turning 24 and other things

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it has been quite the time lately.  things seem so up in the air these days i'll admit i've been avoiding the blog a little because it's hard to know what's going on from one minute to the next.  while things haven't exactly settled around here (except the cold temperatures... they have settled in and will not budge) it's time to check in and announce a few things that we actually do know for sure at this point.

1.  my birthday is saturday!  steve and i are planning on heading out of town to the west side of the state to inaugurate me into my mid-twenties.

2.  we have officially booked our flight to greece and will be making a brief rome-antic flight connection in italy!  sadly we won't have much chance to explore, but at least we'll get a feel for the airport for when we decide to go back! ;)

3.  our wedding is less than six months away!!  woo hoo!

i'll leave you with that for now, but there's things brewing that i hope i get a chance to come gush about later!  happy thursday!

happy weekend recap

we have had the most beautiful weather imaginable lately. we had the whole weekend to ourselves and made the absolute most of it.  we're turning into old people or something getting up so early on the weekends, but we got a lot done and finally got a chance to have a minute to ourselves, which we've definitely been missing.

we had easy nights in, got some banking sorted out, got some engagement photos taken for our save the dates, and took a day to soak up the outdoors at oval beach on sunday.  i'm headed into winter kicking and screaming, but the weather's been nice enough to keep me forgetting that snow is a thing around here.  all things considered it was a pretty perfect weekend.  i'm ready for another one, but sadly can't forsee one for quite a while.  i think starbucks and i are going to be better friends.

hope everyone has a good start to the week!

word count: 31,103

the winds of change

well it's officially too cold to go to work without a jacket anymore, and let me tell you that is the opposite of awesome.

autumn is so bittersweet.  a warm sunny fall day in michigan is as close to perfect as this place gets, but they are few and far between the cold, rain/snow mix days that remind you winter is a six to eight month season round these parts.  on saturday we got one of the nuggets of indian summer and we tried to stay outside as long as we could until we met up with my family to celebrate my grandma's birthday.

with the official end of summer over the weekend, it feels like everything has switched gears entirely.  it's hard not to notice the seasonal changes when hoards of college students are constantly around.  now is the time when the huge outdoor parties begin to shrink indoors.  people are more fashionable now until they have to begin hiding under layers of wool and down-filled parkas.  i can't say i'm excited for the freezing weather ahead, but with a few exceptions, now until christmas is typically a time of year that completely flies by.  perhaps its the inclusion of steve's birthday right around thanksgiving, or the fact that our dating-anniversary falls between thanksgiving and christmas, but we rarely get a chance to come up for air until the new year once october rolls around.

through all this, the thing i'm trying to focus on most is getting back at that dusty word document known as my work-in-progress.  though the thrill hasn't quite worn off of getting engaged and moving in together, the novelty of it all doesn't quite clog up my brain as much as it had been doing.  now that the weather is taking it's uglier turn, i'm hoping it will be easier to stay busy with indoor projects like my writing.  a busy life is a recipe for writers block, but i'm optimistic that the holiday stress will seem small compared to all the madness we've been through lately.

word count: 25,024

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!

word count: 7,471

trees

i didn't get around to blogging yesterday because sometimes you just need a second to whine to your boyfriend about being blamed for others' sloppiness at work.

and sometimes you just need a second to go outside and enjoy the 80 degree weather.  we took an adventure in the arboretum and i got all instagram happy (and actual happy too).

it's been so great that steve finally has a chance to relax before starting work in june, but it does make my job feel like such a bummer time-suck since i can't go out an play in the sun until dinnertime.  how am i ever going to get anything like a tan?

it's not the most fun feeling kind of bored, but i suppose we should get our kicks now because i don't think we are going to get a chance to be bored too often in the near future.

for now we are looking forward to the weekend and hopefully we are going to be able to tour our potential "first place" on saturday morning!  it's so exciting that we are finally moving in together after all this time!! happy thursday!

(and if you want to get all my instagram updates before i rehash them here)

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we are what we walk between

happy hump day!  it feels very good to be halfway through this week!

things are still hectic as expected around here, but i'm excited to tell you all about it once everything gets into  place. a few fun things that we've been smiling about lately:

1.  my little etsy vintage shop had it's first sale... and then it had another one!  i'm currently on the look-out for more vintage pieces to put in the store!

2.  pedestrians have abandoned ann arbor (aka all the students went home for the summer) which means i can actually drive from point a to point b again!  (on the minus side, this means the shady people who flock to ann arbor in the summer are starting to come out of their open sewer pipes...boo).

3.  bert, the weirdest cat in the world who prefers to eat popcorn over chicken, has finally found a toy he likes!  peacock feathers forever!

4.  sun sun and more sun!  i cannot get enough of this lovely weather!

hope everyone makes it through the second half of the week!
<3<3<3

bits and pieces (snow and cats)

so we are literally buried in snow right now.  like dig your car out to get to work, dodge falling trees, and let jesus take the wheel when you're driving, buried in snow.  the photos are misleadingly tame looking.  this is some extreme IRT weather.

as a result steve and i were cooped up inside last night so we ordered in delivery for dinner and i busted out the sewing machine steve bought me for christmas.  bert had an absolute field day and would not let me get at my pretty linen fabric until i distracted him with the elastic.  i'll post more about the skirt i made soon, but i want to shorten it a bit first.

speaking of honeybooboobear (ok i give my cat creepy nicknames) he and his bff are about to be separated.  my sister and roommate is moving across the country next week and bert is about to be very lonely (and me too)! my sister's cat erwin is bert's homeboy and boyfriend.  hopefully steve and i can shake off the snow and move somewhere where they can be reunited for play dates more easily.