Crazy Random Happenstance(s)

What a week it has been.

First I drove out to Minnesota for a short trip to be with my dad's side of the family after the passing of his mother. It was an emotionally draining three day weekend with a seven hour drive at the beginning and end of it. But, as usually is the case in these kind of situations, it was good to see family. Including my parents.

It was on the way back that things started going downhill. I got back to Chicago in good time on Sunday and my super awesome roommate, Amber, had ordered Thai for us to have for dinner while we caught up. I was so focused on getting out of the car and being done with my drive that I left one of my overnight bags in the middle of the street. And had no idea I had left it there until several hours later. Normally it wouldn't have been such a big deal, just a few clothes, but my camera was in the bag. With the memory card containing my photos from my recent trip to Haiti. This was what hurt me the most. I mean sure, I was a bit bummed to lose the clothes and other items that were in there (some of which I can't even remember) but it was the memories that those photos contained . Luckily, just the day before I had a few minutes to post a few photos onto my Facebook account, so they are present there. And I know that my friends from the trip will gladly share their photos with me.

I did end up posting a few signs right on my street just in case one of the neighbors had happened to pick it up, but I wasn't counting on that. I just wanted to be a bit proactive in trying to find out what might have happened to my bag. I also called the police and filed a report. And I talked to one of my neighbors and had a really good conversation with them that involved a few tears on my part and lots of soothing words from Carmen and Dirk. I really appreciated the conversation.

Then on Monday two things happened. First, my car door broke. And I about flipped out. I mean, common, really? On top of everything else, now I have to fix my car door too? On the bright side, at least I could still shut it so I could drive home. It just made things a bit complicated. But then the second thing happened. I got a call from a woman down the street who saw my sign and said she thought she saw my bag out behind the dumpster that goes along with her apartment building. I actually couldn't believe that I heard something from anyone. And so when I got home, I left everything in my car and went down the ally, which, mind you, is the one behind my own apartment building, and sure enough I looked into the dumpster, and there was my bag along with several of the lost items. Yay for having nice neighbors who pay attention to signs and strange things in their neighborhood.

Of course there was no camera, but at least the mystery was solved. My bag was stolen off the street. Taken half way down my own ally and gone through. Things of supposed value were taken. The rest was left behind. It's a crazy world out there.

And as for my car door. I am lucky to have a good friend here in the city who was willing to look at it and he was ultimately able to fix it. Thank goodness for him!

Now, in case you're wondering the whole week wasn't a total wash. And I have to remind myself of this. I had several great conversations with a couple of my best friends. I was able to get out and play tennis one night; beach volleyball out on Lake Michigan another night; and then the summer ultimate league I ended up playing for won their league championship game. Go Albino Death Wheel (aka: Fuzzy Bunnies).

Whew. Now if that is not a rather crazy random week, well, I don't know what is. And hopefully things will calm down next week. Or, hopefully at least I won't be as forgetful as I have been this week. I think that's all I can ask for.

Significant Event

So here I am back in the blog-0-sphere attempting to start again with writing down some of my experiences and thoughts. It seems the trend is that when something significant happens in my life I feel the urge to sit down on this thing and see what comes out. As a bit of an update, I've been working for the last nine months as a sales associate at one of the four REI's here in Chicago and for the last six months as a nanny to a super cute two year old named Harper. It actually has worked out really well because I need both jobs to get by and my nannying job is so flexible that it works in around my ever changing work schedule at REI.

Now on to the significant event. I just returned from a week in Haiti. And I realized a few things.

1. Working in retail is not exactly rewarding work. At least it's not for me forever.

Now don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with working in retail. I have actually really enjoyed my time so far with REI. And as far as retail goes, I'm glad that it is with REI. I enjoy helping people prepare to do cool things like hike the Grand Canyon, or travel to Kenya and many other cool destinations. For several months now I've been thinking of a bit of a time line for myself. Enjoy my summer travels that I had and have planned, work as much as I can when I'm here and then come fall start looking again at job possibilities. And in order to look for jobs I need to figure out what direction I want my life to take (and that's a story for another time).

2. At some point in the future I would really like to adopt if possible.

For awhile now I have had the thought process that I can't justify bringing another child into this world when there are so many children who need a loving home. On my recent trip to Haiti I was able to visit an orphanage and the children there simply melted my heart. And one of the guys on this trip with me has a little girl that he and his family adopted from Haiti (this was how we ended up at this particular orphanage). I will say that there was one good outcome of the earthquake that hit Port au Prince in January of 2011, it expedited the adoption process of many children from Haiti who otherwise would still be waiting clearance to come to the United States.

So that's it for now. More to come soon.