Friday, June 12, 2009

Summer in the city

Life is good here. I mean, really good. The kind of good you don't even want to talk about because what if you wake up someday and it's just gone. We're happily settling into our new life as homeowners. The house is so great and beautiful, and we've finally got the better part of it unpacked. Adam's parents came down a few weeks ago and helped us paint the living room (blue-grey, with a grey couch, blue armchair, and red accents) and the kitchen (tan) so it's starting to really feel like *our* place. Last night I also finally unpacked and put together the guest bedroom, so we can now finally have guests! The rabbit is happily destroying everything we love and hold dear, and the birds are flying around comfortably like they've always lived there. I am ready to start school in the fall, but in the meantime I have been hanging out with my bro and doing delightfully fun things like going to Holiday World, watching the new Pixar Movie "Up" and playing mini-golf. My dad bought a ping pong table for his new house, so Adam and I are insanely jealous but we get over there to play doubles ping pong as much as possible.

It's hard to believe time is fyling by so fast; I hear it speeds up as you get older. I turn 24 at the end of this month (gag), which I will be celebrating by going to B-town twice to see Steve Earle on the 26th with my dad and hubby, and Mat Kearney on my actual birthday. Also, in 3 months we will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary. The jury is still out, but I'll let you know the verdict on marriage then. :)

Otherwise life is pretty good. I joined a new house church that is teaching me so much, and I'm excited to see where God is taking me through this new community. We're about to study "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne and I feel like crying out "finally, a church group that gets me!" My hope is that we can learn to be ordinary radicals together, and inspire everyone around us with love and compassion. Adam and I are learning to take the good with the bad and be greatful for every good gift we have despite the struggles. WE love our families, each other, and we do the best we can! :)

Monday, May 25, 2009

New Beginnings

It's been a while since I've updated this (we've been busy!) so I thought I would post to say that Adam and I are extremely happy and we've moved into our new house! :) We got the house, we moved in May 3rd, and everything is going swimmingly! Now we're working on our projects and my new garden. I started a vegetable garden, and though it is a lot of work, it is very gratifying. I also got registered for classes for the fall, so I'm all set for the beginning to my psych program. Also, I will have every Thursday and Friday off, so yay.


This week is my last week of work and after that I will be hanging out with Douglass and Molly for the summer, and then heading back to school. So Adam and I are really enjoying moving on to the next phase of our lives, and we LOVE LOVE LOVE being married and being homeowners. :) Here are some pictures of our house...






Wednesday, April 8, 2009

And so it goes...

...as one chapter ends, another begins. Or something like that. Isn't that how people describe the bittersweet passage of time? I (Emily) was listening to the song "Tenderness on the Block" today by Warren Zevon, and it took me back to a time when my dad used to play it for me and say that it reminded him of me growing up, etc etc. Sadly, I'm all "grown up", Warren has been dead for more than 5 years, and my dad, well, my parents are getting a divorce and my dad's moving out of the house I grew up in, with a mom and a dad and two siblings. I have been somewhat shocked and overwhelmed by the amount of grief I've experienced over this. I thought at 23 I should be mostly immune to my parents lives and decisions, but as Anne Lamott put it, no matter how old you are when your parents die, you're still an orphan. (Not that this is akin to my parents dying, but I can appreciate the "age-appropriate emotion" theme here.) So it's been hard to post anything for a while, because as this has been happening it has been consuming my thoughts and yet nothing was really certain for a time, so I wasn't really at liberty to talk about it. Adam and I are very sad, but he is an amazingly supportive husband and I don't know what I would do with out him.

As far as the new chapter, Adam and I elected to stay in Indianapolis as I shared before, and I will be going to the University of Indianapolis. I am very excited, though it seems very far off and hard to wrap my brain around a time in the near future when things will ever be "normal" again. Still, I look forward to being the best person I can be, and studying and working with people, which is really my life's joy, and I expect it to be very fulfilling. Our lease is up at the end of this month, which means that our apartment is a wreck and in the terrible packing transition, and also that we'll be "homeless" pretty soon. We will be staying at my parents house for a time, though I have to admit it doesn't feel very much like "home" anymore, given the current situation. But I will be "babysitting" Douglass over the summer, and enjoying spending time with my siblings, and giving them as much a sense of normalcy as I know how,

In addition, the real reason for me finally deciding to post all this is that Adam and I have been house hunting, and we made our first offer on a home tonight. So, God-willing, and a lot of paperwork later, we'll be well ensconced in a charming 3-bedroom ranch on the south side in Franklin township. So that is a reason to be happy, and we do feel blessed with this opportunity. It's a bittersweet time.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Adam and I have big things in the works lately, and the only reason I haven't posted is because we STILL have big things happening, but they are not yet finalized. So, I'll tell you what I do know: Out of the 4 interviews I did for grad school (I canceled most of the other ones) I got 3 offers, and I accepted the one at the University of Indianapolis. As much as we would have loved to move to Chicago, we took the high road as far as cost is concerned, and I'm still very excited about the program at UIndy. I love the professors and the resources here, and who knows, maybe we'll move away someday (or maybe not).

So that's the big news from our corner. The other thing is, we got pre-approved for a mortgage, so we're pretty excited about that. We've been doing some preliminary house hunting and we're going out with our realtor next weekend, so hopefully we'll be homeowners soon enough! That's pretty much it for now. When there's more news, we'll share. :)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The update you've all been waiting for...

So, since we last posted, the major thing that happened was that I (Emily) got accepted to graduate school. Yes my friends, I'm actually going to be a clinical psychologist. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I got accepted to my top two choices Wheaton College in Chicago and University of Indianapolis. So I haven't posted since we got the good (fantastic!) news because we haven't really decided what to do yet!

I don't really want to say anything else because everything's sort of up in the air...however, I will say that we put in our intent to vacate notice at our apartment, and we have to make a decision about school by April 15th. So, by April 15th we'll know where we're moving, and by April 30th we'll be out of here! We'll let you know more when we know more! But we're excited and blessed by these new exciting changes!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Skiing Adventures and the latest steps on my quest to becoming a doctoral student

Last weekend, Adam and I went skiing with Mollie and Martin, and we had a fantastic time! Even though we weren't really stressed out about anything, it was nice to have a "getaway" for us. :) Adam snowboarded and I skied. The snow was better the first day and it was so WARM!! about 40 degrees-- we barely needed to wear any winter gear.




This weekend I jetted off to my first interview, at University of Northern Colorado. It was extremely exhausting, but I think it was a good experience. I was able to see the program first hand and what they offered. The actual interview was short and in large groups, so I'm not really sure how much benefit there was there, but I was able to talk to all the faculty members and many current grad students. I feel like now that I'm this far in to the process, I will be lucky to get 1 or 2 offers from schools, and hopefully they will be the best fit for me... I realized that just because you want to go somewhere doesn't make is a good match for you. I am, however, excited to see what the other programs have to offer me and do my next interviews. The only bad thing about the experience was that I had to travel so much in a 24 hour period, and I was ridiculously sick! (I still am.) When I got home, I took today off work from my part-time job and literally slept all day. I'm hoping I feel better by my next campus visit which is next Friday!!

Most of the time we're just happy at home with the birds. I don't think non-bird people realize how much birds influence your life. We're not like those people who treat their animals like their children-- we know they're not like kids! But they are like really intelligent and vocal cats and dogs. As Malcolm gets older, he's developing a really entertaining personality. For example, today I was taking a nap and I work up in a panic thinking I heard voices in the apartment, but really it was just Malcolm talking to himself. :) We rearranged Max's cage this weekend and he's still mad about that. :)



As for Valentine's day... we didn't do much, what with Adam working and me home sick. Though Adam did bring me flowers last night when he picked me up at the airport, which was super sweet. :) We're planning a fondue night sometime soon for our "valentine's day" though Adam says we can do it on some other equally arbitrary day. :)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Let the globetrotting begin

Well... I guess it's more like United States trotting, to be honest. I am going to be traveling quite a bit in the next two months. This weekend Adam and I are going on a mini-vacation-- we're going to Michigan to to go skiing with a couple of friends from college. I'm pretty excited.

The weekend after that, I'm off to Denver for a grad school interview, then back to Indy for another, then back to Denver for another, and finally to Florida for Molly's cheer competition in March. The only bummer thing is that the only trip I'll be taking with my husband is to MI; all the others are solo adventures.

I found out this week that I did not get accepted to my top choice school, and I was pretty upset about that. It's hard not to take it too bad, but I understand that Ph.D. programs are uber-hard to get into. (One of my favorite, very talented professors from college applied to 10 programs and got an offer from 1.) All that's left to do is put my best foot forward going to all the interviews I was fortunate enough to land. Wish me luck.