Minnesota Moves to Montana

I haven't posted in a month.  I apologize for my utter lack of attention paid to this blog.  I've been busy (mostly ignoring real life and hanging out with my friends as much as possible), and I've neglected this brainchild I call a blog.

The past weeks have been rather exciting for me.  I got a real job, moved out of my mom's house, and, most recently, discovered the "t" button on my laptop doesn't work as well as it should anymore.  It'll get better if I just push on it harder or use a hammer.  I promise.

I'm in Salt Lake City for the next few weeks for training for the aforementioned "real job".  I like Utah, but I think the best perk is the king suite I'm expensing for work.  It's wonderful, even when 6am rolls around much too soon.  

The best part of this having-a-real-job thing is that I am now living in Kalispell, Montana.  Yep.  Montana.  In the mountains.  Glacier National Park is less than an hour from my apartment.  I'm going to walk on a glacier in August.  This is awesome, especially for a wannabe-outdoorsy-type like me.  I pretend to be outdoorsy, but when there is a mountain a half an hour away it is hard not to be outdoorsy.  I've only been in Kalispell for 2 weeks now, and a week of that has been spent in Salt Lake City, but I love Kalispell.  I love my job (so far, anyway), my roommate is pretty normal for a Craigslist find, and get to see snow-covered mountains from my bed.  

These aren't my legs. They're Spencer's. I'm not that freakishly skinny.

Yeah.  I packed all of my belongings in my beat-up old Dodge and headed West (and North, but mostly West).  The car didn't mind the trip, and I still had room for my skis.  It took me two days and 5 tanks of gas to get the 2200 miles from Rochester to Kalispell, but I did it.  I stopped in North Dakota for a night, checked the bed in the motel for gross things, hit up Hardee's for breakfast, and made it to Kalispell by 6:30 the day after I left Rochester.  I even had to cross a mountain pass or two before I got the the Flathead Valley.  That was certainly an eye-opener for a Midwestern gal like myself.  I'm still not unpacked, but it'll have to wait until I'm back in Kalispell for longer than a weekend.  It'll probably be September before I'm totally settled.  That's how I roll.  I really like that I got out of Rochester before the crazy heat-spell-thing that is covering the entire nation from the Rockies to the Atlantic currently happened.  It's wonderfully summery in the mountains.  The unbearable heat in Minnesota is horrible for a winter-lover like me.  I can't wait to go skiing this winter!  Bring on the snowy mountains.  I'm waxing up my skis.

Montana or Bust,

Erika

P.S.  It's my mom's birthday tomorrow.  Happy BDay Momma!

I doubt the roses survived the heat, so here's a reminder from earlier this summer.

Moving Day

Well, it's official.  We moved.  Saturday was the Big Move Day, including a large moving van, two trucks, a van, and my old car.  We had everything unloaded by 2 o'clock, and nothing broke.  Overall, the day was successful.  I still haven't unpacked all of my clothes yet.  That prospect is slightly terrifying, but I'll work through it.  My mom and I have almost everything in the kitchen organized and put away.  We'll see how long it stays organized.  

I need to share several things from Saturday with you.  If and when you decide to move all of your belongings (including large pieces of furniture and appliances), try to avoid having any type of engineer help you.  My grandpa helped us move, and he's an electrical engineer.  We had one of his friends help, too, who is also an electrical engineer.  Both of these men needed to oversee every part of our move, especially getting our large couches out of the basement.  This usually led to a lengthy discussion about how to move said furniture and whether we needed to take a railing or two off the wall.  It was fun to watch the first time it happened.  My mom got rather frustrated, though.  I just giggled and kept the dogs out of the way.  

Another bit of advice: if one or two of your movers has a bad back or bad knees, tell them to stay as far away from the action as possible.  Especially if they are they type who needs to help all the time.  They'll just get in the way or injure themselves more.  You'd think this is obvious, but it needs to be said.  There were some problems when Fabian tried to help move furniture.  We had to give him some pillows to carry so he wouldn't get in the way.  It worked out in the end, though.  

We all ended up sore and tired by the end of the day, but we're finally living in only one house.  The dogs are still a little confused, but they'll figure it out.  They're adorable.  They followed the furniture in and out of the house all day on Saturday.  I'm sure they didn't want to be left there all alone.  They only got a little muddy from the rain.  

They're great.  Unless you have to drive them somewhere with both of them in the front seat of the car with you.  That might not have been the best choice, but whatever.  No one died, so it's all good.

Enjoying the new house (finally),

-Erika