FOMO

Long time no blog!  I figured I had to break the silence and give a quick run-down of our summer since our initial wedding crush.

I finished working at the end of June, and kicked of my three-week funemployment by going to New York with my family for a joint birthday party for my dad and an engagement party for Dan and I.  While he wasn't able to attend {he was at a bachelor party in Manhattan that weekend}, it was wonderful to see a large group of family.  It was the first time in years that we had gotten so many of us together, so it was great to be surrounded by so much love.

A few days later, we left for our much-anticipated San Francisco trip, and it certainly did not disappoint.  While I thought I was looking for a relaxing vacation after a year of non-stop high-stress work, it turned out to be the opposite of relaxing.  Oh well!  But you know what? It was actually my perfect vacation, because we were really active every day, whether that involved running, hiking, walking EVERYWHERE {and up very major hills} or riding bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge {we did that on the 4th of July, and ended up riding over 20 miles overall, including stopping in charming little Sausalito, where we were part of the old-timey 4th of July parade}.  We ate a TON of mouthwatering food - seriously, I don't think we had a good meal - ranging from a salad place near the Air Bnb we were staying in {which was so delicious we went back a second time} to an amazing Greek restaurant whose chef recently catered a White House event.  We spent lots of quality time with friends, including my friends Maggie and Jordan, but mostly Dan's friend from high school, Trey, his wife, Ashley, and Trey's brother, Ian, all of whom moved to SF recently but have an enviable knowledge of the city.  The three of them spent a ton of time with us, and we were so grateful for them setting up activities for us that were outside of the "touristy" description.  It was the perfect getaway, especially for my first time in California!

When we got back from San Francisco, we had four full days left in DC, and we really maxed them out, spending lots of quality time with family and friends, saying goodbye to some of our favorite restaurants and places.  The Saturday before we moved, Molly threw us an engagement/going-away party at Poste, which just filled me up with happiness.  There was so much love at that party, and almost all of our favorite Washingtonians were there, including both sets of parents.  I could not have asked for a better send-off.  

On July 14th, we packed everything into the U-Haul and Dan's car and drove away from the city that we have come to love so much.  I was hysterical as I said goodbye to my dad and my mom and I drove to Pittsburgh, our first stop on the way to Chicago {luckily, my mom was driving the first leg, which freed me up for some solid crying}.  We arrived in Chicago in the middle of the next afternoon, and we are pretty in love with our new place.  It is kind of industrial, with exposed ducts and unfinished ceilings, but, even with my love of everything old and clean when it comes to houses, I absolutely love it.  The location is fantastic too, allowing us easy access to many parts of the city, especially downtown.  I definitely feel like I am still in the adjustment phase.  I do love our apartment and I am enjoying exploring the city, but I am certainly not at the point where I love it here or it feels like home.  When people mention DC, my heart still skips a beat.

The job has been the biggest blemish of my experience here so far.  To make a long story short, there are a ton of personnel issues in the office, which were articulated to me starting on my first day.  Needless to say, I have gone home from work in tears on several days.  While I don't miss the office politics of my old office, I miss the work, and the students I worked with, terribly. One of my students sent me a really sweet card in the mail thanking me for everything I have done for her, and it honestly made my day, if not my week.  The work I'm doing now is just different, and I don't think I've quite adjusted to it yet.  I'm hoping that things start to get better soon.

The other thing I have been struggling with is significant FOMO. I was talking to Allie about it the other night over a yummy Indian dinner, asking her if she had felt as though she was sort of "out of sight, out of mind" when she left DC after graduation.  As I reflected on our conversation afterward, it struck me that this is very similar to how I felt during study abroad, when I realized that life goes on without me and, as it does, communication with friends fades.  I am looking forward to continuing to get together with Allie and Kristin, but they both have busy schedules, so I'm thinking that, until things pick up with the Partners Club through Dan's program, things might be a little lonely around here.  That has definitely been my overwhelming emotion since we got here.  We grabbed dinner with someone whose wife is in the program and lives in our building, so hopefully, little by little, we'll start making more connections like that one.

Last weekend, I met my family back in my beloved New England {seriously, that place practically makes me weak at the knees!} for a beautiful and moving memorial service for Terry.  Although he passed away back in April, they opted to do the memorial service later on, and, while it was certainly emotional, I appreciated the chance to say goodbye and be surrounded by people who loved and cared about him.  On Saturday morning, we made the short drive from Maine {where the memorial had been} to the Lake and enjoyed 2 1/2 days of uninterrupted sun and family and friend time.  There was definitely a sadness this year, as two members of the "Lake family" are battling cancer, and one is in pretty rough shape at this point.  You know what? Cancer sucks.  It freaking sucks.  I'm tired of people in my life dying from it, especially people in our Lake family.  When I got back to Chicago on Monday night, the first thing I saw on the TV monitors when I got off the plane was news of Robin Williams's suicide, which is obviously tragic and incredibly sad.  I know there is a lot at play with people who attempt suicide, and I have been fortunate enough to never have experienced feelings like that, but, after having been around so much suffering over the weekend, I was struck by the fact that these friends of ours WANT to live, and they're fighting SO hard.  To think that someone just threw it all away makes me really upset, when there are so many people who would do anything to be healthy.  Sorry for being depressing. Obviously it was an emotional weekend for me.  But, at the end of the day, we all got to spend time together in the most special and beautiful place on the face of the earth, so I was happy.

I'll hopefully post again soon with some summer pictures, but, in the meantime, I'm off to enjoy the weekend with Dan's family, since his parents are in town for a visit.  I'm looking forward to having a piece of DC here, even if only for a quick few days!

Hot as Hades

Okay, folks.  I am 100% over this D.C. summer heat and humidity.  I do not enjoy feeling as though my breathing is constricted and my eyes are being scorched out every time I walk outside.  Over the weekend, there were times when the weather report told me that it felt like 112 degrees!  112!  We had a really nasty storm on Friday night, which actually left many people without power (a few of my coworkers still do not have power and, in fact, one of them said that she got a voicemail from Pepco saying that she may not get power back until Friday!).  We beat the storm home by about 15 minutes, and it was only when I thought I saw the lights flickering that we looked around and saw what was going on outside.  I am not a fan of thunderstorms (as a twenty-something child, I used to hide in my basement whenever there was a thunderstorm), so I kind of slinked down, prompting laughter from Dan, who is not afraid of thunderstorms.

Storms and oppressive heat aside, it turned out to be a lovely weekend!  Dinner with Dan's parents was really wonderful, especially since I adore the two of them and always enjoy the time I get to spend with them.  Dan's cousin (who, coincidentally, lives in his building) also joined us, and she was really great.  We bonded over our European travels (especially our love of Switzerland). We had dinner at West End Bistro, where Dan and I had gone once before for Restaurant Week, and it was once again delicious. Then we made it home just before the storm started and watched a movie.  It was a perfectly low-key night.  Dan had to be up early to go golfing on Saturday, so I didn't get to spend much time with him this weekend, but I used the free afternoon to go for what ended up being a painful 8-mile run (I ran at about 11:30 and hadn't eaten breakfast beforehand, so I learned that, while it's well and good to run first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, running that late without having eaten isn't going to cut it, and I felt like I was going to pass out with each and every step) and Skype with Kristin (whose wedding will be a year from this past Friday!!!!! HOORAY!).  I then met up with a group of girlfriends at Mellow Mushroom for some delicious pizza, and then a smaller group of us migrated to Rumba Cafe on 18th Street for DELICIOUS mojitos (seriously, delicious and strong).

Jamie and I at Rumba Cafe

Donell and Lauren at Rumba

On Sunday morning, I got up early so that I could run part of the way to brunch.  We were meeting in Eastern Market and it was already probably about 90 degrees and humid at 8 a.m., but I ran six miles and then metroed/walked the rest of the way.  It was not the best run, but it could have been worse given how hot it was.  I was also pleased with myself because, between my runs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I had run 8 miles!  I was pretty excited about that total.  I met up with Lauren and Cat at (where else) Ted's Bulletin, because Cat had never tried the legendary pop tarts.  As usual, they did not disappoint.  We poked around the market for a bit and then Lauren and I trekked back to her apartment, where the promise of air conditioning and water awaited.  We sat around chatting for a bit, and then I went home so that Molly and I could see Magic Mike (hilarious, but totally ridiculous haha.  Definitely entertaining!).  We ended the evening by watching an episode of Mad Men while having dinner, so it was a nice, relaxing end to the weekend before what I'm sure will be a hectic week.  Bring it on!  I'm so excited for all that we have going on!  And here's hoping that the heat will die down a little bit...

Beautiful flowers at Eastern Market

The Official Start of Summer!!!

Gosh, with how hectic this weekend was, I feel like I need another long weekend to relax!!! It started off with our summer favorite, Jazz in the Sculpture Garden.  In case some of you don't know how this came to be an obsession of mine, a few weeks after graduation two years ago, Lauren said that she had heard good things about it and that we should try it.  Thanks to the combination of relaxing by the fountain (since we were both working part-time at that point, we had ample time to get there early enough to nab prime seats by the fountain), sipping the sangria that is completely overpriced but entirely worth it, and chatting while we listened to soft jazz, we were hooked, and went essentially every week that summer.  And from there, our obsession was born.  I look back on that experience very fondly, since Lauren and I were some of the only girls from our college friend group still in the city, so we did essentially everything together.  It was one of our fun little adventures together, and now we have been able to expand the group :)

Jazz with the girls!

My parents pretending that they don't know they're in the picture haha.  Love them

So anyway, my mom had been kind enough to save seats for us, and I was able to leave the office early enough to meet up with her and chat before everyone else (Dan, a group of my girlfriends, and my dad) arrived.  It was a beastly hot day, but my mom (unable to indulge in her favorite activity, tanning, since she is on an antibiotic and being in the sun for five minutes makes her feel as though her skin is burning off) had gotten us seats under the tree, so it was really refreshing.  It was great to see all of the girls, some of whom I hadn't seen in a while.  So, for me, Friday, the first day of Jazz, marked the official start of summer.  Afterward, we went and checked out the amazing view of the city from my dad's office building, before grabbing some beach supplies (cooler, umbrella) from them and stopping at the grocery store to buy lunch for our beach trip on Saturday.

View from atop my dad's office building

We were up at an ungodly hour for a Saturday (5:15) in the hopes of making it to Rehoboth without getting caught in gridlock traffic.  Luckily, that early-morning wake-up call (yes, even though I wake up earlier than that during the week, it was painful for me) paid off, and we didn't hit ANY traffic...phew!  The most difficult part of the trip was finding parking meters where you could park for more than three hours at a time (Dan, wonderful guy that he is, volunteered to leave the beach every three hours to move the car, but I refused to let him do that, pointing out that, by the time he would be moving the car, it would probably be impossible to find another spot.  When we were leaving, he acknowledged the wisdom in that rationale, because there was not a spot to be found!).  We were finally able to find a spot on a side street where you could park for ten hours, AND we utilized the app with which you can pay for parking, thus not having to worry about getting change.  Genius, truly genius!  Anyway, we found our little spot on the beach and set up camp for the day.  All in all, we were there for about seven hours, so we got some good reading time in and had ourselves a nice little picnic lunch.  It even got warm enough (it reached the low 80s by mid-day) that we went in the water.  Now, I am a total water lover- when we go to the Lake, I will often swim for hours on end- but my rational side was telling me that it was still late May, and that, naturally, the water would be frigid.  However, when you have been laying out for several hours, you throw caution to the wind and go in.  It was, predictably, shockingly cold at first, but felt wonderful once we went under.  After we left the beach, we decided to skope out the rooftop mini-golf course that we had spotted from the beach.  I had also been wanting to challenge Mr. Golf for a while :)  Sadly, I still lost, which I will blame both on the fact that he is a better golfer than me and on the fact that I hit my leg on a cement brick and my leg was gushing blood on the back 9.  Obviously that was the primary reason for my loss haha.  So, while I owe Dan a homemade dinner and certainly lost some of my pride (not to mention some skin on my leg), I DID win a free game at the end.

You can kind of see some of our sunburns in this one (and also the hordes of people on the beach in the background)

After a much-needed shower when we got back home (at this point, we realized the extent of what turned out to be pretty terrible sunburns; seriously, come Sunday morning, we were both moving pretty gingerly), we went to Georgetown for dinner, which, despite the number of people on the street, was actually kind of deserted.  That is one of the things I loved about this weekend; it seemed like hardly anyone was here, which made getting into retaurants a breeze!  We had dinner at Ristorante Piccolo on Saturday night and waltzed right in, as we did at brunch at Martin's the next morning.  We were able to make it to an earlier mass because we got breakfast in such a timely manner! 

I ended up spending Sunday night at my parents' house, which is always a nice change of scenery (particularly since I had not seen them in a few weeks).  We went to an adorable and delicious French restaurant called Bastille in Alexandria (kind of off the beaten path, so you it wasn't mobbed like the places on King St. tend to be) and then just relaxed at home, just what I needed.  On Monday morning (bonus day! Yay!), I met Dan for breakfast at Ted's Bulletin, which I have raved about time and time again.  Once again, the pop tarts did not disappoint, even though the service, sadly, did.  I went back to my parents' house for a quick workout before heading to a barbecue at my friend Maggie's.  The barbecue was a lot of fun and there was some great food, but man, did the stiflingly hot weather take a lot out of me!  I was only drinking water because I was feeling dehydrated, but I had to go inside and lay on the couch for a few minutes because I was feeling a bit lightheaded.  Oh well, 'tis the season...

I collapsed in an exhausted heap into my bed last night, because, even though many of the weekend's activities involved just "hanging out," the combination of the heat and the sheer volume of commitments tuckered me out.  That said, I can't wait for the craziness that I'm sure this summer will bring!!!  Sorry to the return to long posts...