So--Mission Accomplished.

THEN, I returned home to reconvene my typical mornings of being a bum.  (I've coined it 'BumAlum.'  It has a certain ring to it.)  Eventually, I did legitimately get dressed (no t-shirt and sweats for me on Adventure Day!) and decided it was time for a Secret Errand.  So that meant:

Time to drive in my van again!  Adventure Shoes at the ready!

Typically, yes, I hate driving.  Seriously, it is NOT an activity that I choose to do.  But after going without a vehicle for so long and being cooped up in the house for days at a time, having the soon-to-be-mine mini-van to use all day was pretty awesome.  I hopped in, adjusted the seat accordingly ('Littlest Brother' is a good two feet taller than me, and he typically drives the van), and set out for my super-secret mission.

It wasn't TOO eventful of a trip.  The shining sun made it well worth it, and since Dickinson is, well, Dickinson, I was able to make the entire trip in about 20 minutes--just in time to return home for lunch:

Above is lunch.  I was pretty proud of the picture, not gonna lie.  Grilled cheese of sorts:  Saute'd mushrooms, Mexican cheese blend, gouda, and avocado and 12-grain bread.  I was pretty satisfied!

It was an extra-awesome lunch because Mom came home for a short bit and ate with me.  I definitely welcome any company throughout the day when the fam is gone at work/school--feel free to just show up any time!

At 1p.m. I had my Big Event of the week:  getting fingerprinted for the day camp counselor job that I'll start in June.  I don't recall ever having been fingerprinted previously, so it was pretty exciting.  Fingerprints were collected electronically, so it actually went pretty quick, but I still felt like I was in some sci-fi movie when the woman was doing it.  Actually, the thing that took the longest during the whole ordeal was the PAPERWORK.  So.  Much.  Paperwork.  I will never forget May 11, 2012.  And that is because I signed my name approximately 1,012 times.  (Yes, I exaggerate...but still!)

It felt pretty good to have done all that prep work for the New Job, and I even got paid for the 45 minutes of my not-so-hard labor.  That meant that I wanted to do something a lil spontaneous (I guess a good mood urges me to do such things), and I stopped at a few garage sales.  The best part?  I got to use my Grad-Present-GPS.  It will definitely come in handy for the road trip to Texas in August, and will especially come in handy once I've moved there--Texas is one giant mystery to me presently.

Nothing was purchased while solo-garage-saling, but the independence to do so on my own and navigate myself to addresses posted in the newspaper was pretty liberating.  I'll continue the apartment supplies hunting on a different day.

Back at home, a different sort of Adventure was continued, one that I had become well accustomed to in the past couple weeks.  See below:

To the left is my family's mini animal herd.  Krumski is the Viscious Feline.  King is the Middle Mutt.  And Duncan (AKA Baby Dunks) is the adorable Pampered Pooch at the right.  (Yes, I play favorites.) 

You may wonder why they look so...concerned?  Paranoid?  Frantic?  The reason is that they are getting a fenced in yard of their very own being put in.  And Adventure Day was full of workmen out back, hammering and installing to their heart's content.  The animals want out.  ASAP.

Baby Dunks loves the sliding door's blinds.  He thinks they are toys.

At least the animal herd isn't making too much noise in their constant waiting around. It's kinda cute...I guess.

But anyway, other Adventures occurred on my Adventure Friday.  Jonah got picked up from school.  I may or may not have been on a bit of a caffeine high from the delicious coffee that was keeping me going, and Littlest Brother thought it was entertaining to take a picture of Big Sister driving: 

So yeah, that's me.  Driving.  It really truly happens on occasion.  And in the future, it will only happen more and more in the future.  Upon arriving at home, it was dog-outing-time.  Dunks (my Jonah-assigned pooch) likes to run.  Or is it a gallop?  Regardless, it is definitely a perk of being home, just being able to take the dogs out for walk around the neighborhood when the weather is so nice and sunny.  May many more walks be enjoyed soon!

Following dog-walking, the parents soon came home and a fun wine-purchasing trip was made (little known fact:  liquor can only be purchased at liquor stores in North Dakota--no Walmart/grocery store carries liquor of any kind.)  Then, Papa Murphy's pizza.  And I'm happy to announce that I got half of a family size pizza ALL to myself, meaning that half of the pizza was BBQ chicken.  As much as I was happy about the pizza, I was NOT excited for the following: 

My SUNGLASSES broke!  I just...pulled them off my face...and the earpiece broke off.  Curse of the Adventure Shoes?  I'm not going to blame the shoes for this one due to the lack of technology involved, but it was still a weird thing to randomly happen.  Luckily, I have a brand new pair previously purchased chilling back at home, but the story behind actually having to USE the new pair is pretty dissappointing in my opinion.

Enjoying pizza, a bit of wine, and some fam time was a good finish to the week; however, the Brother portion of the fam was M.I.A.  Jonah is a Working Man now!  Yup, if you don't believe me, check out the parents and the Lil Bro in his new Movie Theater Uniform:

I'm so proud of Jonah!  He picked out that tie himself!

My night ended with my regular Michigan contact via webchat.  The late-night discovery of the Facebook game 'Draw My Thing' AKA internet pictionary was super-fun, and Brian, my awesome competitor, kept me at it until the early hours of the morning.  And yes, I'm stubborn and wouldn't be the one to sign off.  So what sounds like complaining was much-enjoyed steadfastness and conversation turned to nonsense and hilarity.

Adventure?  Maybe not to most.  But for me, yesterday was a much-enjoyed Adventure that I would love to have again some time soon.  How about...next week?  I think that can definitely be arranged!

Until next week,

~ALi