Project 365 – 2010

Phew…. This is going to be a quick overview of the last few weeks. I haven’t had time, energy, or desire to post in such a long time, and honestly haven’t taken very many photos either.

Week 20

On Sunday (Mother’s Day), Kyle and I ate lunch at his parent’s and dinner at his house, both delicious of course. Lunch was steaks and my favorite grilled peppers, haha and dinner was “post-modern and traditional” pigs-in-a-blanket.

Monday I had my favorite bento box (Beef Sukiyaki!) ever following my last lunch shift ever.

The rest of the week I spent working from the office and getting into the swing of things with the new job. My desk was the conference table until we got the office set up later in the week. I did have flowers from Kyle to make things pretty though!

On Thursday I was very pleasantly surprised with a going away party at Cerulean! They had planned it all out, getting me to come in because I had plans to hang out with Toni, hiding me out on the porch and then getting the lounge ready for the party after most of the customers had left, it was SO sweet! Toni and Lindsey made and decorated the cutest cupcakes ever

Friday was my last dinner shift, Kyle and 2 friends came in and made me a little (very little, that plate is about 2 x 2 inches!) sampler plate of their meals for me to take back to the kitchen and eat, haha!

We celebrated Becca’s birthday after work! Toni and I had put together a fun bag of presents for her, and Lindsey decorated cupcakes (2 days in a row!). We got a cute-sie picture of us group-hugging (Becca, Toni and I).

That night ended with what was the beginning of an extremely hard week. First I got an email from my mom saying that I had probably already heard if I’d been on Facebook (which I hadn’t been) that my friend Daniel Parker was in a bike accident. I immediately got online to see if I could find anything out and then got a voicemail from my friend Michael saying that it was a really bad accident.

On Saturday I got my stuff packed up, met two of the interns at the office to get them going on some work and then left for Middlebury to meet Kyle at his work and we left for Michigan from there. My brother Jon and friend Michael had both been at the hospital (U of M Hospital in Ann Arbor) since the middle of the night. We had been praying for a miracle, although at that point it didn’t look good. Not being there yet or fully knowing the situation I had some hope when they took him back into surgery on Saturday to remove more of his skull to relieve pressure, but by the time we were almost there Jon had texted me to make me aware of the situation and that the doctors had told the family they did not expect him to live 24 hours. It was just a week before that Daniel had driven from Grand Rapids, MI to Winona Lake, IN to attend my graduation, and had to immediately head back to Hillsdale, MI for his brothers graduation. A week earlier I had hugged him, taken pictures with him, and been so blessed by his being there. Now I was on my way to the hospital to say goodbye and hug his family. It was a difficult day, followed by many more difficult days. I was also able to see Rosie, one of my youth group girls (from when I worked with the Countryside youth group in 2006-07). Her older sister Kayla was one floor above Daniel in an induced coma with a life-threatening tumor on her right lung.

Week 21

Sunday was very emotionally draining. It was a blessing to be at Countryside with my church family, it was a blessing to listen to Pastor talk about Daniel and the kind of man of God he always was. That afternoon two dear ladies from Countryside hosted a graduation open house for me at my old house (the church’s parsonage). It was hard to go ahead with the open house with everything that was going on, but I was thankful that all the leftover food (and there was lots even though the open house had a great turnout!) was able to go to the church to help feed the people coming in from out-of-town to be with the Parkers. I got to see lots of people that I never get to see anymore, people not from Countryside that I wouldn’t normally see on a trip to Michigan. Mom and dad even came!!! I called them on Skype right before the open house was starting and talked for a bit and then as people showed up they would talk to me for a bit and then talk to mom and dad on video chat! At one point it died down a little and I asked dad if he wanted me to shut it down, and he said, “No, if I see someone I know I’ll holler at them!

Kyle was a huge help the whole weekend. He drove everywhere, took care of me, and let me cry… Besides crying off and on the whole weekend, after the open house I was completely spent and cried almost all the way back to Indiana. We stopped at Kyle’s parents for awhile to see them and I cried with them too.

Daniel’s breathing tube had been taken out sometime during the afternoon, and he was kept on life support until the organ donations could be all lined up. He was taken off life support at 10:15pm and he passed away at 10:30pm.

Monday was a marathon day at work with 3 out of the 5 interns there and getting ready for a big training on Tuesday. We worked a solid 12 hour day getting materials ready and binders put together.

On Tuesday we had a training for all “front-of-the-line” staff. I was one of the presenters, along with my boss, the Provost, and the V.P. of Student Affairs. The training went really well! After work Kyle and I had a sushi date at Cerulean.

Wednesday I left work early to drive to Michigan for Daniel’s visitation. Over 1,000 people went to the visitation, he had touched so many lives.

Thursday was the funeral, a difficult and emotional day, but it truly was a celebration of Daniel’s life.

I don’t remember anything about Friday… That week was just difficult. The internet played such a huge role with people grieving and sharing memories about Daniel over Facebook, Twitter and blogs that I found myself just wanting to read everything I could about Daniel in the evenings after work, which of course made me very emotional, there were several nights when I just stayed at work a little late to check my email and then left my computer there so I wouldn’t be able to get online for hours at home.

Saturday I got loads of stuff done at home (mainly laundry!)

Week 22

Sunday Kyle and I went to church, hung out with his dad for awhile, and then spent the afternoon getting sun with his brother Lee.

Monday-Friday was more of the marathon that is the new job! We’re getting ready to launch a huge marketing campaign and that requires all sorts of research, meetings, planning, writing, etc… I really need to take pictures of my desk! At one point I had 2 bouquets of flowers from Kyle, but alas they have died by now. I did snap a picture of 2 of the interns busily drafting a letter together, they’re in their “thinking” position, I love it!

Friday was the beginning of a long vacation weekend that Kyle and I spent galavanting around doing different fun things and visiting/spending time with different fun people! Friday night we had dinner with friends Craig and Cara at this super hokey looking place in Goshen called “Dandino’s.” The menu was so funny, and honestly the place looked like it needed to go on the show Kitchen Nightmares, but the food was pretty good!

One of my favorite parts was on Saturday when we went to Danville, IN to visit his friend Marcus and the three of us spent the whole afternoon at the community pool. We had a blast cruising down the giant water slides, drifting around the lazy river, doing cannon-balls off the diving board and sitting around talking and getting sun. For 10 minutes of every hour they have “adult swim,” which I guess is to give the life-guards a break and probably to encourage the kids to stop playing and use the bathroom once in awhile. Well, we took full advantage of adult swim and would go down the water slide 5 times in a row when there was no line of little kids

There’s the recap of the last few weeks!

Last Sunday was another lovely, relaxed day spent with Kyle’s family. When we went to find Dani in the kid’s wing after the church service let out, she came tearing out of the bathroom saying, “Tiiiinnnnaa!!” She may have been prepped a little by grandma She also called me “Uncle Tina” a few times, must be since I’m with Uncle Kyle it just makes sense that I would be Uncle Tina!

Monday was my first day on the new job! I ended up working from home Monday and Tuesday since they didn’t have the office ready for me yet. Monday was a bit distastrous though, at about 10:00am I realized a bolt had fallen out of the back of my toilet. So, I Skyped with dad, showed him the problem and he said it was a bolt that held the tank to the base and that I could get a new one at the hardware store and replace it. So, I stuck a bowl under the toilet to catch the dripping water, tried to turn the water off, and got the part I needed at the hardware store. Long story short – I couldn’t fix it, I couldn’t turn the water off and eventually there was water everywhere including seeping into my bedroom carpet, I was freaking out because I needed to be working, no one was readily available to rescue me, so Kyle sensed the desperation and frustration in my voice and sent me a plumber to save the day! The plumber ended up having to turn the water for the whole house off to fix the problem, then he changed the bolts and replaced the water shut-off valve with one that worked!

Tuesday I worked from home again, mainly preparing for a meeting on Thursday with the interns, also doing some writing.

Wednesday was my first day in the office! It was a busy day spent making phone calls, prepping for the meeting  and compiling binders for the interns. By the time I went into work at Cerulean I was a bit frazzled thinking about everything I still needed to do, but after getting my mind off of everything for a few hours I calmed down, spent some time with my favorite ladies after work, and then went home to finish prepping for an early morning on Thursday.

I was up SO EARLY on Thursday!! So, maybe lots of people normally get up early, but not me, and I was up at 5:30am! The day went really well though; great meetings, really productive, and even a fun shift at Cerulean to end the day! I got to work with some of my favorite girls in the whole world, and we went a little crazy taking pictures! We took pictures in the sushi lounge… in a booth… in the walk-in… in the wine cellar… with the new beer fridge… but my favorite was the one on the porch!

The weekend was an absolute whirlwind of graduation related activities! Friday morning we had rehearsal (which lasted longer then the real graduation). After rehearsal I had to book it to Fort Wayne where I had a bunch of things to do. One of the things I hadn’t planned on doing, but I found a place to get my eyebrows threaded. I’d heard from several people that it was really cool and that they’d had great results so when I saw a store in the mall that offered it for $8 I jumped on it! It was painful, but only for about 20 seconds, and it turned out great

Jon, Natalie, Kyle and I went out for dinner at Cerulean. Kyle had very sweetly pre-arranged to have flowers on the table and our first course waiting for us when we got there!! I got my absolute favorite dish, the sea bass with the goat-cheese squash cake, YUM!

Becca met up with Toni and I at the dessert and I do think we both look quite lovely in our floral shirts

The two Abby’s, Prof Prinsen and myself spent some time catching up. We’re all doing new, exciting and different things with our lives right now! It was really nice to catch up with everyone.

Saturday was the BIG DAY!! Graduation was long (and at times boring) but overall really good

I felt so blessed to spend the day with so many wonderful people! 4 people from my home church made the drive (2 of them even had to rush back to MI for Hillsdale College’s graduation!).

Kyle’s parents came to graduation and lunch!

Lunch was so fabulous. We had a group of 14! Kyle had even pre-arranged for two gorgeous flower arrangements (in Grace colors!) to be on the tables!

The food was AHHH-mazing!!!

We laughed and had a good time!!

And took lots and lots of pictures!!!!!

At the end of the day it was so nice to relax. I just kept sighing!! I guess it was a mix of relief, contentment and anticipation!!

BONUS! They spelled my name right on my diploma

Sunday I made it out to Elkhart so that Jon could transfer everything from my old MacBook to my new one!

Jon and Nat also treated Kyle and I to a delicious homemade Thai dinner, Pad See Ew. Soooo yummy!!!

I also met my nephew dog Leo’s new best friend, a stuffed rabbit named Hoppity.

Monday I was scheduled to work a double, but ended up switching my dinner shift to prepare for a second interview (that was scheduled for that night and then got moved to later in the week).

Tuesday was spent getting stuff done around the house, running errands, and working. One of the things I accomplished was going through a ton of clothes, taking some to Goodwill and getting the rest ironed and on hangers to take to Plato’s Closet. I improvised a hanging rack

I finally had my second interview on Wednesday, it went well and I got a much better feel for the position and the project. I also had one more video shoot at one of the United Way Vision Council meetings.

Thursday should have been day 1 of a road trip with my cousin, but we ended up canceling it. I’d kind of gone back and forth, and then he did too, so we decided now wasn’t a good time. Since I was in town, I attended Awards Chapel where I received the Communication Student Leader award! The new dinner menu started that night at Cerulean, so of course Kyle and I went in to try some of the new stuff! We had the lobster cakes, house-cured pork belly with mascarpone polenta and egg, seviche sea scallops, and for dessert, chocolate bread pudding with pistachio gelato – YUM!!!

Friday was sort of a big day! I mean, with working lunch… buying a new outfit at Penney’s… and GETTING A JOB!!!!! I sat down with my new boss, Dave, at 6pm and he offered me the position! I am now the project coordinator for a big marketing campaign at my alma mater. Kyle was hanging out at Bike Fest waiting for me, so when I came to meet him and tell him the good news we decided to go have a celebratory dinner at Cerulean, we can’t get enough of that place! We were still full from the night before so we tried not to order too much. It was fun to go out and celebrate and of course, tell my best girls about the new job!

Unfortunately for Bike Fest the weather on Saturday was pretty gross and rainy. Kyle and I went to the tent but it was just humid and uncomfortable. We stayed long enough to eat a little and listen to my friends band play.

Should be a big post next week, graduation is Saturday!!

Sunday ended up being running, running all day long. I made it (late) to Michigan for the Senior Luncheon/Tea. It was such a good time though, always a blessing to see my church family. Took my camera, didn’t take pictures…

Monday was productive; got some video stuff done, cleaned the apartment, paid bills, etc… and late into the night (technically Tuesday) I ordered my new MacBook Pro which I am using right now!!

Tuesday started with an early morning video shoot at United Way.

The day continued with a trip to Goodwill, lunch with Kyle and my brother, listening to them talk business and then meeting with Kyle’s old swim coach to talk about the “Dollars for Scholars” program and how we can help with it by adding a social media element.

Wednesday I was basically just excited all day while tracking the shipping progress of my MacBook Pro!

Thursday it arrived! It arrived!! In all it’s beauty it arrived!!!

I also had weird dreams that night including one involving an all-in-one coffee grinder/gelato maker at the restaurant I work at.

Friday I ate three hot dogs. That literally was the news of the day in my life. One of them was at Steak and Shake and had guacamole on it, which was way better than it sounds.

Saturday I slept in and took it easy most of the day. I did venture out to the Brewhouse in North Manchester for lunch, where I was pleasantly surprised to see table tents that I’d designed being used! I designed it while I was in Argentina and had no idea where or even if they were going to be used. They were printed poorly, but it was still exciting to see them.

Didn’t do so great on taking pictures every day this past week, but in my defense it was a busy week! Between working six shifts, having three video shoots and one interview, I was running around all week long.

Sunday was really relaxing and nice, went to River Oaks Church in Goshen and had lunch at Kyle’s parents where I got some quality play time with Dani in!

We had fun! She had a little trouble remembering my name and called me “Tom” a few times

Monday I stopped over to the school to pick up the video camera and had a nice visit with my advisor. I also got a little more info on the mysterious meeting I was having on Wednesday. 

Tuesday was my day off (and Tuesday is also Kyle’s day off), so he accompanied me to Anderson, IN for a video shoot. We tested out the DIY studio lights we’d gotten the week before and then hit the road. Had a nice picnic lunch on Taylor University’s campus in Upland, IN and then made it the rest of the way to Anderson where we interviewed the sweetest couple! 93 and 95, married 67 years (and dated 6 years), and still as feisty as ever! This video shoot was in relation to the KREMC video I’m doing. The gentleman had been involved with the rural electrification process in the very beginning, one of his summer jobs as a young man was going to the farmers and getting easements signed. We talked quite a bit about that whole process but of course also had to hear their love story. Such a sweet couple. 

After the interview we headed back to Upland for dinner and ice-cream at Ivanhoes and a visit to my Aunt Rita and Uncle Mike. My Uncle Mike has really taken off with pottery (he sells online on his Etsy page) so we toured his studio and I visited my kiln! 

Wednesday I had an interview at Grace College for a potential position (6 months, full-time) with the brand campaign agency they hired at the end of last year. The interview was hard, but the job sounds like a really exciting opportunity. I’m really hoping I am asked to do a second interview, especially since I remembered so many things after the fact that I should have talked about! 

I also had a video shoot at United Way in the afternoon. We’re just beginning to work on the 2010 campaign video. While I was there I found out that the 2009 campaign video I did for them won second place in the state!

Thursday and Friday were both spent getting stuff done at home during the day and working at night. Friday I responded with a YES! to be part of a branding team for my parent’s mission organization. It will be an ad hoc committee that will video-conference once a month and and then make recommendations to the mission. Here’s some pictures of my two main work stations, my coffee table and my desk, both in their messy natural state! 

Saturday I started out the day bright and early at the KREMC Annual Meeting shooting video. It was huge event, they do lots of giveaways and have kids programs because they need to get at least 2% of their 17,000 customers to have a quorum for the voting. I got to add to my name tag collection

Grandma asked me to take some pictures of the dogwood tree out front so she could show grandpa, it is absolutely beautiful this year, and I noticed today that the lilacs (my favorite!) are starting to bloom!

Lastly, graduation is coming up in a few weeks! I really wanted to have a time to see people in Michigan (high school friends, my friends parents, former co-workers, etc…) so I decided to have an open house. Thankfully I can have it at my old house since the associate pastor at my home church lives there! So I made postcard invitations and sent those out and then made a Facebook event using this classy picture

Thanks for stopping by!

Posting a day late due to a very busy weekend. Before we get to that though, let’s go back a week to Easter Sunday!

Sunday – Jon, Natalie and I all went to church at River Oaks in Goshen and then had lunch at Kyle’s parent’s house. They have a beautiful backyard so we all went for a cruise in the golf-cart and took some pictures down by the river. Notice their dog Brewster, he made sure he was in every single picture

Monday – Happy Dyngus Day!! I don’t completely understand it, but from what I get it’s the day after Easter, it’s a very Polish thing (food/music) and it kicks off campaign season. Despite not really knowing exactly what it was, I enjoyed it! Polish sausage, perogies and this amazing cabbage/noodle mix that was sweet and sour and oh-so-delicious!

Tuesday – I scheduled my first video shoot for the KREMC video I’m doing! So I ran around town before work and picked up some stuff to do DIY studio lighting since the shoot is an interview in a home. I got 2 lights, some umbrellas and a white board. I’m picking up the camera today and I’m going to test it to see if I need more or something different. So far I have 4 video shoots (for 2 different videos) set up in the next 2 weeks!

Wednesday – I watched something Tuesday night after work that had chocolate chip pancakes in it, so first thing Wednesday morning I was craving them (which is super weird because I don’t normally like sweet food or breakfast all that much). I gave into the craving though and made some for breakfast… and then didn’t want to waste the batter so made more for lunch… and then did the same routine the next day…

Thursday – In between prepping my paper/presentation for the conference I went through all my clothes. That involved one closet, 2 dressers, 3 under the bed bins, one giant rubbermaid and 2 trash-bags full of clothes (Goodwill junkie?!). I sorted through and packed away winter stuff, unpacked summer stuff, and went through everything picking out pieces that don’t fit or that I don’t see myself wearing. From there I sorted out one trash bag to go to Goodwill and one giant overflowing box that I’m either going to try to take to Plato’s Closet, or maybe have a clothing swap with the girls at work!

Friday – besides prepping for the conference all day, stressing about what to wear, posting about what to wear, going into Cerulean for a delicious snack half because I really wanted the special that my boss had tweeted about, and half because I needed my co-workers opinion on what to wear to the conference, I also went to dinner at don Quijote in Valparaiso! The food was good, but definitely didn’t taste all that legit to me. I’m not sure how much difference there is from chorizo in Spain vs. chorizo in Argentina, but according to this restaurant chorizo in Spain is more like thick cut pepperoni. Also, the sauce on the patatas bravas was like hot wing sauce. It was all still quite tasty though.

Saturday – the big day! I presented at the 2010 Clement S. Stacy Undergraduate Research Conference held on the Purdue University Calumet campus. The pictures are: me a few minutes before the presentation feeling a little nervous, a posed picture of me after the presentation when I’m all relaxed and relieved, all four of the presenters in my session during the Q&A time, and my publicist/driver/photographer Kyle doing his mock presentation I’ll blog more about the conference later this week. The rest of Saturday was busy busy busy! We went to the outlet malls in Michigan City, the mall in South Bend and had dinner with Jon/Nat and two of Kyle’s friends in Elkhart.

I guess that’s it, I will be posting more this week though! I’ve got 3 outfits to from the weekend to post, a paper to post about, a conference to post about… and I have a big week ahead of me: working 6 shifts, 3 video shoots (one of which is in Anderson – 2 hours away), one interview, and hopefully just getting a lot done in general!

I lost my camera. So I didn’t take any pictures until Thursday. Then I found my camera and still didn’t use it to take pictures, just kept using my phone to take pictures. I think I need to set an alarm on my phone to go off every day to remind me to take a picture.

The big photo event of the week was the amazing beer/pub-style food dinner at Cerulean.

A few notes about that night. My shoes were amazing first of all. Second of all, the food was crazy good. Fish and chips (Cerulean style, skate fish and okinawa “purple” potatoes with a mascaropone sour cream dip), roasted chicken and mac & cheese (chicken roasted with honey and saffron to complement the beer pairing, mac & cheese made with gruyere, each person got half a chicken, 2 POUNDS!), burgers (one was pork and beef with a fried egg and brie, one was kobe beef with oats, cherry and a homemade ketchup) and dessert was a chocolate banana cake and a raspberry/pineapple puree. I twittered the entire night and found out that the kitchen followed my tweets throughout the night, as well as 3 co-workers who weren’t working that night! It was such a fun night!

This is the swimsuit I ordered online (through modcloth.com) and got in the mail this week! It’s super modest and yet insanely adorable! I think I need retro sunglasses, wedges and an adorable sunhat to go with it! I ordered the retro high-waisted 2 piece also to see which one I would like more and ultimately I picked the one piece. While both were cute and flattering, I’m more comfortable in the one piece.

Apparently my dog-nephew Leo likes wearing the scarf I got Natalie for her birthday. I think he looks quite dapper

This is what my room usually looks like A mess created by me trying to figure out what to wear.

I came home today and this lamp was on. I never even use this lamp. So, I wondered, and even tweeted that perhaps it was the act of an intruder, or maybe the lamp is possessed. Then when I left for work and turned the kitchen light off (which I had flipped on when I walked in the door earlier) the lamp turned off. Apparently the switch is connected to that outlet, and I am both an intruder in my own house, and the evil mastermind behind my possessed lamp.

Another week has flown by. I have so many things coming up that I need to get ready for!!!

Real quick an old pic that I just found, all of us lovely servers on Valentines Day!! Three of us are sporting the orchid hair clips that I made for Jr/Sr Banquet last year

Ok, on to the week!! Monday I took my car in to the shop because when I had gotten it detailed the boys told me there was some diesel in the trunk and backseat floor area. At the shop they ended up replacing a hose that had deteriorated, I’m so thankful it wasn’t something more serious.

Spotted in Warsaw!! I want a “Hoyt” window sticker for my car.

Spring has sprung!! There are little flowers poking through in a few of Grandma’s flower beds.

My pretty shiny car. Her name is “Miss Daisy”

That would be me. In my pink motorcycle helmet and leather chaps. Oh yeah Wednesday Kyle and I went for a long ride around the lake in Syracuse and had some dinner at the Down Under (beware going in there, you will come out smelling like a deep fried cigarette).

My delicious lunch from Cerulean. Pork with a cassia apple chutney served over sticky rice, asian noodles, soba boodles and mung bean sprouts. This was the last week of training a new lunch hostess, so I won’t have as many opportunities to eat delicious lunches like this since I’ll be mainly on dinner again. It’s a good thing though, I need my daytime hours free to get these videos done!

Ugh. This was my Friday. Well, really my whole weekend, but mainly Friday. I felt myself getting sick on Thursday and pushed through to have a wonderful evening with dear friends, but Friday morning I was hurting bad. I ended up getting my shift covered that night and spending the entire day resting. It was a super bad head cold: congested, sore throat, swollen glands and a low grade fever. I spent Friday-Sunday all drugged up on DayQuil/NyQuil, Claritin, TheraFlu and nasal spray. I was pretty out of it, but survived!

Saturday I still felt like death, but couldn’t handle being cooped up for another whole day and didn’t want to miss my sister-in-law’s birthday festivities in South Bend. So Kyle and I met up with the birthday group for dinner at Backstage Grill, where the food (and service) ended up being pretty terrible. Jon actually ended up just eating fish and chips at Fiddler’s Hearth later. We left the party early because I was feeling so cruddy, but while I was still there I enjoyed a nice mug of TheraFlu, haha I am one classy broad out at an Irish Pub drinking TheraFlu!

Hope ya’ll had a great (and healthy!) week!

Only a few pictures this week.

I had a pretty busy week between a trip to Chicago, meetings, working, finally exercising (thanks to Toni), St. Patty’s day, a friend’s birthday, etc… A good week, but a busy one with not as much actual productivity as I’d like.

Toni and I left for Chicago Sunday morning, only an hour later than we’d planned despite my inability to correctly set an alarm with the time change happening. We got into town, bought CTA day passes and parked Toni’s car near Michael and Karina’s apartment, then we headed out for the day. We ate some delicious Chicago style deep-dish pizza at Giordano’s, walked around Millennium Park, went shopping… In the late afternoon we headed back to Michael and Karina’s to change for an evening out, we ended up going to see “Green Zone” (great movie!), walking around a lot more, and having a late bite to eat at the “Pick-Me-Up Cafe.”

Monday morning we spent some time with Michael, then headed out of town, making a very important stop at Trader Joe’s! I have wanted to go to a Trader Joe’s for years and years and this was the first time I got to! I loved it. I got feta cheese, hummus, cereal, root beer, fresh mint, limes, apples, dried mangoes with chili spice…. YUM!!

Tuesday I had the whole day off work. I had a great lunch meeting, cleaned my apartment, worked out with Toni, got my car detailed and made a delicious dinner with my friend Kyle! I sort of pretended I was going to cook and then just watched him do everything. We had cavatapi with a vodka cream sauce and sausage, garlic bread and salad!

Wednesday was St. Patty’s! I met up with three of the lovely ladies (and one of the wonderful gentleman) that I work with for dinner in Fort Wayne! I love these girls so much, it’s so wonderful to have such amazing co-workers who genuinely care about each other.

I have no more pictures from the week. I worked a double on Thursday, so nothing exciting happened that day. Friday I worked lunch, ran a million errands and then went to Syracuse for dinner with friends. After dinner I headed back to Warsaw for a birthday bonfire, first bonfire of the year and it was wonderful! Saturday I slept waaaay in (11:30am!), worked out with Toni and worked the dinner shift!

I’m excited to be working out again, changing my eating hasn’t had any results so hopefully the exercise will help! I know it makes me feel better and sleep better.

My advisor at Grace emailed me this week with an exciting job posting in Jacksonville, FL. It’s definitely something I want to pursue!

I feel like my to-do list is a million miles long between graduation, the Purdue conference, road trip in April, my video projects, stuff I want to do around the house, looking for a job, etc… And I feel like I’m just starting to get back into the swing of things since I got back from Argentina.

I’m headed to Michigan in the morning! Excited to go to my home church, hang out with my best friend, eat some Saucy Dogs food, and see “Beauty and the Beast” at the Sauk Theatre!!

Goodnight!

Phew, busy week!

On Sunday I worked a catering dinner but finished in time to watch a movie with a friend, we watched “Law Abiding Citizen,” definitely not a movie I recommend, it was pretty messed up. It did make me crave french toast, so I went home and made some

Tuesday I had a really fun lunch in the park! Grilled beef filets, roasted potatoes and garlic bread (none of which I helped with, other than chowing down, soooo delicious!).

I also gave a friend a haircut.

Wednesday was a full day, I worked the lunch shift, got some stuff done in the afternoon and then went on a motorcycle ride! I had a graduation meeting that evening and got to pick up my regalia My favorite part of the meeting was the attire guidelines, under men it said “earring ok, but no RED FLASHING LIGHTS” and under women it said, “nose rings acceptable, but nothing real outlandish.”

At about 10pm my motorcycle friend called me while in his way to the ER. We’d gone riding for about an hour, and then he went riding more by himself, didn’t have any trouble until he went to park it in his garage! He was trying to squeeze in by his roommates truck and ended up tipping his roommates moped, which he then tried to save and utterly failed. It was him vs. the Harley, moped and a shelf. They won. So we sat in the ER for about 3 hours so he could get some stitches on his ear. He’s going to tell people it was a knife fight

I ate a lot of yummy food this week! On Tuesday I had the special from work, “plum-lemon glazed artic char with roasted fingerling potatoes, house-made ricotta, toasted pine-nuts and fresh mint.” Another night after work I took home some sticky rice with sunomono sauce and cut up an avocado on top of it.

Saturday was wonderful! Brother/sister-in-law came to town and we had lunch at Cerulean, as always sooo yummy!

Natalie modeled the purse that mom and dad got her in Argentina.

I worked the dinner shift tonight and we rocked it out! Most weekend nights we have 6 servers and tonight we only had 4, but we made it! The highlight of my night was the 2 Southern gentleman I served, one asked (in a perfect Southern drawl) where the “sweet sugar peas” were from, and when I told him they came from California he said, “well, they weren’t even tired and that’s a long walk!

I’m super tired, but I need to pack and get ready because early tomorrow morning a friend (and fellow server) and I are going to Chicago for the night! She has never been to Chicago so we’re going to see as much as we can!