Sometimes There is a Down Side to New Adventures

It is no secret that I love to travel. I could easily rattle off about 20 places I want to visit and could probably come up with another pretty long list of places I think I might like to live, too. But, it can be hard having that passion and drive to always keep moving around. Transiency can be fun, but it is also not all it is cracked up to be because you are always leaving great things and people behind. I think it is on my mind because yesterday was my birthday. Just about anyone could tell you that I am fairly indifferent when it comes to my birthday. I appreciate the love and attention that I receive, but I am rarely counting down the hours to my “special day.” Probably my fondest memories come from my 30^th birthday party where my friends quietly stole control of the planning from me and gave me an unforgettable bash. Of course, it is memories like these that perhaps are making me a bit blue and nostalgic today.

First, let me clarify, I had a lovely day yesterday. I got an awesome Camelback backpack and some funny socks from Robert. I was strongly encouraged to not study and to enjoy my day. I did this, however, I am regretting it a wee bit today as I have stacks of reading to finish before tomorrow. We had a fun afternoon together cooking my birthday dinner. I know that may not sound fun to everyone, but I picked out some of my favorite dishes to share with some Flagstaff friends, and R and I really enjoy cooking together. We have not done it a whole lot since moving here because our counter space is about 2 feet long, which is not conducive to two people working side by side unless you are very patient or careful! We made hummus and baba ganoush with pita chips and carrots for dipping. We made spinach pie (like one giant spanokapita, only easier) and grilled fennel couscous salad. At my request, Robert made me a banana cake with caramel frosting.

We shared this feast with A and J, who as you can tell are already frequent flyers in my life here, B that I work with and her little son L, and two new friends from my SUS program, C and T. It was exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday, so I was happy and content at the end of the day. I also received phone calls and texts from family and friends as well as a million facebook messages. I think it is the last bit that makes me a bit sad and lonely right now. In particular, I miss my family. Some might find that a little weird as I am not super tight with most of them. My most regular contact is about weekly phone calls with my mom, and talking with my siblings is sporadic at best. The thing is, that up until three years ago, I saw them about once every few months. Consider my travelling history, that is pretty good. Life has made it pretty fortunate and easy for me to make my way back to Madison and Louisville either through proximity, job perks, or my desire to keep my relationship alive with my significant other after moving to Dallas.

After R and I got married and he moved to Dallas, my trips home dropped off tremendously. Suddenly, with two of us, it meant driving instead of flying, and of course, he had been a part of my motivation to keep returning so regularly. Instead of being there every three or four months, it dropped to about twice a year. It is now September, and I have not been back since December and it looks likely that I won’t be back until this December. This is the longest I have ever gone without seeing my family. The trip is no longer drivable (well, in a reasonable person’s world, anyways), and we are definitely poorer than we were before with me being a grad student and all!

The hardest part about leaving an old life behind and starting a new one is that the old life keeps trucking on without you. I know that is very elementary, but until you experience missing out on significant events like your baby sister’s high school graduation, friends’ weddings and birthday parties, and the birth of your niece, it doesn’t completely hit you. I had no idea how much I would hate not getting to be a full time aunty. How can you love someone so much you have never even met?!? Thank goodness for the electronic age and quick access to pictures, but it isn’t quite the same. I suppose, it is time to get off the “woe is me” bandwagon. I know I made the choices that brought me here, and I hope it is evident from all my other stories, that I am really happy here. Today, though, I just missed my old life with my circle of friends and my family back in Madtown and the Ville.

Swinging Pendulum of Luck

After a couple of rough weeks full of frustrations and disappointments, some positive things suddenly started happening at the end of last week. R got called on Thursday afternoon to do an interview for a part-time job that he had applied for a about a week ago. That afternoon, after I was finished with work stuff, I walked down town to meet him, and took a slightly different path. I discovered a lovely little nook of restaurants and shops. We went back that way and stopped at the Flagstaff Brewing Company, one the local breweries, for a beer and snack to celebrate his job interview. We sat outside on their patio and enjoyed local brewed beer and black bean hummus along with the late afternoon sunshine. The hummus had some unusual accompaniments with tomatoes, feta, lettuce, artichoke hearts, and roasted red pepper sprinkled over the toasted pita. It was finished off with drizzles of honey that sounded weird, but did work with the overall flavors. The beer was tasty and refreshing. I had an ESB and R had the brown ale.

We stopped at the mailbox on the way home and discovered a last paycheck for Robert that we had not been anticipating. This could be pretty helpful considering the theft of about half his bike last weekend. That is the only negative bit I will bring up as I don’t think I mentioned it yet. We discovered last Friday that someone had taken his seat and seat post. An annoyance, but could have been worse right? Wish we didn’t have to spend the money to replace it, but we can make it work… Well, two mornings later, we came out to discover both wheels gone. Just wheels, right, well they aren’t cheap and apparently there was a lot attached to them like disc brakes and gears. Poof! Just like that about half the value of his bike has been ripped off. Anyways, this check will hopefully help replace a lot of this and get him back on the road. And… now we are going to have to figure out how to squeeze two bikes into our little space. Stay tuned for that creative arranging!

So after that, I ran out to the store to pick up some wine for dinner. As I was walking past the clearance kiosk, a “picnic pack” with ketchup, mustard, and relish caught my eye. Surely, this was put there in error? But no, it had a half-off sticker on it. So, I got all three for less than $3. Sweet!!!! I know you may be rolling your eyes at my excitement over sale priced condiments, but keep in mind we have to restock our pantry after moving and we have that whole limited grad student budget thing. So this was a gold mine find in my book!

Then we had a delicious dinner with produce from the Flagstaff Farmer’s Market that included fried green tomatoes, glazed carrots, and green beans. The mac n’ cheese was from the box, but it a favorite guilty pleasure and comfort food for me. Here are some pictures of our yummy dinner.

Friday continued to look up. I confirmed that my SMU vacation payout was finally in our bank account. Robert’s job interview seemed to go well. And last but not least, my missing books FINALLY turned up. One of the advantages of being a grad student is the schedule flexibility. I decided to spend my Friday afternoon doing laundry and doing some work on my net book instead of sitting in my office. Since we are back to doing laundry in a common area, I am paranoid about not staying and keeping an eye on it. I have known too many students who have come to me about stolen laundry. So, I was sitting there soaking up the beautiful sunny afternoon and working when I noticed the post man at the mailboxes. So, I did what any normal person would do… I stalked him. After a long conversation where I explained yet again that I am struggling with the fact that 7 packages could just disappear into thin air, he agreed that this was pretty weird. He ended up breaking into the one locked parcel box package for which there seemed to be no key. Guess what was in there??? Yes, you got it… all seven packages. Finally! A happy ending.

I know my recent post was pretty whiny and a downer. In fact, my dear mother requested that I not do posts like that in the future… I will try my best, but can’t make any promises. Life happens – sometimes it is enjoyable and sometimes it sucks. Truly, though, I have felt happier in Flagstaff than I have been in a long time. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unhappy in Dallas. I am just happier here. My stress level is consistently lower, and I am excited about my surroundings and all the opportunities to explore it is offering us. I feel at peace here. Maybe it is the new location or having less responsibilities or being outdoors more and physically active, or the excitement of taking my professional and personal life in a direction. Whatever it is, it is working for me. I am relaxed, sleeping better, and seem to find more reasons to laugh and smile. I hope it sticks.

Cori’s Terrible, Rotten, No Good Day (With Surprise Happy Ending)

My day wasn’t really that terrible. It was more frustrating than anything because I felt like there were all these things I was trying to take care of and seek resolution for, and I don’t think I really got anywhere with any of them. When I took a step back, I realized I was sweating the small stuff, but I was just so tired of it all. Our day started with me running around trying to collect all the possible information and documentation we would need to register our vehicle and get Arizona driver’s licenses. Honestly, I probably should have done it the night before, but by the time we got home I just didn’t have the brain power to deal with it. It was after 10 am by the time we arrived, and we literally walked in the door and turned around and left because we could tell it was going to be a much longer wait than we wanted to deal with or had time for. This wouldn’t be a big deal, but it did mean we would be getting up much earlier the next day to get there before they opened. (By the way, I am writing this as we sit and wait at the DMV, and there was already a line of about 20 people already when we got here 5 minutes before they opened). This also caused a domino effect because our temporary parking permit expired today, and I had been waiting until we got our new tags so that I wouldn’t have to go back and update that later. OK, so it looks like I will have to after all. Again, not a big thing.. but one more thing to have on my to do list instead of making a line through it and saying DONE!

You might be asking, why did we wait until the day our permit expired to change our car registration? Well, there is a good reason for that. That whole moving thing? Not cheap!! That whole grad school thing? Not much income. I was supposed to get my vacation pay out this past Friday. Actually, I had anticipated it on July 30, but due to my change to a temporary status, I was told I would get it on the biweekly pay schedule instead. Okay, we can wait a week. Well, imagine my state of mind, when I logged into my bank account and there was no pay check. Ugh. So, I have been trying to chase down my HR contact since Friday to find out where the heck my money is. So that has been stressing me out and yet another thing to keep following up on. I better get paid on August 20 as promised or I might have a brief mental breakdown or at least a tantrum.

Then there is Geico. Remember that whole traumatic car accident and ongoing injury treatment? Well, we are still not settled on that, although hopefully close. I had to respond to a voicemail from my chiropractor who was upset at the response he got when he tried to ask Geico about the status of the claim and wanted to express his frustration on the outstanding bills from a year ago. I get it… I would like to get paid on my out of pocket expenses, too. So, had to follow up with Geico on my end. In the mean time, I discovered online that Geico had us scheduled for 3 more payments on our 6 month premium… Um, wait a minute. I have already made three, and we only make four at a time. What on earth has happened? Well, the nice lady patiently explained to me (several times, until it sort of made sense to me) that because we had transferred our insurance to a new state that our 4 month payment plan for our 6 month premium was starting over. So, instead of being finished as I had thought, we are looking forward to three more months of payments. Urgh.

The capper on the day (and still my ongoing source of frustration and angst) was my conversation with the supervisor at the post office. See, I had the booklist for one of my classes, so I decided to order books as soon as possible after having a new address so that I could get my pick of quality and price in the used books at Amazon. An extremely long story short: I ordered said books on July 18, and to date, um, those seven separate packages have NOT ARRIVED. I was able to secure tracking numbers on three of them and they were supposedly delivered on July 26 (since none of them have appeared, I have used my deductive and logic skills to determine that all seven must have been together for delivery). They may have been delivered, but they were certainly not delivered to the correct location. Fun side note, essentially the other four will probably not exist in the eyes of the US Postal Service as they can’t track them since there is no tracking numbers. Nice, eh? So classes start in about 2 weeks, I am probably out $90 and it is not looking certain the postal service is going to subscribe to the good customer service policy of reimbursing me for the mistake that they made but are unwilling to even call a mistake. Glad to know that my payment of $3.99 for each book to have it mailed to me is worth something. Anyways… fiasco extraordinaire that I am extremely pissed about.

OK, dear readers (assuming there is any of you out there!) , I can’t end on a negative note. So despite my frustrating and somewhat helpless feeling day, I did have some lovely experiences at the end of the day.

The first was suppah!

I have mentioned a couple of times about our excitement of having a “real” farmer’s market again. It brings us great joy, and as I like to say, makes my heart sing. For dinner, we used some of our bounty (Swiss chard, onion, and garlic) to make a recipe I found on Good Things Catered blog.

The original recipe is a grilled flat bread, and we went with an oven baked pizza, but still came up with yummy results. I can be a bit particular about bitter greens, but the garlic, caramelized onions and cheese helped balance out the chard for me. I should mention the chard was my idea. I am trying to branch out and eat new veggies. The only other major change we made was using Jarlsberg instead of Gruyere as it was substantially cheaper. We need to be mindful of these types of things as we are now on a poor grad student’s budget. We also changed the spices up a bit as we did not have fresh herbs. We used a dried Fine Herb mix from Penzey’s and sprinkled some crushed red pepper on it. Here are some pictures to make you jealous and hungry.

The second amazing thing of the night was the meteor we saw. We have been in awe of the many stars we can see, both because of the higher altitude and the limited light pollution due to the presence of Lowell Observatory. We decided to get out and get a bit of fresh air and enjoy the stars. We found a less well lit part of campus and just plopped down on the sidewalk to enjoy the view. Almost immediately, we saw the most amazing thing - a meteor that was almost indescribable (but is apparently called a fireball and is extremely rare). It was not the average meteor or shooting star that we are used to seeing. It was many times larger and shades of green and purple and the trail lingered for a good 15 seconds. We concluded it must have been the over achiever or early bird of the Perseid Meteor Shower that we had the opportunity to go and really enjoy the next night in the middle of nowhere. But that is another story to potentially share….