Soon

I will post pictures from our vacation soon. It was a wonderful, relaxing vacation and it was over way too soon. This week I am busy preparing for the in-law invasion. They are all wonderful people and I can't wait to see them, its just that there are 5 of them and one of them is 1 year old.

Vacation

Nick and I are going to the mountains for five days to celebrate our anniversary. We can't wait. Five days of relaxation with nothing to do but drive and hike and eat and visit Virginia Wineries.

I'm sorry Daisy

I take back everything I said about Daisy being a bad running partner. She has been a very loyal running partner for two years. Every time I want to go running, she is at my feet, panting and stretching, knowing she is in for an exhausting sniff-a-thon.

We went running last night, Me, Melissa, Nick and Daisy. On the way back, Daisy had what looked like a seizure. Nick picked her up and I ran home to get the car and some water and a phone book so we could call the emergency vet. When I got back to them, we tried to give Daisy some water, but by that point she couldn't even stand up. We got her in the car and blasted the air conditioner on her and she really started to perk up. By the time we got to the emergency vet she was smiling at everyone who worked there and barking her head off at the fact that she had to be locked up while she waited for the doctor to examine her. They did some blood work and checked her vitals and said we could take her home if we kept a close eye on her. The vet called at 12:30 last night with her blood work results. They think she either had a seizure or was extremely exhausted, poor thing.

We woke up every hour last night to check on her and we wouldn't let her off our bed. I can't even imagine having to take care of a child one day. This morning she is back to her old self. Chasing cats and barking at the neighbors. I am just glad she is ok. But, I don't think I can take her running again. It is strictly walks from now on. She gets more sniffing done that way anyway.

Dog

Nick and I have been hanging out with a couple that he works with and they just bought a house a mile away from us. It turns out that the girl likes to run. So the three of us, and sometimes another guy, have been meeting up a couple of times a week to go running. It really beats my runs with just my dog. My dog is nice, but not all that interesting. Plus, she goes wherever I go, won't set the pace and will let me just quit and go home if I feel like giving up, and for a backseat driver, she doesn't help me look for traffic at all. So, people companions have really improved my workouts.

The 80s

I am well aware that certain styles from the 80s are in fashion right now and I am all for creativity and self-expression. I work on a college campus, so I have the joy of seeing lots of creativity and self-expression, i.e. people dressed in 80s clothes. I have to remind myself that these people probably weren't dressing themselves in the 80s, so they don't know that they will probably look back at pictures of themselves and say, "What was I thinking". In the last couple of weeks on campus I have seen: a girl wearing a mesh tank top, luckily over a cotton tank top; a boy wearing red and black striped jodhpurs, ok those were never in style; a girl wearing those bike shorts with the lace on the bottom, is someone REALLY making those again; and a girl wearing a banana clip, again, is someone REALLY making those. I'm not trying to be judgmental. Wear what makes you happy. If, however, what you have chosen is completely ridiculous, well, that's your fault. Oh and by the way, I'm not falling for the 80s fashion. It didn't look good on me the first time and I would have to remove at least half of each thigh to fit into skinny jeans.

Waiting for my Real Life to Begin

I guess I am really doing more than waiting. I am also working towards my real life. I am going to apply to grad school this year. I am still trying to coordinate how to get all of this application stuff done. Hopefully, I will be starting in January and then I will be on my way to my real life beginning. I will just have to make the best of this limbo I am in until then.

Thursday

I generally hate Thursday. I know its close to the weekend, but I still have to get through all of Thursday and all of Friday before I can sleep in. The tiredness of the work week has caught up to me by Thursday and I have class until 9 PM. But this week, I spent half of Tuesday thinking that it was Monday, so the fact that it is already Thursday is wonderful. And the semester is almost over.

Homesick, sort of

It's funny, the things I have ended up missing about the cities I have lived in. None of them are the things that I expected to miss. Of course, I miss my family and friends and even acquaintances, I have found, but I planned for that. In Columbia, I really miss our cute apartment. I think we just had so many good times there. We were living there when we got married and when we got Daisy. I also miss my drive to Rosewood Market to go to work. In Charlotte, I miss morning. I used to get up and walk my dog around the apartment complex when it was still cool outside, then Nick and I would fight over the one bathroom in our one bedroom apartment (Note: couples need more space than a one bedroom apartment, no matter how compatible and in love you are). Then we would ride to work together since we both worked downtown, err uptown, or whatever they call it. The ride to work gave us time to talk and complain about our jobs, and it gave me time to eat my breakfast and do my makeup and do some backseat driving, which Nick LOVES. Our ride to work was pretty. There were nice houses on a residential street all the way to downtown. I also miss downtown. Nick and I would try to wait as long as we could before we went to lunch, then we would meet at one of the many non-chain eateries Charlotte has to offer on a weekday. It was the hottest summer of my life, neither of us had ever experienced summer in full work attire, but I miss it. When we left Dallas I expected to only miss my house. We didn't fall in love with much in Texas. I did cry when it was time to leave our house, we did a lot of work on it, plus it was beautiful. But now I realize that I miss the vast array of Mexican restaurants, there was cheap mexican food, fast mexican food, bad mexican food, really good mexican food, expensive mexican food and trendy mexican food. It was great. I also miss the Arboretum. If you are in Dallas, you should go, it is an oasis in a concrete jungle. I think most of all I miss the open, sunny sky. The ground was so flat and the sky was so big that possibilities really felt endless. And now, here I am in Richmond. I love it. I think we found a really good fit for us. I almost wish we hadn't so we could move back to Charlotte or Columbia and be closer to our friends and family, but, darnit, we like it. All of this moving has taught us a lot about ourselves and what we are looking for in life. First being, that we will never commute more than 30 minutes. It just isn't worth it when what we really want is to be at home with each other. Second, we like scenery. Trees, hills, green stuff. Third, we can't live in a city with 5 million other people. We like open spaces. I wonder what Richmond will show me that will stick with me.