Playing Catch-up

I promise, we're still alive.

The holidays are over and we're getting back into the swing of things so I wanted to get back into the routine of this whole blogging thing.  Over the holidays, I surprisingly heard a lot of "I've been reading your blog!" type comments from friends and family.  I want you all to know, I thought that was awesome.  I've been doing this largely as a way to try and document all of the events have been coming and going with great speed for me and Nathan.  New jobs, new places, etc.  But, I did also hope that I could use it to let friends and family know what we're up to since I am absolutely awful with calling all of you as much as I should.  Just so you know, I am aware that I suck at that.  Unfortunately, I don't get to know what YOU all are up to this way, but that just hammers home that I need to get better with that whole phone call thing.  Anyway, I'm gonna use this post to catch up on the past couple months before continuing forward.  A couple of months, where I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with many of you.  But, unfortunately, not all.

Oh, and as always, it'll include lots of pictures.  This is gonna be a long one.

Christmas
This past Christmas was both very happy and very sad all at the same time.  For instance, I got to see both of my awesome aunts! (yay alliteration!) BOTH!  That's almost unheard of.  Most of the time I will see one, or the other, but very rarely do I see both in one holiday.  Major downside:  Mom wasn't able to make it home.  I officially have not seen my mother since Christmas of 2010.  That sucks, and I miss her terribly.  Good side: I got to sleep in my old room at Dad's and see them, all of my wonderful cousins and their children on his side and got to see my always stylin' cousin Salena and her husband Brian from mom's side who live far far away and I also rarely get to see.  And even made time to go see my absolutely wonderful mother and father-in-law Jenny and John.  (also, all the puppies!)  Family was definitely the theme for this Christmas.  Downside:  Nathan had to work Christmas.  All of it, the day after and New Year's.  So while, I was able to see all of the family, he had to sit at home by himself.  I hated that.

Other bonus fun time:  I got to meet Jude finally!  The most awesome one-year-old ever and spend some time with his wonderful parent, Ashleigh and John.

It turned out I was too busy to take tons of pictures of Christmas, but here are a couple.

We couldn't all be together in person, but Skype is a wonderful invention. :)

Even though he wasn't there to see it, Nathan officially has his own stocking at Dad's

Santa Deer.

Christmas pt. 2 A.K.A. Kirby's Wedding

I had the week between Christmas and New Year's off.  Relaxing right?  Not really.  But definitely tons of fun!  After driving down to Mattoon for Christmas, I then drove down to Huntsville and Guntersville, Alabama, for my good friend Kirby's Wedding.  She was a bridesmaid for me, and I was more than happy to return the favor.  Now THIS one had tons of pictures.  It was a blast.  I hadn't seen Kirby since my wedding, so seeing her again was great.  Also, I got to stay with my good friends Amanda and Andrew.  I had not seen them in, I think, close to seven years.  I missed those two so freakin much, and it was so great to get to spend time with them again.  We picked up right where we left off.  Complete with Rotel and Milo's sweet tea.  I also, got to see Samantha!  I hadn't seen her in probably about seven years or more either!  It turns out I had really missed being in the south.  There's not many places you can be outside in short sleeves in December.  :) The downside to all of this again, was that Nathan was stuck working, but we made up for that with his own visit in January.

Bachelorette!

She was gorgeous

Sam!

She was incredibly busy, as brides often are, so we just took a picture with her back :)

Bachelorette Party!

Lake Guntersville, from my hotel room

They. Are. Awesome.

Did I mention Milo's?  Cause I should have.

I was gonna include our Winter-een-mas visit home in this post too, but I believe I'll put that separately.  I just now previewed this post and saw how freakishly long it was becoming and figured the Holiday Extravaganza deserved it's own post anyway.  I got back into Madison New Year's Day. around 1 o'clock pm.  It was snowing, of course.  In total, I had spent over 24 hours on the road by myself.  While there were both upsides and downsides, it was definitely time well spent.  

Our Thanksgiving in Pictures

I'm blogging at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night.  I know how to party.  :)  Truthfully, last night was spent at our new favorite local bar, Antlers, drinking my new favorite local micro-brew, Spotted Cow, listening to Dropkick Murphys (one of Nathan's favs, they're growing on me also, the more we hear it).  So, tonight is promising to be rather chill.  I've been meaning to blog about the Thanksgiving we had.  We weren't able to make it home as we had hoped but I did have my own personal accomplishment of making an entire thanksgiving dinner all by myself, while Nathan was at work.  Rather than go into long-winded explanations of it, and since I take way too many pictures anyway, I decided I'd just post pictures that I took throughout the process.  I should really look into getting a good beginner SLR or something with all the pictures I take.

I swear this is going to end up being a food blog.

The beginning of the process:  Turkey breast in the crockpot and apple pie filling cooling on the counter.  Making dessert first seemed logical since it had to cool.  Unfortunately, I did not EAT dessert first.

Random ingredients.  Also, this is basically all the counter space I had to work with.

MMM.  Coffee.  This became necessary midway through the day.

My "assistant."  And by assistant, I mean sneaky, scrap-stealing, ninja-cat.

Crockpot full of chicken and noodles.  My first try.  Turned out good but not great.

PO-TA-TOS!  I actually considered making mom's twice-baked recipe, but didn't have a large enough baking dish, and at this point I was running low on time.

The finished product:  Turkey, chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, gravy, greenbean casserole, tea and apple pie.  I'm still pretty impressed with myself.

So there you have it.  It occurs to me now a picture of us eating the food would have completed this nicely, but I was way too concerned with actually eating.  Tip:  If you ever have a thanksgiving where you know you'll never eat a whole bird, the turkey breast in the crockpot idea worked out really well.  We had leftovers, but not too many and it turned out really juicy.  While, not exactly the way we would have liked to spend Thanksgiving, a holiday feast for two actually made the whole thing kind of special.  And besides, this way I didn't have to feel guilty for having a four day weekend while he worked 10 hour days for all four. :)

I couldn't very well end on a sappy note, now could I?

The Arkansas Trip, part 2

So, we made it to the airport just fine.  Nathan walked with me through check-in and said good-bye to me at security (again, cause he's awesome). I made it through security with only a few hassles and found my gate pretty easily.  Milwaukee airport is fairly small and pretty easy to navigate.  I had a couple of hours to kill before take-off so I got a snack and sat down.  That's when it hit me.  I had to fly on four different flights in a two day time period.  Did I mention I hate flying?  I, then, mentally curled into the fetal position.  I'm one of the fliers that white-knuckles whatever she's holding at the smallest turbulence.  And then there's landing.  I envy those people who can sit and read calmly during landing.  I can't read during car trips or flights anyways because I'll start feeling sick, but landing is the worst for me, even the slightest descent will cause me to get incredibly dizzy and light-headed.  So basically, from the time we start landing till the time we hit the ground I'm concentrating on not getting sick and holding onto the armrests for dear life anytime we drop suddenly.  I, of course, do all of this as discretely as possible if someone is sitting next to me.  Hate flying.

But, I passed the time before the first flight watching netflix on my phone.  (I love modern technology) And, by the time we were boarding I had accepted my fate.  Then, there was the size of the plane:  tiny.  It was on of those with only one main isle and only four columns of seats.  Three out of the four flights I had were on planes that size, so that was new.  Overall, the flights were very smooth, which put me at ease.  This was good, so that when I got to Little Rock, the person from the lab that was picking me up would not be met with a frazzled looking person with crazy hair and a crazy look in her eye, but a calm, well-put together possible future employee! (after ducking into a bathroom to make sure this was the case, of course)  Everybody that I met over those two days were very nice.  The same person that picked me up, drove me around Little Rock to show me the area before dropping me off at my hotel.  It, honestly, made me miss living in the south.  Scenery-wise it looked similar to northern Mississippi.  This, naturally, only served to make me more excited, and fuel my internet apartment searches in the hopes that we would be moving to the area.

I was dropped off at my hotel around 5:30 pm that evening.  The interview would be around 10:30 the next morning so I had all evening to chill in the room.  There were two huge bonuses to this:

Backyard Burger!! How I missed you!!!

ZOMG Cable!!

Backyard Burger is a wonderful place that I have only ever been able to find in the south, and it was within walking distance of my hotel.  My night involved getting a burger from there, bringing it back to my hotel and watching HGTV until I was tired enough to go to sleep...and it was AWESOME.

Then came the morning of the interview.  I woke up super early so I could get ready, and soon enough it was time to go.  I'm not gonna go too much into detail about the interview other than to say it was an all-day thing and I left feeling fairly confident.  Which is the best it gets for me when it comes to interviews.  I constantly second-guess myself about those things, so feeling confident at all is a good thing.  After a very productive day, they dropped me back off at the airport for flying fiascos: round two.

Me, all dressed up and ready to go for the interview.  Not pictured:  the suit jacket because it was too warm inside the room.  Yes, I DO know how to look professional, thankyouverymuch.

Sidenote to the above picture:  Never say you'll never wear something again, just because it's part of a bridesmaid outfit.  The pearls I'm wearing in the picture, I got from my fabulous friend Ashleigh when I was one of her bridesmaids.  And I'm pretty sure I've worn them to almost every interview I've had.  What can I say?  She has style.

The flights home went largely like the first with one exception:  the Detroit airport can shove it!  I arrived thinking I had an hour and twenty minutes between flights.... except I forgot about the little thing called TIME ZONES.  I had twenty minutes.  To get from one end of the airport all the way to the opposite end.  That airport is HUUUUUGE!! Ridiculously so.  I made it, but barely.  This was also the point where exhaustion began to set in.  Four airplanes and an all day interview in two days can take it out of you.  That last flight was the longest hour of my life.  Nathan picked me up at Milwaukee and drove me back home, where I then passed out, satisfied that, at the very least, I had just had an epic adventure.  (my definition of epic may be a little lame.)  

So, what happened you may ask?  After waiting almost two very very long weeks, I did finally hear back.  Unfortunately, I did not get the job.  I was disappointed, but I can honestly say this is the quickest I've bounced back from a job rejection.  I had a great experience, got to be in a forensics environment again, and got some valuable interview practice.

The Arkansas Trip, part 1

So, I know what you're saying.  "Wierd.  She posted some random letter in which she addresses her own immune system as though it can answer and then says nothing for over a month.  Obviously, she's lost her mind."  And while, that may be the case, it's not the reason for the extended silence.  The reason for that would be the Arkansas trip and my attempt at getting the job of my dreams.  It was a situation that ended up dragging on and on for a while and will likely end up in a two part post.

So, the 2nd week of October (wow, that seems like an eternity ago), I got a phone call from a crime lab down in Arkansas for a phone interview.  At this point, I was intrigued but not too hyped considering, I've had plenty of phone interviews that came to nothing.  I scheduled it for the next morning, and let me say, that I have never had a phone interview go that well before.  It was one of those things were it seems like everything just clicked.  At the end of the phone interview, I was asked if it would be possible for me to fly down for a face-to-face interview.  I have not been that excited in a long time!  I was so excited that despite the fact that it was then, still only 10:30 in the morning (early for those of us who work 2nds :P ), I woke Nathan up to tell him the news, then made him get up out of bed and stay awake with me because I was obviously too hyper at this point be awake by myself and would end up talking to myself or the cats until he woke up again.  He's a trooper.

After being advised to keep the momentum going (thanks Mom), I scheduled things fairly quickly, and ended up only having to wait roughly two weeks to go down there.  Also, there's no way I could have scheduled things that quickly without all the help I got from family.  You guys are amazing.  During the two weeks I had to wait, I told myself I wasn't going to think about it and was only going to tell the people that needed to know.  No point in reading too much into it, or getting too excited......

That lasted all of a couple days.

To be fair, the not telling too many people thing lasted longer than that.  But within a couple of days I had already thoroughly explored craigslist for possible future apartments/houses and was thinking about how we would pull off a move at the last minute if we had to.  I COULDN'T HELP IT!!!!  I was too excited at the idea of finally getting a forensics job and being settled!  I tried to resist but couldn't.  And since I felt guilty about it, I decided I'd just yell at Nathan for "jinxing it" any time he talked about getting the job.

Honestly, sometimes I don't know how he puts up with me...

The not telling anybody except my family thing lasted until the weekend before I left.  Then, I kinda told Marci and Phil...then Dani....then Jess....then anybody else who asked.  Whoops.  I'm pretty impressed I lasted that long.  I am horrible at keeping my own secrets.  Keeping a secret for someone else is no problem.  Myself?  Totally not possible.

Then, finally, after two weeks of waiting, and fighting with my body about whether or not it was going to get sick (refer to previous post), it was time to go!  Sunday morning, we woke up at 6:30 in the morning and Nathan drove me to the Milwaukee airport and dropped me off, despite having to work 3-12 that day.  In case you're wondering, yes, he did rack up tons of bonus points for being amazing during this whole thing.  I had forgotten what it was like to be up that early.  And despite being a nervous wreck (I haaaaate flying, and this was the first time I was flying by myself....wow that makes me sound like I'm 10), I was very eager to experience the whole thing.  I was determined to enjoy myself and take in the whole experience, no matter the outcome.  And since this is beginning to turn into a novel, I'll stop the first part here.  It seems an appropriate spot.  Also, it's 2 am, and sleep will be necessary soon. :)

A Letter to my Immune System

Dear Immune System:

We need to have a chat.  I appreciate your hard work.  You are normally very good at your job, keeping me fairly illness free, aside from the usual cold here and there.  I understand that you may need to take a break now and then and let your guard down.  Let me assure you that NOW IS NOT THE TIME!!!  I'm sorry.  I know I don't take care of you as well as I could.  You don't get the tools you need very often.  But I'm worried, because lately you seem to be on the fritz.  You can't do that.  You see, I have very important things coming up this weekend and I need you at your best.  If you perform well this weekend, you'll even have a chance at a better quality of life afterwards.  I've loaded up on your favorite vitamin C and will continue to do so until the important stuff is over.  Afterwards, I promise to try as hard as I can to better attend to your needs.  As for the tomfoolery with the sniffles and scratchy throat this week:  Knock it off!!!  I understand you may need a break.  After all, you do work hard.  If that's the case, I can also assure you that I will not whine/complain/otherwise throw a tantrum if you take a break after Tuesday.  But only after Tuesday!!!  Such nonsense beforehand will not be tolerated.  That is all.

Love,
Me

Edit:  The cold indeed waited until after the important stuff was done....so...yay?

A Tale of Two Pies

It turns out I can bake.

I know! It was a surprise to me too!  I think the last time I baked was chocolate chip cookies from pre-made cookie dough.  Or heck, even the "awesome" blueberry muffins I made in high school for band trips...that were made from mix out of a box.  Domestic, I am not.  My definition of domestic has been largely in the cleaning area (which, I have gotten much better at then when I was in college, truth be told).  I know how to cook a maximum of 4-5 dishes that aren't microwaved or made out of a box.  And, not all of those are main courses.  Granted the dishes I do know taste amazing, but I've mostly relied on friends and my husband for good home-cooked meals.  

Then Nathan's birthday came around, and since we're poor I wanted to do something nice for him that wouldn't break the bank.  I decided, initially, to make him a Key Lime Pie, since a pie that didn't have chocolate in it would obviously be a pie for him.  I ended up telling him, because I can't keep a secret from him for anything.  When I informed him of this, he says "Hun, I'm pretty sure Key Lime Pie is supposed to be pretty tough to make.  You can pick something else if you want."  (doubting my baking abilities, I'm sure) He then informs me that apple would be a perfectly fine substitute. "Crap, I can't bake an apple pie, I don't know how to make pie crust and you have to with apple cause you need one for the top (naive, I know)."  "Buying me an apple pie is a perfectly fine birthday present.(again with the doubting)"  "Done."

Done, until the actual day of his birthday when he's at work and my mother guilts me into baking him the pie by informing me that I can buy pie crusts that come in packs of two for one on top and claims it's not hard, and I should really just bake the pie.  I hurriedly search for a recipe, find one online and dash to the store.  At this point I'm completely panicked because I was starting this adventure with no plan and limited time to pull it all together since I was getting a late start due to the whole, just gonna buy it thing.  I'm a huge perfectionist.  The idea of doing something new like this without a set game plan panics the hell out of me.  

Oh, and by the way mom, that whole "not hard" thing, yeah, you are full of it.  That freakin thing took me 4 hours, about gave me carpal tunnel from all the peeling, and involved a frantic phone call to mom where the first thing I said to her when she picked up is "I can't believe I let you talk me into this!!!!"  It turns out eight apples is too many, and that sent me into a panic about whether or not my portions for the other ingredients were off (I'm an OCD scientist, I freak if equations get messed up.  Sue me.)  There was another panicking moment when I went to put the top crust on, and it proceeded to completely fall apart on me.  BUT it was all worth it to make my baby something special for his birthday. (I'm aware you're all gagging, shush it)  Despite the panicking here are the results, which in my and my husbands opinion, tasted DELICIOUS:

The ingredients before going in the pie.  The pan is sitting on top of books because I don't own a wire rack to let things cool.

Before putting the top part on.  The recipe actually makes too much filling, so there was a moment with the smoke detector when some started bubbling out when baking.

The final product.  You can't tell, but the edges were burnt, and all I could manage of the top was trying to cut steam vents in with a fork instead of latticing the top, but I was INORDINATELY pleased with myself

Skip to a couple weeks later, I'm sitting at home again last weekend while Nathan was at work, looking for something to do.  His new job means he works most weekends, so I'm finding myself with a lot more free time on my hands.  I decided to see if the fact that the apple pie tasted so good was beginners luck.  I went with blueberry this time because it was something I knew we both liked and there wouldn't be peeling involved.

Holy crap was this one easier.  The prep took me literally, 20 minutes.  Again, because of the lack of peeling and slicing, and also because you don't really make the filling before hand.  Just throw the ingredients in and the filling cooks as the pie bakes.  It was going so quickly, no ingredient photo was taken (a disappointment to all, obviously.)

Before baking:  I decided to try the whole lattice top thing since it was so easy to make.  I was quite pleased for the fact that it was my first attempt.

Final product.  Fun fact:  I zoomed in on the pie to disguise the fact that one of the books used for my makeshift cooling rack was a cheesy romance novel.  I'm A GIRL! Stop judging.  Also, no burnt crust!

 The moral of this story:  Obviously, I'm a domestic goddess that's just now realizing her abilities.  Martha Stewart should watch her ass.

Impatience

It feels like I haven't posted in months.  Turns out it's only been a couple of weeks.  I've been trying to figure out why time has been seemingly dragging and I've narrowed it down to a few reasons.  Among them:  work schedules and lack of trips home.

Work schedules has been the primary cause, I believe.  Working 2nd shift has it's pros and cons.  Pros:  Don't have to wake up to an alarm if I don't want to.  It turns out my body naturally starts waking me up around 11 am.  Also, I don't have to take any time off work for things like doctors appointments, etc.  I can wake up and run all of my errands before work.  My body naturally prefers 2nd shift so I've been feeling as rested as I ever have.  Cons:  Having work land in the middle of your day can kinda suck.  Luckily me and Nathan both ended up on a 2nd shift schedule rather than one of us 1st and one 2nd but there are definitely days when it feels like we get no time together.  Getting to wake up slowly rather than rushing to get out the door in the morning like I did on 1st is nice but having a few hours before work and a few after can often make it feel like my entire day is taken up by work.  I've tried the idea of waking up right before work and staying up later but it seems my body now refuses to sleep past 11.  Also, 2nd shift is apparently the one with the most changeable hours.  There are days I need to go in at 11:30 - noon and others when I don't go in until 3, depending on the work that day.  And then of course there are days when I have to switch to first for only a couple of days at a time.  So yeah, I'm figuring this is a large portion of why time has been dragging.

Then there's the lack of trips.  Me and Nathan both have depended on frequent trips home to see everyone when we can to keep our sanity.  Unfortunately, due to various reasons the frequency has shrunk to basically, once or twice a year.  So, needless to say, we miss all our friends and family.  We were lucky enough to have Nathan's parents visit this weekend.  It was great seeing them again and we had a lot of fun.

The final (and probably most important) reason:  I am nothing if not impatient.  A little while after writing previous post mentioning my dream job, I decided it was time to stop waiting around and get on with it, so then Nathan can get on with finishing what he wants to and we'll both be much more satisfied in the career department.  (All the other departments of our marriage are going swimmingly already <3 )  So I've been working on getting to a point where we are settled for a while in a career I love, be it forensics, tox, research or pharma, something that I can get behind and really enjoy my job.  Problem is, it turns out serious job hunting takes time and requires a lot of waiting.  I don't wait well.  My patience factor is basically something along these lines:

Because I don't feel right if I don't put something funny in my blog.

So here's hoping for something soon, because here soon, I'm afraid days are going to start feeling like weeks.