The Room Journal: Volunteer Park

Oh hey there! I've been away from the blog for a while because we don't have internet at our apartment. Oy. I'm so mad at AT&T. Valued customer, my butt.

If you follow me on Instagram (and I hope you do), you may have noticed me hinting that I've been a bit stressed lately. More than a bit. I've been extremely stressed, and it's been wearing me down. I keep thinking I'm getting sick. Or maybe I am sick. I can't even tell.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, I guess. I submitted everything the rental company asked for, so they'll take it from here on renting out our house. We are moved into our apartment, although things are still not hanging on the walls and instead are piled on the sofa. Missouri State University says everything I need to submit for my Washington teaching certificate is in the mail, but they've been saying that for a while, so we'll see. All of my business at the DMV, licensing office, fingerprinting office, and FedEx is finally wrapped up, and I've found a pharmacy, a grocery store, and even the library (that's where I'm using the wifi right now). It's all going to be okay! It just sometimes feels like every to-do list item I tackle results in three more items I need to put on my to-do list. Yikes.

Thankfully, there are the weekends, and in our little family, weekends are sacred. We don't do business on the weekends. Instead, we explore, play, and enjoy each other. One of our first weekend stops in Capitol Hill was Volunteer Park.

Never mind that we had to walk up an incredibly steep hill to get there. Everything's on a hill in Seattle. It will keep us slim and trim!

There's a giant old water tower in the park and-best part-you can go up inside it! After the climb up the hill, we were super excited to climb several stories worth of stairs. Once you get to the top, you can sort of see Seattle through the trees, but it was still quite beautiful.

I've been trying to remember to take my Canon Rebel out with me when we go exploring. It's so fun to experiment with a nicer camera. My iPhone camera is just about ready to die, so I hope you agree that these are a little more pleasant to look at. I'm still working on my skills, but I've got to practice, practice, practice!

I dropped my camera lens cover down these stairs. Thankfully it did not fall somewhere that I couldn't retrieve it.

The Pacific Northwest is so lush and green! It has the same lush feeling I remember in Hawaii. Different plants, but same atmosphere with plants popping out at you everywhere.

I don't know what this thing is, but kids were climbing on it.

I'm also in love with the weather here. It's been a bit hot some days, but everyone tells me that's unusual. For the most part, it has been like what I would call "warm fall" weather. Meaning, I CAN WEAR PANTS. I don't have to go outside my house without arms and legs all exposed. Anyone else feel like it should be either arms or legs showing, but not both?

There was a wedding happening while we were there. Instead of tables, they had picnic blankets spread all over the place, and I was thinking how annoying that would be, to show up somewhere in a dress and then be asked to sit on the ground. They were all being very mature about it, though.