Coming soon; check back later today!

I’m currently on the road back to Oregon (with a little vacation to Washington, and Idaho) from California. And you see some pretty weird things when on the road. I was able to take a picture of this, which I thought was pretty amusing.

Hey, sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. With my school just starting I’ve been quite busy. The picture you see is only a couple of the many textbooks I picked up today. As you can see, they’re all Economics books! I’m supposed to do some reading on them this weekend for my homework, but no way do I want to carry all those almost everyday.

I baked scones (again) today but they were chocolate chip scones this time. With a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon on top. Quite delicious. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t do any justice to the scones.

I’ve always wanted to go to a drive-through car wash and today was my lucky day! It was actually pretty cool but I got slightly claustrophobic with all those big mop-like things wacking at your car. Scary!

Coming soon; check back later today!

Sometimes, the best gifts are the unexpected ones. Who doesn’t like surprises after all? I received flowers in the mail today and, well, they made my day. )

No matter how much I love to travel, one aspect of traveling that I despise is how tedious it gets to pack everything up once you’ve finally settled in then to move to another place and then unpack everything all over again. This time, I’m finally packing up my summer here in California and heading back up to the Northwest. Oh, how I’ve missed Portland, Ore.

Coming soon; check back later today!

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.
We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”

This is half of the highway that I cross to get to the other side. There’s a pedestrian a few 100 feet down but everyone just crosses this big highway to get to everything else: fastfood restaurants, grocery, bank, etc. It was also the highway I tried to cross today but almost got ran over because of a blind spot and didn’t see a car coming! Eep! Scary!!

Coming soon; check back later today!

After work I headed off the a local coffee shop to meet someone. I think we had a great conversation and I definitely learned quite a bit. I decided to stay afterwards just to write some and read some. Mostly the latter. Yesterday, I started reading ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’ and I have not been able to put it down. It teaches you a lot of things: be effective rather than efficient; have lots of mini-retirements instead of one retirement; how to make more money with less time; and so on. Go read it. It will change the way you see things and do things.

This summer, I’ve learned that I love to bake and cook! Perhaps it runs in the family but it’s a fun way to pass the time and I love the sense of accomplishment I get when I put on those oven mits and pull out my latest creation. This time, it was Chocolate Crinkle Chocolates: A favorite childhood dessert that I haven’t had in ages! Don’t they look tasty?

I finally got my schedule today!!! In a few days I will officially be starting 11th grade and have to endure IB :S There were highs and lows to my schedule though. I have some pretty awesome teachers, but also a couple who I know aren’t exactly the greatest at teaching. Oh well, c’est la vie.

I was looking around my room today and realized how the majority of my “beautifying” products surround the only big mirror. It also emphasized how women need all these products in order to get ready for the day when men need only to put some deodorant on and maybe even wash their face then they’re on their way. Sigh. But I like my make-up! It’s fun.

Well, it’s brand new month! My picture is the daytime view of the the very first picture I posted on this photo blog. Yeah, it’s just as pretty during the day. In this picture you can see all the lovely greenery juxtaposed to the rather rustic train tracks. You can also see a white boat speeding along. Happy August, everyone!

I apologize for not posting yesterday: I completely forgot about taking a photo yesterday! Anyway, I hope this photo makes up for it. I went on a little adventure to a town called Solvang, CA where it is influenced by Danish culture. I love the polar opposites of the windmill and building  to the American cars.

It’s August, and I know what that means for me. It’s almost time for school to start! So, in the spirit of starting of a new school year I decided to buy a new school bag. Pretty cool, huh?

My photo for the day is one of a dried lavender that I’ve had for the past three and a half weeks.  When I first got it I thought I would press it inbetween several books but they just dried up beautifully before I got around to pressing them. I think lavenders are one of my favourite flowers. Random, I know.

There’s a pub in a part of town that I rarely ever go to that has all these crazy lamps on the ceiling and rugs on the wall. I tried my best to capture it but I don’t think I was very successful. You should still take my word for it though.

So this isn’t the greatest photo taken but it does show something I am very excited about! I recently heard that the city (more like town) I am living in for the summer will be getting a Forever 21 because the franchise bought the former Gottschalks chain and turning all of the Gottschalks into Forever 21 stores. This building that F21 will be in is HUGE! They said that they’re hoping  open by the end of summer: I wish I’ll still be there for the grand opening! Oh, that’ll be the day! (If you can’t tell, I’m an avid fan of F21. What college student with a small budget wouldn’t like it!?)

What a nice day! Being in a tropical zone the weather can sometimes be unpredictable, especially the past few weeks. One day it’ll be gloomy, the next will be sunny, and then suddenly a typhoon will arrive! But today was one of those good days where it was sunny, but not burning hot So, some of my friends (which you can see in the photo) and I decided to take advantage of it by going swimming!

Meet my best friend. Just kidding. It’s been excruciatingly hot the past few days thanks to a ridiculous record breaking heatwave. Think: over a hundred degrees for a few days straight, and I’m not sure if it’s going to be any better today… The past few days have been spent perched in front of a fan and sometimes even that wasn’t enough.

On the way to an Indian restaurant for dinner, a man on a moped passed by us. What made it so funny is that the moped was super duper small for the guy: If you can see in the picture, the guys knees are all the way up. Hehe.

Another day with my friends! After hanging out, my friends and I decided to eat at this restaurant called Cafe Breton. I always found the interior design/foundation of the restaurant to be quite interesting because of it’s atypical from something you usually see in other restaurants.