Wedding #2

Before I lose interest in blogging again I wanted to post about Weddings #2 and #3 that I mentioned when I blogged about Wedding #1 - Amy's wedding last summer in Massachusetts.

Wedding #2 was that of my other Amy - a dear friend from college.  She got married on a warm October Saturday in Cincinnati.  I made this trip by myself, since Boyfriend wouldn't know anybody else there.  Amy looked gorgeous, and the wedding was loads of fun.  There were several small children at the reception who totally tore up the dance floor.  There was a kids activity table with a basket of games and little activities for them - which I thought was a fabulous idea - but they were all far more interested in the dance floor, with and without any adults.  The other fabulous aspect of the reception was the alternative wedding dessert.  Instead of a cake there was a brownie bar!  Amy's mom made a massive pile of brownies, and there was ice cream, whipped cream, sprinkles, and all sorts of goodies with which to decorate your brownie.

Amy was a fellow alto in the mass choir in college.  We spent many hours cooking and giggling.  Sometimes at the same time.  I've always loved one of the things she said about our friendship when I graduated.  Since moving apart, we may not talk terribly often, but it's the type of friendship where we can always pick up where we left off as if no time as passed.  There is always lots of news to catch up on, but there's no period of re-acquaintance if you will.  With how busy life gets I have to say I feel very lucky indeed to have such friends.  Amy is one of those friends I mean to call more often this year.

New Year, New Post

So it's been ages since I've blogged, but in the spirit of New Year's and motivated by one of my favorite women-making-it-work-in-science-with-a-family bloggers (seriously adorable little family and frankness that makes me laugh out loud and adore her all the more) I decided to post.

I'll warn you right now that this is a stereotypical post on resolutions and goals for this year.  Let's check up on last year's goals as we go...considering the one I bombed in 2013 is going to make a reappearance in this year's list...

Student loans!  They're paid off!!  I made steady progress on them for the first half of the year until summer when I started saving money for a trip to France.  In September I got promoted/hired as a "real person" with the same company I post-doc-ed (what on earth is the past tense of the verb "to post-doc"???).  Getting a real PhD job came with a substantial promotion, and as soon as I saw my first pay check I promptly paid off the remainder of my student loans.

My other financial goal was to build up a safety cushion of savings.  I actually got pretty darn close to accomplishing this, but then Boyfriend and I decided to buy a house... So there goes that money.  While this wasn't exactly a fail, savings are important to me so it's going on the list for 2014.  I'm aiming again for 6 months of living expenses, as well as some money for a certain pricey occasion.

Along with saving, I want to figure out how to improve my retirement savings plan.  I only acquired retirement benefits when I got hired in September, so all I've done so far is contribute the maximum that my company will match.  But this year it's time to study up on 401ks and Roth IRAs and HSAs and who knows what else to understand what all this stuff is and figure out how to do the most I can for our little family (Boyfriend is in on this goal, too.).

Now here's where I bombed big last year.  The self-loathing weight loss goal that 99% of way too many women (myself included) make every year.  I'll use Academomia's terminology here - last year I was about N+7 at this time last year, with N being my goal weight.  Frankly, right now I'm not brave enough to step on the scale to see how far I am from N.  I'd guess I'm at least N+7, and it's entirely probable that I'm as much as N+10.  Let's not think about the possibly of  >N+10.  I think after a week or so of normal eating rather than holiday and travel eating I'll be brave enough to see where I am.

One corollary that I had to that was to complain less about my weight.  I think I've been pretty terrible about this one the last month or two.  And in all fairness, I've been travelling at least 50% of the time since the beginning of November, and then you throw in the holidays and it's just incredibly difficult to eat anything besides junk.  I asked Boyfriend, and maybe he's trying not to get himself into trouble, but he thinks I've been pretty good about not complaining.  I'm going to declare a verdict of decent success except for the last couple of months.  Since I still want to lose weight I'm keeping this corollary on the list so I don't tick off all my friends and Boyfriend.

The hobby goals I made last year were to make another photo-a-day album and to go on at least one hike every month.  The album has been made, with a handful of cell phone photo cheaters in place of photos taken with my big girl camera.  I think I may shelve this project until I have kids.  Or at the very least a bigger social circle.  Between living alone, having a much smaller social circle in Baltimore than in Tucson, and living in a city where it frequently feels like a really bad idea to walk around with my camera this project wasn't nearly as fun as it was in 2011.  I did get some fun pictures out of it that I'm happy to have, but it felt like a chore a lot more than it should have.  As for hiking, we did great through at least July.  Maybe we went on a hike in August.  Sadly I can't remember.  Maybe we didn't go for a hike in August after how miserably humid and nausea-filled July's hike was.  In September we biked at least 20 miles in the Camargue and walked all over several other cities.  Once we got back from France we spent almost every weekend looking at houses...so hiking fell by the wayside.

The only other specific goal I'm going to make this year is to keep in better touch with friends.  There are a handful of friends who have the same gchat habits I do, so I talk to them pretty regularly, but there are a handful of other still very dear friends who don't leave gchat open all the time.  My goal this year is to call those people more than twice per year!

I've got a lot of big changes on my plate for this year - buying a house, moving in with Boyfriend, a transitioning job with lots of travel - so I think that's plenty for official resolutions.  I don't know that I'll begin posting any more frequently, but I'm not ready to close the door on this blog, so I guess I'll just have to leave you in suspense on that front.

Happy New Year! It's going to be a big one!

Update

Some of you may recall a certain sloshball incident... Well it's been just over three years since that fateful day, and here's what my leg looks like now:

Significantly improved, but still significantly scarred.

My Other Home

So I'm so behind in blogging that three months later I'm getting around to writing about going to St. Louis for Little Brother's college graduation.  It was mostly a really nice trip, and I'm always happy to go to St. Louis.  I love St. Louis.  I loved my time there.  It's such an under-rated city.  Little brother still lives there, along with Dad's side of the family, and one of my college roommates.  I can't wait to back for Wedding #3 in December!

I mostly took photos of family and graduation stuff, so not a whole lot to share, but here are a couple shots.

Ted Drewes.  Amazingness in a cup.  It's right on Route 66, and it's pretty much a St. Louis icon.  Grandpa (mom's dad, who lives in Connecticut, not dad's dad who lives in St. Louis) thought it was crowded.  The crowd that night hardly counted as a crowd.  After a Cardinals' game it's nothing short of a mob scene.  Ted Drewes is an essential stop on every trip to StL.

Those of you who have lived in mid-town St. Louis may recognize this UFO-like building.  Though you may not, as it is now far more classily (Yep, made that one up.  Standing by it.) occupied than when I was in college.  At that point it was a Del Taco.  And I never once in 4 years ate there.  It was a shady, shady place.  Now the university has bought the apartments behind it, and it's much more respectably occupied by a Starbucks and a Chipotle.  The flying saucer has come so far.

Time for a tangent.  My dorm freshman year was directly across the street from the above flying saucer, somewhat separate from the rest of campus.  The road was a really busy road, and we were just south of a large and apparently confusing intersection.  Accidents happened all the time.  The former Del Taco makes me think of one of the dumbest accidents I've ever seen, which happened right in front of it.  There's a light there, and a school bus - you know, giant, bright yellow vehicle - was stopped at the red light.  I was walking up the street towards campus when I heard a crash behind me, and I turned around to find a vehicle had rear ended the stopped school bus.  I don't really remember, but I think it was a jeep.  It's entire front end was smashed into the back of the bus.  We're not talking little fender bender from somebody creeping forward at the red light.  How do you miss the GIANT YELLOW BUS stopped in front of you??

At commencement all the faculty in their academic regalia process in before the students.  Check out the guy in the middle of the photo below.  It's Dumbledore!  Apparently he teaches at my old college - he didn't die in Book 6 after all!  After the ceremony we were chatting with a professor (actually a Jesuit priest who lived in the same dorm I did my freshman year) who was a contemporary of my parents when they were all students at this same college.  Dad asked him who Dumbledore was (literally, that's exactly what he said), and this professor thought about it for a few minutes, and said he teaches in the theology department.  On that description alone, he knew exactly who he was.  Priceless.

While in St. Louis I got to hang out with my college roommate (the bride in Wedding #3 this year - and I'm seriously excited for that wedding!), and she and her fiance just got the cutest little puppy.  He's adorable, and super photogenic.

I just love St. Louis.  Only 4 1/2 months until I get to go back!

Happy birthday Little Sister!

Today is Little Sister's 19th birthday!  I will take this occasion to suggest that you browse through the Little Sister label to relive some of her finest moments, which are obviously documented on my blog. :)

Happy birthday, Little Sister!

Wedding #1

So I last left off the 4th of July weekend/wedding/stomach bug saga with the hike up Mt Greylock and heading to Gloucester for Amy's wedding in a puke-free state.  This was wedding #1 for the year, with weddings #2 (my other Amy, in Ohio in October) and #3 (my other college roommate, in St. Louis after Christmas) later this year.

We got to Glouchester around lunch time, and were able to relax for a while before the wedding.  Unfortunately it was about 95 degrees with 95% humidity (and I'm really only just barely exaggerating - it was awful).  The wedding was outdoors in late afternoon.  I literally had sweat running down my legs.  The ceremony was very nice, and it was really neat how they wove their love of travel throughout the ceremony and the reception.

They had the best food I've ever seen at a wedding.  They had a salsa bar and sangria during the cocktail hour.  Dinner was three stations from three countries.  New Zealand (where they met) was a lamb roast with the most delicious mashed potatoes I've ever had.  Italy was classic pasta and antipasto.  Greece was pita and hummus...and stuff I don't remember...because I only ate about 3 bites of dinner before feeling so miserably sick again.

I felt so awful that I had to go back to the room - Boyfriend was so super sweet and came with me, abandoning his dinner.  Neither of us could believe how distended my stomach was.  Boyfriend zipped me into my dress with no difficulty, even with a bit of room to spare.  Plenty of room to be comfortable.  By time we got back to the room I could barely breathe in the dress.  The weird thing was, without actually getting sick sick, about an hour later I felt ok.  Not good, but good enough to go back and get some more for Boyfriend to eat and at least say goodnight to Amy.  While Boyfriend had some dessert (pavlova! so much better than cake!) I gradually felt better and better.  I can't explain it, but I wasn't complaining.  We would up staying for the rest of the reception, though we skipped the after party.

Believe it or not, the stomach woes weren't over.  Boyfriend woke up sick the next morning.  It was pretty crummy timing since we had to drive back to Pennsylvania that day.  He stayed behind while I went to brunch, and fortunately he survived the drive home without being sick (in my still quite new car!).  By Monday he felt tolerable, and back to normal by Tuesday.

It was definitely an up and down holiday weekend, but the wedding was lovely and fun.  Amy's one of my oldest friends, and her mom's been one of my extra moms for ages.  Amy was a year ahead of my in school, and I met her playing softball in the town summer league.  I believe we introduced ourselves when I slid into her at second base. :)  There were a couple of years where we played year round, with indoor practice at a the batting cages during the winter.  After winter practices we always went back to her house for ice cream and Dawson's Creek (yep, judge away).  My senior year when Amy had gone away to school, I still went over to her parents' house on Wednesday nights for ice cream and Dawson's Creek.  I can't tell you how happy it made me to see Amy so happy.  In every photo I took of Amy she had a giant, beaming smile.  I actually I tear up a little every time I think about how completely happy she is and seeing that enormous smile on her face. :)

New lens!

I got a new lens to play with today!  I've been hemming and hawing over a 50 mm f/1.4 lens for ages now.  I almost pulled the trigger after Christmas and didn't.  Honestly I don't really remember why, obviously financial, but I don't remember what it specifically was.  Maybe wanting to pay off student loans (down to about $1200! so close!)  Boyfriend and I are taking a big trip next month, and I really wanted this lens for that trip.  Seems appropriate since it was another trip that motivated buying my DSLR in the first place.  I've only spent a few minutes playing with it in my apartment, but I can already see a huge difference in low-light photos with the wider aperture.  Yay new toys!