just can't wait to get on the road again?

well, the weekends of travels have begun. . . or are still going. whatever you prefer to say is probably right.

i spent the weekend of november 11th in des moines doing "wedding stuff" for both matt's and my wedding and for jill's & josh's wedding. i left madison early on friday morning and kara was sweet enough to come with me to baratta's, the preferred caterer for our wedding venue. we actually got a lot of things done, mostly because it turns out that we can use our contact at baratta's as an informal wedding coordinator.  this is a huge blessing in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that matt and i are both at least 300 miles away and neither one of us have an interest in making decisions about flowers, colors, seating, centerpieces, etc. needless to say, this woman is our new hero. it was also nice to see the space again in person. AND they gave kara and me free cookies. it really was quite a good afternoon.

saturday and sunday were the days of jill's bachelorette party and bridal shower, respectively. i know that order seems a little backward, but you'll have to trust me that everyone made it through unscathed. . . aside from being completely exhausted. jill doesn't look completely exhausted in these photos, but i definitely do. . . because i am. i'm not used to going to bed late and getting up early. i'm thirty now.

admittedly, it was kind of tricky to organize everything with a group comprised of participants from six different cities, but everything actually ended up running without a hitch. AND jill seemed to have a good time, which is really all that matters anyway.

also, these photos are reminding me how photogenic she is. *ho hum* if i didn't like her so much, i'd probably have to hate her for being so wonderful ;)

last week was thanksgiving, of course, so it was a quick couple days of work before heading back to a different spot in iowa. the trip back home is actually just slightly shorter than the trek to des moines (and pella), and it's an easy drive at that. somehow, though, the four-day trip felt no longer than the three-day trip from the previous week. it just goes that way, i think, when there is so much to do. and much was done, indeed: laundry, eating, patching clothes (thanks, mom), fixing turn signals (thanks, dad), some quality family time, and even some unexpected - but wonderful - time to myself with jason and with kristi. i didn't get pictures with either of these two, but i did snap this pic on my way back into town after dinner with kristi. this is the main street of buffalo center, iowa, deserted late on a friday evening and all decked out with new Christmas decorations. i thought a pic was appropriate because things look almost as peaceful as they really are. or maybe that's just how home feels.

i did end up coming back a day early to get some work done. appropriately, i had pretty productive days both yesterday and today and hope that i have at least 2 more ahead of me before matt and i leave for texas. you didn't really think things were going to slow down yet, did you? :)

I'm still really committed to not getting behind on this blog despite the insanity of my schedule over the course of the next few weeks. Thus, I am already digging into my summary of this weekend even before Matt's flight has taken off. I will say from the get go that I am not going to comment on the details of the recent Penn State scandal. That seems weird to just sprinkle into a blog about a fun weekend and perhaps more appropriate as its own post at a later date.

Despite what you may think at the end of this post, this weekend was actually specifically chosen as Matt's date of visit so that we could go to see the band Deer Tick at the Majestic Theater.  The opportunity to be seeing our favorite bands together again (a la our days in Columbia) and the cheap tickets made it kind of a no brainer as far as we were concerned. The venue was beautiful! It looks exactly like you would picture a well-preserved (or well-restored) old theater. . . complete with a lot of beautiful moldings and chandeliers. The video is a little blurry, I know. . . and the sound is a little weird as would be expected for an iphone but I knew that Becca & Lacey would for sure want to hear the really lovely rendition of Crying Shame that the band did (well, about 2.5 minutes of it, anyway. . . ).

Section 123, Row 12

The reason that I think you might tend up skeptical that Deer Tick inspired this weekend is that the rest of the weekend really centered on football. College football on Saturday, hunting down the Bengals game on Sunday, and then teaming up with Peter and Paula for the Packers-Vikings game on Monday night. As luck with have it, Paula (well, now all of us, I guess) knows someone who knows someone who has really awesome Packers season tickets.   Four of these alleged tickets became available for Monday night's game, and we jumped at the chance.  Well, actually, in true fashion, we contemplated the decision for quite a while and then eventually talked ourselves into it.

But we ended up being super glad that we did so.  We already knew that we probably were nto going to get a chance to visit Lambeau again - I mean, really, how often does that offer fall into your lap? -
but we had no idea how awesome the seats

Lambeau Field

were. Literally where Matt and I are standing in that picture was the row that our seats were in. Crazy. According to the attendance count, there were about 70,000 people in attendance, which means there were about 40,000 fewer people than were typically at a Penn State game. That was a little bit surreal. I knew that Beaver Stadium was big for a college stadium, but hand't really thought about it in comparison to the fields for professional football. This, combined with the fact that the actual playing field isn't below ground the same way that it is at Penn State gave the game a much more intimate feeling.  We were right behind the MN sideline - Matt sat almost smack dab on the 30-yard line, so without the up-down offset, people felt much closer (and looked much bigger) than we were used to.

Monday Night Football

The most noticeable difference, though, was the pace of the game. Every play seemed to go quicker than what we remembered from the college games. That and the abrupt changes in direction that seem kind of pointless when you are watching them on tv are a lot more interesting. Players are just moving so much more quickly than you think they are. . . despite being so big. It must defy some law of Physics.  Or at least laws of normal running. I am planning on posting a more complete collection of our photos on facebook, and after looking through them I wish we would have gotten some action shots of Adrian Peterson or Charles Woodson. They were both pretty fun to watch move. And kind of mind boggling at the same time.

Today was kind of a lazy recovery day (i.e., got home late and then slept in) before I took Matt to the airport in Milwaukee. Aside from a busy schedule for both of us over the next couple of weeks, this is a pretty short break. Following two trips to Iowa for me and a boatload of work-related meetings and deadlines for Matt, we'll be heading to Texas at the end of the month to see Josh and Becca and finally meet Cole. Yay! I am an equal amount of anxious about the things that I need to get done and excited about what promises to be an awesome trip!

Have a great rest of the week, everyone. Hopefully more updates and pictures for you next week :)

An extra hour of sleep and I'm still tired. That's just not fair.

Monty's Blue Plate Diner

Inside the Blue Plate Diner

So, I guess it's November now. I can't say that I didn't see that coming. I just had my first November visitor, too, as Karen made the trek over from the twin cities to spend some time in the apartment that had no furniture the last time she was here. She actually just left a couple of hours ago. I just knew that with everything I have coming up, if I don't keep up on these posts, everything will likely fall apart.

My sister Dyanna seems to have had the most productive weekend out of all of us. She coaches cheerleading at my alma mater and they got 2nd place in their division at state championships this weekend. There is a video that was posted to facebook that I'm unable to post, so you'll have to trust me that I thought they looked great!! Especially for a high school in a town with less than 1,000 residents, that's pretty awesome, right? Yay Bison!

And to think that I was just proud of myself for making yummy burritos on Friday night.

In any case. . .

I know that it doesn't sound nearly as impressive, but Karen and I did what we could to explore parts of Madison this weekend. We did brunch at Monty's Blue Plate Diner, which is supposed to be a gem of brunch spots in Madison. I must say, it was very good. I had a tofu scramble and Karen had an artichoke & veggie sandwich (impressed at how well we epitomized the whole brunch concept? me too.) And if you aren't impressed with either of those options, you may enjoy this cake that Karen got a slice of and we "tested" it later that day. The cake portion is actually banana bread, the light brown streaks inside the cake are peanut butter, and then there is obviously chocolate on the outside. What - you may be asking - is the theme of this cake outside of sheer deliciousness? Elvis. I don't actually remember the real name of the cake, but you have to admit that that's at least a little bit cute, eh?

Tomb of Unknown Civil War Soldiers

The plan for our Saturday afternoon was going to a trip to a historic site and then popping in at the Polish Heritage Festival to see what that was all about. Unfortunately, our lackadaisical getting-read process and the wait for seats at the diner meant that we didn't make it to the Polish Festival before it was too late.  We did, however, make it to the historic site. There is a beautiful, giant cemetery in the middle of town that has memorials for both the soldiers from the Union and Confederate armies.  They were both quite lovely, in my opinion.

Civil War Union Soldiers Burial Site

I was actually kind of surprised to find a Civil War-oriented historic site in Wisconsin. Am I the only one who is surprised at all by that? Obviously, the Union was a part of the war, but I tend to think more about the battle sites and whatnot when Civil War comes to mind.  Maybe I just lived near Gettysburg for too long.

As history tends to be when it is sitting right in front of you, both of the memorials were quite touching.  The cemetery itself dates back to 1858, but the city donated space in 1886 for a Union memorial.  Near the middle (by the flagpole in the picture) is also a monument that was erected in memory of children who died at a local orphanage after their parents had been taken by the war.

The Confederate rest site was orchestrated by a Southern woman who purchased the land and managed its conversion to a final resting place for approximately 139 soldiers, most from Alabama, who had been captured during the war and perished at Camp Randall Confederate Prison (kind of changes how you feel about Camp Randall Stadium, right?). She is now also buried there with them.

All in all, it was quite an interesting and educational afternoon.

That evening, we tried a Thai restaurant in the neighborhood by my house and then took the coupon from the local ads and went cosmic bowling. Always a good choice for an evening event, I think. There was some slight distraction by the end of the LSU-Alabama game, but we actually both did pretty well.  And we got to come back to my place and eat that cake, so it's not like the evening was really at risk of ending poorly.

The coming week contains - of course - more work to be done before Matt arrives in town on Friday (yay for having an airport that it is somewhat affordable to fly into/out of).  He and I have quite a few things planned and will hopefully be diligent about taking pictures. For now, just keep your fingers crossed that it isn't frigid next Monday night. Although I am inexplicably excited about seeing Lambeau, I think it is an understatement to say that I am not excited about the possibility of being cold. (I know that you're commenting about my being from Iowa right now, but I don't care. Being cold sucks.)

Hope all of you had a great weekend, too, and that you got to "Fall back" appropriately.  Note: put Karen on your list of people to invite over during DST next year. She reset all of my clocks for me :)

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?

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!!