Weekend

I left Boston Saturday morning to help friends move into their new house(!). After a cookout I continued onward to meet my parents and sister in the Adirondacks. It was a lovely weekend of hiking, kayaking, knitting, laughing, and watching thunderstorms. 

Hike to Crawfoot Pond

My sister and I were terrified. Our dog was not. 

Doodle in a landscape

I hope yours was lovely!

Dress, Pink

This dress is finally on sale.  Only twenty bucks off but still.  Given two weddings in the next two months?  What do we think?

Weekend Plus A Day

We had a lovely quiet indoor weekend.  Apparently all we did was eat if I look at my photos from the weekend.  I also did some sewing and fabric shopping for some exciting new projects.

Without a doubt brunch in my favourite meal of all and Foster's Market does a grits bowl that will knock your socks off.  A grits bowl, a coffee and a New York Times picked up at The Regulator and I'm set for about six hours.  Also:  ginger cookies. Ginger cookies and coffee post grits.  Out of sight.

As far as barbecue goes The Q-Shack is my Durham favourite (not to be confused with my Chapel Hill favourite, Allen & Sons).  Chopped Brisket and chips and beans.  Living six hours from our families and almost all of our friends leaves us feeling a little bummed out on these crazed cook-out holidays so we've started our own tradition of Movie + Q-Shack.  We saw Men in Black 3 because there is nothing else out in theatres. At least not in Durham.

 What did you do this weekend?

A Practical Wedding

This morning I opened my google reader and I was at the very top. I didn't know it would get out into the great wide wilderness so fast but I'm at A Practical Wedding today. A graduate, talking about weddings and the sometimes painful business of growing and how, in some cases, DIY can save the world.

Weekend, Long

Margaret Howell merino sweater, £215

A|Wear denim short shorts, £20
TOMS flat espadrille shoes, £35
Mulberry travel bag, $875

The worst part about moving, for me, is starting to detach from my home.  Long weekends and the extra day to futz with potted plants and repaint and mess about, go window shopping and dream of fancy new lamps (or rugs or curtains or maybe actually getting it together and making a terrarium) is my favourite thing.  We're taking this long weekend as the calm before the storm.  My dad (who is good at these things) is looking at my resume and I'm about to start the job search in earnest (if you have any good ideas - let me know!) and the packing commences soon.   All of which is to say that I wish I was spending my weekend dressed as above and wandering through lovely shops and working on my potted plant collection.  Or I wish Mary would come back from Boston and work on my brunch sunburn at Foster's Market while we eat grits bowls.  The pretty good third place plan is eating barbecue with David and taking the dog to the Eno River, maybe playing a bit of tennis.  Which sounds lovely despite the lack of merino sweaters.

Hope you have a delightful long weekend.

Lately

Lovely architecture on Beacon Hill

Four years. Four years since I graduated college feeling completely unsure of my skills and my calling. Four years and not that much has changed.

A year ago August I left my steady, successful-yet-unfulfilling job to pursue a master's degree in Historic Preservation. Which means I get to study lovely buildings. I left my parents' house and my home in New York for a small apartment in Boston with my boyfriend and for the most part this change has been Good. Finally-moving-out Good. Change-of-scenery Good. Quitting-Long-Distance-and-Building-a-life-together Good.

Of course the trade-off of being a full-time student again is that I have no money, I've morphed into a Giant Ball of Stress, and I feel completely inadequate most of the time. You know the internet meme about Grad School and lists Good Grades, A Social Life, and Getting Enough Sleep before saying, "Pick one and expect to fail at it"? I can attest that this is entirely accurate. I'm a sheer joy to live with, I assure you. Grad School is nothing if not humbling.

On my very worst days I lament that ordering everyone's lunches probably wasn't that bad. Sometimes I watch "Selling New York" and get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach worrying that now I'll never be able to afford a lovely apartment in Manhattan. This was a pipe dream to begin with, but I used to dream about it at my old desk when my days were frustrating and saying goodbye to this fantasy forever hits me hard sometimes. I find this happens mostly when I'm crammed on the T during rush hour. But I'm pretty sure the T would make anyone miss a previous life where there was no T.

So I'm back again, trying to get back in touch with lovely, pretty things. Things that make me feel good and give me confidence and make me love life. Because it's very easy to get caught up in how inadequate I feel. It's way effing harder than I ever thought it would be. I have to believe, however, that grad school will pay off one day. Hopefully, after I graduate I'll never have to order lunch for anyone except myself. Actually, that's probably enough.

Moving

As I said in my post this morning we are moving to Washington this summer.  David is accepted to law school and I'm looking for a big bread-winner-esque job.  We're looking for an apartment in a city we both know well, a cheap bus ride from our friends from college and a couple of hours from my brother.  The very best part though is being an hour and a half from my mom and my dad's farm where we were married and where Mary and I have gotten our drink on in the pool too many times to count (we don't recommend getting drunk in a pool.  There have been concussions.  Many.  All Mine.)  and where the above horses hang out all day.  Wish us luck.

Photo of George and Bridget and Rosie by my mum

Four Years

In the four years since Mary and I graduated I've moved from Worcester to Pennsylvania to Mississippi back to Pennsylvania to Maryland to Durham and now I'm apartment searching in Washington, DC.  I've worked as a field representative for the Obama Campaign, a waitress, a front desk clerk at a shady hotel, a drone in a call center, an office assistant, a marketing assistant and a nanny.  I've gotten married,  and gotten a dog.  I've gotten another dog and the first one (found of the side of the road) has died.  I've started straightening my hair more regularly and been diagnosed with hypothyroidism.   Mary has done a bunch of cool stuff too but I can let her tell you all about that.  It feels like a very long time and not a long time at all.  I guess that's how it always is.

Congratulations, Mary and the rest of the class of 2008!  Four years later we're all still alive!

Wedding Season

We've reached the season of weddings.  Maybe it's our age but all of a sudden everyone is getting married.  Not a wedding last summer and David is in two this summer, and I'm doing a reading in another and am deeply embroiled in bridesmaid duties for a forth.   It's very exciting (and expensive! why do all of our friends live a million miles from us?) and a bit chaotic.   My favourite wedding gift right now is vintage maps.  We've bought two recently (and another for David).  Ebay has a bunch for under twenty bucks (or $7 and I'm way into parenthesis today huh?) and when framed up all purdy they look gorge.  Of course I also am going to buy a couple of toasters for the biddies who like their registries.

 Now if I were only comfortable wearing the same thing to all the weddings...