• january and february filled with daily life and seeing a record amount of movies in the theatre in time for our friends’ annual oscar bash. our investment in cinema paid off as i guessed the most winners right!
• mom and a friend came for a visit in the spring time…got to experience more of the rural south at a garage sale that lasts for miles (who knew people could have so much junk!) and the lost baggage center.
• of all things, a scrubs episode changed our life, when it inspired wil that the time was now to pursue something you love for the rest of your life…and he decided to research culinary school.
• by april we had our house on the market…in hopes that it would sell before wil’s fall enrollment would take place! enjoyed the constant stress of showing a house a couple times a week with two great danes. we spent many afternoons with the four of us driving around (some days too hot to be outside for too long!) to waste time.
• as our departure from nashville loomed, our time with friends grew more bittersweet, highlighted with a great evening on the hills of arrington vineyards with picnic blankets, bottles of wine, and catch phrase.
• at the end of june we joined family in montana to celebrate my parents’ 25th anniversary…a good way to ring in independence day with lakeside s’mores and firecrackers!
• with life’s timing upside down, we received an offer from some dear friends to spend the summer at a music institute in the north carolina mountains, outside of asheville. it only made sense to take advantage of a period of rest in a beautiful setting while the house was in escrow and to do a little work to earn money. we will cherish the friendships made and solidified over terrible camp food, waterfall hikes, office episodes, and breathtaking symphonies!
• august brought us the end of our time at brevard, to come back to nashville to pack the rest of the house, sign papers and pack the dogs in the car in preparation for our cross country drive! it didn’t help that the week our house loan was to be paid off by the sale, our mortgage company disappeared off the face of the earth, with no one knowing where anyone’s loan information went! (god took care of that later)
• i won’t deny it was a little nervewracking to drive 2400 miles with only a city as a destination…no apartment or house lined up, and our stuff to arrive on a freight truck within days or our arrival! we touched base at our parents, but quickly scoured portland for a building walking distance to wil’s school that would accept two giant canines. that was interesting…
• we found a place and moved in at the beginning of september, and road tripped down for a tour through california, visiting 5 cities to see family we hadn’t seen for too long.
• wil started school shortly after that, while i got to experience the loveliness of job hunting. yay unemployment!
• although it soon became a tight squeeze for us, as the expenses outweighed a zero income, we fell in love with the city over the last few months and have enjoyed the proximity to everything, including our family. i finally landed a part time retail job for the time being, and get to walk to work. we went from a one car family to now hardly using it at all!
• with time on our hands, and wil’s expertise already increasing, we’ve enjoyed transforming this blog to reflect the foods and experiences we love, and are excited about furthering this endeavor in the new year, with a new layout and look.

christmas was of course a highlight, and here i am sitting back at home already, in my pj’s waiting to watch the rose parade. i guess i should wake wil up so we can enjoy a french press together on the couch with flowered floats passing by on our screen. happy 2010 everyone.

took a few shots around the place…our home for the next year at least. click on the picture to go to my flickr, and i put little notes on all the pictures.

• moved back from brevard to nashville
• spent 10 days packing the house, sleeping on a blowup mattress and eating pizzas
• signed the papers to officially hand over the keys on the 20th
• drove from nashville to sisters in 3 days (whoo!)
• hung in sisters for a few days, with a trip to portland in the middle to scramble and find a place to live
• signed apartment papers, unloaded our the freight truck, and moved to our new place 2 days ago
• now trying to find one another amidst all the boxes in this teeny place

we’ll now be taking a break from unpacking and joining my side of the family for some camping the next couple days. i’m stealing someone’s inappropriately named wireless signal, so we still don’t have internet access, except for our phones.

we’ll get back here, i promise! with pictures!

I’ve spent the last several weeks trying to figure out where we belong and it turns out it won’t be my decision at all.

One of the requirements for enrollment at the Culinary Institute of America (CA) is that I have to have 6 months foodservice experience before entering the school… this is something I don’t have (Starbucks doesn’t count) and won’t be able to get before school starts.   So… Portland here we come!

I’m happy with the result, it feels good to have a destination in mind.  I also know that if this school (Western Culinary Institute) turns out to be something different than I wanted or expected, Kris and I are open to re-transfering down to CA to give the CIA another attempt.  I know my mom is happy, what do YOU think?

god, thank you for getting us home and that all our flights were relatively on time. but please, bring me my luggage.

the dogs were beyond excited to see us, and they are SOOO clingy, and of course, wil and i haven’t felt well enough to give them the attention they are requesting. they seem to need to relearn some of the rules of the house though, being without parents…gracie tried to eat straight out of my bowl of rice on the coffee table (plain, mind you, because we can’t imagine eating anything more flavorful at this point).

anyways, while wil plays settlers of catan that he discovered as a download on his xbox, i threw all the pictures online. i’m not a fan of putting stuff up before i throroughly go through them and edit any artsy ones, but i’ll just play around with those later, i suppose. so here’s the set!

link to the set to browse at your leisure… or link to a slideshow to see all start to finish.

jury duty has always been one of the things i wondered if i’d ever be called to do in my whole life. never would i have imagined it to happen to soon! and it’s one of those things that’s probably a HUGE thorn in your side, turning your entire life upside down for a few weeks or however long. but, at the same time, it’s probably a completely unique and interesting experience that could never be equivalent to anything else. even with that said, i was still happy to find out that i don’t actually qualify for this particular jury, since, you kind of have to live in the state that is summoning you.

*psst…oregon….i don’t live in your state anymore*

so, after writing my response email to the jury coordinator explaining that i don’t believe i can do it, i took a pause to think about jury duty itself. how interesting to play the role in some stranger’s life…having ‘control’, persay, of their near (or extended) future. what weird power. but, i am relieved. i know they probably want as random of demographics as possible, but i just don’t feel like i’ve lived enough life, gathered enough information, or established any strong enough opinions about the world to be able to make the decision about one man/woman’s wrongs (or innocence)…

let’s hope i read the fine print correctly and the coordinator doesn’t reply saying i have to do it.

i also had another tidbit of my life to write about when i initially sat down here, but after the heaviness of thoughts about the judicial system, people’s sins, and other people dealing with them, i feel very trivial and materialistic with what i was about to say. but since i’ve built it up, i have to follow through, i guess.

well, i’ll make it snappy to decrease my shallowness.

what not to wear =  one of my favorite tv shows

the outfits on their ‘lesson’ mannequins = almost always stupendously cute

shopping at anthropologie (still working through my gift card leila!) + actually recognizing a shirt that i just saw on one of the wntw mannequins in a recent episode + trying it on + it looks cute! = a personal high for my fashion life

i bought it, of course.

anyways, i finally got them up. i probably took way too many pictures considering we all know what we look like, being family members and all; and the only things we did all week were hang out, play games and open gifts, but that’s ok. someday maybe i’ll look back and say to myself “i’m so glad i caught that random expression during that random moment”.

so, instead of just saying, go ahead and take a look at my flickr account, i am giving you a link directly to a slideshow of the set. hopefully that makes it easier to look through them all, since there’s about 200 pictures. and i recommend putting a song on in the background while it plays (sorry i don’t have the ability to do that with this link). oh, and some of the last few photos are not in chronological order like the rest of the set since they were taken with my phone- oh well. enjoy!

christmas and new years in sisters…