Resolution Sunday: Friends as good as family

This weekend I got to see my friend Lindsay and her Dad. They visited my hometown and hung out for a whole day there. It was a perfectly awful fall day in the PNW, with rain and wind and grey to spare. But we had good food, good beer, a few apple treats, and of course good conversation. 

I am so grateful for friends that are as close as family, and that we become part of each others families. The sad thing is that Lindsay lives far away in Colorado. 

Lindsay is a soul sister, we met in college and just are on the same page about so many things. And she has an awesome family. And she thinks mine is too. I am so grateful for that. Meeting friends like this is kinda like chemistry - when ya know, ya know. 

Ya know?

Resolution Sunday: A place to live!!

So as you know, finding a place has been really hard. The rental market in Seattle is totes cray-cray (that means its really crazy) and there are a large number of people who apply to live in each place, and every place gets snatched up in a day or two.

We had our prayers answered and finally, after months of searching, found a place to live. It's a nice, temporary place for us and we are excited about it. Its a duplex in a sea of apartments but it is close to the highway, and in a convenient neighborhood. We have loved our now almost six weeks of living with our friends, but we are moving in on Friday and are way stoked. Which also means we get our stuff on Friday, so no more living out of a suitcase I packed with my August clothes for NC!

I am so grateful!  (None of these houses are ours, obviously, but aren't they cute?)

Friday!

What are you up to this Friday?

I am sitting at home watching reruns and gearing myself up for a weekend of car shopping. We sold our only car back in NC and have been borrowing Marty's brothers til he comes home in a couple weeks. So the pressure's on to buy at least one car in the next two weeks!

Anyway, here are some fun reads from the interwebs from this week.

Do you shop at Whole Foods, or as we call it, Whole Paycheck? You may feel like this lady.

There has been a lot in the news about Obamacare lately, because of the new laws that come into effect in a couple weeks. Here are some editorial/funny takes on that: From Steven Colbert 1, 2, For the lovers of Breaking Bad, From the Money perspective, a little from the NYT, And Why does health care cost so much?

Let's throw a little love to Science! I know a lot of bright people who work for nothing, just for their love of discovery. A discovery that may one day save lives.

And how about some funnies!

Its Football season again!

I watched this quite a few times.  And sorry, but I had to throw in a little potty humor.

Oh, and how about a few life lessons from LD?

Happy Friday!! We are happy to be here, but sending our love to those back in red states.

Resolution Sunday: Safe Spaces

This week I am grateful for the safe space we have built for ourselves over the years. Transition can be rough and slow and we are in the middle of a few tough decisions, and about to be down to one income. We are both feeling a little rough around the edges and a bit more, uh, vulnerable than we perhaps may like.

But we are going through it together and have had some really awesome moments already here in Seattle (like this Sounders game). As I told Marty the other day, I am pretty stoked to be doing this life thing with him. We sure have a crazy good time together.

__ __ __

(For other sappy thoughts, try this one and this one)

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.

Resolution Sunday: These guys

See these good looking folks? Marty and I went on a double date to his Junior prom with these guys. Since then, they have been in our wedding, we have been in theirs. Jenny and I were in kindergarten together and have been friends since and Woody was Marty's first friend when they moved into town in the fourth grade. I am pretty lucky that Marty's bff married one of mine. Makes things a lot easier. Because they are so kind and generous, they are letting us crash at their place while we are looking for a place of our own. Two weeks in and things are going great. (I do hope to get out of here while we are still all friends, though).

We've been through a lot together, including this moment New Years 2006 where we recreated our junior prom picture in the middle of a hotel in Vancouver. That prom picture is probably the worst picture ever taken of us. This is not far from it. This second  picture is us just last weekend. We are so fortunate to have friends we can can be totally ourselves with, who know all of our juju (and we know theirs...), and who will take us in and help us out when we need it. Love you guys.

BMOC, NBD

This week was Marty's first week at work. I really could not be more proud of him. Lately when we were meeting new people, he would answer "I am a cancer researcher". (NBD).He is going to thrive here, I just know it.

We are currently living with friends and looking for a place to live, caught up in a total rental craze in Seattle that is making it very hard to find a place to rent. It has rained every day, I have already spent an hour in  traffic going no where, and I am already wearing my NC winter clothes. But man, I am glad we are here.

Plus, I didn't know I married such a big man on campus.

And on Thursdays, he takes his mocha with whip.