picnic at the beach

I know I haven't posted any pictures of our place yet, but I promise I will very soon!  We have been busy lately with boring stuff; car repairs, car shopping, excise taxes, studying and working to name just a few.  With Joe back in the country (and state) and Emily finishing her last day of work, it was high time for some nature.  After a failed attempt to catch the ferry to Peak's Island, we regrouped and made a new plan.  Joe, JP and I biked across the bridge to South Portland and over to Willard Beach for a little sunset wine and cheese.  Emily met up with us, and we just relaxed, munched and took in the scenery. We have landed in quite a beautiful place, and I for one feel extremely lucky to be back near water again.  Mountains are gorgeous, but I just love me some water. 

Joe just got back from a tour in Europe and his love of cheese his been ignited.  We feasted on a few new (to us) varieties and sampled some salami and prosciutto as well.  This was all a lead up to a homemade Joe Walsh risotto dinner back at our place.  The evening was completed with carmel salted maine ice cream, a perfect ending to a great day, and another great way to welcome this new city into our lives.

building up

 After biting the bullet and signing on for $65,000 worth of student loans (!), I've been ordering some of my books.  I got all of them used and most for a substantially lower price than what they retail for so I'm feeling pretty good!  Not when I think about the price, so I am just not thinking about it right now!  Six of them came in the mail today and I took the opportunity to start organizing my desk.  It's actually more of a table that could probably seat five or six and less of a desk, but to me it's the perfect size.  I am a spreader when it comes to studying, and after spending last semester overtaking the kitchen table, I knew that I would need something spacious.  Luckily our apartment is much larger than our last place, and both of our "desks" fit comfortably in our office with room to spare.

 

Getting things set up on my desk and paging through my new books is making me excited for all the things I am going to learn in the near future.  JP thinks I'm a little weird because even though I have spent most of my life in school, I still get nerdily excited for learning.  It's true!  Which is probably a great thing because in the medical field you have to commit to being basically a forever student, and loving to learn seems like an excellent prerequisite. 

 

Adding to the list of my nerdery, is this cool copy of Gray's Anatomy that I found at the thrift store for only 89 cents!  I know I will have anatomy coming out of my ears soon, but I couldn't resist buying this.  It has 780 illustrations!

And last but not least is what I am currently studying.  We have a medical terminology test the first week of class and I am not about to risk failing my first exam!  I kept my textbook for just such a reason, and I had forgotten that there are flashcards in the back and an interactive cd!  Woot!  Flashcards are my best friends, and I am going to take them to the park with me right now.

scoot pursuit!

My brother Joe had his bicycle stolen right around the time we moved to town.  He spotted it in the Old Port chained to a sign, but when he returned with a bike lock of his own it was already gone!  We have all been on the look out for his red canondale ever since, but yesterday Emily and I took it to a new level.

After a few days of rain we finally had a windy, sunny day and we took to the streets scooter style!  It actually turned out to be the perfect mode of transport for stolen bicycle investigating.  It isn't too fast, you can quickly pull over just about anywhere and you look awesome while sleuthing around!  We rode around for about an hour without many bicycle sightings of any kind and decided we will have to reconvene once it is less windy and more consistently sunny.  Either way it was a great time!

moving

 

Before I tell you about the amazing place we are living in and all the fun things we have seen and done since arriving in our new city, I will tell you a bit about the moving.  As you might imagine, moving an entire house between just the two of us was kind of stressful.  Add to that two dogs who were in a panic about what was happening around them and terrified of being left behind, and it gets a little worse.  The whole packing, lifting, shuffling, heaving, arranging and cleaning portion of the journey is probably best left not remembered.  It was looong and sweaty and back aching and long.  I always forget about that part and how stressful and strenuous it is, I just like to remember how exciting moving is and how much fun a new place will be to decorate and a new city will be to explore and omit in my memory the parts that suck.  Unfortunately they still exist, but FORTUNATELY I am in the finish part and I can begin the work of remembering how great moving is and forgetting how horrible it can be so that I will be ready to be excited the next time around!

We have been incredibly fortunate in the weather department since we arrived, but I am currently cozied down with a fresh steaming cop of coffee sitting by the window watching and listening to the rain outside and I thought it just might be the perfect time to blog a little.  Rainy days are glorious for me still, although that will probably change pretty quickly, because it barely ever rained in Denver.  Here it has been drizzly, wet, and windy since yesterday and it's been lovely.  Sometimes I think Denver made me forget how brilliantly green grass can be over large spaces, but the park we live across from is doing a good job of reminding me. 

The pups did an amazing job once we finally got out on the open road.  The four of us crammed into the tiny cab of the truck actually wasn't too bad!  I think they were so incredibly exhausted from constantly making sure we hadn't moved without them that once they saw we would all be jammed in close they just passed out cold.  It was kind of a miracle, but they sure were more than ready for a beach run when we finally arrived!

no thanks

You know what? Today was dumb.  I'm not gonna sugar coat it with any of that rhetoric...it just sucked.  For real, Renae and I had a bike route all planned out, 60 miles, break at 35ish for a margarita at a place she loves and then a loop on back.  You know what we did instead?  We biked in the wrong direction for eight miles, then backtracked for eight,  then weaved in the traffic of a busy road crossing over an interstate and finally found our way onto the very trail we had taken last weekend.  We got about 22 miles out (including the hub bub of being lost) and realized it was 5:00.  Directly after making an adult decision that it would be best to turn around, we got a flat tire.  Booooo.  Changing commenced and we headed home.  We took a break five miles from home so we could lay in the grass and motivate ourselves.  Climbing towards the idea of happy hour at irish snug we sucked it up and grappled the tiny hill back to her house.  I promptly plopped down and broke my favorite sunglasses.  40 miles on the books and our muscles feel like we trekked at least 70.  If it was too much sun I suppose we shouldn't complain, but can we complain about the wind?  11mph and feeling like dying is no way to start a ride.  Nevada? You've left me bitter to any suggestion of wind.  I hope you're happy!

on bicycles and leaving

Not so long ago, leaving Denver wouldn't really have meant all that much because I didn't really have any connections at all, I was just floating on by studying and doing my own thing.  Now though, I actually have an amazing friend that I hang out with every day and bike with and work out with and drink mimosas with and commiserate with!  And now I am sad!!  I know I get to move to a city that has built in friends, and will spend the next two years with a family of sorts as 50 of us students struggle side by side to learn medicine, and that is going to be awesome in its own way.  I am just remembering how incredibly heart breaking it was to leave Minneapolis just a few years ago.  Eric, Pigeon, and I drove down the highway while tears just streamed out of my eyes for miles and miles.  IT WAS SO HARD.  I know this time is different in a million ways, but this time will be hard too I think in ways that I haven't yet considered.  BUT luckily I am bringing my best friend with me on this adventure, and our two ridiculous dogs are great for comforting even if all four of us will be smooshed in the cab of a u-haul for hours on end!  I think perhaps most big changes must be mourned and then let go so that the memories can live on however they will.  In any case, this is a sappy post and I am okay with that.

Now I will tell you that my friend Renae is raising money (soon) for a ride she is doing in August.  She is biking her first century (100 miles) in the Rockies no less for the Tour de Cure raising money for diabetes research!  Once she gets a donation site up I will plaster it up here and ask you all to support her, but for now you are off the hook.  We have been training together, and it has been so nice to ride my old training routes and do them with someone else!  I didn't realize how lonesome my training was when I was by myself!  In any case, Renae and I got out on Saturday for a 35 mile ride in 78 degree weather along Clear Creek and it was absolutely lovely.  She didn't even mind when I kept making her stop so I could take pictures, even when one of the was mid-climb..  Hope you all are having as beautiful weather as we are!

the search continues

You know what?  Picking a new place to live from afar is hard.  We are extremely lucky to have eyes on the ground that are checking out the places we find and finding places for us that they can check out.  It's a pretty good scenario all things considered, but if you know me, you know that I need to get my hands right up in there and see for myself.  It turns out that in the face of stress, control is a HUGE thing for me.  Hahaha, who would have guessed?  With moving day coming up in..err yikes, two and a half weeks, we are starting to feel the stress a little bit more.  Aside from the whole not having a place to live issue, the realization of both of us being unemployed is starting to become more real.   HA.  I don't know why that makes me laugh, but I think it's more of a nervous-isn't-it-hilarious-that-we-are-so-blindly-forging-ahead kind of laugh, and I am doing it more and more often.  I know I always "have faith in the bigger plan" and really do believe things happen for a reason, but as with most people I wish I knew all of the reasons ahead of time all the time so that I could be prepared.  See what I mean about the control?  So, I am trying to take moving across the country with so many unknowns yet to be answered as an exercise in trust and patience.  The reality of the situation is that we are doing as much as we can from where we are, and that is just about all we can do.  We are closing in on the end of our jobs here (one week for me and two for him), and then the next adventure will begin!  Don't think for one minute that this anxiety is raining on our parade over here.  I am the queen of powering through, and both JP and I (and hell, probably Oliver and Yin too) are extremely excited to call Portland home.  The weather has been great for grilling here, and I have been peppering JP with Portland facts and information, showing him beaches and lighthouses we can visit and looking up the google street views of all the apartments we have considered. I think it's safe to say that Maine is going to be very different than Colorado, but we've done the Colorado thing for a few years and now it is time to try Maine on for size.  JP's first purchase for the move was just a few days after I was accepted, and it was an insulated hat/facemask/warmer thing from REI so he will be ready for whatever cold nor'easter blows his way.  What a trooper this Louisiana boy is!

 

Well, so you don't think that all we do over here is worry and wring our hands in desperate pleas for assurances (mom, don't worry, I am remembering to breathe occasionally), I will tell you that we have been shedding our anxieties with some slurpee filled scooter rides lately.  We also dragged our butts to the midnight movie release of the Hunger Games last night, and after working a twelve hour shift prior to the shenanigans, I think I am maaay just be getting too old for that kind of fun.  That, or I really should just give up once and for all on believing that any film version of a book I love will ever live up to the expectations I desperately want them to.   So there you have it.  Apartments, working, hand wringing and some hunger games.   That's life here!

And for the record, Oboe is really trying not to let the stress get to him too much.