Happy Holidays!

Since I was negligent at writing a Christmas letter to send to friends and family this year, I will post a blog of a similar nature, which gives an update on my life and what I have been up to the past year.

This past year has been a year of rediscovery and exploration for me. It began with my continuing to enjoy the spoils of having completed my Master’s degree the previous August and settling into a familiarity with my relatively new position at the EPA. Although I was busy at work – juggling a demanding job as Budget Officer for my office and dealing with some staffing shortages, I was still enjoying new-found free time outside of the office, having grown accustomed to spending every free moment outside of work keeping up with a rigorous graduate program. Having a little more time to myself allowed me to delve into some personal interests as well as just kick back and enjoy life a bit (well, as much as a person like me is able to “kick back!”). I began co-leading my women’s group through my church, National Community Church, and continued volunteering as the nursery coordinator for one of my church’s locations. I also began volunteering as a kitchen assistant at Sur La Table Cooking School, which gave me the opportunity to work in the kitchen alongside experienced chefs and learn more about cooking and baking for free!

Shortly after ringing in the new year, I went back to Oklahoma City for a weekend to attend the wedding of college friends and have a reunion with some dear friends from my days at Oklahoma City University! My sister became engaged around Valentine’s Day and the family hurriedly began planning the wedding (still in progress), which will take place June of 2007.

As many of you know, I am an avid traveler, and the latter part of 2006 has given allowed me to get back into the swing of traveling. In April, several friends and I traveled to Jamaica to visit friends who are stationed there as Peace Corps volunteers. We spent a week and a half traveling around the island, enjoying some time on the beach but also exploring the local culture in more remote, less-traveled areas. In late July, my family met up in Red River, New Mexico, to attend a family reunion. I was back in D.C. for only a few days before my sister and I jetted off to Europe for a week and a half. We spent a few days visiting friends of a friend in Paris and then stayed in Zurich, Switzerland, where my sister attended a conference, for a week.

By the time I left for the August jaunt in Europe, I had already decided to take some time off from work in the fall. When I got back to D.C. mid-August, I had only a few weeks to finish up assignments at work and find a short-term renter for my condo before I began a 4-month leave of absence in September. After saying my temporary farewells to D.C., I spent a few weeks in Oklahoma with my family and finished last-minute preparations for my next big trip: two months backpacking in Europe!

In mid-September I left on my “odyssey,” where I traveled to six countries and approximately twenty cities, visiting some friends along the way but doing much of the trip completely on my own. What an amazing experience! Not only did it give me an opportunity to see and experience some amazing things, it also gave me some much-needed time to think about next steps in my life and reinvigorated in me a desire to travel and explore the world! Pictures from my trip can be seen at http://www.Andreas Odyssey.shutterfly.com.

Since late November, I have been back in Oklahoma with my family. We will spend Christmas and New Year’s in Florida with my sister’s fiancé’s family this year and before I know it, I’ll be headed back to D.C. in early January to partially pick up the life I left there.