My name is Andrea. I live in New Mexico with my husband and my cat. We just moved to Los Alamos from Las Cruces and are learning to live our lives without all our old friends nearby. I'm a Starbucks Barista and am working on loving being in a small town.
Here you'll find an amalgamation of my many passions and pursuits. I am an aspiring photographer. Please check out my SmugMug and what you think of my shots. You can even buy prints for a nominal fee.
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Perfect+Night
I’ve created a tag dedicated to the things posted on my tumblr that point to what I’d call a perfect night. Check them out.
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Haunted
Those of you following along for a while know that my dad died when I was seven, a result of a year’s failed battle with cancer. It’s always bothered me to know that it bothered other people that I lost a parent when I was young. Right after his funeral, I came back to 2nd grade and found that kids in every clique and my teacher treated me differently, as if I were fragile. I felt guilty about this because I basically hadn’t seen him much in the six months prior, and even in the time before that, I didn’t feel as connected to him as I had when I was much younger.
This is an extremely personal post, so while I encourage you to read it, I’m putting it under a cut so as not to darken your dashboard.
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Finally, as my first rush of Sherlock has come to an end, I can post one of these. Before, all the names of the blogs I followed were really embarrassingly fangirl. Instead, these are a lot of normal people now.
- sgtpepp-r (Lots of stuff I like in general!)
- chaosbria (Lots of nerd stuff! And I’ve “known” her on the internet for like six years now.)
- llnd (Great illustrations, with a little Sherlock thrown in to spice things up from time to time.)
- pitypie (West Wing, Aaron Sorkin, giraffes, um, a lot of other stuff, too.)
- iheartbenedict (Okay so not all of the Benedict has cleared out of my tumblr loves.)
- fuckyeahsherlockfanart (Some of this is embarrassing and I shouldn’t be admitting I follow it. I’m a married woman, and people I want to think highly of me read this.)
- alexpopsicle (A Las Crucean who brings me all the latest in memes.)
- schnozberries14 (Another New Mexican who has largely taken over the running of the new-mexico blog.)
- sunflowerforest (One of my bffs, who posts beautiful stuff that makes my wanderlust return in droves.)
Also, I would like to say thanks to all of my followers! I never know why people follow me- my collection of stuff is so… erratic- but I appreciate you nonetheless! I never hear from you because I don’t like to ask for asks, but I wouldn’t mind it…!
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Work Frustration
Putting this under a cut because I’m embarrassed and experiencing some serious self-loathing.
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So this weekend, we went to Phoenix (more specifically, Cave Creek, AZ) to visit Zack, Joe’s brother. He recently bought a house, and I think he’s the first person Joe and I know in our generation (within our family and close friends) who has bought a house. It was wonderful! I loved sitting out on the porch in the sun, and Joe loved all the gardening opportunities. Now, I can feel both of us silently wishing we had a house, but to talk about it too much would just make it frustrating. So here are pictures of Zack’s place, since I know family will see this.
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Another trying day at work. Also pissed off Joe. Curling up now.
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One of Kathy’s many birthday month celebrations! Happy birthday month to her!
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High Res
Hey remember that one time when I was drinking and had some spending money because it was my birthday?
Here are the fruits of that evening AND all of this evening’s labor of putting it together! I’m getting a lot of satisfaction out of having built it, because I had to assemble a circuit and everything. And honestly, it is beautiful in a quiet, dark room. Definitely worth the money, everyone. It was only around $25, with international shipping and everything.
PS: Don’t follow the directions in the box. Watch the youtube video on their website.
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Random things on my mind lately:
- Making friends is really difficult for me now. Whereas I once reveled in the fact that I was surrounded by a group of 15 friends everyday, I am reviled by the idea of inviting even one person out to do things. I can still handle people— I don’t think I’ve become more introverted, necessarily, I mean, look at where I work— but I just have become more terrified that I am putting myself “out there,” so to speak. And that’s harder when the people I might invite out are people I work with, and would have to see even if I embarrassed myself afterward.
- In the last two days, I have seen two people (customers) roll their eyes at me. One, when she thought I wasn’t looking and I was just being a little silly, and the other right in my face. Am I one of those really annoying people who doesn’t know it?!
- One of my coworkers and I have been writing on our daily offerings board lately and we’ve been getting complimented on our work. It’s nice to know random strangers think we’ve got talent!
- I am a cheese addict, and it is totally killing any semblance of a healthy diet I’ve got. Ughh.
- Stephen Hawking is an amazing writer, and I’m really excited to be reading one of his books. When I am working long shifts, it is quite a respite to sit down and be intellectually stimulated. I’ll admit, I really miss academia and using my brain. I can’t wait until this weekend when I will be visiting Taos with Joe and Zack. While they go out and ski, I will drink tea and read books (hopefully by a fire).
- I’ve been really excited for snow, and as my weight fluctuates, I’m happy to be able to cover up in plenty of clothing. However, I adore fall and spring— and, dare I say it, I’m looking forward to warmer weather, finally.
- This may sound crazy to a bunch of my tumblr followers, as I am older than many of you, but I am kind of wishing I could get pregnant and have a child sometime this year. We’re not in a bad or good place financially, we’ve been married three years now, and I want to start having kids before I’m 30. Kind of a scary idea, or a scary thing to admit.
- Speaking of my age, I’m going to be 26 in less than a month! 27 days, I believe! I’ll be in my late 20s. Or at least in the latter half of my 20s. That is a little scary. I usually can find a reason to be excited about an age, but this one is harder… I guess 26 is two times thirteen, my favorite number/birthday. So there’s that.
Well, that’s probably about it for tonight.
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THESE are some good people— Mandy, Kathy, Joe, and Tyler (and me)! (So is Jacob but he doesn’t appear much in my set of photos from that night…)
I had a fantastic New Year’s Eve- great friends, good drinks, no terrible misbehavior, still managed to get up in time for a 7:30AM shift on New Year’s Day.
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Christmas Letter 2011
Not really news to my blog followers; check it out anyway!
To get the full experience, download the Lullaby font from dafont.com!
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Another big weekend.
A list of things done over the last several days (read if you want, but it’s more for myself…):
- Thursday: Opened at work at 4:30am, and took the deposit in by myself! Got home and meant to take a nap, but I just laid there. Zack arrived around 5pm, and we shared some birthday wine for Joe. We went on a walk to Starbucks and found out that one of my coworkers’ older sisters used to swim with Joe and Zack at Oregon State. Then we decided to go to Santa Fe for the evening. We started at Rio Chama, then went on a bit of a bar crawl to the Sleeping Dog, Marble Brewery Rooftop Bar, and the Atomic Grill. Joe left for a short time to meet with his advisor in Pojoaque, so Zack and I walked around wasting time until Joe came back. I remember laughing…
- Friday: Joe had to work in the morning, so Zack and I went to Bayo Canyon and had a hike. After a refreshing time outside, we went to get some coffee and met up with Joe and his advisor for lunch. I then went to work for the rest of the day (meanwhile, the other two went to Bandelier and Santa Fe). That night we all sat on the giant new air mattress and watched Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and South Park.
- Saturday: Woke up to a freak storm hitting northern New Mexico. Snow and ice were blowing sideways through town! The weather lifted as the morning wore on, so we made ready to go to Taos anyway. Taos is an hour and a half north-ish of here, and the scenic drive is totally worth the time. Once in Taos, we went to the Gorge Bar & Grill and had some great food and beer. Then we chose to walk around the shops and such until it was time to eat. At one of the shops, I got new, quality chopsticks, and the shopkeeper lady gave us free earl grey tea that was just to die for! Dinner was delayed because we didn’t realize how popular LoveApple is- but after a cider at a nearby ale house, we went back. Organic, locally grown food creations of all sorts and some great wine made this place quite fun and delicious.
- Sunday: Aforementioned trip to Taos Ski Valley. Then we drove back and stumbled upon a brewery called Eske, which was amazing, amazing, amazing! Their beer is clearly unpasteurized, and they had an IPA that was full of flavor. We drove back to Los Alamos and caught a showing of The Rum Diary. It was a great movie to all three of us. The plan had been to go to the brewery on the train tracks in Santa Fe after this, but instead we decided to go to Kokoman and get some fine rum and beer. Joe made us his tomato-potato-bell pepper concoction that is really tasty. We drank into the night and I had the loveliest of times chatting with the guys.
- Monday: Hangover city. I know, I brought it upon myself. We took a walk to the local bagel shop, and then saw Zack off. I then had a full shift at work, in which I served as the shift manager mostly independently (with a little advice from a shift there acting as a normal barista).
Today: the cold I’ve been avoiding admitting I have really hit me hard and I don’t want to do anything ever again. Ugghhh.
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Had a weekend away from Los Alamos… and I’m actually ready to be back.
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Update on Life
AKA “The shit I tell my mom on the phone so she knows what’s going on in my life” or the “I ran out of letters to write until people get back to me so here’s what I have to say”. It’s a long post, so click Read More to read more.
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The World Smiles With You « Andrea's Blog
Things are going great this week. You read earlier than I am turning things around, as far as my diet and habits go. Well, as Joe said today, the world is smiling on me. Despite sleeping rather terribly, I have been forcing myself to get out of bed by 9am every day, which proves wonderful for my view of this town. Literally. Our view outside our northern window is actually pretty killer, with a sweeping view of all of the mountains. The only thing that prevents me from taking a great picture of it is the Los Alamos High School gym, at the bottom of the view.
The clouds have rolled over the mountains every morning, creating dense fog for those nestled more tightly into them. It has rained nearly every morning this week, and many late afternoons as well. To think, just three months ago, these mountains were on fire for lack of precipitation. Now, there is actually a green hue to the mountains, though it is a bit patchy. The air has a constant chill to it. It’s about 12:30pm here, and it’s only around 58 degrees fahrenheit. Also, there is something so much more beautiful about mountains when big clouds roll over and allow the sun to peek through in patches.
Read more by clicking above.
