delight in life

LIFE LOL

Hey remember like twenty-four hours ago when I wrote "I expect we will begin to (slowly) settle into a routine this week"? Ha. Ha ha ha HAHAHA!

We had to go to the ER when Chris started having crazy pain in his stomach. Turns out he had gallstones but now he doesn't because they took out his gallbladder. He had to stay the night at the hospital and I will pick him up later today.

They were able to do the procedure laproscopically which should minimize the recovery time, but I still think it will be at least a few more weeks before either of us really feel back to normal.

I'm so thankful for a lot of things right now: good insurance, free wifi at the hospital, that this didn't happen when we were on the road, that it was a relatively common and routine problem (from the doctor's perspective anyway), that June is almost over because I can't take this month much longer, and most of all, that Chris is going to be ok.

permanent tourist.

We've been here for three days now, and good news: we still love it. It's been a weird and fun weekend. Weird because it feels like a vacation. I must have said to Chris "I can't believe we live here!" about twenty times, and thought it fifty times more. Since 95% of our belongings are on a moving truck somewhere, it's been really easy to convince ourselves to get out of the house all day. We've been doing a lot of fun touristy things, exploring some of the museums and monuments in downtown DC.

I love museums. I think they are so amazing. So much information, presented in a visually appealing manner, concentrated in one place! (Hi, I'm a dork. But if you've been reading this blog for longer than three days, you probably already knew that. Also, 17 days till the final Harry Potter movie!) To have this many amazing museums so close to us and so free to enter is such a gift and I am so excited to take advantage of it while we live here.

I was so fascinated by the minerals and gems display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The colors of all the different minerals were incredible. And can we just talk about that insane diamond and turquoise crown down there? A gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to his lady love. The sparkle in real life was out of control. I would pay money to try that on.


Below: museum animals and zoo animals. There are 7 lion cubs at the National Zoo right now and they were super cute. I kept quoting The Lion King while I watched them (in my head). The gorillas were highly entertained by the Amazon.com box in their habitat, and I was highly entertained by all the jokes I came up with regarding their Amazon.com order (in my head).


Supposedly the truck with our stuff is getting here on Tuesday morning, so I expect we will begin to (slowly) settle into a routine this week, and it will stop feeling like a vacation. I'm looking forward to that, but there are still lots of sights I want to see and I plan to proudly take on the role of permanent tourist.

we are here

2 days of travel
1,462 miles driven
24 hours in the car
7 states
.5 miles walked due to South Carolina's draconian anti-parking-by-welcome-signs legislation
4 ant bites at the Louisiana welcome sign
6 stops for gas
4 stops for food
3.1 Harry Potter books read
80 Twizzlers consumed
1 u-turn due to a missed welcome sign
2 very happy and tired people pulling into their parking garage at 8:30 last night

baby elizabeth's quilt

My sister-in-law is having a baby girl very, very soon and I was so happy to give her this quilt. I finished it last month but wanted to wait till I'd sent it to her before I shared it here. (Plus, I needed my model back in town to help me take pictures!)

This is a new pattern for me; my earlier baby quilts have been just simple squares. The triangles were definitely a challenge at first, but I love love love the way it all turned out.

I was pretty happy with my fabric selections here; the backing fabric is the only fabric I purchased specifically for this quilt. My stash was (is) definitely getting out of control and it was nice to be able to "shop" from my own closet. I had a hard time choosing a fabric for the back, and in the end, I didn't! I took the quilt top to CityCraft, a fabulous independent quilt shop in Dallas. I wandered around looking but not finding, when the owner Callie pulled a bolt of this crazy print off the shelf and said, "how about this?"

I AM SO GLAD SHE DID THAT. I would never have picked it on my own, but I absolutely love the way it looks. Also, she diagnosed the problems I was having with my sewing machine, which turned my whole day around. I am going to miss CityCraft a lot when we move.


I can't wait to meet little Elizabeth soon!

moving is stressful.

The last few days have been a test of patience and grace. (Spoiler alert: I failed.) Due to a colossal screw-up by someone behind a desk somewhere, our (and apparently many other people's) scheduled move to Virginia got canceled. Which we didn't know until the movers didn't show up.

Chris is a champ, and has spent hours on the phone with what seems like hundreds of different people trying to work it out. He said, "I kind of wanted to be stressed and freak out, but you were doing that for both of us, so I couldn't." Like I said: total champ.

We don't have all the details yet, but I am 98.5% sure that movers will be here next Tuesday to load up our stuff. I am 98.5% sure that the electricity shut-off will be successfully rescheduled and we will have air conditioning in the triple-degree heat next week. I am 100% sure I would like to never move again. (I am also 100% that won't happen.)

If all goes to plan, one week from today we'll be waking up in a furniture-less apartment in Virginia. Fingers crossed.

new.

I subscribe to a postcard of the month club, and this was June's card. So perfect. Love it.

the convex mirrors.

When we are traveling, a favorite thing to take photo of is a convex mirror. The kind you find by parking garage entrances and big wide corners and ATMs. My sister used to take pictures of them and I liked hers so I started doing it too. She informs me that moving to a city will ruin them for me because they are everywhere. While I like to think that isn't true, I thought I'd document a few of my favorites before I'm totally over it.

San Diego Zoo:

Boston:

Annapolis (I love this one because Chris and our two friends were all in the photo without realizing it):

Chicago:

Office parking garage:

Dallas Museum of Art:

Virginia:

chris's graduation

Last week was Chris's graduation from boot camp in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. My parents, his mom, his brother, his nephew, and me all drove up to Fort Sill for a few days of Army pride. My parents and I left super early and caught this gorgeous hot pink Texas sunrise on the drive.

The whole ceremony was really cool and a little bit scary. Lots of unison yelling and every movement was coordinated. And LOTS of staring straight ahead with no smiles.

The coolest thing was hearing Chris sing the national anthem before the ceremony. He'd known about it for more than a month but had kept it secret from all of us. He did such a great job and I was so proud. (He's off to the side of the spotlight.)

Afterwards I went down to take his picture and he couldn't keep a tiny smile off his face.

All of these guys have worked so hard these last few months, and it was really cool to be there and cheer them on as they walked across the stage. I am so unbelievably proud of Chris for all that he has done.

More than anything though, I was so happy to just be with him. 10 weeks is a long time, y'all.

resolved: june

Whoops -- a little late on this one! To be honest I've been so consumed with everything else going on I hadn't even thought about this month's goals too much. But of course there are still lots of things I need to do!

1. Get 2 humans, 2 cats, and all our belongings to Virginia in one piece. We are pretty lucky in that the Army is handling most of the moving logistics for us. We don't even have to pack! But as my to do list can confirm, there is still a lot to do. The plan is to stay organized and get it all done without panicking and doing everything at once in the last 36 hours.
2. Keep the apartment clean. Sort of related, I suppose, but not exactly the same. My mom spent a few days here last week and while I was at work, she super-womaned around this whole place and made it look amazing. I'm trying not to let it slide. It's just a few weeks; surely I can handle that?
3. Get rid of stuff. Our next apartment is significantly smaller than our current one and we just won't have room for so much stuff. I have to get rid of some of it, even if it means parting with some of my beloved craft supplies.
4. Finish the triangle quilt for real. Though I counted it done for the purposes of May's wrap-up I still have to fix that tiny mistake. It's a simple one-evening task, but it'll slip right past me if I don't write it down!

we're moving!

In the next 2-3 weeks, we are moving to Arlington, VA! You may remember Chris won a job with the US Army Band a while ago. (I cannot believe that was nine months ago. NINE MONTHS.) That led to this, and my well-publicized (around here, anyway) effort to avoid becoming a misanthropic sobbing mess for 10 weeks. And all of that has led to this. I have ten days left at my job and just a few more left in this apartment. We'll be off on brand new adventures in a brand new city, and we are so excited. Good things are coming.