practicing my moves

in rehearsal for my upcoming moving event - and in the name of just being a good and kind fiancee (i don't know how to make an e with an accent mark in blogger. . .sorry) - i made the trek to athens this weekend and took part in matt's move across town. in truth, it was a lot less daunting than it might seem. first, because matt doesn't have as much - ahem - *stuff* as i do (my dad calls it junk. . . my mom more affectionately calls it "good junk," which has forever been the term that separated the stuff that collected dust in closets, basements, and garages from that which got thrown to the curb on community-wide-clean-up day); second, because matt always does stuff like this for me without complaint; third, because it is always nice to have any time out of state college and/or with matt; and fourth, because i got the bonus prizes of nice summer weather and time with multiple vesses. apparently not complaining is a family trait. matt's brother actually made a trip up from tennessee and put the rest of us to shame as he carried a washer, dryer, dresser, couch, and coffee table up narrow stairs, around sloping hills, and through tight corners without so much as even hinting at having experienced anything even remotely irksome. i actually spiraled for a bit into a place where i had to rationalize how - despite carrying approximately 1/100th of that amount of weight and having mini complaints about getting hungry - i was still a good person.

it was a whirlwind of events, though, and before i knew it there was a duplex full of boxes to be unpacked and put away. really. . . it seemed like there was so much to be done, but the day actually went pretty smoothly. even the cable company ran on schedule. so, now matt has a grown-up place, with a washer and dryer, fireplace, and garage. he has to do adult things like remember to take out his garbage and learn the city recycling rules. i feel like someone should order him a newspaper that he can walk out into the driveway to fetch on sunday mornings while wearing his slippers.

Living Room

it's pretty, too. somehow the wallpaper and paint jobs match the curtains and furniture that he brought. i snapped pictures of a few - but not all - of the rooms. The living room is at the top of the stairs that lead down to the ground floor. Outside of the picture in the far left corner is a doorway that leads out to a small balcony. We did not go out there because it was ridiculously hot over the weekend and that's probably the last place to eclipse into shade.

Kitchen

the kitchen now hopefully includes a dishwasher that he can use . . . that dream never actually came to pass in the old place. oh. . . actually, i saw him use this new one once without any apparent leak-oriented tragedies, so that's a good sign. there is a ton of cabinet/storage space, which is great (she says as she is once again reminded about how much of her own stuff she will NOT be able to move with her in the next month. . . ).

In this photo, you are really only missing a cabinet on the immediate left and the rest of the sliding glass doors on the right that lead out to a small patio and the back yard.

back yard

Back YARD, you say? Yep. just like a real grown up. It's actually kind of wood-wonderland-y. not as much as my toftrees place was, but'll be surprised if matt doesn't end up with a few forest friends of his own by the time he's done at this place. we actually saw several squirrels and a raccoon out here. there's even a rumor of athenians with similar backyard situations seeing foxes with some regularity. who knows what will happen. oh, and the thing that you're not seeing in that back yard picture is that it was almost 100 degrees the day after moving. yikes. but i suspect that if you ask dr. vess, you won't get halfway through a conversation about the back yard before the subject of the new grill comes up. this was a well-planned purchase prior to the move. . . and in his defense, the back patio really is begging for some grilling situations. AND, even more in his defense, i think we all know that matt is a much more inspired chef than i am. so whatever feeds that excitement (and my tummy) is fine by me! and - in my non-expert opinion - it really does seem to have a lot of fun, cool features.

after the second day, which was mostly unpacking, we actually put the grill to use ("we") and had a late dinner - so that we could eat in the shade - off the grill. matt made the fish and mojitos. i made most of the couscous. it was absolutely delicious. it took both of us about 5 seconds to add it to our "i would totally eat this again" list of recipes that we are developing. and it took us only slightly longer than that to clean our plates. really, it was quite delicious.

*ho-hum* and now it is back to the daily grind. i am kicking myself because i wanted to get some fresh flowers as soon as i got back that i could put in the beautiful vase that peggy gave me for graduation. and i of course left it sitting on the table in matt's new place. but it has a cute story behind it and everything. it's a type of glass that everyone in southern ohio and the west virginia area (i'm trying to get out of saying west-west virginia) seems to know about called fenton glass. and it's quite lovely. hopefully matt will remember to bring it with him when he comes later this month.

so now it is back to the grind. back to having class every morning at 9:35. it's week 3, so after this week, i will be 1/2 done. and next week is the behavior genetics conference, so i'm not sure how much that is even going to feel like a week's worth of class. i desperately want to ask the two football players in my group what they thing of this tressel debauchery, but i'm still trying to be extraordinarily professional in an effort to deter students from the fact that i'm still frequently mistaken for an undergrad. we'll see if i can hold that together for 3 1/2 more weeks :)

oh, AND my mom contributed some great ideas to the "name the blog" contest. she threw out "home on the isthmus" which i like both because it makes sense and it would teach everyone the correct spelling of "isthmus," and "from land between the lakes" which i thin is really cute and also reminds me of the land o'lakes butter commercials (i don't know. . .it just does). so, she pretty much blew this thing back open!! good thing there are eight more weeks until the move.