i could have sworn that i had already started a post that covered the last few weeks. if i did, i have no idea where it went. if i didn't, then i have yet another instance of thinking that i posted/responded to an e-mail/replied to a text when i actually didn't. my bad.

what has happened lately? well, between matt and i, a LOT of work meetings. matt is on a couple of student committees this semester and i just seem to be involved in a lot of meetings. . . mostly phone meetings now that result from hill's ongoing collaborations or from continuing to do work with jenae and kristin. we did at least get some time together before things hit us full throttle. matt was here over the labor day holiday. it was great to see him and i was grateful to have someone to explore the city with. we did some eating out and we did a LOT of watching football. we returned to one of the first places that we found here to watch the wisconsin game last thursday night. it has one of the best black bean burgers i've ever eaten. and it turns out that it's a nice place to watch football. i am having a bit of trouble adjusting to how the football weekends don't overtake a town of 200,000+ people like they do a town of 40,000 people. people are still excited here. they're still out and visible (as they are for packer games as well), but it's not quite as overwhelming as it was in state college every football saturday.

we also saw the new movie, our idiot brother, at the local sundance theater. it's nice to have a place that's showing independent films in addition to the ones that we are used to having on our roster. and as luck would have it, the theater put us back in purchasing range for that cupcake place that i think is so great. so, we had to stop. matt got the red velvet cupcake that you see in the background. i got my lifelong favorite. . . yellow cake with chocolate frosting (some of that frosting had to be scraped off, but it was still pretty delicious.

since matt was flying out early on monday morning, he (and william shatner) pricelined us a room and we spent sunday night in downtown milwaukee. it wasn't quite as warm as when we were there for dj and laura's wedding, but we still had a good time. i love this picture of matt from the zoo. . . that peacock was just walking around the entire time we were there. most people he ran away from, but he just kind of sauntered right up to matt. i briefly thought matt was going to pet him, but a little boy chased said peacock away before anything too crazy happened.

after that, we went to the safe house, which we have been wanting to try ever since hearing about it (you may have also seen it featured on the travel channel). and after kara "scouted" it for us a couple of weeks ago on a trip with some of her high school friends, we were fully on board. the whole premise of the place is pretty great. it has a tube that shoots the martini shakers around the restaurant before anyone's martini gets poured in a glass, lots of "spy" displays, secret passages, and things to play with situated around the restaurant. matt and i actually exited through a phone booth that opens to a secret passageway and back door when you put a quarter in the phone to make the door open. probably the most infamous part of it is that you need a password to get in. well, "need." if you don't have the password, you have to do something embarrassing that gets broadcast to people at the bar and in the restaurant via closed-circut televisions. we actually knew the password, but we got to see some pretty amazing things, including the hokey pokey, a performance of "i'm a little teapot," people walking around pretending to be chickens, riding fake horses. . . it was all pretty awesome. the food/service weren't awesome, but the experience is totally unique. i definitely want to go back, but i would would highly recommend it.

as you may have guessed, this week has been mostly work for both of us, though i've gone out a couple of times, which is a couple more than any other weekend that i am here with no visitors. on tuesday, i met laura, my friend from central college, at a cute little pizza place in the Williamson (a.k.a. "Willy") Street area that is probably just under a mile from my house.  the food was delicious and it was incredibly nice to see a familiar face. on wednesday i went with marilyn essex's post-doc, paula, for a happy hour drink. interestingly, paula is also currently planning a wedding and is fairly new in her post-doc role, so we usually have a lot to talk about :)

today has been a day of watching football and thinking of my niece emily, who is celebrating her golden birthday today. i can hardly believe that it is here already!!

the coming week includes a trip to boston for the spr annual conference. i'm not entirely ready to be traveling again, but - as i seem to be incapable of making time pass any more slowly - i suppose i am as ready as i'll ever be. i do hope that i get to see a more beautiful boston than was the case during the last conference that i attended there, which was in early april. . . still a bit chilly. hope everyone else is also staying busy and planning wonderful, wonderful weeks!!

zero to hero

i don't have - and don't plan on getting - a waffle iron. i don't make waffles enough to justify all of the space that it would take to store it. but, if someone else does, could you please give this a try? these cookies are so adorably cute, it's painful. and i bet they're delicious. because everyone knows that things that don't taste good are also ugly. unless you're looking at chip dip. then it's really a crap shoot. for real, though. if you own a waffle iron, consider this an official assignment from the OI81LC blog. bake these. report back as to if they're delicious or not. and if you're feeling extra generous, send me some. i don't know if i'd rather people try to make these or cake pops. either way, you know you're dying to try them, too.

not much exciting going on here, though i'm not certain that that is all bad. the most exciting news is that i won my division of our fantasy baseball league, which means that i squeaked by both erin garrett and matt to earn the privilege of going head to head with becca this week. this comes just one year after i finished last - dead last - not just in our division, but across both divisions of our league. so, zero to hero as far as i'm concerned. i'd like to do well in the playoffs, but it's already been a good year for this girl.

in another heroic feat, erin garrett has assembled our save-the-dates. she did an awesome job and matt and i both appreciate her sparing us the agony of trying to be clever and proficient with things like photoshop or . . . or other picture programs that i don't even know about.

probably the only other news of note is that i got a haircut - back to bangs since i kept leaving a weird kink in my hair from putting it behind my ear. it turns out that that is not in style right now. so, it's back to bangs. lots of texturing to get hair to lay correctly. and i'm still thinking about whether or not my hair is going to stay red. all of that is to be continued.

matt is flying into milwaukee tomorrow. that's exciting. and will work out well, i think, because madison is going to be a mess due to the badgers' season opener. even the psych department is closing down early. there's a possibility that we'll run into some of the traffic on the way back into town, but hopefully we will miss the worst of it.

ALSO hopefully. . . we will remember to take some good, interesting, and fun pictures to share. there are definitely giant cupcakes in our future. the rest is a bit up in the air.

it seems early to be wishing, but given that i won't be posting again before this weekend, hope everyone has a good few days. happy early birthday to peggy vess. wish we could be there to celebrate with you!

oh shoot. . . post script

i forgot that it was recently pointed out to me that although i insinuated that our wedding website had gone live, i failed to provide an address.  my bad. i'll do you one better: i'll give you a live link so that all you have to do is click here.

note that we will continue to update as we know more. AND i get really excited when i get an e-mail in my inbox that someone has signed our online guest book. . .

i kind of know where i'm going when i leave my apartment now

so, that's progress. i still get a little bit disoriented on campus, but at least i look like i'm walking confidently in a direction most of the time. that should count for something, i think.

quick update on the parking ticket situation: i got a letter from the city this week saying that they "respectfully decline" to rescind my ticket. i still did not understand. luckily, they also sent me what is apparently a super secret map that explains that the residential parking permit that is stuck on my car apparently doesn't work on ALL streets. in fact, it doesn't work on any of the streets on my block. THAT would have been handy to know over the course of the last couple of weeks, don't you think? i think that the woman who usually deals with parking permits was helping other people when i got mine and i had a woman who just popped up to the desk to help (my main clue was that she forgot to charge me until i was like, "um. . . i think i need to pay you for this. . . "). but still. these are things that should be given out with your parking permit. so, really i'm lucky that i only got one ticket.

quick update on my car window: i still have one. yay! who knew that could be such a cause for celebration?!

many people have been asking for pictures of the new place and i keep telling them that it isn't quite ready yet. it's still not actually complete (i am still in desperate need of an end table and a full-length mirror, but i've been really picky about matching the woodwork), but i'm starting to feel like people could be waiting forever if they wait until i'm done. so i'm including a few apartment pictures here.

the top pic is my entryway. my mom brought that rug to me in michigan and i think she did a great job finding something that goes with the colors of the apartment. and those are matt's flip-flops, not mine. i'm pretending that he's coming back soon enough that it's just not worthwhile to try to find a spot to put them away.

the next two pics are of the living room.  in the top, you can see the french doors that lead into my office. in the bottom, you can see the mantle that i have kind of fallen in love with. and that's the door to the entryway on the right. my bedroom and bathroom are opposite the office and entryway, respectively. it's all coming along, i think!

i'm going to try to get my office a bit more assembled this week. i finally carried all of my boxes into the psych building from my car. i was kind of wishing that there were some undergrads around to help me, i must say.  so, if i get things put together there, i'll try to take some pics of it as well.

i did have lunch last week with one of the postdocs from marilyn essex's lab. she was super duper nice. we have a lot of the same interests (including a love fortrying new things and just doing stuff with people) which is pretty great. AND, as luck would have it, she is also recently engaged and is planning a wedding for next october. what are the odds?!

otherwise, this week - which started out with tears and police reports and broken windows, turned out to be a lot of work and getting things in order. i went back to barriques over the weekend, which is the coffee shop that kristin's lab gave me a gift certificate for. it is seriously SO adorable. i really, really like it. they have delicious italian sodas, a breakfast menu that they serve from all day long, and really delicious veggie sandwiches. i'm still working on getting through the very generous gift card from the lab, but anyone can feel free to send more of those puppies my way for holidays, birthdays, expressions of love.

remember some time back in april when my to do list was something like; finish dissertation, pin down post-doc, plan course, graduate, teach course, move, start post-doc, plan wedding? i realized the other day how insane the last few months have been and how much has happened. now i suppose matt and i have to actually start pinning down details about the wedding. getting to that point seemed so far away not that long ago. i'm not sure if that's a testament to everything that has happened in the last 4-5 months or how quickly the next year will go. feel free to remind me of this post when i am blogging the week before the wedding.

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia" -Charles Schulz

wow. what a weekend/start to the week it's been. you're going to love this one.

my day started on thursday with a call from Hill at about 8:30 asking if I thought that i could make it to a 9:00 meeting. knowing full well that this would include a 15-20 minute bus ride, I - like any good new post-doc - said, "sure." i actually did make it with about 90 seconds to spare. and it was actually a really great and fun meeting to be a part of. there were a ton of great ideas thrown around. . . questions asked. . . and things coming up that may directly relate to good/fun/interesting projects for me in the lab. so, despite the hectic start, i left feeling uplifted and motivated.

after another meeting on thursday afternoon, i made the 7-hour drive to mackinaw city, MI to meet up with Matt and Peggy. my parents were scheduled to arrive later on friday, so we passed some of the day in the out of doors.  we ventured over to michigan's upper peninsula for lunch in st. ignace. though the city is a bit old and parts of it are well-worn by the stream of tourists that flow in and out all year long, there were some really quaint places and some extremely beautiful views offered by both sides of the lakes (st. ignace on one side and mackinaw city on the other).

there is also a strange, strange abundance of fudge. if i didn't see 75 different places to buy fudge this weekend, i'd be shocked. they were set up on main streets and across towns mall-of-america style - not forcing anyone to go back to a shop that they might have missed, because sooner or later (and in most cases sooner), you'll find yourself right on top of another one. but not one cookie shop in the mix. . . it was so very odd.

Mighty Mac

for those of you who have even a remote interest in history, you should totally check out the story of the mackinaw bridge (apparently commonly referenced as "mighty mac" but more often coming to my mind as "big mac" which is, in fact, a very different thing). there are about a billion different places to get the story on the web (here is one), but they all result in a pretty spectacular effort to build a 5-mile-long bridge that connects lower Michigan to the UP and serves as the dividing line between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. And my pictures really don't do it justice. It's a real sight to behold - day or night.

everyone would tease me if i didn't mention that later that evening, we went to a "laser show" which turned out to be the lamest tourist rip off (well, maybe not a rip off since it was free, but certainly a disappointment) that i've encountered in a long time. i almost feel bad for writing that in case someone spent months and months putting the show together. it possibly would have been okay if it was billed as something else. it was kind of like being told you were going to get to see an awesome cartoon and then being handed a flip book that someone had put together. just really strange and not at all resembling what was billed. enough about that, though.

Arch Rock
(thanks, internet)

on saturday we went out to mackinaw island with my folks. i don't have very many pictures of this because (a) it was raining, (b) it was super cold, and (c) a+b. it was a really neat place. no motorized vehicles allowed, so everything - including our tour - was done by horse-drawn carriage. we toured the lovely state park (even lovely in the rain), visited the arch rock, toured the fort that dates back to the french-indian war, and saw another gazillion fudge shops. despite the rain and cold, it was a really nice time. i would definitely go back and do a bike ride/tour at some point. and maybe try to stay at one of the fancy-pants places on the island. so. . . after i find a job then, perhaps.

i know what you're thinking. . . this is all fine and good, but where is the excessive excitement that you alluded to at the beginning? well, just you wait, my friend. here it comes.

so, i drove back on sunday and went to bed way early (i was completely exhausted). i thought i would be a good kid, and get up early monday morning, go to the doctor for something that i've been meaning to ask about for the last week or so, and then get an impressive amount of work done for a monday afternoon.

instead, i walk out to my car (even remembering to grab the letters that i needed to mail) and find that someone has broken out the driver's side window of my car. awesome, right? super duper nice and also really conveniently tied in to my plans for the day. oh wait. . . nope. none of those things.

so, the schedule for my day went more like this: stand stunned for a full minute. spend another minute looking around for a "sorry about that" note that is not actually anywhere on my car. panic. call dad. call mom. call matt. cry. ask matt repeatedly what i should do first. finally understand when he tells me for the third(ish?) time that i should start by calling the police. call police. file police report online. call insurance company. call safelite about getting a new window. bond immediately with safelite operator, who apparently just had something similar (but more expensive) happen to her and is still angry about it. make an appointment to get new window later in the afternoon. spend another hour cleaning up glass from the sidewalk and the street. feel a sense of relief that nothing appears to be missing (note that my golf clubs are still present).

feel angry when i find the large rock that was clearly what was used to shatter my window. give up on getting all of the glass out of car and prioritize cleaning up the driver's seat so that i can drive. drive to doctor's appointment that was the whole point of walking to car in the first place. go from doctor's appointment to safelite. feel overwhelming sense of relief at how nice and efficient they are. feel overwhelming sense of gratitude when they clean up the rest of the glass in my car. spend the rest of the day (including current minutes) fighting the urge to check on my car every 30 seconds.

cool, huh? it's such a weird and unexpected series of events. i have learned that i am not wonderful at dealing with sudden, stressful things. this has proven to be no exception, clearly. matt really held it together for the both of us, bless his heart and his seemingly endless supply of patience for me.  and, thankfully, this day is finally almost over. and we can all just pray that i do not have to deal with anything like this ever again. and - to be fair - my optimism has peaked through a couple of times. i couldn't help thinking that (a) according to my new friend at safelite, my windshield or my back window would have been way more expensive, (b) i would much rather have someone break into my car than into my apartment, (c) . . . that's really all i have so far, but i'm sure i'll come up with something else. . . though i have warned matt that if i walk outside tomorrow and my car has been vandalized again, i will totally and completely lose it.

okay, i obviously can't end with that. i feel like it would be equivalent to going to bed angry. so how about a few good and happy thoughts completely unrelated to the day?

(a) our knot site is live now. that's kind of fun. we are making progress (teeny bit by teeny bit) on this wedding after all. (b) i am starting wuthering heights tonight and have only heard people say that it is going to be wonderful. this is exciting. (c) i really love the daily word ladder on sporcle and i get to catch up on all of the ones that i missed while i was in michigan. and (d) i totally would've won the grand prize if i'd been the contestant on wheel of fortune tonight. booyah.

one foot, two feet, feels like new feet

as (likely) expected, it has been a busy week of trying to get my footing in a new place and a new role.  really, this has involved a lot of relatively boring, mundane life stuff. so, apologies in advance that this is not going to be the most exciting blog post you've ever read. sorry. . . life is just that way sometimes.

i'll make it a list so that it doesn't completely overwhelm you with boring details.

SUNDAY: i went on sunday to try out the coffee shop that the buss lab at psu had chosen as my favorite-to-be. okay, possibly not, but they did give me a pretty rockin' gift card to it. i had some reading and writing to try to get done, so it seemed like the perfect place. it was, in fact, adorable. delicious italian sodas and also a pretty great blt wrap. i am a little bit in love with all of the local coffee shops, cafes and eateries here. not that there aren't just as many paneras and starbucks as there are in any other city this size, but there is something about madison and its love for bicyclists, recycling, and food straight farms that makes me happy. i guess the point is. . . it was a great choice by the buss lab (also to be known as the EUFF lab thanks to some barista's awesome post-it note). i am kicking myself for not getting a picture while i was there, but i have a strong suspicion that i'll be back soon :)

also, in the excitement of finally having a tub again, i gave a bubble bath a shot. it was pretty awesome. although, note to self and all others interested: adult bubble bath stuff produces a lot more bubbles than kid bubble bath stuff. apparently you need to adjust your water/bubble bath stuff ratio accordingly. i'm calling it a rookie mistake.


MONDAY: i met with hill on monday and quickly realized that there is a lot, lot, LOT of data here. i could hardly wrap my head around what the projects even were. so, there are more meetings set up for me to talk to different people about the parts of the project that they know about. i'm keeping my fingers crossed that someday i will know it, too.

note: i'm pretty sure it was on monday that i also almost took pictures of the apartment to post. but it just doesn't feel done yet. i'm not entirely sure what that means, but there are still things that i'm thinking to myself, "i need to get one of those." AND i still *might* have a car load of stuff to get from matt when i see him in michigan this weekend. so, sorry lace, no pics yet. i promise i'm working on it, though!

TUESDAY: gave a my kitchen the first real test as far as i'm concerned. i tried out a new recipe. although, as expected, it's a pretty tight space that  working with, i have to say that things turned out pretty well. it's fairly similar to a recipe that matt and i like a lot, but with the addition of scallions and some pan-fried tofu. [i will say, though, if this recipe is of interest to you, i would cut the tofu a little bit thinner unless you really love the taste of tofu].

also, i can't exactly remember if it was on monday or tuesday, but one day this week, i definitely realized that i recognized this picture that now hangs in my office.  the previous post-doc, jeff, told me before he left that he wasn't sure where it came from, but that he thought it looked "arty" and "cool." i agreed and so it stayed where it had been during his tenure here. then, on monday/tuesday, i looked up and realized that i could kind of make out the signature. and it said. . . erik bakken!! none other than kristin's husband. it also said 1991, but mostly just seeing erik's signature was pretty trippy. and if you look even closer, you can tell that he labeled the book that the baby is holding "attachments" and the author is k. buss.

WEDNESDAY: okay, i just realized that today is wednesday, which means that even with only four days to work with, i can't keep track of my goings on. even when there aren't that many goings on to keep track of. and that. . . . is kind of sad. but, i'm just going to plow through and suppose that you don't know the difference anyway.

so, at some point in the past few days - or today - i went to the local borders store. pretty much everything is on case, because it's closing. i perused a bit and found a few things that had been on my "to read someday" list. wuthering heights, which was suggested by my mom after i loved gone with the wind so much. also washington irving's a history of new york, which had piqued my interest when i thought i might be moving to long island. actually. . . the knicks actually piqued my interest around that time, too. so, given that this is the book that gave the knicks their name, it all seems kind of appropriate. then i got a lesser-known book from the bargain pile.

somewhere in the middle of all of that shopping, though, i started to feel a little bit smarmy. like a vulture almost. i had a flashback to an NPR podcast when a hallmark-esque chain was shutting down (coach house gifts, maybe? or paperweight?) and one of the women who they interviewed was asking, of all of the people who were showing up to shop the "going out of business" sale, "where were these people eight months ago? six months ago? where were they when they could have saved everyone's jobs?" and i kind of started to wonder if the borders people kind of felt that way. and so, sooner rather than later, i felt like i was done at porders. i couldn't handle the guilt anymore. but i didn't put the books back, because somehow also not buying them seemed bad. it was a pretty vicious cycle for at time there. . . 

also, definitely in the last 24 hours, i found a parking ticket on my car that i have no idea why i received. and it's for $35. so, i'm in the process of scripting my very first request for review of a ticket. i've scripted a very nice letter, complete with pictures. i suspect this will be a process that takes a lot longer than i want it to. . . and that has a pretty minimal chance for success (and i'm typically the optimist, so. . . ), but i'm going to give it a go anyway. because i've always thought that things should be fair. 

and that's kind of it for now. lots of meetings. lots of e-mail exchanges with jenae, actually. lots of trying to figure out how or where to get things. and an awesome reminder from erin garrett that the new season of project runway is up and running (and looking even more awesome in HD). i'm off to meet matt & co. in michigan this weekend. then it's back to being the new kid at work. . . .

new life = new look

i know some of you had already sneak-previewed the changes being made in this blogosphere, but the name and colors have officially been complete. i like the idea of meshing names that were proposed by "loyal readers." i got a little stumped at how to not mislead readers that madison was, in fact, america's 81-largest city rather than the 81st-largest city in the US (although i didn't double check wikipedia, so EG, if that's what you meant, let me know. . . .i may be misleading as it is. . . ). and after much long debate about the change, the new name and new look are in place.

done and done. hope you like them both.

the move, on the other hand, is sort of still in progress. to be sure, things are coming along quite nicely. especially when you consider that it all started out looking like this:

I know what you're thinking. Is it possible that those are all of my earthly possessions stuffed into one moving pod? Sort of. Space issues prevented 1 lamp, 1 small bookshelf, and 1 footstool from taking part in the move. Similarly, I unintentionally left my grill and all of my cookie sheets behind. But otherwise, yes. You've pretty much got the gist of it.

After some much, much, MUCH appreciated help from a few of the PSU grad students in psychology, Matt and Charile displayed  some pretty amazing packing techniques that left me paying for one pod rather than two. Props to them.

And a day later, Matt and I were off to drive halfway across the country and hope that my belongings would meet us in Madison when we got there. We did make a nice trip of it, though. We drove to Sandusky (actually to Norwalk, OH) on the first day and braved the heat and humidity the next morning for a chance at the thrills at Cedar Point. It was awesome. We were kind in a race against time as the next thunderstorm approached, so we ended up focusing our efforts on the roller coasters. My "favorite" (which I've never been good at choosing) ended up being a tie between the raptor, in which your feet swing freely as you endure the ride (and several people walked off wearing only one flip flop) and either the magnum (which was the first coaster that we went on and a vivid reminder of why i like these types of rides) and the millennium force, which turned on a dime so many times i'm still wondering how i didn't fall out. all in all, it was pretty awesome. i would totally do it again. though i would be praying for something less than the 5000% humidity that we stood in all afternoon.

After leaving Sandusky, we just barely crossed the border and spent the night in Angola, IN. Nothing too exciting to report about from there. It rained a lot. We showered multiple times to try to get rid of all of the Cedar Point-induced sweat. We ate pizza. That's pretty much the whole of it.

From Angola, we made our way to DJ & Laura's house in Chicago. We stopped on the way to take a peak at the Notre Dame campus in South Bend. It was gorgeous. It was threatening rain there, too, but the pictures that we got of the cathedral were still pretty amazing. I was a little bit surprised not to see more gargoyles, but for the most part, both of us left feeling quite impressed with the campus. We also left feeling quite impressed with the food at The Mark Dine and Tap. We sort of ended up here by accident, but it turned out to be our good fortune! Matt had a black bean burger and I had an omelet. I had no idea, but apparently Becca suggested to Matt some time ago that the avocados and bacon were an unbeatable combo. I was a little bit skeptical about warm avocados, but it turns out when you put them into an omelet with mushrooms, peppers, and onions, the product is pretty amazing. Yay Becca. Yay South Bend. and - of course - Yay me (let's face it. . . I was the real winner here. . . )

We spent a couple of days in Chicago hanging out with our dear, dear friends and re-appreciating things like Chicago-style pizza before heading to Madison. Everything after we arrived here is still kind of a blur to me. There were movers. . . cleaning. . . furniture. . . meetings. . . breweries. . .and a lot of humidity. We have had various visitors coming to help - including the lovely and talented Karen - over the course of the last week, which was awesome. You just can never have enough help when you're trying to totally reorganize your life into a whole new place and space.

Yesterday was my official "start day" as far as my post-doc is concerned, but - as with any new job - there are a lot of "little" things that need to be taken care of. (i put little in quotes because i think that i could create a strong argument that making it so that i will get paid at the end of the month is not exactly a "little" thing). i think i have the majority of my paperwork filled out. i think i have gotten all of the bus passes, parking stickers, etc. that i need. now i am just anxious to get down to work and to be able to focus on all of the things that i have been wanting to do since i started teaching my class in may and on all of the things that i am eager to learn while i am here.

i will, of course, keep you updated as things progress. welcome, again, to my new life. or, maybe more accurately, to my same life in a new place :)