Goodbye weekend, goodbye. A ramble.

What a weekend. Finished the second (near-final?) draft of my proposal. Made cookies. Went running in the rain. Graded student assignments that were decent to good, maybe three bad ones in the batch. Had an enjoyable dinner with some Soc people, though I will note that the only thing worse than a group of people who can't stop talking shop is having people from outside the shop come and make the group talk about shop, especially when the group intended to escape the shop. Hit the town with Eric and some of his boys and was joined by Tiffany and Melissa in full pursuit of intoxication- fun ensued. Headed out this afternoon for lunch at Fratello's got soaked so I came home and stayed here for the rest of the day staying dry and warm trying to prepare myself for my students' midterm on Thursday and bracing for the incoming literature reviews. I have been combing the Internet this weekend for things to do, jobs, and information about Summerfest. Didn't come up with much, but had a good time doing it. One more week of school before a week "off" and my trip to Los Angeles. Speaking of this trip, this is how it came about: Two Thursdays ago I was in my professor's office and we were talking about the Literature Review grading and I recalled that last semester I graded the Lit Reviews on the plane to and from Fresno where I had to go for my grandfather's memorial service and how well that dedicated time worked for getting the grading done. That led me to think about maybe going to CA for break, and then asking myself, why not? Then I asked Eric who I expected to blow the idea out of the water, but instead he said, sure. So now we are going. Yay! But I looked at the weather forecast and it is predicting rain- BOO! I hope that will change as it will but a snag in the plans to go to Knott's and the beach.

End of Februrary Life

Wow! I knew I fell off the side of the earth, but I didn't realize for how long! That illness I had left me 50% down for the count for over two weeks. It was bad news bears, as they say. But I managed to emerge from it, finally. I am trying to get my thesis proposal revised and done done by Friday, it has a long way to go.

I am not doing well on any of my goals for this year! I did get and cook something from the Joy of Cooking, and it was good. But you would think by this time I would have cooked more than one thing from there! Working has only been getting done by virtue of the fact that I have dance class twice a week, lost my ID so I have to walk to and from school, and we had Kilties. However, I have noticed that I was not as sore as I usually am after Kilties this month and I have better endurance on my walks to school (though this could be because I have to carry much less back and forth with my light course schedule) and in other activities as well. Need to work more formal exercise into my schedule. I have not been losing weight as a result of my lack of exercise and I blame some of it on Winter! I have, however, decided to go vegetarian for Lent. This occurred as a result of Eric chiding me when I proposed to give up other items that were less sacrificial like red meat or chocolate. At least this way I still get to eat chocolate. I have been doing okay with my hospitality resolution in small ways, like making food for small group meetings almost bi-week. Obviously I have not been as diligent with my work as I could have been. But progress is being made on the thesis process toward me graduating in May. We can all see my lack of achievement of the blog once a week goal. I will try harder, okay? =)

Other stuff I have been up to.... hmm. For Valentine's Day, Eric and I made fondue, which was fun as always. I applied for a job here in Milwaukee that hopefully could start after I graduate. I mention this because the application took many hours to complete! We had Kilties last weekend and it seemed that a number of people were cranky- boo to you people. I took Ryan out for his birthday and then we saw Pat McCurdy at Bar Louie this past Tuesday night , that was a night of a ton of fun. I enjoy Pat McCurdy a great deal because his shows involve audience participation.

Okay I am going back to writing now!

Make Up Blog

Today I went to the gym and had a great workout. I kicked butt and got my butt kicked in equal measure, it was wonderful! I warmed up on the actual track that goes around the second floor of the gym, and then I went on the elliptical for 20 minutes on one of the interval programs. Fantastic. I thought my legs were going to fall off, and I do not like to go backwards, but it was good. Then I did my stretching and on to the weight machines. It really is a meat market in there and not too much fun. I am thinking about joining a gym with Eric out in Pewaukee. It seems foolish considering I can go to the UWM gym for free but I though it would be cool for us to do it together and might get both of us to go. Tomorrow is yoga at UWM at noon, but it is supposed to be super cold and I don’t really want to go out in all that craziness, we will see, maybe I will drive to save myself a few blocks of walking – hey, they say ten minutes out there can get you frostbite, who wants that?

Okay, so Tri-coastalism. The title is pretty simple, as it turns out. So I am from the Los Angeles area and I went to college in Miami—two coasts. There are apparently many people who commute from the West Coast to the East Coast and they call that bi-coastalism. Now I live near the coast of Lake Michigan -- third coast, hence Tri-coastalism.

Now for Eric: When I first mentioned doing a blog he was not so happy about the idea. He said lots of people simply use blogs to complain about petty stuff or talk about specific issues of some sort. I don’t know what the problem with the later is; I could easily turn this into a cooking blog, though I think there are many of those out there. But after reading what I have written he seems to be okay with it. He says I write about a lot of different interesting stuff. I hope that is the reality of the situation. I just want to write about stuff I am thinking about or stuff that happens to me. Learn to use the word stuff less. I don’t really have all that much to complain about per se. My life is pretty good. I think Eric was concerned that I was going to create drama with my blog or something, write about his deep, dark secrets. Ha! I don’t know all his deep, dark secrets yet. In that area there are other people who should be more worried. I just want to think more, be more thoughtful, and writing might help me achieve that goal.

Getting Dressed

One of the hardest things about living in "cold country," as my dad calls it, is getting properly dressed. It is literally freezing outside so you have to dress for it. For me this means multiple layers of stuff that will keep me warm. But then if you go inside you are burning up. This problem is ubiquitous, I realize. In Florida the problem was that it was a sauna outside and a refrigerator inside so I always had to have a sweater. Anyway, when I first moved here I put on my thermals one day and walked to school. Once I got into my office I thought I was going to go up in flames as it was warm in there and I had on two layers of pants and probably three layer on top. I learned quickly to adjust my layers differently- wear two jackets and then take them off and the like. However I am still struggling with what to wear when I go outside to exercise during the winter. The challenge is that I have to be warm enough at the beginning of the workout to warm up but not too hot at the end when I have worked up a sweat. Not that working up a sweat was a big problem when I set out this morning as I was not about to run with all the ice that is all over the place. Which is the other challenge. I don't want to end up splat on the ground! And that ice is sneaky! This morning I passed a girl who was running along, I wasn't sure how she was dodging the ice and staying on her feet as I encountered many places with ice that was hard to identify until you were on top of it. Then there were the places where the ice was at least and inch thick- seriously, people, get rid of that stuff! The solution may be to just go to the gym!! Which I plan to do tomorrow.

So I have been thinking more about this blogging thing and I don't know how this is going to go. Am I going to be able to write about anything interesting? In my thinking I have come to the conclusion that I have a lot of secrets and I am opinionated, but I don't want to cause too many problems for myself or say, Eric.

I decided to RSVP for the Ski Trip, finally. =). Amber asked me about it multiple times and my response, was always "We'll see how things go." Well, I put in on the calendar so it is set in stone!

So my oldest friend, Kimberli McGorman, is getting married! Yay! I am super happy for her. We met in pre-school. Her mom was one of my pre-school teachers. Then we continued to do Pioneer Girls and go to church together. She was one of the influences resulting in me deciding to go to Tetzlaff instead of Whitney for Junior High. Kim was always a social butterfly. She brought Molly and I together, and I remember in eighth grade when she told me I *would* be friends with the Amandas. That turned out fine, I guess, but that is a totally other story. Kim moved up to Oregon when we graduated from high school and has been there since. Well I guess she actually lives in Washington now so she can be closer to Jeremy and commutes to her job at Whole Foods in Portland. Anyway, congratulations to Kimberli and Jeremy who are getting married in April!!