giveaway winners and evidence we still exist

first off:  congratulations to lisa at making life's lemons and rebecca at girl about chelts for winning the giveaway!  links to their sites will be featured in the sidebar for the next month!  they are both delightful ladies whose blogs i read regularly.  you should definitely head on over and see what they are up to!

we are still trucking away through summer over here.  the beastly heat has finally subsided a little, which should be helpful in preventing that face-melting look i've become used to wearing at work.  currently we are most preoccupied with the upcoming move (you mean i have to do laundry and pack?  boo).  but it is still terribly exciting.  i'm already fantasizing about the christmas decor options we have now that we get a fireplace and mantle!

on the whole lately, things are a tiny bit dreary.  i don't often like to admit how much living in ann arbor can be a huge drag.  i think it is a bit childish to blame your feelings and frustrations on the place where you live.  it's a bit of the "grass is greener" mentality, which i refuse to subscribe to, and it just reminds me far too much of being an angsty high schooler spewing that line "if only i could get out of this town."

that said, southeast michigan has been a bit of a turd lately.  it's something i often notice during summer.  it's a cruel paradox that my favorite season has to be the one that totally buzzkills the city i live in.

i'm tired of settling for a rocky river and graffitied bridges, when i grew up minutes away from lake michigan.

i'm tired of living in a city whose roads were designed for about a quarter of the population.

i'm tired of how campus turns into a shadow of itself when the students leave.

i'm tired of how stupid slow-walking tourists fill in the blanks that the students left.

i'm tired of how it takes 25 minutes to drive the 1.2 miles between my home and my work.

i'm tired of the ridiculous metro detroit highway system.

i'm tired of how expensive it is to do anything besides eat counter food and take walks outside.

routine is one of those things that really wears me down.

maybe i should try reading eckhart tolle.  either way steve and i made a pact to move out of michigan by a certain date (spoiler alert: it's not very soon).  nothing against momma mitten (we totally think she's the bees knees) but we are only going to be young and childless for so many more years, and we'd both be letting ourselves down if we didn't explore a little bit more.

happy hump day everyone!

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