Carrie's Journal

6 weeks ago!

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:52:07 GMT

So I logged in and was told I last posted an entry 6 weeks ago. I guess time goes quickly (and the slow-needs-to-go-to-computer heaven laptop probably pays a part in that too- hopefully in August I'll treat myself to a new computer). Anyway we just returned from vacation. It was wonderful- in fact A was begging to stay longer and is already plotting our next trip. Who knew he'd love Minnesota so much.

Our trip had two parts. The first was my 10 year college reunion in Southern Minnesota. It was a blast and A survived- yes that's probably the right word. He had a lot of fun despite the fact it was kind of an insane 3 days- lots of new people, lots of drinking, and lots of staying up waaay too late, but lots of fun. Campus and town haven't changed much (other than the state of the art recreation center and a new dining hall on campus, and a _great_ fabric/crafty store downtown). We walked in the arboretum and saw the oaks I'd planted 10 years ago and the praries I'd helped clear and burn. We had iced coffee at the coffee shop I first started drinking coffee at- it hasn't changed at all and is still today in my head what a coffee shop should be like. Mostly though, we talked and talked with old friends and spent a lot of time outside. We slept in the dorm I lived in my sophmore year too. I also played a game of Ultimate with old friends- it had been 10 years and we were older and slower and rusty and got beat by the 5-years, but it felt so good to run on that field with my college friends.

Then, after brunch in Minneapolis - sorry it was so brief Val!- we headed up north to Lake Superior. After 3 days of pretty shitty food (Carleton is changing food service companies this week and I really think that the current company had given up and was cleaning out the freezers) anyway we made up for the bad food at Carleton by eating really, really well the rest of the trip.. We spent our anniversary stopping at state parks along the north shore and hiking. A was brave and swam in the lake- I was a chicken- it was cold (and also didn't have a swimsuit with me when he swam and there were a lot of families on the beach). The weather was cool and we really liked the lodge we stayed at- they had a lot of activities and we did a 1/2 day sea kayak lesson and another day they shuttled us for a long hike on the Superior hiking trail. All the rivers have really steep drops into the lake, so there are big waterfalls and raging torrents- it's really beautiful. There was also hardly anyone there- it's still kind of the off-season there and during the week, so we had the trails to ourself. I promise to post pictures soon, I hadn't downloaded my camera in a while and I had something like 250 pictures on it, I'm not in the mood to sift through them right now- I just biked 35 miles on the trail near our house and can hardly walk and want to take a nap (my first long ride in a long long time). I've committed to bike across the state next summer with my parents (who just rode across Kansas- again-.

\\\\\\]n o0ikm

Sun, 18 May 2008 16:17:44 GMT

I can't believe I haven't posted since spring break. Been busy I guess, and my computer is kind of on the verge of dying, so I really haven't been online much besides work stuff- which is definitely enough computer staring time right now for me. We're having good spring weather finally, it's been kind of cold and rainy so far this spring- farmer's market is proof, there isn't much besides greens and green onions right now.

I went on a very quick trip to Minneapolis a few weekends ago for my friend K's bachlorette party/weekend. It was good to see my college friends and meet 2 new babies. The excitement of the weekend (other than the SNOW in late April when we we're supposed to barbecue)was going to a Roller Girls Derby Bout- lots of fun! I went to breakfast Sunday with Val and we did a little shopping before my flight. It was great to see her and see her new place and neighborhood. A and I will be back in MN in June and will have to spend more time with V. A and I won't make it to my friend K's wedding- it's in San Diego during A's tennis summer camp (already scheduled)and my field season- which is pretty unpredictable since we're traveling at the whim of the fish (go where and when they spawn). At least I'm not tracking- those folks are doing 12-hour round the clock shifts sometimes to keep on the fish- for very little pay. They're working really hard. I already took the first two fieldwork shifts which were nearby here and Kansas City, so if I'm lucky I won't have to make it up to NE-IA, and SD this summer... we'll see. Other than that I'm pretty much chained to my desk with a cool but very messy dataset that needs to be in publication very soon. Lots of work, but it's interesting work at least.

A's tennis season is officially over. It was a really busy one, lots of weeknight and saturday matches. To celebrate we bought a treat with some of his coaching money- a big fancy (we'll it's not that big), but a very fancy espresso machine. It came the other day and we've had marvelous cappachino's (OK I don't think I spelled that right) this weekend. It's super easy to use and clean, and looks very cool and italian on the countertop. I love it- it's bright red to match the kitchen. I'm such a kitchen gadget geek... luckily we have a big kitchen with a huge amount of storage. I've been spiffing up the downstairs kitchen (mostly with older kitchen stuff that my mom gave me from her stock when I graduated from college and had my first kitchen). Next week for two weeks we'll have a Phd student from Canada staying with us. She's coming to collabroate with us at work. It should be interesting. I want her to have the option of privacy and a kitchen down there (for us too if we're busy) so I had to clean out and set things up a bit down there.

Other than that not too much going on. I've been working in the yard a lot, put an herb garden and a compost pile in, and am weeding out the flowerbeds and trying to decide what to put in the very small sunny strip we have. I am so excited to get a compost pile in finally, I've been feeling guilty about throwing away kitchen scraps (I know I'm a geek). The rest of the yard has to be shade tolerant. We have a lot of invasive honeysuckle to contend with in the back yard and I think I might be allergic to it. It's blooming and after a day in the yard I woke up with a sore throat and puffy eyes.

We're hanging out here for memorial weekend. A's got one last week of school after that and I'm still "on call" for mapping fish sex sites (no joke we had a radio in the field last week and Marvin Gaye's "Let's get it on" came on. It's a good to be the sturgeon lovin' theme song. We have a potuck down at the quarry- not sure it will be warm enough to swim yet though- the water is still cold!

Quiet Weekend

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:07:47 GMT

We had a great trip to Utah for A's spring break. He really liked the scenery and the weather in Moab. And all the stars- he keeps talking about how great the stars were there- and the fact he needs more gear for camping :). I've been telling him for ages that he needs gear but now he knows for himself so that's a good thing. A good fleece will keep him a lot warmer at tennis matches than a sweatshirt (he's been stubborn in the past about the cost; but a good fleece will last a decade.) We had fun with Sarah, Carrie, and Shan (and Notch and Ollie!) camping and hiking, and when they left we hit Arches (kind of a bad call- way too crowded- would skip it next time), spent a day in the Canyonlands Needles (probably our best day of the trip hike wise), and 1/2 a day at Dead Horse State Park before driving back to Salt Lake and Staying with Paul, Amanda, and Kaia (she's so cute- and is such a good baby!).

We got back from Utah and tennis season started immediately. I'm now a tennis widow a couple of weekends a week and a few weekends (this weekend included). It's been quiet with A gone, but I've gotten a lot done. The weather's finally gotten nicer- it rained most of last week, so I can run outside now. I've been doing more organizing in the kitchen this weekend. We moved in so quickly that things weren't set up the best way and the pantry had become a disaster- so bad that instead of looking to see what we had (canned tomatoes or wheat flour) I had gotten into the practice of just buying more- which then added to the pantry orgnaization problem. So I spent a lot of time sorting stuff and combining partially filled bags of flour and also bought a bunch of large mason jars and spent some quality time in the bulk bin aisle getting beans and grains and organizing them. I'm trying to cook with more whole grains and whole beans instead of canned and now that the pantry is organized and I can find stuff hopefully I will use them. My mom gave me a new cookbook "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" that's great and I've been inspired to cook with more whole grains. We're not vegetarian, but we only eat meat occasionally, and I'm trying to stick to meat sources we know more about. We have a lot of great local meat producers, and we're getting a chicken (dead, I don't think I could process them myself!) every two weeks this summer from a farm.

Other than getting things (my closet and craft room too) more organized in the house, things are pretty quiet for me. Work is picking up speed as we head into the field season, and I head to Louisville next sunday for a week of training for work.

Small Planet

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:04:26 GMT

So I'm in Nebraska City, NE this week for a Missouri River conference. I'm presenting the last talk on the last day (Thursday). We'll see if there is anyone there. The conference is at the lovely Lied Lodge run by the Arbor Day foundation. Too bad it is cold and snowy and I've been sick, so checking out the trails is kind of out of the picture this week. I just came frome the evening social and ran into Tyler H. from USU (saw him here last year too). He's in Montana working with sturgeon on the upper Missouri. Had a nice "good old grad school days" chat. He and his wife are doing well in MT and say hello to all.

A's been sick with the flu and then I got sick the end of last week. The three day weekend we had a huge swim meet in town again this winter and I got to see 2 world records broken and lots of very fast swims by very fast olympians- dozens of them. I really enjoyed watching it- especially seeing Dara Torres swim- she's 40 and currently holds the american record in the 50 free. She swam in the 1984 olympics and is swimming against people who weren't even born in 1984. How cool is that to see someone come back that big that old (for swimming at least). I'm excited to see them all swim on TV in Bejing this summer.

This weekend is quite possibly one of the most exciting weekends of the year in Columbia (for us at least) or at least the weekend we spend the cold dark winter looking forward to- the True False Film fest. A and I have passes and tickets to lots and lots of movies for a crazy documentary film bender weekend once again. I can't wait.

2 days in a row!

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:41:03 GMT

I'm going crazy here and posting two days in a row. BUT I'm on the computer tonight and wanted to say Happy Valentine's day, and I'm not in the mood to get on the computer most nights lately since that's where I spend my days.. glued to the screen and ArcMap, excel, command lines, and powerpoint. That, and tomorrow night is Project Runway night... and I'm a little addicted, I probably won't be on the computer.

So...
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! I had intentions in getting these in the mail, but it just didn't happen. I drew the design and printed them with my gocco and embossed them (which involved putting them in the oven!) to get the opaque effect.

AND... yes, Bea, the elephants are the Wee Wonderful's pattern from the book "Last Minute Patchwork Gifts" (I love that book- so many fun projects). They were much easier to sew than I thought they would be- the birds were kind of a pain because they are so small, but the elephants came together quickly and I love them. If you want to make them I advise you iron often and pin a lot. I had them in my office for a day the day I mailed them. I got some weird looks. A wants me to make one for us. I love how chubby they are.

AND

Here's one of the shirts too- this one came out the best of the three:

A says the fabric is very retro. He teases me when I wear it with the jeans I made (that I have to wear with a belt because the waist is too big) that I'm wearing my "homeade" outfits. I like the red buttons. I found a red velvet blazer for 15 dollars at an eddie bauer outlet that looks so cute with this shirt. Or at least I think it does, the rest of the world might be shaking their heads...

Have a happy heart day on thursday!

And now it is working...

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:39:11 GMT

Here's the print I did for the gocco swap. I took the original photo on cross country skiing on a trail near the house right before Christmas. Here's a two screen print of orchids. I printed a bunch of these on cards. I'm trying to be better about bringing my own bags to the grocery store this year so I made up a bunch of fun canvas ones to take. These are from a morel gocco print, and parsley and dill prints. And,last for today I have my "baby geologist" onesies- with trilobites!! I love the trilobite print, I want to make a geologist tote bag with them too.

Still Winter...

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:32:16 GMT

So we're in this weather pattern where it is (literally) 50 one day and 15 the next. It kind of sucks. That and we haven't had a decent snow storm since December, we only get these 1/2 inch or less storms so there isn't even any cross-country skiing to do when it is cold. A and I have been keeping warm with fires in our wood stove. He's currently down for the count with the flu.

I've been keeping busy this winter, I've been trying to learn how to bake bread, and so far have had decent results with french bread and with "Almost no-knead bread" (which doesn't really count because it's so super easy). Still though, it's nice to have fresh bread. We have a good bakery in town, but it's downtown and parking is a pain in the winter. In the summer they're at the farmer's market and it's just easier to buy fresh good bread. I've also been sewing a bit, I bought the book "Sew U" by Wendy Mullen and have had really good results with button down shirts and skirts, and am on my second try with pants. They look good but don't fit so right yet. Like all pants I find, I want them to fit in the waist (or waist-ish area), hips, and be the right length. So far I have 2 of the three. I can't seem to buy pants that fit either, but I'm taking the waistband out of the pair I just made to make it smaller and then I'll hopefully have the pattern conquered. I've also been making baby gifts. We had 4 friends have babies (2 girls, 2 boys) in December! I made them bibs, blankets, toy elephants, and trilobite onesies with my new gocco. That's been my other winter hobby. So far I've made a lot of cards, and printed on canvas, cotton, dishtowels, and t-shirts. It's been a lot of fun to play with. I also particpated in a gocco print swap and had fun creating a print for that. I'll post some pictures very soon. Right now I'm having problems...

Happy 2008!

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:32:26 GMT

So we're now over 2 weeks into the new year. Amazing- I actually had to look at my calendar twice at work today before I believed it was the 17th! Time has flown. Work's been crazy, but crazy-productive-crazy, which always feels better than the plain crazy it often is. I've done a ton of data analysis this week- so much that my head was a little foggy from it all this afternoon when I had to summarize it into an abstract for a talk at a conference next month.. and an informal talk I'm contibuting to on Tuesday. It feels good though- two hard years of data collection are coming together and the results are exciting and new and very publishable. It feels like the first time in a long time I've been really excited about science.

So A and I had a great break. Very relaxing- it was nice not to leave home and spend our first Christmas together in the house. His whole family was in and we did a bunch of big dinners, and our party on the 22 was a success. A's hoping for snow so he can use his skiis. He gave me exactly what I asked for, a Japanese screen-printing machine thing called a Print Gocco. He gave it to me a few days early because he knew I'd want time to play with it. and so far I'm really impressed what it can do- especially after individually printing Christmas cards with a linoleum block again- it takes so much time, with this little device I can whip up cards almost as quickly as it takes to draw the design. I'm especially excited about the applications for fabric printing- I have inks and an attachment that are designed for it and have so far had really good luck. I'll post photos very soon, I'm pretty behind in my photo-organization. I've been printing up fabric and making sewing stuff (bags, a sun hat, a fabric belt) with it though, which has been fun.

Other than the Gocco, A and I celebrated my birthday with a very nice dinner out and a quiet evening in front of movies and the fireplace. It's cold, cold, cold here and is supposed to be all weekend.

One more day at work

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:18:27 GMT

Until vacation! Yea! I'm taking Friday off, and M-W next week, then Mon and my birthday off. I'm working a little next week to stock up days off for future vacations. I'm ready for a break. Feeling a little burned out on computer work/data processing.. although I'm learning to program in python and run automated scripts to do a lot of the repetitive data processing steps, but it will be a while before I'm very proficient at it. J at work is really good at it though and is teaching me.

We're having a partyopen house on Saturday, so I'm going to spend most of time on Friday cooking- I haven't made any cookies yet this year. Not sure what our turnout will be as a lot of people will be out of town, and the weather isn't supposed to be great so some people might not to drive but we will see I guess. We'll at least have A's family, and they can walk over if they want. I actually got all my packages and cards out last week (due to the gift of 2 snow days!) and finished up the last bit of christmas shopping tonight (I was totally stumped on A's dad and brother, so they're getting smartwool socks. kinda boring, but they make great socks, so at least it's a functional gift and something they wouldn't spend money on themselves). With all the errands done (besides food and drink shopping and prep!) I'm feeling pretty relaxed and exctied for the next week. I've even wrapped everything and stashed it all under our tree, which looks great in our living room. The open house has been a good motivator to work on the house and get the basement looking better too. There were piles of boxes I hadn't touched since we moved in that are now at least cleaned up or stashed in a closet. A's getting cross-country skiis for christmas (which aren't under the tree yet as he'd immediately guess what they were). I just hope we get more snow this winter so he can use them. We got 6 inches last weekend and I skiied right out our door down the street to the trail and skiied the route I usually run. We live in a great location for skiing whenever we get snow and A's always a little bummed to see me head out to ski when it snows, so it should be fun to go together.

I wish you all could come to our party saturday... have a good weekend!

Ice Storm(s)

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:34:08 GMT

We've had some excitement- first, snow last week and then cold weather and rain and several ice storms. My office is closed if the schools are out, so A and I have had the last two days off. We're not 100 sure that there will be school tomorrow, but I HAVE to go into the office and put the finishing touches on our annual report. It's been a nice 4-day weekend though, I have to admit. I've not done a whole lot outside of the house other than a couple of trips to the gym, but I've been busy with Christmas Cards and present-making. That, and Saturday (it just rained, it hadn't frozen yet) A.G. and I went to St Louis to play. We had Thai food for lunch and went to the Rock and Roll Craft Show, Independent Holiday Art Fair, and of course Trader Joe's and REI. If we'd only had longer we would have hit the Body Worlds exhibit, and probably the malls and CostCo.... but there just wasn't enough time in the day. The Rock and Roll Craft Show was fun- I'd read about it on cnn.com. THere was a lot of cool stuff there, but a lot of it fit into the "I could make that!" category, and the line to see the jewelry was looong. I did pick up a few Christmass presents though.

I finally figured out how to post multiple images well, so here goes... hopefully this will work. Here's what I've been up to the past few months/ some house pics:

First, couch pillows: Log cabin couch pillow: Throw/quilt for the new couch: Stocking for A (and Petey): My stocking: Cube ottoman covers: Fabric on entryway closet (used to be wallpaper): Placemats woven from wedding silk table runners (there's also orange wedding silk in some of the throw pillows and showing up in a lot of the christmas presents I've been making that I don't have pics of yet): Closeup of second set of wedding silk placemats- these have a green warp. The white-warp ones are a christmas present for my mom. I made 12 total- 2 sets of 6, and I still have a ton of silk left! And last, pincushions:

um.. in the field again...

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:00:42 GMT

hmm.. lately it seems I post when I'm in the field. I'm totally due for a photo-heavy post soon too, I've finished a ton of projects for the house lately. Mabye tomorrow night if I am feeling ambitious. Tonight I feel a little drained from the cold and the wind and relaxed from the huge margarita I had with dinner. I'm in the field in Marshall, Missouri. Not so far from home, but far enough that it is not worth it to drive back and forth each day time-wise. I was worried it was going to be damn cold this morning, but it wasn't TOO bad, but still colder than I'd like. Last time we surveyed this reach (Mid-August) it was 107 degrees. Today the water was 5 degrees C and the air was thirties to forties depending on the time of day. Anyway the work went well, and we have either 1 or 2 days left. I'm checking out in the morning just in case we're done early, but it will probably take 2 more days.

We had a good break, we went to Kansas City on Thursday to meet up with my family and grandparents. We went to the new addition to the Nelson Art Gallery in KC on Friday (great- it's their contemporary wing and was fantastic!) and did a bit of shopping and a lot of sitting, talking, and eating. Saturday night we made it home just in time to catch the BIG game (big for this sports-obcessed town at least). It was the night of the rivalry game for MU-KU, but it also turned out it was a game for #1 in the country (I'm totally not into sports, especially football, but you see my parents went to KU and A went to MU and we live in Columbia so this is a big deal). Anyway the game was funny- A was so into it and yelled and screamed when MU did well and Izzy was sitting in my lap and kept leaping up and leaving the room afraid every time A got excited. (loud) MU won, which made A really happy. Sunday we pretty much just relaxed around the house and got some much-needed exercise. My sports excitement of the fall is that Carleton won an Ultimate frisbee tournament here a few weekends ago. There were 40 teams in town for the tournament, including several of the top from last year, so it was fun to see them win it all. It even made the TV news. I was a geek and went and watched them play a game against Colorado.

Productive Long weekend

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:31:47 GMT

It's been an eventful week. Last Tuesday a huge oak tree limb fell off a tree in our backyard in a storm and hit the house. It felt like an earthquake hit us. It was crazy. It hit and bounced off the house and fell on our lilac bush and some houseplants on our patio. A neighbor wants the wood so he's going to cut it up next week and haul it off... we don't own a chainsaw (yet) and bought wood for the winter last week, so we're glad he wants to take care of it, it's a huge limb- as long as the house!

A's been super-busy, he had 4 tennis matches last week, two were away. They had district this weekend and his #1 player won and is going to the state tournament this weekend. The team as a whole finished the season on a really positive note finishing second in the district ahead of several teams that beat them this season.

I spent the weekend painting. I actually had never painted a room before- since I'd been a renter for so long. I painted over the wallpaper that had been painted over and had bled through and was this weird faint jungle print that loooked like a stencil. Now it is off-white because we can't quite decide on colors yet for the living room. Big improvement. I also tackled the purple bathroom. It was a nightmare- it took three coats of paint to turn purple to yellow. It's much brighter and actually matches the floor tile color instead of being this odd dark purple. My sewing/craft/office room is still purple, but will eventually be a light blue. I've decided I don't really like painting, it's kind of a messy pain in the ass. So I'll get around to that last room eventually.

We've also made some progress/decisions on our living room. We've ordered a dark chocolate brown sectional couch, and I'm trying to decide what color to accent it (pillows, a chair cushion, and an ottoman I want to make out of foam and fabric). Either kind of a bright green color, blue, or orange. I kind of want to go orange and use this line of fabrics for the stuff I want to make- I love the print with the off-white background, dark birds and branches and orange berries and the orange wood fabric- and I like that it's all not too girly (unlike a lot of the other fabrics I like and might want to use but A might not like so much). Either way I'm ordering some of it! The green option would include this I think, or at least the top green pods fabric, if I can find it anywhere for sale anymore, it seems to be sold out most of the places I've looked for it online. I already made a bunch of green and brown cushions last year for our wicker furniture that could work with that print too, so it would take less sewing. Anything is cheaper than the fabric at the furniture store that I really wanted for throw pillows. It turned out to be either $150 a pillow (for a throw pilliow!) or quite a steal by the yard at $80 a yard. I could buy almost 10 yards of the Aviary fabrics for the price of one yard of the one (it was gorgeous- a textured brown and orange brocade with leaves and stems) at the furniture store. If I went orange I could also make a couple of pillows with the leftover wedding orange silk fabric. I have a ton of it and it's weaving up really quickly and look great, but they don't use much fabric. It's fun though, to slowly kind of think about what we want our rooms to eventually look like. I think it will be a while before we even think about the basement other than moving the old couch down there when the new ones come in.

Hmmm

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:14:36 GMT

Having computer problems.. everything is in slow motion. I'm trying to download pics from this weekend but things are s-l-o-w. I think my hard drive might be full. Time for new memory...

Anyway it was so good to see so many of you all this weekend. B and E's wedding was marvelous, B looked terrific, the weather was fantastic for a beach wedding, the salsa band was so much fun, and the food was good- especially the lemon poppyseed layer of the cake. Now I'm going to have to bring A back to Arcata for a visit (next summer?) I'm so jealous of the farmer's market too- so much variety and so many mutant veggies. Seriously, the largest beets, leeks, and apples I have ever seen were there. I have a little case of Arcata envy right now.

Things are good here, we've been figuring out our goals for the next 6 months or so at work, and A's tennis team is doing better. We went to a Wilco concert outside downtown tonight, A was a good sport and went with me even though he was tired and didn't really want to go. It was fun- a big outdoor block party. It's been a big downtown music month with the Roots and Blues and BBQ festival downtown the weekend before Arcata. Saw lots of free outdoor music that weekend too. That and it was nice to come home to our house and A and the kitties. So Columbia isn't too bad, even though we don't have beaches and 3 foot leeks.

Almost Friday!

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:27:47 GMT

I'm ready for the long weekend. It's been a long week at work. Today I had to take Izzy to the vet at lunch for shots. She was a total brat and bolted with I got the carrier out. I had to move the bed, the couch, the futon (on three different levels of the house- she's fast on the stairs!) and then finally chase her into my closet and close the door to catch her to get her in the carrier (which was also an ordeal- I got pretty scratched up). She hasn't forgiven me yet and is still acting skittish.
I had weaving class tonight and A had an away tennis match. It works out pretty well this fall, he has away tennis matches almost every Thursday. I'm finishing up a bag I started this spring that I hadn't worked on since before the wedding. After it is done, hopefully next week, I'm going to start placemats made from the table runners from the wedding (I'm going to cut them into strips- not sure how I'm going to weave them yet though, stripes or color blocks).
We had a lof of fun at the quarry dance last weekend, met a few people, and it was nice to walk to go out. I don't think I've done that since Utah. I drank a bit too much, but not enough to feel too bad in the morning, just enough to postpone my run for a few hours (I'm training for a 10 k in October). This Saturday night they're projecting movies on the quarry wall and Monday there is a picnic and neighborhood meeting. I think Monday morning I'm going to do my own little "quarry triathlon" and swim across the quarry a couple of times, jump on my bike and bike to McBaine on the trail (16 miles) and then run a couple of miles on the trail.

Tennis

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 22:56:21 GMT

and tennis and more tennis. That's what we've been up to... and I don't even play (so I'm racking up "good wife" points.). A started teaching this week and they had a home match on Thursday and we had a spaghetti dinner with the girls last week as well. Today A played in a benefit tournament for a tennis mom who has cancer. It's really sad, she's a wonderful lady. I worked shifts the t-shirt registration line and the silent auction. I think we're ending up with a year of coffee (or at least a pound a month) from a local roastery coffee shop and some gift certificates at places we eat anyway since I signed us up for a few items. We didn't stay until the end though, so if we're lucky we may have been outbid... we'll see.

Tonight will be tennis-free though, our neighborhood is having a potluck and "dance" at the quarry. It should be interesting. Hopefully we'll meet some nice neighbors. I'm dying to find someone in the neighborhood to swim laps with at the quarry, sometimes I'm not that excited about going down there alone when no one else is around. There is a neighborhood e-mail list and I've thought about writing in, but I figured I'd wait until I met a few people at least and asked around. I have seen people headed down there with kickboards before.

I went to the farmers market this morning and bought some daylilies for the house at the annual daylily sale. Orange ones of course... like the ones blooming at the wedding venue. Not sure where I'm putting them yet, but we don't have much yet in the way of landscaping and I'll figure it out. I also found out more about the "localvore" challenge that A and I are going to particpate in in September for a week. I think we're going to try 14 meals- 21 seems too daunting. I think we can do 14 meals with mostly locally sourced ingredients though (I think we're "allowed" to use olive oil and spices)- it's self policed anyway and you can go as hardcore as you want. The idea is just to think more about where our food comes from and about transportation costs to get veggies from South American and apples from New Zealand to our table. I just read Barbara Kingslover's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" so I think it might be fun to try for a week. Luckily the organizers have encouraged local resterants to also join in and have "localvore" entrees for the week(and published a list on their website of them) so if we don't feel like cooking we can eat out. Septemeber is a good month too because we get most of the summer veggies a lot of spring ones (like lettuce) start to come back and we can get local cheese, pork, trout, beef, chicken, eggs, and bread (most of which we had at the wedding too- we had a "Columbia-vore" heavy wedding menu.

I'll post links to uploaded honeymoon pics, Missouri River flood pics, wedding pics, and hopefully new house and quarry pics (right now the camera is not doing so well and the house is a wreck) soon.

Izzy is sitting in my lap right now and sends her love to all the friends and kitties out there.

104 degrees

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:16:13 GMT

was the high today- I think the heat index was 112. I'm in the field, in mid-missouri, far enough from home to make it not worth it to drive back and forth every day so we're staying in Carrollton, Missouri population 4,722. We've been in an insane heat wave for the past week or so, and it's pretty miserable to be in a metal boat on a river you can't swim in all day in the heat and humidity. Today we had a swarm of biting flies most of the afternoon also, so we were nearly out of our minds by the end of the day.

I was supposed to be here last week, but something really sad happened. My co-worker's wife died. It was sudden, and we don't really know what happened, but she's been battling depression, and was only 28. A bunch of us from work drove out to the visitation in St Louis last Tuesday night and it was very sad. I can't imagine what he is going through. It's weird, I didn't know her well, I'd only met her a few times, but I've spent so much time in the field with her husband I'd heard a lot of stories about her and knew so much about the plans they had for life (they we're trying to have a baby). It was a big shock to everyone.

So last week I was home and this week I'm away. It was nice being home, we had some friends over for dinner and swimming wedensday night, and thursday had a tennis team barbecue and parents meeting at the quarry. With the heat wave it was nice to go swimming after work. We went to see the Bourne Ultimatum on friday night- it's really fun. Lots of action, A and I both enjoyed it. Saturday I went to the farmer's market and A and I relaxed in the house. I finally have my craft room unpacked and set up so I can do things; I made a skirt out of some fabric I bought with my mom last weekend. Sunday we went to another movie- Stardust (we hadn't been to a movie in months and we went out to two in a weekend!). It was cute. Kind of like The Princess Bride, but different, and not as good. Sunday night we had a massive windstorm and the power went out. We woke up sweaty and miserable in the middle of the night and A had the brilliant idea of sleeping in the basement on the futon which was much cooler. I had to pack for fieldwork early Monday morning with a headlamp- our power wasn't back until mid-morning.

Back (again!)

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:21:51 GMT

So I'm back from the field (OK I have been for a few days). The boxes are ALMOST all gone/empty. I have a good deal of organizing to do still in my office/craft/clothes room, and the basement is a wreck, but the rest of the house is coming along. A's been off school (of course, it's summer...) so his areas are totally moved in, and the kitchen is all unpacked and looking great. Pics from the honeymoon and house coming soonish. I'm trying to deal with the massive quantities of photos and sort out the best- the LCD screen on my camera went out 1/2 way through the trip in Sorrento, so the pics from then on were taken old-school; no special settings and looking through the itty bitty viewfinder- so I took lots of photos hoping to sift later.

It's been bittersweet to be back at work- good to get back in a routine and be productive, but hard to get back into it after being gone so long and then in the field. Getting settled at home has helped and I've made it to weekday farmer's market to stock up on yummy veggies to cook with. Today I finally found the time to go for a run after work and topped it off with a swim in the "quarry" our neighborhood association's swimming pond. It was great after a run to swim in a cool spring-fed lake. A was playing tennis down there too, so that was fun. Last night we played Ultimate frisbee, and despite being out of shape, we both played really well and ran a lot too. A caught the winning point and each of us caught another point too. Our team is 7-1 which is fun- we're good. Last summer our league team had a record of 1-8 so it's nice to be on a winning team. Our team has a much more positive attitude than the team we were on last summer too.

We're baaack!

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:44:34 GMT

Whew. It's been a month! A week of wedding preparations, a week of working/moving, and two weeks in Italy! A and I had a wonderful time, and we came home to our new home and the kitties, and a fridge full of goodies (thank's to A's wonderful mom!) AND our wedding photos are now online- what a homecoming! Looking back at the wedding pics I wanted to thank those of you who made it for trekking all the way to Missouri and for all your help and support that weekend! Those who couldn't make it we wish you had been able to make it. I'll post a link to the massive directory of pics later, but the greatest hits are here:

http:/silverboxphotographers.blogspot.com/

I think that they did a terriffic job!

That's it for now- more details and Italy pics coming eventually- lots of decompressing and unpacking the house to do... and I have to go to Nebraska for work this week!

firenze!

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:11:52 GMT

greetings from florence. am on weird keyboard right now. honeymoon is going very well. lots of vino and gelato. we have a computer in the room for the first time right now. so strange to catch up on news. hope all is well!!

Have a safe trip to Missouri!

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:16:38 GMT

So I woke up early with a list in my head of the things I needed to do and I'm not doing them (e-mail photographer, brunch venue, change one of our reservations in Italy, figure out how many vegetables I need to order from a farmer's market vendor to pick up tomorrow...). I'm going in to the office to work a half-day today so I have plenty of time. We went out to the venue site yesterday and it looks beautiful. Much prettier than in March. The weather forecast looks hot, but not rainy, and evenings will be cooler. Andy and I are getting a little overwhelmed but it's all going to work out and get done. See most of you soon!

10

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:35:59 GMT

Days to go. We can't really believe it. A and I are in a litle bit of shock, but we're down to 10 days. Now we can check the 10-day forecasted weather (not that it's all that accurate this far off anyway, or that we can control or change it!) but it all the sudden feels like we're in this strange wedding-world time warp. I've had to put some of the tasks I've been slacking on into overdrive and I've been running errands in doubles and triples... yesterday I left work early for a haircut, dental appointment and consult with A's mom about what tables to put their side of the guests at. Today it was a dress fitting and coffee purchase downtown, and then a loong meeting with our venue dude, Barry, chat with the harpist, emergency run to Michaels to get more ribbon for a fun little alteration that I had done on the dress (you'll see soon!), picking up lightbulbs for the lanterns. Somewhere in there I'm managing to work as much as I can. I've been going in early and am glad I have all the overtime from working in the field this spring to use up. Today I barely made it to a lecture by a guy from the lab in AZ that works on Grand Canyon. It turns out he presented a lot of data, some of which I helped collect in 2000 when I was at USU! Small world... I even was able to ask intellegent questions and it was really cool to see such a huge longish-term dataset put together. Other than that, I feel like things are getting done. The long meeting with the venue dude was really productive and solved a lot of questions/unknowns I've been dealing with. Tomorrow I have to pester the bus people and DJ. We STILL haven't picked a 1st song either... but we have 10 days, right? We're starting to get really excited about seeing everyone, and A was a super sweetie and gave me an early wedding present (our wedding present to each other is the house) but today he gave me a gift certificate for a massage at this awesome spa I've always wanted to go to but haven't wanted to pay for. I can't wait- I'm going next Wed or Thurs.

Last week in Sioux City

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:33:03 GMT

Yep, Friday night in Sioux Shitty for work. Very exciting. We had a late late night out (til 8:30 pm..) and had 2 beers in the bar next door to where we ate dinner. I probably shouldn't because I've been sick. I started to feel bad Sunday and had to come do fieldwork anyway (or go next week instead and I have too much wedding stuff to do that week to be gone). Sooo here I am. It turns out there's an urgent care place next door to the hotel so I was actually able to go to the doctor here and get some meds the other day. It might be strep throat so they gave me meds. (I've had a really sore throat the whole time). The funny thing is the single room they gave me at a very generic days inn is the jacuzzi tub room with a king sized bed and a lot of room- for the work computers and my yoga mat. So that's not so bad, although we're still next door to a Culver's (really good frozen custard) and I've been trying my best to avoid the yummy frozen calories next door. I keep thinking about gelato in italy after the wedding. Oh and our hotel was robbed at gunpoint at 1 am the day we arrived. Scary. We're going home on Sunday and I am home until we leave for Italy- we're at the 2 week countdown til the wedding!

Busy.

Wed, 30 May 2007 01:48:47 GMT

So things have been busy. A's grandma has taken a turn for the worst- she has a pnemonia bug she picked up at the nursing home and may not make it. We visited her in the hospital on Monday it was very sad. It's hard to see someone in that much pain, just wasting away, and there is nothing we can do. She's so excited about the wedding too- she's been looking forward to it for so long, and it's just very, very sad to see her so weak and sick and helpless. She may not live 2 more weeks, or she may end up kicking the illness and recovering, the doctor doesn't know, but she seems to be getting good care at least.

Other than that I've been basking in the fact I'm at home and not in the Iowa/Nebraska/South Dakota hinterland doing fieldwork. I got back at midnight saturday night and have one week from today home then one more week of fieldwork and then I am home for good. Work has been busy, but catching up on paperwork busy, not really stressful busy, which is kind of nice for a change. We worked long hard 13 hour days in the field so it is nice to have some time. I actually had time to go for a run yesterday.

Today I had to meet with the cake baker for the wedding at lunch and go to A's tennis banquet for dinner. They gave him a tennis coach's jacket and hat. The season is officially over and school is out next week. Tomorrow I have a dress fitting and a meeting with the realtor about the house. Wish us luck.

Apparently a big misunderstanding...

Fri, 25 May 2007 02:31:20 GMT

So I have no idea how the rumor we were closing July 1 got started- somwhere beteen the seller' s realtor and our lender... but somehow our old closing date of June 1 and new date of June 11 got messed up to July 1. I'm glad I followed up on it because it turns out the seller had no idea either and the work started at the house already and everything is on track to close June 11. What a stressful stupid misunderstanding. I woke up at 6 am in a panic thinking "where are petey and izzy going to live when we're in Italy!?!?" I called A at 6 in the morning and ended up crying. Then I put in a 13 hour day mapping fish habitat on the river and luckily had cell phone coverage and the misunderstanding seems to have cleared up. The mapping was long but kind of fun- we had a "new" toy (to me) to use- sidescan sonar. It shows an image of the bottom and we saw some weird/cool stuff- tons of old car bodies, gravel bars, big cobbles, sand dunes, boulders, and several kinds of fish. Way more stuff to look at down there than we usually see in the river.

July 15

Thu, 24 May 2007 02:53:07 GMT

Our new closing date for some reason the work is going to take that long. I'm beyond getting upset about it- we can't control it and Andy is dealing with the realtor now since he's home. Not sure how this is all going to work... since we're flying to Milan on June 30. I guess we'll close on July 15 when we are home?... Not sure where we're going to put our stuff since we have to be out of our rental June 30. This is insane. I guess we'll start moving our stuff into storage the day after the wedding and I informed my boss today that I'll be using the comp time I'm earning right now that week. I'm a little pissed about it, but I guess we'll require the seller to get us a storage unit or something since we made our offer based on the house being available June 1. The good news though is we don't have to pay rent or mortgage in July so we can use the $ we'd spend in Italy. We're going to need it with exchange rates right now...