all this baseball is making me tired

not much to post here lately. and even fewer pictures. sorry. you really got the bulk of the excitement in my post-athens post. most of the pictures since i've been back would be of me working on my computer in my office. lame-o.

mom and dad did come up last weekend. mom and i went to david's bridal . . . i won't be posting those pictures either. it was a nice trip, though. and though there is no dress in hand yet, i do at least feel like i'm making progress. briana has been a really good sport about letting me bounce questions off of her. she and i both delight in the splendor of the vera wang collection.

there is some approaching excitement, if that counts for anything. karen will be here next weekend, matt the following weekend. jill's bachelorette party and bridal shower follow the weekend after that and then (believe it or not) is thanksgiving. this clearly means i have got to get some serious work done in the next few days. it will probably be easier when world series games aren't keeping me up late every night.

related to sports and upcoming visits, matt and i were very excited to receive an invite to a packers game while he's here. as would be expected, these are not at all inexpensive tickets, but they are great seats, they are at lambeau, and they are for a for a monday night football game. seems like an opportunity that might not come up a lot. right now my only worry is that i don't have anything warm and green to wear. we'll see what i can work out.

not even a halloween picture to post this year!! so sad. unless we're going out as an engaged couple. . .then i guess we are technically always in costume ;)

this time i really am done traveling for a bit

back again from another trip. and though you've read it before, this one really was the last on the books for a while. after matt was here in august and september, it seemed like my turn to venture toward ohio. as probably will not surprise you, there was one weekend in october that worked for both of our schedules.

random digression before i even get into anything. i found these barefruit cinnamon apple chips at the airport. they are deliciously awesome. i know that only dy's kids believe in my ability to find delicious and healthy treats, but these really are phenomenal. what else would you expect from something that combines apple and cinnamon? i hope they are also sold at non-airport type places.

matt picked me up in columbus on thursday evening. and though i admit that i may have been biased a bit by the situation, i think even the most objective of bystanders would it was an absolutely gorgeous fall day. there is a little shack with a patio that we have been eyeing repeatedly on drives from columbus to athens, so we finally decided to stop. to my relief, right after we parked, matt announced that he was going to be better about taking pictures (sound familiar?) and immediately took a picture of the building. you can ask him yourself how that turned out for the rest of the trip. it was a cute place, though. matt can comment on the quality of the barbeque (i had a salad). i can comment on the awesomeness of being able to sit outside on a beautiful fall day with my fiancé AND the adorableness of the little pigs carved into the tables. i don't know if kara reads this blog or not, but if so, i feel like she's going to like that.

there was a lot of working and catching up over the course of the weekend. it kind of felt like i hadn't been to athens in a while and we ended up with a really full schedule. we did get in some pumpkin carving time with one of matt's high school friends and his girlfriend. that's my very scary looking pumpkin in the middle. oh MAN, i wish i would hurry up and live somewhere that gets trick-or-treaters.

in case you're wondering, matt's is on the left. he was pretty adamant about going with the traditional jack-o-lantern. and you must admit that it turned out pretty well. and was the only one made sans pattern.

Hot Tuna

SouthEast Engine

Ha Ha Tonka

sunday night turned out to be a really nice surprise for us. we had learned a while ago that the jayhawks were coming to town, but did not know that it was as part of NPRs Mountain Stage series. this turned out to be an absolute treat. i would highly, highly recommend this format for anyone who is interested in seeing some new bands sprinkled in with one or two bands that you like. the format of the show was fixed around the fact that NPR was making a live recording of everything for their radio show and podcast. five bands played for approximately one half hour each. the set up and tear down was minimal and you got to hear bands you were familiar with along with some new bands. it's NPR, so the bands that you like play the stuff that you really want to hear and if you end up not liking some of the bands, that's okay because you only have to sit through about 5-6 songs. in the spirit of full disclosure, i should say that two additional things may have contributed to our enjoyment of this event. first, while we were standing in line waiting for tickets, a very, very, VERY nice couple gave (yes, gave) us their two extra tickets which just happened to be two seats in the middle of the second row. second, the bands that we didn't know very well were awesome. seriously, awesome. i would go see either one of them again. i run a little bit hot and cold with indie-folk stuff, but there was a nice contemporary spin on it by both southeast engine, a band that originated in Athens, actually; and ha ha tonka, a band that comes from southeast missouri. i know, right? what are the odds that one of us would go from columbia to PA to WI to OH to hear a band from missouri? they've got to be slim. but we loved them. and if you have a chance, you should go see them.

The Jayhawks

now it is back to work again! i am once again hopeful that a very productive work week is headed in my direction. it's always kind of hard to tell, but i'm up for it if the fates will nudge one toward me. there is a deadline this week for submissions for a conference next june and a number of meetings, of course, but otherwise, it's analyzing data and writing for my foreseeable future. i'm not complaining, of course. i love it all. i just wouldn't mind a few breathtaking results every now and then ;)

happy fall to all. have a lovely, lovely week!

ummm. . . hi. . .remember me?
actually, remember september?
that seems like kind of a difficult task at this point.

it seems like not that long ago, i was starting the month of september by getting ready to head to boston for SPR. i think i might still be recovering from that. it was an insanely busy trip with seemingly more and more people to meet and talk to every day. it was a lot of fun, but exhausting for a girl who likes her sleep. we did, however, make time one evening to visit

what kristin assured us was going to be one of the best pizza places ever.  it won one of the title of best pizzeria in boston on the food channels' show "food feuds" (which i admittedly have never seen for myself). what i have done is tried the pizza for myself and it was absolutely delicious. i would be surprised if the restaurant itself was much bigger than my apartment. so, there was inevitably a bit of a wait in a small line outside. being also someone who enjoys pizza - as often as possible despite trying to eat healthy - i feel like you should consider my opinion a trustworthy one when i say that it was absolutely delicious. it might deter me slightly to have to wait outside in the wintertime, but i would definitely consider going back. maybe next time i could see some of boston, too.

i got back from boston and just when i got caught up on work and sleep, it was time to leave again. i headed home (only about a 5 hour drive, now!!) for a friend's wedding last weekend. it was absolutely lovely and it was kind of a treat to get to see mom, dad, dy, and the kids for a non-holiday, just hanging out weekend. and it was lovely to see brooke and michael, a wonderful couple, basking in the glow of their special day.  not a bad way to spend a lovely fall weekend, indeed. and i cannot forget to mention, of course, my part in the earliest of homecoming festivities. thanks to my darling, kassi. i'm sure someone returned the favor to her at some point throughout the week. returned and then some.

this week has been some more catching up. . .both personally and professionally. got some time to talk - over the course of the week - with a number of people; lacey, kara, and an impending skype with meghan. i'll be on my way to ohio at the end of the week. hopefully that means matt and i will also find time to catch up with josh and becca, too. the one thing i did do this week was try a new recipe. i've pretty well worked my way through the vegetarian cookbook from pampered chef that dy gave to me for Christmas, so i decided to flip back to a recipe from the cooking healthy cookbook that she gave me a couple of years before. i made a solid attempt at a low-fat (well. . .lower fat version of chicken stroganoff). it turned out well, i think. i'm even working on the leftovers, if that counts for anything.

things have even been picking up at work a bit. like anything, it takes far longer and progresses far slower than one might hope. you would have thought that i would have learned long ago that that is just the way that everything works. but then there is always the chance that all of the hours that i am spending organizing and putting together files of data will result in some very exciting, very incredible finding that tells us something we've not known before. see? isn't science super fun?! i'll keep you posted, of course, as groundbreaking innovations manifest. i hope meghan doesn't kill me for posting this blurry picture of us from boston. if you come back and find yourself wondering, "what picture?" it means that i've had my skype date with megs before you read this, the subject of said photo came up, and it was a definite no go. . .

leaving for ohio on thursday. then really, really hoping to take a few weeks off from traveling. though that's kind of starting to become a familiar (and ineffective) battle cry, eh?