'Til Summer Comes Around

'Til Summer Comes Around, Keith Urban

Okay, so I just made a very very tasty meatloaf. Mushrooms, onions, 93% lean beef, fresh parsley, garlic, bread crumbs...very yum (24g protein per 3 oz serving, 220 cals). I got one broccoli floret and three bites of meatloaf in and BAM, no more. I think people think I'm nuts, but, this means that I'm having a "small pouch day". It always seems to happen when I have something delicious to eat! A small trade off for -90 lbs, but, occasionally frustrating.

Anyway, it has been about a month since I updated. I've been HOME since I last wrote. Being home was absolutely fabulous. Not only were the people from PY there, but my chicks from Gettysburg came too! I got to see beautiful Kate get married, and it was AWESOME! Here's a photo of the two of us:


She was a beautiful bride! :-)

The G-burg girls rented a boat, which was, of course, very much fun. Very therapeutic to spend time on my lake. Ahhhh. We had a good party at Casa North on Friday night. I hear the food was great, but I think the company was great. It was so fabulous to see you guys, enjoy the weather (hot and humid lol) and a few adult beverages! Being home is such a treat. I will be back at Christmas time! :-)

Anyway, then Kourteney came out for a visit, which was right at the beginning of HARVEST! Yay! How excited am I! Well, I'm excited to be making wine, but doubly excited to be making MONEY! Here's a photo of the first load of grapes (Chardonnay Cuvee) to hit the presses.


Upcoming, I go to WA for school! I'm excited, but not for all of the travel. I hate airports (think twice before you're rude to an obese person in the airport...we're not having fun either). I'll keep you posted on how my hands-on learning weekends go.

Sorry this is brief. Time to run back to Wine Chemistry. Boo.

Busy Business

All right, as promised, I'll now give a little bit of a summary of what has come to pass in the last two months or so.

As soon as I got back from Tasmania, I started hunting for a job. Every single person in Wagga Wagga NSW has my resume. I spent weeks chasing people down, using all of my phone minutes on local calls, begging people to hire me with no avail. What the problem was...I suspect I will never know. All I knew was that I didn't have enough money to stay here and pay for next semester, let alone the following years. I knew I had to figure something out...and pretty fucking fast.

So, one day, during a tasting class for wine and grape science (it was red wines...with the Pinot Noir that tasted like Shiraz! G'Damned Australians!), I was walking to the toilet and nearly killed myself slipping on a piece of paper. I picked it up in a huff and took a look at it. It was a job ad for an internship in Oregon. I remember immediately thinking "Holy shit, I can go home. And work in a winery. And best yet, I'll be PAID!" On a whim, expecting no results, I applied for the internship. On a whim, also expecting no results, I surfed winejobs.com to see if there were other vintage internships available. Turns out...they're everywhere! I applied only for west coast internships: if I was going back to the states, I was doing so no where near my home. This adventure has to continue.

The next hurdle to clear was with CSU. I wanted to know if I could study by distance (DE) even though I wouldn't be able to do residential schools in September. I need to stay in school for health insurance reasons and because if I don't, I know I will struggle to ever go back again. So, I chatted with my pal Chris and he told me that I could most likely continue to take subjects by distance ed (DE) and do things onshore in the States.

So I waited. Was I going to get anything? An internship? Within two weeks, I had three offers on the table, each of them better than the other in some respects, but each worse than the other in some respects. I ended up choosing an internship in a place called Quincy, WA. Near Seattle! I need to be there in the beginning of September, and it looks as though Mom and I will be driving the CRV cross country. Woop woop!

I don't know if it's the right decision, but I know I am poor as all hell. Who knows! I'm just ramblin', tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I can! (Points if you can name the song and artist!) I plan to come back to Australia after the 1st of 2008. When I'm at home, I'm going to begin applying for other jobs here and getting my visa switched to a working visa (much more complicated than it sounds!). I'll be back!

So, yea, a month and some change left under the southern cross, then onward!

That is the very annotated and short version of what has been going on. Now you are up to speed!