And...Re-start.

For the past several months, I've felt like I'm in a get up-work-go home-eat-sleep-repeat rut.  I tell myself that I have nothing worthwhile to blog about, and therefore I don't write.  This is bad, and in reality it's just not at all true.  The fact that life if more of a routine than it was during college does not in any way, shape, or form mean that it's less interesting.  And while it is true that much of my time is spent at a desk each day, there's a lot of life that happens outside of work.  For example, here's a list of things that I haven't blogged about and should have over the past several months (in no particular order):

1. At least four business trips to places I've never been to before.

2. The fact that Potomac, Maryland has the most enormous mansions.  And a Tesla store in the mall.

3. The gardening project on my office's windowsill (I'm now a gnat-killing ninja).

4. Downhill skiing after not skiing for over six years.

5. Buying a wedding dress.

[No picture available due to pre-wedding secrecy.]

6. Traveling to Milwaukee to see a Tolkien exhibit in two days.

7. Hiking in the rain in New Hampshire.

[The view from the top.]

8. A trip to the Grand Cayman.

9. Making new friends from work.

[Well, I guess I don't have pictures of said new friends...yet.]

10. The gloriousness of crock pot cooking.

[Yet another thing I didn't take a picture of.]

11. My new-found obsession with NPR.  (I'm the nerd with the NPR app on her phone...)

12. 2013's goal of trying several new restaurants in the area.

13. Not-so-small brother heading to college.

14. Oh, I don't know...planning a wedding.  Obviously not a big deal.

[There is no picture.  We're too busy emailing people.]

15. Getting engaged.  (BOOM.  DONE.)

[This photo is actually two years old.]

So clearly, my imperceptive view that nothing exciting happens anymore is a total and complete lie.  College does lend itself to random, exciting, blog-worthy activities, but college ended more than two years ago - and for crying out loud - my life is just as good (if not better) than it was then.  So in short, I am without excuse.  The no-internet-in-my-apartment thing is just a cover.  If I'm going to "suck the marrow out of life," as Kelle Hampton is fond of saying, then I better start recognizing the fact that everyday life is worth capturing.  I've said it before, but I think there's a good chance of succeeding this time: it's time to bring this blog back from the dead.  I might even give it a fresh coat of paint.  Here's to 2014 - the year of weddings, blogging, adventures, and the beauty of the routine.

In Which Will Be Found Dessert and Pumpkins

Sunday was full of adventures.  No Sunday would be complete without going to church, so that's where we headed first.  Except instead of going to our regular church, we went somewhere else for the sake of variety.  We went to a place where psalms are sung, descants are added to almost every hymn, and the service is almost two hours long.  It was great.

After church, we headed to have a cinnamon roll/pumpkin carving...festival? with some of our friends.   Since you can never have too many cinnamon rolls, we decided to make two different kinds.

Verdict: no two cinnamon roll recipes are the same.  However, both were fantastic and almost produced four sugar-induced comas.

To counteract the sugar, we moved on to pumpkin carving.

In order to carve the pumpkins, we needed to have pumpkins to begin with.  When you're a kid, picking out pumpkins to carve is great fun.  When you're a young adult, picking out pumpkins to carve should still be great fun.  When you're a young adult and the wind is blowing hard and the rain is falling steadily, picking out pumpkins becomes more of an adventurous chore rather than great fun.  I would have taken a picture of that particular event, but it was too blustery outside to attempt to break out the camera/phone.  Instead, I will leave you with a picture of our finished products:

(Obviously, the glowing letters are the feature of that picture.  Writing by trackpad is not my strong suit.)

And so we departed in peace, full of cinnamon, sugar, and butter and thoroughly covered in pumpkin.  Sunday well-spent.

Post Script: we briefly considered making this, but it seemed a little outside of the scope of both our abilities and our little carving tools:

How I Nearly Burned Down My House

You may have heard of a hurricane around these here parts.  If you didn't hear about it, you may either a) have no connection to the outside world, in which case you're not reading this, or b) live in a foreign country.  However, my parents living in Vermont had to stream live coverage of the hurricane from an Australian station, so my guess is that option b is out.

Moving on.

The hurricane didn't cause anything too catastrophic around here, but it did cause me to lose power at my apartment for several hours.  Which leads me the point of this post: how I almost lit my house on fire.

I quickly realized that I was going to need some light if I wanted to stay up past 6:30 last night.  At first, I lit my candles and left them in the kitchen, but quickly decided that I'd rather hang out on my bed under my blankets (no heat!) rather than at my kitchen table.  I put two votive holders on my desk and window sill, and I put a glass jar candle on my dresser.

The lighting was lovely.  It almost made me wish the power went out every night because it felt cozy.  I read for awhile, talked to my mom, and watched the flame in the glass jar get progressively higher.  Suddenly (after a good hour of candle-burning), I realized that I had left some pajamas next to the candle, and as the flame got higher it was getting closer and closer to the flammable material.  

I approached the dresser.  I touched the side of the glass.  My finger burned!  I blew out the candle.  I grabbed the pajamas and tried to pick it up...but it had fused itself to the dresser.

Thought process: This is not my dresser.  I've ruined the dresser.  It's so hot.  I need a potholder.  ::grabs potholder::  Ah!  Hand is burning through the potholder!  Must put candle in non-flammable area!  Run to the sink!  Put water on super heated glass jar!

Had I thought this through, I would have decided that putting cold water on a very hot glass object was a bad idea, but I wasn't thinking about the jar so much as I was thinking about burning the house down.  Naturally, the jar cracked as soon as it touched the water.  Awesome.  Judging from the state of the jar though, I decided it didn't matter.

The dresser, however, still had a nice ring of melting resin.  I grabbed my now-wet kitchen sponge and put it on the spot...which immediately started steaming.  For your general knowledge - seeing a solid piece of wood steam is not a comforting thing when you know all emergency vehicles are occupied with the massive hurricane and widespread power outages.

There's really nothing after that, so sorry for the anti-climactic ending.  But just so that you know it really happened, here's the candle:

Happy Tuesday.

Visiting Zeke

When people get married, the bridesmaids need dresses.  When your best friend gets married and you're her maid of honor, it turns out that you need to buy a dress.  When your best friend who is getting married lives in Rhode Island and her dresses come from there, you have to find a place to measure you, call the RI dress shop, and order a dress you've never seen in the right size over the phone.  You'd think this would be straightforward, right?

WRONG.

As it turns out, getting your measurements taken is a very complex process.  I briefly consider doing it myself, but being the untrained seamstress that I am, I might end up getting the measurements incorrect, and ordering a dress that you've never seen is not the ideal time to have incorrect measurements.  I decided to make Zeke the tailor my first resource.  Remember Zeke?  Yeah.  Zeke is the greatest Turkish tailor that you'll ever meet, but he doesn't know women's sizes and therefore can't take measurements.  At least this is what he tells me.  And because he's Turkish and awesome and since he usually makes men's tuxes instead of women's gowns, I believe him.  Plus he gives me a recommendation for another place.  That's a good tailor right there.

My next stop is French's Bridal.  I figured hey, they're a bridal shop.  They have to take measurements all the time!  Plus, at one point Meghanne and I had gone there to peruse wedding dresses.  Will they take my measurements?  No.  They "used to do that, but they messed up a few dresses for other stores and so they don't do that anymore."  What?  You sell and alter wedding dresses for your career and you messed up three DRESS measurements?  My business = lost.  

I'm beginning to think that I should just take them myself, since none of these places seem capable of measuring waist, hips, and bust.  (Ooo, I just said "bust" online.  Awkward?)  As a last resort, I head to the place that Zeke recommended.  The floor is dirty and the whole place smells like cigarettes.  Gross.  I almost walk out, but they've seen me already.  Since the place is also a dry cleaner's, I think that my chances of success are slim.  

"You don't happen to take dress measurements, do you?"

"Oh, of course we do!  Just wait over here, and Rosalie will be right with you!"

Wonder of wonders!  Miracle of miracles!  The dress measurement process has been redeemed!  After Rosalie whips out here measuring tape and wraps it around me a few times, she writes the numbers on a post-it, tells me it's no charge, and sends me on my way with a "Have a nice day!"  

Moral: if you know that Zeke the Turkish Tailor is awesome, don't try your own judgement before taking his advice.  He knows what he's doing and you most certainly do not.

Washington! Whistler! Adventures!

As it turns out, Washington state and Whistler, BC are two fantastic places.  Here's the pictorial overview of our trip:

Today's Tacoma Narrows Bridge:

(The replacement for the one that collapsed in 1940 - things get interesting around 3:15)

Lavender sold at the Public Market in Seattle:

Kayaking on Hood Canal:

Canadian mountains!

The Whistler Inuksuk (also referred to as "the stone guy"):

ZIP LINING.

More mountains:

I would be a neglectful blogger if I failed to mention that we ate at Arby's...multiple times.

And finally, what would a trip to Seattle be without a sideways picture of the Space Needle?

Specific stories to follow.

On New Things and Sea Monsters

Ok...ok...so...I forgot about blogging for awhile.  But I promise I had legitimate reasons!  Although that doesn't mean much coming from me.  Judge for yourselves:

A) I moved.

B) I started a new job.

C) I gained a boyfriend (Google-suggested synonyms include "beau," "heartthrob," and "honeybunch." Awkward.)

All of the above are marvelous.  Fantastic.  Splendid.  Terrific.  You name it.  But that's not why I'm writing tonight.  While I'm sure they will be expounded upon later, tonight I want to talk about something important.  Historic, if you will.  Drumroll please....


THE KRAKEN.


Yeah.  I bet you didn't see that coming.  Ha.

On the way back from tonight's spontaneous journey from work to Pinkberry (rush hour + Friday night = poor planning; don't try this at home, folks...), I took a break from the classical station and turned on NPR.  I learned that there are fossils of nine ichthyosaurs, each about 45 feet long, lying in a Nevada valley, bones arranged in a peculiar order, with no particular explanation.

[source]

The paleontologist on the radio came up with a hypothesis, based on the bones' positions, that these fish-like dinosaurs were killed by what could have presumably been the Kraken, evidently an ancient ancestor of the modern-day octopus.  (Side note: in Britain, it's pronounced KRAAAY-ken instead of KRAAAH-ken.  Who knew?)  If you're really curious, you can read all about it or listen to the entire broadcast here.

I, of course, being the nerd that I am, sat in my car for an extra five minutes after I got home to hear the end of it, and then ran inside the new house to research it for the next half hour.  Let's be serious.  What else would I do with my Friday night?

Lately

I have been failing on the blogging front as of late. It isn't because I've had nothing worth writing about. Not at all.

I could have told you about how I moved away from the spot I called home (away from home) for the last four years and how it somehow felt a little like graduating all over again.

I could have told you about I went to Pinkberry again with roomie dearest and discovered that they had resurrected pomegranate, which - you may be of a varying opinion, but I don't care - is the best frozen yogurt flavor known to mankind.

I could have told you that I started working at a new job with marvelous people...(but it's probably best to keep work away from blogging).

I could have told you - since we're on the subject of people - how much I value good friends, spontaneous adventures, good conversations, and the beauty and blessings associated with all of the above.

I could have taken a literary jaunt and described how my rediscovery of the glory of libraries had me pondering the power of the written word - how authors take language and twist it masterfully until I no longer see words on a page but become swept up in some fantastical adventure. Or maybe how I wish I was gifted enough to weave together stories of my own.

I could have told you about the (cheater) cookies I made (from a mix) or the obscene number of times I found myself waiting in line at Panera, asking for a chai latte, a chicken caesar sandwich, or a chocolate chip cookie.

I thought about writing about each one of those things at one point or another, along with a long list of other things. But somehow, the doing of all those things got in the way of the writing about all of those things. And honestly, while I love documenting, describing, and detailing, I think it's better that the doing outweighs the writing. Don't you?

MA vs. VT

New fave picture from home.


Nothing in Mass can beat the superiority of VT cows.

Miscellaneous

Today was a great day...for my inner child.


I sat on a rock wall and read 80 pages in under an hour.

I wrote a 3-page letter.

I met a nice person.

I sang along with some classical music I didn't know.

I ate ice cream.

I laughed at unimportant things.

I skipped and ran across a field.

I hung out with a lovely friend.

I explored new places.

I walked on a guardrail.

I did two cartwheels.

I scaled a rocky cliff.


Who says I need to grow up? (Although I did apply for yet another job today. Yay.)

Hurrah for spontaneity and good friends.

Opportunity of Wonderful

Maybe you were not as interested in the Royal Wedding as I was, but regardless of whether you got up at the crack of dawn to watch it or not, you should find it interesting that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are visiting Canada between June 30th and July 8th.

Better yet, they're stopping in Montreal, which, as we know from last year's escapade, is not so far from my house.

Conclusion: since a possible trip to Montreal was in the works anyway, we need to go over the first weekend in July.

(Because who would pass up an opportunity to see foreign royalty/the world's most famous couple in person?)


[souce]

Jour de Boston avec Sara et Moi

I love it when normal plans turn into great adventures, don't you? I mean, there was that one time when Diana and I went on an errands run and it morphed into a grand day of exploring. It was the best day ever.

Today was a day like that.

Sara and I have been friends since 4th grade (ish), so we have a lot of adventure stories. Usually when we get together, it involves baking things. You can learn all about our baking adventures here, here, and here.

While our expedition today did indeed involve food, we didn't actually make it ourselves. Weird, I know.

This picture isn't from today, but I've put it here anyway to make you jealous. I'm nice like that.

Sara had never been to Pinkberry because she went to Wheaton out in the faraway land of Illinois, so this was new for her. It was thoroughly enjoyable for both of us, because...let's be honest.

WHO IN HIS OR HER RIGHT MIND DOESN'T LIKE PINKBERRY??

Right. No one.

In any case, we finished our glorious frozen yogurt topped with mochi, chocolate things, waffle cookies, and (in Sara's case - remember how I don't like fruit?) pineapple. Then we had to go find Sara's car.

As previously mentioned, Sara has lived in the faraway land of Illinois for the last four years and therefore doesn't know where things are around Boston. Totally understandable. However, I'm a little weird and I absolutely love driving in the city. I know pretty much the musical area of Boston, so finding an obscure street in Charlestown was going to be a challenge. Especially since both of us are from Vermont and therefore don't think to bring or even own a GPS. Go figure.

(My camera is currently elsewhere. I'm putting in random pictures of Sara and me right here so you get the general idea of us.)

This is already long enough so I will give you a very brief (written) snapshot of what went down next: Figure out where we need to end up. Take 93 North. Take correct exit. Unfamiliar territory. Turn around. Realize we don't want to pay the $3.00 Tobin Bridge toll. Get off at a random exit. Turn into a sketchy area. Lock car doors. Drive in circles in the general direction of the Tobin Bridge. Find a road that leads to 28 South which joins Storrow Drive. Find Route 1 South. Find correct exit. Find where we need to go. Elapsed time: 45 minutes. Stop signs ignored: 1. Mom-arm flinging: 1. Missed exits: 2. Times we were actually lost: 0.

We decided that getting turned around in Boston is fun. Somehow, that seems paradoxical to me.

Where I'd like to be right now...

I would give anything to be back here right now:


where they have stuff like this:


and this:


and this:


There are ancient places to worship:



hidden among cobbled, windy streets:


and even the police officers are friendly:



Unfortunately, in order to do that I might have to go back in time.

Planting Parties!

Michelle and I were the first two back from spring break today. Ok, so I technically never left, but still. You get the point. Originally, we had no plans for epic adventures. I got back around 1:30 from church and lunch at American Flatbread (hot dang, that stuff is good!), and Michelle suggested that we go grocery shopping, so off we went. We got all our groceries, and as we were heading to the checkout, we found seeds, and an amazing afternoon was born. I got some flower seeds - Alyssum, to be specific - and Michelle got some basil, but we soon realized we had nowhere to plant them UNTIL we both discovered we were buying yogurt. EUREKA! Dump the yogurt into another container, and you have a plant pot. What excitement!


Upon our return to campus, we decided we needed to get some dirt, because you can't plant seeds without it. Problem: no shovel or spade. Solution: make a shovel/spade out of extra soda bottles!


We decided to get dirt from around campus, so we walked all the way around the quad until we reached the side of the library. It was fairly inconspicuous, and we figured GoPo wouldn't come by. We kept a lookout nevertheless.


We're so hardcore.

On our way back to the apartment, we decided to check out the recently-finished second floor of the science building, and we found a cool room there. I took a picture of my stroke-of-brilliance water draining system in there.


In our travels we also found a photo of our favorite ornithologist/environmental science teacher.


Make of it what you will.

Finally, we marched back up the hill, planted our seeds, and decorated the pots. Here's my finished product!


When (if?) the flowers and basil grow and bloom, I will put up of pictures of them too! I'd say that between our ingenuity, spontaneity, and pioneer-like adventuring spirit, we entertained ourselves in the best possible way.

Current Events

So I haven't been blogging too much lately. Sorry to those of you who are just DYING to read all about my life and everything. I mean, I know there are tons of you who hang on my every word. (HA!)

Some rather important things are happening as of late that I think deserve to be here. Number one is Gordon's spring break, which means that the campus is virtually empty. In lieu of human interaction, I turned to tv. How lame is that?!? But I discovered a show on Hulu that only aired for one season, and it was absolutely fantastic. It's called "Kings," and it's a modern retelling of the story of King David. The entire first season is on Hulu, so if you can spare the time like I did until rather late at night for five days in a row, you should. I know, I know, I have no life. In self-justification, I did go to the Junior Northeast District Festival for an hour or so yesterday so that I wasn't totally lame. Or maybe that makes me more lame. Not sure...

My second important thing is church. I recently changed churches from a very traditionally New England-y congregational church to a very Anglican church, and I absolutely love it. It's been a long time since I've been this delighted to go to church (this week I ended up going to two services and a choir rehearsal, I think). Today the service was for the dedication of the church building, and it was beautiful. The Introit was "Locus Iste," which is a part of Anton Bruckner's 2nd mass. That's worth listening to, if you get the chance. If not, here's just the one part.


However, I got there a little late because of some student teaching duties and so I missed out on singing it. Alas. Nevertheless, I think what I witnessed made up for it. I walked in to find the sun streaming through the stained glass windows on the choir and congregation, with the organ, two trumpets, a horn, and some timpani accompanying a hymn - Vaughan Williams' arrangement of Old Hundredth, to be specific. To say that it was glorious doesn't cut it. To say that I couldn't sing the last verse because it was so indescribably magnificent, sublime, beautiful, and holy might.


(This is somewhat of an old recording, so its quality isn't the best. But they have the spirit, so it's ok. And who doesn't love Westminster Abbey?)

The third important thing is on a bit of a sad note. I encountered Knut the Polar Bear for the first time - I think - whilst in Switzerland. I thought he was the cutest thing ever because of this song, which we watched in German on the Swiss tv. You might be asking what this is sad news...and it's because Knut the Cute Polar Bear died today! Here's to you, Knut. You will be missed.


Other important news items include DELICIOUS homemade granola (that probably deserves a post of its own), great movies, fun adventures with friends, and various other every day things that might bore you, but that kept me pretty well entertained.

It's all in the cards...

I've heard it said that the green cards one collects during a game of Apples to Apples are a literary depiction of one's personality. If this is true, I guess I have multiple personality disorder.


And yet, somehow I think that this representation of my character may be more true than I originally thought...


(I guess if I want to make my blog super legit, I'm going to have to stop posting random pictures of daily life and start talking about things that people actually want to read about. But where else am I going to put pictures like the ones in the last few posts?)