6/27/09

I’m Washington DC, staying at a Marriott, yay!  I have speech notes and as a representative of Team MangoBunnies, I’ll want to confer with Ashley and Malisa before giving my speech to make sure that I’m not saying any untruths.

I had a nightmare morning, but everything seemed to pan out near the end of the day, which was really great.  I don’t know if all of my things are packed.  I left a list at home of everything that needs to go, so I’m hoping everything gets packed!  The movers are coming on Monday at 8:30 and I’m not going to be there.  They say my things will arrive between July 2nd and July 12th.  Kind of a big range.  I may not be leaving until 2nd or 3rd, it all depends on my Chicago plans.  Thankfully my landfamily is really understanding!  They rock!

Worked a lot on the speech tonight and I think it went really well.  Tomorrow is going to be a big day of practicing and perfecting and reciting the speech over the phone for several people.  If only I had a decent web cam (nudge, nudge hehe)!!

6/26/09

Apparently I’m really stressed about moving.  This is understandable since packing is pretty stressful and I have to have everything packed by tomorrow even though the movers are coming on Monday.  I know I’m stressed because I had a really weird dream last night!  And I’m much more likely to have weird dreams when I’m stressed.

It started with me packing (I don’t really like when dreams mimic life, I’m already living packing, I don’t want to dream about it!) and then suddenly I was on a boat!  I was telling someone about what I had been doing, packing, when they told me that I had also spent a week as a camp counselor at a camp for grade school kids.  I had no recollection of this.  This person continued to tell me that for the entire I was supposed to push a wheelbarrow around, which I did.  Then I was suddenly at this camp, which turned out to be on the street, more of in the middle of the street, that my high school is on.  There’s a big hill and all these kids were on their bikes going down the hill and they insisted that I keep up…while pushing my wheelbarrow.  At the bottom of the hill, which is in front of the football practice field, my wheelbarrow and I were suddenly a part of my old marching band.  I was evidently with the pit section, somewhere in the middle.  I remember passing the color guard, coming to a stop, and realizing our line was awful!  Of course, I was marching with a wheelbarrow.  At that point I think I woke up because Ashley and Scott were having a conversation on Twitter about eggs, so my phone was going off quite a bit.  It’s really good that I woke up, since returning to high school is not on my To Do List.

On a different note, I could also be stressed because I need to write a 15 minute speech about my informal education.  I’m going to Washington DC on Saturday night for the Global Education Competitiveness Summit.  Here’s an article about it.  I’ll be there until the first of July.  On the 1st, I plan on heading to Chicago with the family and leaving for Denver on Thursday.  Of course this could go extremely badly since my stuff is set to arrive sometime between July 2nd and July 12th.  Knowing my luck, it will arrive while I’m in the middle of driving with no chance to get to Denver in the next 12 hours.  Oh well, it’ll be an adventure!

6/19/09

WOOT!  I have a condo and it’s beautiful!  I signed the lease on Wednesday night.  My landlord, well more of “landfamily,” is great!  The husband is a part-time CFO of a software company that does some work with Lockheed, so he knows a lot of people that work there.  He said he would do some introductions.  The wife is absolutely adorable, she loves to dance and I’m quite sure she makes her husband do yoga with her!

I’m so happy that so far everything has worked out.  When I was coming out to Denver, I had chosen two apartment complexes to visit, but I really wanted to rent a condo.  There would be a mix of owners and renters and the neighborhood would probably be kept in better shape and it would probably be quieter!  Plus, the general idea would be that a leasing office for a condo would be nicer to deal with than one at a large apartment complex.  In a beautiful twist, I’m renting from a private owner, which is possibly the best case!

I can’t wait to move out here, buy furniture, kitchen stuff, a huge TV, other stuff I want to own!  Anyway, here are loads of pictures of my condo, I though a virtual tour was in order!

6/16/09

This morning was Mary Frances’ funeral.  It was in the same church as her mother’s funeral in 2002.  This is truly just so painful for me and the rest of the family.

I’ve decided I’d like my funeral to have lots and lots of flowers and I’d like it to be outside or in a home.  Churches aren’t my thing, nor is a service.

I really just can’t believe this.  It’s still such a shock.

On a less depressing note, I’m currently in Denver.  We left St. Paul this afternoon.  Last night I got to hang out with Loopster (Elissa)!  It was so much fun and I’m so happy I was able to do that.  We stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn and it was amazing!  It was like we rented a Town House for the night!  I had the upstairs which had a bedroom, desk, and bathroom and my parents had the downstairs with had their room, plus the living room and kitchen.  Thank goodness Mom travels a lot and always stays at Marriott.

Today I looked at one apartment complex, Westlake Greens Apartments.  I really like the larger 1 bed 1 bath apartment.  Tomorrow morning I’m going to Cottonwood Creek Apartments to look there as well.

6/11/09

Today was fabulous!  This morning I had movers come for quote for all my stuff.  Although I’ve moved my stuff in the past…ok, when say “I’ve moved my stuff” I really mean that my dad & Kenny and Brandon & Cody moved my stuff, well the big stuff.  Back to my original idea, I’ve moved my stuff several times, with much help, and I thought “Wouldn’t it be fabulous if I could pay someone else to move my stuff?”  Thankfully, Dad had the same thought and he called Allied Movers to come over to look at my stuff.  Greg, from Allied Movers, came over this morning to take inventory of my stuff and he said he would email me a quote.  I got an email later today and it looks like movers are in my moving budget!!  YAY!!

Next, I went to Pizzazz to see Monica.  I’ve been seeing Monica since I was 12!  I always love catching up with her.  Luckily for me, this catching up time came with a mani… A lovely summer color, that came with a fabulous combo. Enter the pedi! Yes, that’s my sandal tan from the Grand Canyon.  I’m very proud of my sandal tan.  This is as tan as I’ve been in about…5 years.  Seriously.

When I got back, I did some more packing and condensing and I came across one of my favorite things to have on my walls! I just adore Susan Kline’s work (the two outside ones)!  I unfortunately missed Art Around the Fountain this year, so I didn’t get to see her this year and I didn’t get to add to my Susan Kline collection!

Other happy things that happened today, like my Nike running hat arrived!  Now I don’t have to wear my Wheaties hat when I run (ok, lightly jog) which means that my Wheaties hat doesn’t have to get all sweaty and stay all sweaty for hours afterwards.  This means more hat hours for me! And to make my day even better I had wonderful phone calls with Adrie and Elissa!  Talk about the perfect day!  Congrats to anyone who even made it this far in the post!

6/9/09

Today was very exciting.  I set up the garage so that I could go through all of my stuff!

I know it looks like a lot of stuff…and that’s because it is!  Plus I have things in my room that I’ll have to deal with at some point as well!  I have my tables set up so I can go through all my boxes.  After the tables are all my sorting piles: Keep, Throw Away, and Give Away.  I got about two boxes sorted through today.  Not exactly productive, but I did other things too!  I biked to PEFCU and deposited two checks!  I guess I also had to move quite a bit of stuff to even set up my “sorting station.”  And then we all went to dinner at Dave and Nancy’s house!

Nancy is the cousin of the head of my mom’s department at Purdue.  The house is amazing!  They live off of River Rd., have an intense driveway, and gorgeous views.  Looking out the window, it was hard to believe that West Lafayette was just a 5 minute drive away.

Currently I’m making plans with one of my high school friends for lunch on Saturday (yay!) and I’m trying to make an appointment with a financial advisor to help me sort through retirement/insurance/real world issues.  I’m completely overwhelmed!

Back from…not writing

Tons of stuff has happened since I last wrote something!  Ashley, Malisa, and I went to Boston to compete in the Imagine Cup and we got First Runners Up!!  We’re so excited!  We took the cash ($4000 to be split equally between all team members) and I got the check in the mail the other day, which was awesome!

I graduated from DePauw, which was pretty sweet.  I wasn’t at commencement because my parents gave me this awesome graduation present of a 16-day rafting trip down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.  It was breath-taking!  Camping for 16 days is a little much for me, but it was still really fun.  I took pictures and I put them up on Flickr, if you want to, you can check them out here!

The same day that Dad and I got back, Mom was leaving for the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.  We got to chat briefly about the flooding that happened in the basement!  Fortunately, Mom was able to take care of (mostly) everything!

A couple days after getting back, my parents both went to Washington D.C. for an ADA Conference.  Deb and Greg are there too and they’ll be coming back tonight!  I’m not sure how long Deb and Greg will be here, but the guest room is ready for them!  I’ll be driving to the airport tonight to pick everyone up.

This weekend has been really fun!  Ashley came from Fort Wayne for the weekend and Malisa came up from Danville.  We had a great day yesterday!  Ashley and I went for a short bike ride in the morning and then we went to check out the Palm Pre on the Sprint network.  Let me tell you, the Palm Pre is awesome!  It works with Google Apps so well!  The calendar is so powerful, you can actually see all of your Google calendars and add events to them, instead of just adding the events to the default calendar.  Anyway, I’m a huge fan, as I’m sure you can tell!  I’m seriously thinking about switching over to Sprint to get the Pre.  I’m moving to Denver and my parents are kicking my off of the family plan (unfortunately, as they should be!), so I’m going to have to get my own plan and my own phone.

Since I’m moving to Denver, my parents have been letting me use the garage as storage space, which is super understanding of them since that means the Prius has to parked outside.  Thankfully it’s only for a month!  Plus, because there was no car in the garage, Mom was able to put a lot of stuff in there to make sure it didn’t get wet with all the torrential rains!  I’ll post a picture of the garage soon, it’s pretty intense.  I haven’t done any packing because I’m so intimidated by all the stuff…and there’s not space to do anything!

Wrapping up, I’m hoping that I can start posting a more regular basis, I just have to make the time!