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It's finally time for the long-awaited unveiling! :) I've now been in my place for over a month, and it really is starting to feel like home. Here's a bit of a virtual tour:
First, the outside. This complex is composed of two buildings. The first shot was taken from the road looking into the middle of the complex, which is where the visitor parking is located. The building you see is my building, and the other building is to the left of the picture (the buildings at the back are new condos and aren't part of the complex). The second shot shows the other side of the building, which is where my balcony looks out - it's the one highlighted with the black square on the top floor.
You can see almost the whole place when you first walk through the door. Straight ahead is my living room:
To your left is my kitchen (this is taken from the living room - you can see the main door just on the left):
And to your right is my laundry room (that's right, I get my very own washer and dryer!!):
Then there is my bathroom, which has a large 'closet' or storage room in my case, at the end:
And last is my bedroom, which displays my handy drying rack, for all the clothes I don't want to shrink. :)
I can almost see Mt. Baker from my balcony, but instead I have a huge tree to admire :) I've had some pretty good sunrises from here.
Going back to our snowy days, this is my view to the northeast:
and to the southeast:
I hope that gives you a bit of a picture of where I'm living - and by all means, if any of you are in town, you're welcome to visit me! :)
Wow...time has flown by! Things have been very busy over the last couple of weeks, but it promises to slow down a bit in about a week. Rather than making you wait until then for an update, I thought I'd post a short one filling you in on what I've been doing.
First, I'm sad to say that the weather has returned to normal, or even warmer than normal (today's high is supposed to be 8 or 9 degrees!), and the majority of the snow has melted away leave plenty of sand and grit behind. And with rain in the forecast for the weekend, even the piles of snow in the parking lots threaten to disappear. Sigh. After almost 15 years of living here, you'd think I'd be used to the fact that we have little or no snow over Christmas. But every year I hope this will somehow change. :)
This week, I finished up a 28-page draft of a "Preliminary Environmental Inventory and Summary of Activities" for a property owned by Trinity. This has been in progress for much of November and it was good to get it wrapped up and sent around for comments. Now the biggest deadline that is on my plate is the final report for the research I have been involved in on the Oregon forestsnail, Allogona townsendiana. This is an endangered snail which lives within the Ecosystem Study Area, a green space surrounding the main campus and we've been doing research into the basic life history, seasonal migration patterns and predation issues for the past two years, with funding from the Endangered Species Recovery Fund through the World Wildlife Federation. This report, which summarizes our results from the two years, is due by Dec. 15, which happens to be just over a week from now. Next week will be a busy one.
I have also been keeping myself busy with playing community volleyball one night a week, settling into life on my own, continued involvement at church, and a plethora of other things. This Saturday is the Christmas Open House at the A Rocha Field Study Centre in Surrey, and provided it doesn't choose to pour buckets, it should be a good event. Oh, how I'm looking forward to the Christmas holidays and a chance to relax!
Hmm...maybe this hasn't been such a quick update. :) It seems that once I start writing, there's just so much to say. A few things I hope to post over the Christmas break:
1. Photos of my new apartment (once all the boxes and papers have been put away and it actually looks neat, of course!)
2. Some recommended reading and advice about environmental issues. I've just finished a book called "The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices" and it has some interesting things in it. I've also got a few other books people may be interested in.
3. And of course, photos of life in general, or any exciting weekend adventures I have, or any more wacky weather we experience!
That's all for now. Happy December!
