New Friends, Exciting Job and a Mouse

I know, I am terrible, it has been like three weeks since I posted and for that I apologize. Things have been crazy. Let me take you all the way back...

The queen's throne

Move-in day actually went a lot better than expected. My new apartment was disgusting, I don't think it had been cleaned in two years, but my lovely parents helped me clean it all day on Sunday when they moved me in. That first week was hard because I was working all day and then tried to come home and tackle cleaning another room and had zero motivation. Luckily that first weekend I stayed in Worcester and finished cleaning the entire place before Perri arrived. It felt good and I was finally alright walking around barefoot. No house shoes for me!!

Last week I finished organizing and decorating my room, or should I say sanctuary. It is perfect in every way and I love that I have my own space to retreat to if I need a break. And I have my very own version of "big bed" all to myself. A big queen bed ALL FOR ME! It is great. I have had a twin bed for as long as I can remember growing up and spent a good portion of this past year sharing a twin bed (yea, don't even ask. I don't know why we thought that was a good idea...oh well) But yes, I sleep right in the middle and roll back and forth all night. Bliss.

My dad has been a saint coming over and helping me hang things and mouse proofing my room because... WE HAVE A MOUSE PROBLEM! This may honestly be one of the grossest things I have had to deal with. I probably sound like a big baby here but I don't care, it is totally disgusting. I will set the scene for you:

my chair 

Week two in my apartment. It was a Sunday night I believe... I am all comfy in bed and ready to get a good night sleep before another long week of work. The place was clean and organized and all was well. I turn out my light and let my eyes adjust, which takes all of two seconds since there is the brightest street light in the world outside my bedroom windows. The whole room lights up like a Christmas tree. I am laying facing the door when I see something scurry under it. (There is a good inch space between where the door and floor meet. Of course there would be). It takes a second to register but when it does I jolted up, turn on my light and scream "MOUSE!!" I grabbed my flip-flops and ran out of my room. Nika, who is living with us for the summer and has been living in our apartment the past two years, came running to see what was wrong. She knew immediately and tried to calm me down. There was no consoling. I understand this is an old house but no, just not acceptable on any level. Nika tried to convince me that it got out through a crack but I knew better. I told her I was alright and got back in bed but immediately called my sister. Grace helped calm me down a little but when I was on the phone with her I saw the monster run out of my closet and back under my door. I screamed again and was completely hyperventilating and sweating at this point, honestly on the verge of tears. I am sure you can imagine. It scurried in and out a couple more times and I kept yelling at it to get out. When I thought it was safe I got up and took these baskets I had in my closet and tried to barricade the door. I am not sure if it worked but I didn't sleep at all that night. I know it is smaller than me and is more afraid than I am (well I don't know about that) but my fear is that it will crawl on me while I'm sleeping and that creeps me out big time.

Make-shift barricade to stop my furry enemy 

My dad came the next day and put something on the bottom of my door to close the crack and I have not seen another one in my room since. Knock on wood. But I have seen them in the kitchen so I was All Over contacting our landlord and getting him on top of the problem. If it wasn't confirmed before it is now: my landlord hates me. But hey, I am getting shit done and I don't see anyone complaining about that. And he knows I saw him deal drugs to the "handy man." Oh the characters we let hang around our house! Gotta love Worcester.

So beside the apartment struggles the only other thing I really got going on is work. But I am so in love with my job that I am alright with it consuming most of my time. I can't express to you how great it is, how much fun I am having, how much I have already learned and how many connections I have been able to make. Bubbly, peppy, go-getter Abby is out in full force and there is no stopping me.

My boss is hilarious and our entire team is just amazing! Everyone at work is honestly so nice, helpful and friendly. It is a breath of fresh air. My department, community relations, sits within human resources so I not only have been learning a ton about the company's charitable foundation and the work that goes into that but also getting to learn a lot about HR as well. There are 39 interns and a whole slew of FLPs, which are college graduates starting a two year training program at the company. So there are a ton of young people which makes it nice and more exciting.

Like I said, everyone is nice including Griffin and Megan, the other two interns that are working with me in HR. (If you guys are reading this (we just became friends on Facebook) I hope this didn't just end our friendship. I promise I won't say anything bad...maybe... kidding!!) Our friendship is totally over.

Work event... I finally got my
Devil Wears Prada internship 

Anyways, they are great and it has been nice having each other to figure things out with and go to with our stupid questions before asking other people. They are also great lunch buddies when we all have a minute to sit and eat at the same time. We are busy on different projects but sit next to each other so we can still talk and hang out a lot.

I have been doing so many different projects and getting the opportunity to help my team out at some pretty exciting and dare I say elite events. Everyone has made me feel welcome and trusts that when I am given a task to do I will be able to do it without a problem, which is nice coming from Whizz-Kidz where I felt like an outsider even after four months. I am constantly doing different things and getting pulled into meetings to learn more about the ins-and-outs of the company. I have also been able to network a lot within the company and meet a lot of new people that way. Many of which have already been a tremendous help and given me useful guidance for the future.

I am exhausted every night because I work long hours but I really don't mind. I am getting paid well and learning so much. I already know this internship is going to lead to great things in the future. Even if it is just making a few new friends.

I promise I will try my best to update this on a more regular basis so the posts aren't small novels every time and I can share in more detail some of the fun things I have been doing. Maybe I am going to have to go back to an every Sunday post... I will see. Also I am pretty sure the company has a no blogging policy or something so I will not use the actual name but don't be fooled, it is an insurance company not some top secret government agency. That would be cool though...

Until next time. XX.

Getting Back to What I Love

You made it!! I am so glad. Welcome to my new blog.

Although I have only been home two weeks, a lot has happened! I move into my first apartment this Sunday so I have been busy this past week getting everything ready. I volunteered to be in charge of setting up utilities and the bank account we will use to pay the rent each month, what a job this turned into. Our landlord is being anything but helpful and I think he already hates me. I have had to email him multiple times to get information and I still don't think he understands what is going on. We shall see come Sunday. Hopefully this doesn't turn into the chronicles of a terrible landlord.

I will be living on the first floor with Emma, Perri and Maya (reunited finally!!) and the other two floors will be filled with more of our friends. One house, three floors, 12 girls (well 11 plus Krzysztof in the fall). Should be interesting but hopefully a ton of fun. If we weren't intimidating before we definitely will be now!

This coming Monday is the first day of my internship. I will be working in the community relations department doing a variety of things but mostly working on charity events the company holds for the Worcester community. I am really excited to start and have a feeling this will be a rewarding internship experience.

I will have lots more to share about the apartment and my internship next week once things start and I move in, so stay tuned.

Since coming home and quickly realizing all of the crepes, cookies and mush I was eating in London finally caught up with me, I started running again. I ran a little bit while I was away but I am running every day again and it feels great. I missed it a lot. Somewhere along the way I let other things take priority over the things I loved. Running is just one of them. But I realized that if you give too much of yourself up for other people, you are the one who suffers the most. I love running and it makes me happy so getting back out there, although extremely hard in the beginning, has been wonderful.

One of my creations. 

I have also been on a cooking binge. I usually stick to the cookies and cakes but since getting back (and trying to cut back on the sweets) I have started trying new recipes and experimenting in the kitchen. So far everything has turned out really well with the exception of the bread catastrophe. Yea, I thought I could make my own bread. Turns out it is a lot harder than it looks. I got all of the ingredients, planned the whole thing out but failed miserably. I am not sure what went wrong but after waiting hours for the dough to rise nothing happened. I have been told that means there was a problem with the yeast. I swear I put the right amounts in but unfortunately it was a sloppy disaster. My family was supportive though and didn't laugh at me too much which was nice. Maybe I will work up the courage to try again and not pick such a complex recipe. I may need some time though.

I will keep this first post short (even though I just looked and realized it's kind of long) but will be sure to update you all on how things go on Sunday and with my first day of work on Monday. I can't wait to be reunited with all of my friends again and kick off what I know will be an incredible summer!

XX.