Hiatus

After an exciting and action-packed two months, we're back online. I can't believe it's only been two months since I moved away from Michigan. Things are going well and I love it here, but I miss everyone and everything a lot.

In the process of moving, job hunting, and other fun activities I've rediscovered my love for small and accomplishable projects. With Aaron's help I've organized closets, installed curtains, framed and hung pictures, and numerous other things. The week after we moved I spent painting three of our upstairs bedrooms. I was kind of under the impression that I could tape, wash, and prep on one day and then paint all three on the next day, but I grossly underestimated the time it would take and I ended up doing one room per day. Which still isn't too shabby. Colors went from dirty yellow to deep gray/blue in the bedroom, dirty lavender to dusty rose in the guest room, and this dirty white to a brighter olive green in the office.

My mom had the idea to build a desk out of an unfinished door from Lowe's and some table legs. I stained the door, and did an okay job of putting the legs on it. For about a month and a half Aaron and I shared an exercise ball as our chair until I asked his mom on a trip to Michigan if they had extra chairs lying around. Happily there were two unused chairs from Grandma D's house that had been gathering dust in the basement, so we can now both sit at the desk and spend hours gazing at the internet. The exercise ball moved to the closet-turned-auxiliary-desk space where I keep my (brand new and amazing!) sewing machine.











We've been cooking and brewing beer like nobody's business. The last of Kelly's Summer Wheat is almost gone, and we just bottled Zombie's Choice Pumpkin Ale. Right now there is chicken stock waiting to be strained and applesauce simmering in the dutch oven.

There was also a brief sojourn to Buenos Aires for Aaron's first conference, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology conference, where he gave a really good talk on mouse skin and nano receptors. I sat in the front and took pictures because I'm his #1 fan.

















I also have been job hunting full-tilt, which landed me as a part time sales associate at the Seasonal Cook. You can find me making sales, talking to customers about cookware, and helping with cooking classes on some weeknights. I'm also looking for a full time development position, and though I haven't found one yet, my hopes are high.

Charlottesville is about two growing seasons south of Michigan, which excites me beyond belief. I haven't really planned out my garden for next spring but in the coming month or two I'll head out and start digging around. The guy who owns the duplex attached to ours is named Vance High and he teaches at some university in West Virginia. He walks with a cane and kind of reminds me of and oldish Dana Carvey and knows all there is to know about the plants and flowers in our yard. It's possible that I'll ask for his help to identify what's there and decide what else to plant, but it's also possible that doing so will make him think we're bff's to the max and I'm not sure I'm ready to take that step.










This is our backyard and it's pretty baller, if I do say so myself. I also have two raised beds that we moved from A2 that we can put in the sunniest spots and fill with delicious vegetables.

Anyways, I'm back and I'm happy to be in VA with Aaron and settling into routines here.

I've got the magic in me / every time I touch that track it turns into gold

One week from today I'll be driving a U-Haul trailer through Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia with ALW and landing in Charlottesville. My last day of work approximately 4 weeks ago, and while I obviously need/want a new job, let's just say that this extended vacation has not been the worst thing in the world. It's been a bit of a whirlwind.

I spent a week at Horton's Bay on Lake Charlevoix with some family friends so close that it would be more accurate to drop the 'friends' and just call them family. Meals were cooked, books were read, games were played, and my abs ached from all the laughter. We tubed, swam, caught a fish named Louis and threw him back. I got a tan.

The following week was spent catching up with friends. Golf games, new babies, bike tours of gardens, strolling the Art Fair. My parents bought me a new sewing machine since now I won't be able to borrow my mom's. Curtains, pillows, mending, and obviously more T-shirt quilts are in the works. I even packed a little.

We learned that Jillian Drow, a girl who went to school with my sister and who invariably touched so many parts of the Chelsea and U of M communities, died when she fell hiking in the Grand Tetons. My heart still aches for her family. It's the closest I've ever come to praying, and they are never far from my mind.

Last week Brittany and I took a much anticipated trip to California (LA) to visit Jen and Jeff. This was more than just a vacation. My heart is lighter, my soul is happier, and I don't think I've laughed so hard in the past year. I got to spend a whole week with some of the best friends I could ever, ever dream of having. And I got to see other amazing friends and family, eat some fabulous food, and even ride a bike down Mansfield Ave. The sun setting over the foothills of the Rockies defies explanation.

Which brings us to this week. More packing, and more catching up with friends. My braces are finally, happily, off forever. I shared a carafe of Cafe Habana's finest sangria with my sister and her BFF. A decisive kickball victory last night rocketed the Notorious P.I.G. into the playoffs. On Monday, we'll start cleaning and packing the U-Haul and seeing still more friends.

I suspect the next month will be just as interesting.

Endings and Beginnings

After waking up at 5:15 this morning in Charlottesville to drive to Dulles to fly to Detroit to drive to Ann Arbor to work for 5 hours...I am tired. There is a weird buzzing noise and I'm not sure if it's because I'm sleep deprived or the only person on the 9th floor of Wolverine Tower or both.

Friday is my last day at work, and as I sort through all my papers and computer files that have accumulated over the past two years I have to fight through the urge to keep everything, lest I forget what I've learned since August 2008. I almost printed out my Outlook calendar in month format from 2008-present, then decided that was stupid.

I haven't had a smidgen of time to write or think or blog because my neck muscles tighten with stress whenever I think about leaving (work and Michigan) so I have to keep my eyes on the prize. The prize includes painting my new duplex that I get to share with my BFF.

Journals

Recently, my days have been filled with trying to wrap up at work (T minus 8 working days!) before my last day, doing stuff with family and friends, trying not to think about missing Ann Arbor and Michigan, and also trying to get a job in Charlottesville. Life transitions, guys, they're a lot of work. It's 90% awesome and exciting and 10% terrifying and sad, if you're into the facts and figures.

I also read "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan, which had me nearly in tears and up until 3 am last Thursday night, which I haven't had happen to me because of a book in a long time. Even though I don't have kids and am therefore not technically in "the middle place," it still hit home and made me want to curl up in a little ball and charge forward with grown-up-life at the same time. You'll have to read it to find out. Thanks to Jen for posting a video of her reading something about friends, which also made me tear up, which made me want to read more of her stuff.

Despite not updating the blog much lately, I have been writing in my journal in real-life. I'm almost finished with the journal I started right before college, which is a neat little wrap up, because I had two journals that I finished before starting college. Life stages = journals, very tidy. Never mind that there have been other mini-journals in between. This is important.

Okay, that's all. Oh also the website is still in progress. It has been pushed aside to focus on more pressing matters. Like moving across the country.

Thursday Night Experiment

In my 23 years, I have eaten quite a few cookie dough blizzards from Dairy Queen. That's why it's so surprising that what dawned on me on my stroll home from DQ tonight hadn't ever occured to me before.

Try making teeny cookies out of the cookie dough.

...think about it for a minute. I'll let you digest.

I know, right?! So simple, yet so unbelievably profound. I deliberately didn't search the internet before I did this to see if any other pioneering scientists such as myself have attempted this before, because if they have I just don't want to know.

What follows is my documentation of the process, which (spoiler alert) ultimately ended in failure and a nasty excuse for a cookie. Even if it was very tiny and therefore cute. But that doesn't matter, because it was exciting and what is life if not for some failed experiments, am I right?

Let's begin, shall we?

Step 1: Purchase and consume most (but not all) of a cookie dough blizzard. Make sure you take the time to carefully eat as much of the melted soft serve as possible because that's a critical step you don't want to miss.

Step 2: Preheat your oven to approximately 350 degrees, the universal cookie baking temperature.

Step 3: While pre-heating your oven, carefully rinse the ice cream you couldn't eat off of the cookie dough. This was my first hint that the final product might be a little dicey, because honestly this part was a little gross.

Step 4: Nicely arrange your small cookie dough balls onto your nice baking mat that your friend Britain gave you, who also was the one who walked you to the DQ and also patiently indulged you while you got excited about baking cookie dough from a blizzard.

What an adorable, innocent looking little ball of cookie dough!

Step 5: Remove from oven and experience a great disappointment. Unfortunately, the cookie dough is much, much more delicious than the cookies turned out to be. I should have known that when you take industrial strength cookie dough and bake it, you are essentially baking sugar and chemicals.

A close up of the nasty crispiness.

That is a mega lie, lady. No one could ever love the cookies born of this so-called "cookie dough."

Thank you all for listening.

It's official!

On Monday, Boss +1 sent an email to our regional gift officer team announcing my departure from the University (and Ann Arbor)!

My last day at the Office of University Development will be Friday July 9. Then I'm headed to Charlottesville, Virginia, specifically Cleveland Avenue, sometime in early August.

I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions but it's mainly a mega-excited happy rollercoaster with some nostolgic dips and sort-of-sad twists.

I don't get excited about shoes but...

I AM EXCITED ABOUT SHOES.

My dad has owned Jack Purcells for as long as I can remember. Two very ratty pairs are still in his possession, and I believe he thinks of them as "slippers." I have my own pair of ratty Jack Purcells, which he bought for me when I was in high school. The oldest picture I can find of them is in the fall of 2003, and they look kinda dingy there, so I'm guessing I got them in 2002.

Today I got a new pair. And I bought them from SAM'S, which is the best store around.