Sunday, March 25, 2012

This week started great and ended great. There were some rough patches in the middle (like, for instance, the entire middle, which I spent in Detroit), but that's how it goes I think.

The run-down:
Last Sunday we had a really good conversation about what our goals are and what we're doing and can do to accomplish those goals (thus the cryptic email). James is a really good man. I'm really glad I'm married (at all and to him). We have a lot of things to learn, but I think that's sort of the point.

Detroit wasn't actually bad at all. I did some presentations. I ate some delicious food. My customer team is awesome and the weather was *amazing*.

James got some good work done on his thesis. Go James go! It's been rough/is still rough, but I think we're getting some good momentum.

We had the missionaries over for dinner Friday. J made Massaman (his specialty. Very delicious.) And the elders are very nice and awesome. I'm a big fan.

Yesterday we went on a lovely run (separately because I learned to run by myself and because J eats marathons for breakfast which stresses me out). We run by corn fields and forest and cow pasture and lake. Wisconsin is crazy beautiful.

Not all the way ready for Monday, but getting there. The end.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Ideal blogging conditions:
Evening. Solitude. Headphones+tunes. An unpleasant and not entirely overwhelming task at hand. And here we are. :)

A story I'd like to tell: a friend of mine is a wonderful poet. She started writing seriously about the same time I did, but unlike me, she kept writing seriously through an MA and an MFA and a lot of applying to a lot of programs. And now she's on her way to law school.
And I think it's safe to say, even if she's reading this (hey there eg), that she isn't or wasn't, like, the kind of off-hand stereotype of a poet at all. Like, she's all business. Like she came to poetry via editing. Law school is an incredible fit and she'll be wonderful at it and if you would've asked me, when I first knew her, where she'd be right now I'd choose law school over poetry any day.
And both parts of her are important, and the one enlightens and brightens and adds interest to the other I think, in a really satisfying way.

The reason I'm telling you this story (which kind of isn't mine to tell) is because I've been feeling the tug of the inexorable lately and this story really brought that tug to light. I feel like on my way to getting where I want to go right now, in feeling out the way, my (our, now) path is swerving back to my beginnings.
And where a year or two or five ago I would've resisted this, I would've, maybe, applied for graduate school instead of sticking with teaching, for instance, or even moved to Salt Lake for a year instead of going on a BYU study abroad, I'm seeing something really sustaining and beautiful and firm and true about circling back, about shedding some of the layers--no, that's not it--because I don't regret the roundabout way I took--but, having the experience I do and having developed the perspective I have, I feel really ready to take on the roots of me. To start to embrace the life I was presented with 10 years ago and start living that life.

The end.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

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So, to start: I hear it's snowing in Utah. Here in the midwest, we've been enjoying freakishly unseasonable weather. We're supposed to get up near 80 this week. It's been wonderful: windows open, summer-dress wearing, barbeque-smelling wonderful. It will snow again, but for now, I'm basking.

Yesterday we celebrated the season by vacuuming, dusting, and washing the winter out of our little apartment.

We're also getting a foot-up on gardening for the summer (I get a little garden plot through work, and I'm anxious to get my peas in) and are pretty stoked for our (very small) basil starts:


Last weekend was a little more festive, we went out to Racine (about 2 hours east) with our friends Amanda and Frank. We were looking for good rye bread for Frank who's here for a couple of semesters from Denmark (Racine is supposed to have a huge Danish community). The closest we came was some sort of suspect (also some sort of delicious) pastry.

We also stopped off at a lighthouse on Lake Michigan. It was windy and a little chilly and a lot of beautiful.







Finally: Did you guys know that acorn squash came in *miniature*?
They do. And are adorable. And delicious with lentils.




Thursday, March 8, 2012

Bullet Blog

(Annie, I'm stealing it.)

  • Here are some pictures of our house:
The kitchen


 Our hallway!
 And the living room


 James is apologizing that it's messy. But it's a little messy.

We love our little place. It's two bedrooms above a mom, her boy, and their cat. It's little and cute and has some personality, and was redone by a bachelor with ok taste, so the carpet's nice and the kitchen's tiled and the walls are neutral. Sort of the perfect scenario. Oh, and the rent is good.

We live in the downtown-ish part of Mt. Horeb, just a block behind Main St. Our front door looks onto a little lane/alley that our neighbors backyards open onto, so in the summer we have great views of gardens and backyards (also parking lots).

  • We made this cool thing: 


What happened was that I fell in love with this upside-down planter and bought it on sort of a whim. When it came in the mail, it was much smaller than I anticipated, so looked a little funny just hanging by itself (a group of them would be very cool). Also James was worried about the integrity of our ceilings which, to be fair, are plastery and occasionally questionable). So we put our heads (and James' Christmas drill) together and came up with this. I like looking at it so much And what you maybe can't see is the way the bark nestles right up against the pine block. So polished-looking.

  • So there are recipes, and there are recipes. The first are good for, you know, a little out-of-the boxing and they're fine and whatever. On the other hand are those recipes that, like, change the way you look at food: like the time I made this Colombian chicken soup that had me mixing beef and chicken stock and cumin and thyme for the next year. Or this recipe. Dill and horseradish? Horseradish and sour cream? Why had this never happened before? In my mouth? We made them for Christmas dinner (paired with ham because I couldn't resist) and ever since every potato I eat has horseradish and sour cream and dill
  • Our house has a ladybug infestation. I didn't know this was possible, but these guys are all over the place.
The end.