The last month

The last month has been quite a whirlwind. A month ago today, Marty defended for his PhD. The weeks leading up to it were stressful in part for that reason, but also because we were planning our move across country, finishing up our NC bucket list, and bracing ourselves for the uncertainty of transition.

Our families came to help celebrate and also to help pack us up. It was definitely for the best, but it added a little bit more logistics to the mix. I bribed them with dinners out, a baseball game, and  the return of their favorite children (jk).

I threw Marty a big party for his graduation and invited all his lab and our NC friends. Some of our NC friends had already moved away, but we had a great time saying goodbye and eating cake. I knew Marty wouldn't want to actually walk in a graduation, so I got him this cheesy paper hat just so we would remember why we had all come together.

 After a crazy week of packing up, and selling some of our stuff, we packed all of our stuff into a pod and they took it away, to meet us at some unknown date in the future (I tried not to worry). We barely, I mean barely, had enough room in the pod for our stuff. Its amazing how much stuff you accumulate over five years. We spent all of those five years in the same apartment, which was something we never imagined we would do. 

To take a much needed rest, we headed to the mountains for four days of pure nothing. Our conversations were of which movie to watch next and what we thought of our books. We left the real world behind for four days, both to recoup from the previous few weeks but also to energize for what was ahead. We booked a guest house on Air BnB which was fabulous, cooked at home, took one long drive in the mountains, and attempted to collect ourselves. As icing on the cake, our downstairs neighbors at the rental were three horses. We also ate a bbq place in Asheville I had been dying to take Marty to called 12 bones (look it up if you are in the area).

We headed back to the triangle for one last night with my friend Kendra and it happened to be her birthday so I had to get her a cupcake the size of her head. But first, we had to stop at the Wendy's we had passed nearly every time we went out in Carrboro. This Wendy's was special because no matter what time of day, there was someone in the drive thru. For five years it was a challenge to see if the drive thru was empty. It never was.

We flew out of NC on a Wednesday to Indianapolis for a wedding of my friend and co-worker. We stumbled in to the coolest bar on the way to the wedding reception, where I got to be the emcee. That was interesting because half the wedding guests were French and I know two words in French. 

The words for pineapple and the word for grapefruit. 

Suuuuuuper helpful.

 , o

And then all of a sudden we were here! In Seattle! 

Where paying five dollars for a latte is the norm!

Three weeks in and we are doing fine. 

Slowly transitioning. But doing fine.