home again, home again

I am back in Denver, back to the ol' real life again! It's been chaotic learning how to transition out of b&b mode and back into other things, odd to be able to get so much sleep and pick out what clothes I am going to wear that aren't the same clothes I wore the day before! Everything kind of happened at once when I got back. I missed the first week of school while I was in San Francisco, so I jumped into that pretty behind and confused. I forgot how much ground can be covered in a few lectures! I took some time this weekend to slowly catch back up and am starting to feel confident that I won't entirely bomb my exam tomorrow. I'm working on finding work again, trying to get my foot in the door at one of the hospitals in the area. In the meantime I've been babysitting for a few of the families I used to help out, and it's been nice to be back in the baby section of life again. All the kids grew so much while I was gone!

School stresses aside, things have been really busy but great! JP and I moved in together, which is a big step for both of us, and it's been fun! Well, the packing/moving/cleaning/scouring/driving all over portion wasn't fun, but that is all over and we now have so much space we can barely fill it up! I don't have many belongings with me in Colorado, as you might remember I moved here with just a car load of things last fall, and both JP and I were living in studios that didn't exactly leave much room for extraneous possessions. We are now in a 2 bedroom house and are gradually finding chairs to sit on (previous count = 1 computer chair from JP's desk), a table to eat at, and other necessities at the many thrift stores in the metro area. We've even got a yard now, which Yin is beyond excited about. She spends most of the day moving from sun patch to sun patch, just lounging about taking in the scenery. It's a pretty hard life.

One of the first things to unpack was my Grandma's owl that always hung in her kitchen and now hangs in mine.

My bike arrived shortly after I did, a little worse for the wear, but mostly fine.

Transition-wise, I think I am doing alright. I miss everyone, and am constantly reminded of the trip everyday, but I think it was the exact right amount of time and I was ready for the end when it came. We e-mail each other multiple times a day, are busy uploading pictures to facebook and are planning the reunions to come. It should be good.

a day at the park

This week/month/year is going by so fast, holy crapoli! On Friday I got out for a challenging 25 mile ride with my boss Mark. I survived, even on the hills, although my lungs wanted to whimp out on me. It basically went like this: "Lungs? Meet Hill. You should get to like Hill because soon Hill will become Mountain, and Mountain is much more intimidating then little Hill here." It is nice to have someone to bike with, especially since it's Mark who knows a good deal about the world of spandex road riding and about the routes around town. I have to admit that I lean towards being a one-gear-girl, and never remember that I can in fact shift! Mark has started on the wonderful task of reminding me to change gears when the terrain changes, and thus I am learning that gears are an amazing thing. Ahh it's the little things in life, eh?

After that ride (my longest yet since training started!) my legs needed a bit of a break so on Sunday we went to Longmount to drop off some congratulatory champagne for Jeremy and Karyn's engagement (!) and to take the girls to the dog park. I of course snapped pictures, while JP tried to dodge the camera. Luckily I am in the childcare field and have honed my pictures-in-motion skills. Here are a few for you:

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The Yin Berry

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She is such a kook...or is it just my miraculous motion-picture capturing abilities?


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Waiting patiently for treats, the ball for Layla and food for Yin.


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Then it was evening and we headed back to Denver to start a new week.

tasty, tasty thai

As you may already be aware, from my constant litany of grumblings, I have yet to find any really great Thai restaurants in Denver. This is unfortunate because I love, love, love, and can eat most everything thai food related. As one friend put it right before my trip to Thailand, "You're going to be in gluten free land-ia!" and indeed I was. So, after sampling the best that Yelp had to offer and coming up bland handed, I have decided to do the practical thing and have switched to simply making the tasty thai food that I crave. Last night's GF potluck party (that's right, Elise is finally making some friends) gave me the opportunity to make one of my favorite dishes: Laab (or Larb) salad. Mmmmmmm.

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My gigantic kitchen owl supervised the operation.

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I've got to give credit to Joe for my love of tofu, it's just so tasty!

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This recipe for sure and cilantro in particular remind me so much of Carol, far away in Tanzania..and probably far away from cilantro as well.

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Cilantro sticks to everything!

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Oh so tasty, this dish is so simple to make too. Now I think I need to go eat some lunch!

some snow comes to denver

Perhaps slacking on homework can have it's rewards too! I got up early today to polish off my medical terminology homework and woke up to a beautiful snowy morning! The only real sitting place in my apartment is the bar type counter in my kitchen, which just so pleasantly happens to be situated next to a big window.


I've been struggling with liking Denver lately, with the huge lack of my closest friends being the biggest downfall of the city, but I have to say when it snows here my mood is lifted. The nice thing about Denver is that in between snowfalls the weather is pretty temperate, and for the most part the snow melts. Every time we have a new snowfall it's like the first snow of the season, pretty white flakes that cover everything and aren't hiding gray, sloppy, muck underneath it all like in a certain state in which I used to reside. It always feels like the beginning of winter, and since it doesn't drag on (unless you count two days as dragging) it's like the best of both worlds! I didn't expect this kind of winter here. I suppose I didn't really expect much of anything in the three days between deciding to move here and then actually moving here, but I sure do like it. Most times it feels like spring, with a couple of windy fall-like days sprinkled in between days like these.

I've been putting in my time studying medical terminology this semester, and I find it really interesting! It's funny to come across conditions and diseases that people I know have had, and be able to break them down into word parts that mean so much to me now! I keep wanting to pick up the phone and pepper my dad with questions that don't even really mean anything but are illuminating when I put all the pieces together. Mostly I'm writing a little list (my specialty, especially when put on a notecard!) of things like what kind of break Micah's arm was during his skateboarding accident and what kind of plates they put in because I just read about them both, or what kind of treatment my mom had and what type of choices were out there. In my head I liken it to my french studies in which I would sometimes have a realization about a common french phrase that I used everyday and how the actually words broke down in meaning. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but one phrase is "je ne sais pas" meaning "I don't know". I obviously learned that one right away and put it to good use, but one day I realized it wasn't just a mash up phrase, it was in fact just the negative of je sais. Writing that down sounds silly, but I guess I just mean that words, especially medical words, that are just tossed around take on new meaning to me when they are broken down or actually applied to something tangible even if it's just in my little student brain.