matt in madison part deux

Photo (and laughter) courtesy of Nick Kuennen

believe it or not, i made my last out of town trip today for the next week and a half. this will be the longest that i've stayed in town, i think, since karen came to see me the first weekend in november (seriously. . . i just double-checked to make sure that is true and it totally is). so, i've picked up what didn't get put away over the last few days, made sure i'm ready to hit the ground running at work tomorrow, and am now settled into my oversized chair half-watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. reruns, updating the blog, and drinking one glass of water after another (i know, i know. . .this is the perfect situation for a glass of red wine, but it is so dry in here after not running the humidifier all day, just the thought of it is almost enough to cause a coughing fit. so water it is).

Jill & Josh

you've seen the photos and heard a brief recap of the texas trip. the time since then was largely spent at the festivities of the parsons-payne wedding in good old pella, iowa.  i actually had a meeting on friday morning (the day of the rehearsal dinner) and walked out of the meeting (early), out of the waisman center, and into the car that matt had pulled up to the back door. it was almost like an exciting getaway, if an exciting getaway involved warning people that you had to leave early and then driving for five hours.

Jill

the wedding was much more exciting than the "getaway". matt got in almost a full day of work on saturday while we did hair, makeup, pictures, etc. i, on the other hand got to hang out with this beautiful lady. you almost think you'd hate her, don't you? because she can't possibly be as smart and sweet as she is beautiful? well, as disgustingly impossible as it seems, she totally is, and those three things are only the tip of the iceberg of the insane number of things that make her so incredible. so, needless to say, being involved in the whole day was pretty great. also probably needless to say, by the time we walked across the street to our hotel at the end of the night, we were completely exhausted. and kind of still are.

tired or not, though, it was really great having matt around for so many days in a row. this is probably good news considering we actually *are* hoping to be living in the same city at some point during our own marriage. this was also good news because for some reason this week involved a lot of getting things off of high shelves. i didn't even need to get my step stool out because matt was here. what a guy :)

Roman Candle Pizza

even though we totally like the pizza place next door to me, i really wanted to show matt the cute pizza place in the williamson street district, which is incredibly close to where i live and one of my favorite areas of madison. despite the crazy schedule, we found time to go just before leaving for pella (and then ordered delivery when we got back and were too tired to move). isn't it adorable?! it's so tiny - my camera is zoomed in, but there are probably less than 20 tables in the entire place - but it's just wonderfully quaint. AND they have a spicy pizza sauce. AND they're "beta testing" a thin crust pizza (which we ordered both times). i'm so glad that matt liked it. and i will say that he deserved to have pizza twice after being a sport about trying the homemade tofu pad thai that i cooked. even though it was really good (he put it on the "i would eat this again" list), i know it's not entirely in his wheelhouse. so, props for that. and i might have enjoyed both pizza occurrences as well. fiancée perk, i guess :)

i have to admit that the other pretty awesome perk of the week was the excuse to work from home for the past few days. i couldn't so much last week because of all of the meetings that were on my schedule, but if you walked into my apartment during work hours anytime since monday, you would've seen me at my desk, matt on my couch, and heard a steady hum of sports center in the background. i'm a fan of working from home in the winter, anyway (why go out in the cold if you don't have to?!), but it was extra great when lunch or dinner time would roll around and i could wander into the next room and chat spend it with matt. not to mention that after sharing an office for the last six years, i'm used to having someone around to bounce thoughts and ideas off of. i haven't fully gotten used to not having that anymore now that i have an office of my own.

but tomorrow it is back to work on campus. i am actually working on several papers right now, so i could probably continue to work from home, but i feel like i should at least make an appearance so that nobody thinks i've dropped off the face of the earth. the rest of this week, weekend, and next week should be filled with productivity. this will, of course, be followed by a drive home, drive back to madison, brief stay, and a flight to ohio. ahhh, some things never change. . .

texans via chicago with chicken

just a quick update so that i don't fall an entire weekend behind with respect to our travels.

the trip to texas was fantastic, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was finally getting to meet cole, who was born only a few months after are last trip to the south. josh and becca let us be a part of cole's first go at a swing, which was pretty exciting. you may be able to tell that cole was relatively unimpressed by the phenomenon. this was shocking because (a) the rest of us had built up the experience in our own minds as one of potentially epic proportions and (b) because 99.9% of our trip was filled with cole-smiles and cole-laughter. no complaints from this end, though. i fully enjoyed all of my cole time in texas.

not discounting the warm weather relative to my new wisconsin roots, the second reason that the texas trip was the subject of so much hype was because we got in some high quality time with josh and becca. though over the years these interactions have consistently involved some sort of extended time period of listening to music, this trip was even more exciting given that becca had scored us all tickets to the wilco show at austin city limits.  we weren't technically there for the taping (which occurred the night before), but we did get to watch a pretty awesome show. i got scolded during the show for having my phone out and so don't have too many photos from the show itself. however, i did regain enough courage to get some of the encore with nick lowe (you'll see in the video why i was slightly confused that phones were not allowed. . .). in any case, i'm not sure if this is one of the encores that kara got to see at the wilco show that she went to in des moines a few nights later (they did 3 at the austin show), but it is wilco joining nick lowe for a super-cool rendition of his hit "cruel to be kind."

Wilco at Austin City Limits

also, perhaps because of the camera-photo-recording debacle, the only picture i have of matt and i at the show is this one - where my eyes are partially closed. for the record, the guy who scolded me was super nice. i'm just sad that he screwed up my picture-taking plans. matt looks adorable, though. and you can tell that the venue was totally awesome.

see? i'm an optimist.

now we are back in almost-below-freezing wisconsin, bundling up and trying to get a lot of work done during the days. maybe because of the cold weather, we've been pretty good about making dinner and staying in at night. we effortlessly made this new deliciousness in the crock pot yesterday after finding that the recipe called only for chicken, salsa, and cream of chicken soup. delicious things are always appreciated. things that are both delicious and easy are like extra special treats.

also, consider yourself warned that it may be time to put your thinking caps back on. matt and i are almost convinced that - give that we travel more than any two people ever should - we should assemble a yelp account where we can rate, comment on, and leave recommendations regarding all of the places we visit on our excursions. only thing precluding the account at this point? you got it. . . a clever name :)

we're headed to iowa tomorrow for the jill + josh extravaganza. will report back soon.
love to all until then.