Moving on up

Hi, as you may or may not have heard...I am moving out of my current house and into Eric's new house with him in St. Paul. Yes, the parents know about this and there have been several long conversations that have delved into the future, plans, etc, etc. So.....after talking about this a lot over the past couple months, we are going for it! The closing takes place tomorrow starting with a walk-thru at the house and ending with Eric signing his life away. And then the moving starts on Saturday afternoon. We'll be focusing on getting all his stuff done first, and then we'll start getting my stuff. I'm not sure when I'll officially be out of my place, but I did go ahead and change the address with the post office to start next week. I can email it out to people soon (not sure how smart it'd be to post it on here just in case some wacko hacker decided to pay me a visit).

Anyway, we are both really excited about this. I'm sure we will welcome visitors anytime!

Streaming thoughts before hittin' the hay...

It's Sunday night, and I still haven't decided if I'm going to work in the morning. I only have to work 24 hours this week, so I'm leaning toward not working tomorrow. Well...at least not in the morning.

Anyway, I'm tired but felt like jotting down my random thoughts that seem to keep going and going through my head this Sunday night...

1. I really don't like my landlord and can't wait to move out.
2. Went furniture shopping with Eric today for the new house (he moves in on Saturday!). There are so many options. It's fun and also overwhelming.
3. I love Indy. She's the cutest dog in the whole world.
4. Saw Ms. Petticrew Lives for a Day today, and it was a good movie -- very fast-paced and fun. Recommend it!
5. It is unnecessary for our air conditioning to be on right now. I am the kind of person who would be fine just opening windows to keep it cool until it gets unbearably hot in the summer. Then you should turn the air on. I wish I knew how to change our system, but alas...I don't.
6. My friend Ashlee is in China right now visiting her sister. I wonder what time it is there and if she's having a good time.
7. Which days should I fit in my bike rides this week?
8. Made it through the Badlands in my roadtrip scrapbook tonight. Hopefully I will have it all finished this week. Unfortunately, the first page's punch holes already tore open more so the page can fall out of the book. I guess that's what happens when you buy a scrapbook that was made in the 1930s or 40s from an antique store.
9. I went grocery shopping tonight, but I just realized I didn't eat dinner. Maybe I was just full from late lunch and then popcorn and candy at the movies. Breakfast will be had fo' sho'.
10. Eric and I spent Saturday night playing about 50 games of Mancala and drinking some summery beers. It was lovely. I know, we are crazy. We'll try to be more tame next weekend. I love that we are both perfectly content to do that.
11. My brother just got out of an icky relationship and is having a hard time. I hope he's okay.
12. Haven't seen Ang and Liam in a while. Hope to get over there this week for some quality time.
13. Indy is sprawled out at the foot of my bed right now. I'm turning in. Hope you had a great weekend!

I rode my bicycle past your window last night...

...Oh how I miss that song. I need to find the CD Stacy made me for Christmas and put that song on pronto!

Speaking of bicycling...I'm quite proud of myself for my biking feats this week. I rode my longest bike ride to date on Sunday: 60 miles in the hilly countryside of Wisconsin. We rode from Hudson to Spring Valley to River Falls and back to Hudson again. It was a gorgeous ride with lots of pretty countryside, beautiful homes and of course, lots of cows. I greeted the cows with a "hey cows!" everytime, and most times, I got a cow to look at me! Mom says I must have been getting delusional at that point, but I say, how the heck else am I supposed to keep my spirits up during a long ride? Yes, we had 11 other people along on the ride, but we all go our own pace, so I wasn't right next to anyone most of the time. I'd mostly just see the next person about half-mile ahead or behind me.

Today, I rode 55 miles with my friend Hannah from grad school. She isn't even training for the ride. She's just hard core. We rode from St. Paul starting at the Mississippi River and Summit Ave. down Summit to downtown, then connected with the Gateway Trail, which takes you all the way to Stillwater. Whew! I'm tired. Today's ride wasn't hilly like Sundays, so it only took us 4.25 hours (versus the 5.5 hour ride on Sunday). We were bookin' it! When I got home, I took a shower, took an hour-long nap, ate lunch and then came to work. Here I am working and thinking that I need to eat more before heading to my softball game tonight at 7:15.

Serious question for you:
When you work out, do you crave burgers, fries and beer during the workout or do you crave more healthy things like a sandwich?

I was definitely craving a juicy lucy from Matt's Bar while riding today. Maybe I can make that happen sometime soon.

So, I guess overall, my training for the Red Ribbon Ride is going well. I think I seriously just need to eat more when I'm doing these crazy long workouts. My fundraising is 99% of the way there, so that makes me happy too! I have 6 weeks left to train for the ride, so I think I'm in good shape.

Roadtrip photos

I got all of the photos online from both my camera and Eric's. There are about 200....yikes! Obsessive much? Hey, we like to document our fun and share it with all of you, so I hope you enjoy looking through them.

Click here to see the full slideshow.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Summer vacation

I am officially on summer vacation! This is how I have celebrated/will celebrate:

Finals, food, photo shoot:

I finished my last final on Saturday around noon. The other SLP girls and I then climbed up on the rooftop of Shevlin Hall (it's a low roof around the back of the bldg) and took funny pictures (I'll post 'em soon) to celebrate finishing our first year of grad school. Then we went to the Library (a bar, not a place with books) and got drinks and apps to celebrate.

A friend's wedding:

Saturday evening, I went to my friend Bill's wedding, which was very fun -- lots of good dancing, including "Shout," "YMCA" and my favorite of the night: "The Beer Barrel Polka." I think it's kind of a Minnesota thing to have polka music at weddings...probably a German or Scandanavian thing. Anyway, polkaing really is an aerobic workout -- I was breathless! Anyway, Bill and Valerie's wedding was really simple and nice -- it took place in a park with about 50 guests or so gathered around as the two of them exchanged vows and rings in a short and sweet ceremony. Then we all headed inside for food, dancing, etc. I've known Bill since 5th grade, and it is so nice to see that he is happy. P.S. Valerie made her own dress! She sewed it herself. All of it! I am so impressed with her. I have lots of pictures from the wedding and will get those up here soon as well.

Roadtrip!

To celebrate the end of my first year in grad school, I am going on a road trip with Eric starting this Wednesday. We're driving through South Dakota, staying overnight in the Black Hills near Mount Rushmore. Then we'll head down to Fort Collins, CO to visit Eric's friend from high school and his wife. After hopefully doing some hiking around there, we'll head to Denver to meet up with some of Eric's friends and my friend Sam and her boyfriend Bob. I'm looking forward to hiking, going to a Rockie's game and exploring the sites! We'll be meeting up with some of Eric's work clients as well. Then Monday afternoon, we'll probably start the drive back to Minnesota and aim to get home on Tuesday. Should be a great week! Check back for photos...

I love Indy

I spent about 10 hours today on campus working and then studying for finals. I felt bad being gone so long and knew I didn't have a lot of time to spend exercising Indy tonight, but I'd do my best to throw the ball around for a while. Well, when we were in the backyard playing, I just laughed so hard with her -- with no one else there but me and her. She is just so funny and spunky. I've been working on making her sit before I throw her tennis ball, and sometimes she's good at it and sometimes not so much. At one point, I kept saying "sit." And every time she heard the word "sit," Indy would leap into the air in defiance. It's a leap that starts with her front legs in the air, then the back legs are in the air, so all four legs are up and she's pretty high off the ground, and then she lands and looks like she has a smile on her face. She did this about 10 times in a row. This was exactly the kind of break I needed from studying. Ahhh.... what good therapy it is to just laugh with your dog. So tonight I am really thankful for Indy being so entertaining and sweet. Now, she's just chillin' on the couch looking out the window while I try to finish an essay test.

The new me

When Karin cut my hair last week, we forgot to do a "before & after," so she just took my picture alongside my pile o' hair. Look at it all! I had a lot of hair. It feels goooooood to have shorter hair again.

I brought this new look with me to my choir concerts this weekend. They went well -- and the hair was easy to do in only about 10 mins vs. like 40 with long hair! Anyway, the concerts were fun, and I got some good stuff at the silent auctions on both nights. I got a very cute picnic basket that I'm excited to use a lot this summer for $14 (retail value $25). And then I split a "diva" basket with Karin for $15 each -- I got a flat iron and purse, and she got a bunch of hair products. And finally, Eric and I got a "Let's Dish" gift certificate. I guess you go to the Let's Dish place and pick out two different meals you want to make. Then you dish up all the ingredients into freezer bags and you go home with that stuff and when you want to make it, you already have all the ingredients, spices, etc. Karin's done it before and recommended it, so hopefully that will be a fun thing to do, especially once Eric moves into his new place.

Here are some pictures from the concert Saturday night. The boys (Eric and John) were bartenders and got to wear TCWC "backups" t-shirts. How cute.

Photo opp

Here is a picture of me and my co-worker Ali with Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. (See my post below about my interview with him.)

Weekly news

In no particular order, here is a list of this week's events, goings-ons, etc:

• Got my haircut by Karin. It is super cute and super short -- shortest it's been in five years or so. It's at my chin in an inverted bob -- so longer in front and shorter and layered in back. I'm very excited that I didn't shower today and my hair still looks great. I'll post a pic once I get one.
• Have choir four nights in a row this week. Crazy! We had rehearsal last night for 2.5 hours, dress rehearsal tonight for 3 hours, and then performances tomorrow night and Saturday night. This weekend is our Divas and Desserts concert again (with shows on Friday and Saturday). Hopefully those few words that I have yet to learn will make their way into my head at some point before tomorrow's performance. We're singing 18 songs...memorized....that's a lot of songs.
• Wrote a paper that's due tomorrow.
• Took a quiz yesterday.
• Went on a 22-mile bike ride last Sunday. It felt great! I've been biking to campus whenever it hasn't been raining, so I'm really trying to get into some kind of training routine for the Red Ribbon Ride. P.S. Padded bike shorts are the best invention ever.
• Had dinner at Mom's on Sunday night with Eric, Rob and Justine (his gf). We had a nice little dinner with not a lot of drama, which is good for our fam when we're all together. :) The BBQ and corn on the cob rocked.
• Oooohhh....additional summer job has been found! My grad program matches us up with mentors when we enter the program, and my grad mentor (Carrie) is graduating this year. For the past semester, she's been working with a family who adopted four kids from Korea all age 4 and under. Two of the four kids need speech/language help, and Carrie has been going to their home and being a sort of nanny/speech pathologist all semester. Well, this summer Carrie can only do three days a week, so she referred me to the mom as someone who could potentially fill in on those other two afternoons a week. How cool is that? So I am going to go shadow Carrie to see what she does with the kids, and then as long as the family likes me, then I will be doing that two afternoons each week. I'm excited because a) I love kids and b) it's a combo deal -- I get to play with kids and be a kind of babysitter and I also get to earn some money and I get to gain experience in my field of speech pathology. So cool! I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.
• I just found out this week that I will be doing my first clinical practicum this summer at the Julia M. Davis Speech-Language-Hearing Center (the clinic in Shevlin Hall at the U of M where I have class, etc.). I'll find out more details next week on my caseload, etc. But that's exciting -- I get to start seeing clients this summer! Maybe even in a few weeks. I'm really hoping they train us well and don't just throw me in there with clients not knowing what to do! I'm sure they'll do some training, but I'm just saying....all of my other jobs have never involved really providing these kinds of services to people.

Liam Peter McIntyre

I got to go visit Ang, Pat and Liam in the hospital last Friday, and I told Liam that he is the cutest baby in the whole world. He is so sweet and tiny! Ang seems to be doing well. And they've started a family website, which I added to my links at the right. I'm excited to watch him grow this summer and play with him and Ang more once school is over in two weeks (yay! only 2 weeks!).