aspirations

the burrow. i think that's what i want our home to be. if i can achieve that in life, i will feel good about who i have become. unpretentious, honest, welcoming, full of laughter, full of food, full of family, full of friends...

today's special

for sure this photo is phenomenal. you can follow my cousin's journey via their website Riding the Spine. this photo is from their latest set in costa rica, just a little "biking hammock colony" i believe is what Jacob called it.

the iPod muddle [like those mint leaves]

rodrigo y gabriela, what was i doing with my life before i started listening to this stuff? jack, you had me from the first line of the first song and you've delivered again. amy winehouse with that crazy jazzy funk is infections. shins, there are no words. spoon, you motivate me like none other. BNL *sigh*, your like home...memories, fondness, fun, honest. modest mouse - yes puh-lease.

the reward

well this saturday night had hopes to be incredible. it has really taken a nose dive quickly... we were going to go out to dinner [corridor 44] and have a date night, and then drop by deanna's european farewell party, and then stop by the bars and wish my friend terri a very happy 24th birthday. see, it would have been a noteworthy evening my friends.

alas, sean ended up having to work tonight... & because i truly, truly cannot get my act together since getting back from cumberland island i have realized that i have 2 chapters of anatomy & physiology to read, 4 chapters of microbiology to read, 2 online assessments and a substantial, seriously extensive map of the human body to label [just the cardiac and circulatory systems however], as well as 2 exam outlines to begin/finish, OH and a ridiculously hard 6 question homework handout...one of those takes you 2 hours to answer one question, and even after that you're holding your breath and making the confused face hoping that what you wrote might in some strange way resemble something close to an answer.

so tonight i am doing none of the aforementioned charming activities. i am buckling down and finishing most of the "should have dones" that i should-have-done earlier in the week. on the other hand, as my husband was leaving for work tonight he said, "get all your work done so that tomorrow night we can celebrate and drink martinis and watch the oscars!". aaahh, i do love that man.

now about the little matter of me not being able to get my act together since returning from the island. let me tell you why that is. chiefly, every morning i would wake up at 700am and throw a sweater on over my pajamas, stuff my feet into my boots, walk down stairs using the secret stairwell that goes straight to the kitchen [with only a brief option of a stop off @ the bar], fill two to go cups with fresh steaming coffee, walk back up the stairs [this time stopping and grabbing two bottles of orange juice from the bar fridge], climb back in bed with sean where we would sit and watch the sunrise while drinking our coffee & oj. then we'd get ourselves dressed for the day and head downstairs for some breakfast. while eating breakfast someone would come in, tidy up our room, change our sheets, make our bed and pick up our wet towels. after breakfast it was off to adventure, but first we would stop by the kitchen and pick up our picnic lunches that had been made for us... absurdly incredible picnic lunches. then it was off to ride bikes around the island, hang out at the beach, visit the marshes, take naps on the bed swings on the porch, visit with the family, explore the ruins, scout out armadillos, wild horses & wild turkeys. upon returning from a day of adventuring you could head down to the dining room and pick up a bowl of staggeringly good soup and some sweet tea. then all you had to worry about for the rest of the evening was showering and dressing up for happy hour & dinner. did i mention that you didn't even have to pick up your own dishes. finished with that cup of coffee??, just leave it on the table, or the porch, or wherever you happen to be, someone will be along to get it....there actually was no where to take your dirty dishes even if you wanted to.
all in all it was truly, absurdly relaxing & wonderfully fun. however facing reality has been, well more than just an adjustment.

Cumberland Island

it's been difficult to come back to real life...

ugly day

... and it wasn't even my attitude that was ugly this time.

so sometimes, you wake up, shower, get dressed, eat, leave for class and realize about 5 seconds into the class that you quite completely, honestly and truly hate what you've decided to put on that day. not in like a "this just isn't my favorite outfit" kind of way, but it's more a "oh dear good god, what on earth ever possessed me to purchase these hideous pieces of cotton???!?" i am getting my hair cut tomorrow, so today of course i hated it more than i usually do. AND THEN to top it all off, i was all bundled up because the news people said it was going to snow....not only did it now snow... I HAD TO TURN ON THE AIR CONDITIONING.
if you're wondering if sweating profusely, on top of hating your hair & completely loathing your choice of "non-fashion", makes you feel better about yourself ... it doesn't. now you just smell. (and the afore mentioned hideous shirt might just have also been heather gray, so it's clear to the world that you've overdressed & are now paying the price.)

i went shopping after class today.

the only thing to dread now is the fact that at some point in the near future i'm sure to be sitting somewhere wearing the exact clothes that i so desperately love and bought today thinking, "oh dear good god, what on earth ever possessed me to purchase these hideous pieces of cotton???!?" and the cycle shall repeat.

simply lovely

Juno, you were superb. Superb my friend. Almost instantly you were true to my heart. You were a beautiful, lovely and honest film and I will think of you often.

Sean & I will be headed to Corridor 44 for Restaurant Week this year. I am looking forward to eating incredible food, drinking champagne, getting all dressed up & discovering new reasons why I am incredibly blessed in this marriage. Tonight while watching House a character voiced something I have always felt - that the more you know someone the more you should love them. That you shouldn't love them as much as the day you married them, but more than the day you married them. As you know them more, you love them more. You find more of the beauty in them and you forgive more of the ugly.

Agenda: Amante

today i will be spending a few hours...let's be modest and say...five hours, with my good friends the endocrine & circulatory systems. only to be followed up by my buddies the prokaryotes, eukaryotes and the accomplishments of many dead biologists.
however to take a bit of the bite out of what can only be thought of as perhaps the worst way to spend one's thursday afternoon i will be studying at Amante in north boulder. i do truly loathe anatomy & physiology II, but i feel once that cappuccino hits my sweet little hand life will seem a little bit better.
on a good note however, i have found that not only did i really enjoy chemistry, but i am now honestly enjoying microbiology. i'm glad for biology that it's finally restoring it's self worth in my eyes.

sweet indulgence.

homemade mango salsa, a glass of wine & boston legal ... savoring the last few days of vacation.

awake...a little too long?

sean worked christmas eve night in the E.D., which apparently was crazy [worked 13 hours straight, no breaks, not enough beds for patients, etc.], and then came home christmas morning, stuffed my stocking, showered & headed out with me for a day of family christmas festivities. [no time for sleeping]
we had cinnimon sticky buns & coffee at his parent's house, then drove up with them and amanda & ross to the Stanley Hotel [home of the shining] for an amazing brunch, or what we might refer to after this as "christmas gluttony".
we finished up the evening by watching part of home alone & relaxing on the couch. however..maybe sean should have just gone to sleep? we were both exhausted, but had a wonderful christmas day.

merry christmas

few changes this year from years past. a small christmas gift to sean was to allow all childhood ornaments to adorn our tree this year. in truth i don't really have anything against said ornaments, but in the past we've had a larger tree and there simply weren't enough of them to really "decorate" a tree. so it ended up looking like a bad arts & crafts phase had erupted and sneezed an awkwardly small amount of home-made ornaments onto our tree. also there is the balance that must be kept in our house between sean's complete lack of organization and my crazed love of organization. clearly, we're both a bit extreme (in a fit of excitement one night i organized our bathroom cupboards with bins and labeled everything...it was awesome). with the purchase of a smaller tree this year, all parties involved were happy with the outcome. or happier...

really all of this pales in comparison to the letter i received from the university of colorado on friday evening. as of december 10th of this year i had officially completed all of my prerequisites for the Bachelor of Science in Dental Hygiene program at CU. my application had been sent in this past june & i was simply waiting to hear about my status and whether or not i had been accepted to the next phase of the application process, the interview. interviews were scheduled to begin in january and go through march. however, there's been a little kink in the process...

on friday evening sean picked up our mail, walked over to me, and handed me a envelope from the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, School of Dentistry. we were both a little nerves assuming that this was the letter informing me as to whether or not i had made it to the interviewing phase of the application. i open the envelope and began reading. sean was trying to read my facial expression, knowing that i should know my fate after the first sentence or two. however, i continued to read looking more and more confused, then just started to say, "what?! what?!?". sean asked what was going on and i said, "they've decided to shut down the program, and will not be accepting any students for the summer 2008 term..."

so if you find you're a bit bamboozled as to what it is i'm saying here's the bushi - i've been neither accepted NOR rejected ... there is simply NO LONGER A SCHOOL for me to be accepted or rejected BY!

deadlines for other dental hygiene programs are january 1, dental hygiene programs which are associate programs, not bachelor programs. i simply cannot get a complete application together in time, also added that i am leaving the state on the 26th and won't be home again until january 11. it is doubtful how helpful CU is going to be considering that i never have been, now most likely never will be a student of theirs, and i need them to forward on applications and transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc. all this on top of the fact that the prerequisites are different for the schools i now need to apply to, and am learning that there are more classes i need to complete at a ridiculously fast pace. anyone up for Human Anatomy & Physiology II this summer? and never mind the fact that i now cannot get my licensing and bachelors degree at the same time. i now have to finishing this schooling (another 2 to 3 years, then go back and finish my bachelors, another 2 years at least...if going full time, which is doubtful...so lets say another 4.) so basically i am looking at it taking me 10 years to complete my bachelors degree & to be licensed as a dental hygienist, instead of 5 years. it's bushi.

now begins the scramble.

Lia Charlotte Oldroyd

so i was eaten alive by finals week. i've finished now, and have sufficiently put up enough posts to update you on life for the past month and 1/2. so keep on scrolling, there are quite a few new ones. however, i REALLY couldn't leave this little bit unmentioned...

LIA CHARLOTTE OLDROYD
born: 28 November 2007
weight: 9lbs. 5oz.
length: 22in.

also, i should probably mention that she's not ours...she is our new niece. miss lia and i will be spending a lot of time together this next semester. i am going to be lia's nanny three days a week. yeah, basically that doesn't suck. at all.

dinner with friends

tomorrow i am making dinner for eight. just thought that i would let y'all know what you're missing.

[Appetizer]
Fresh Fig, Basil & Parma Ham Sarnie

Smoked Salmon, Lemon & Creme Fraiche Sarnie
Raw Beet, Horseradish & Feta Salad


[Soup]
Roasted Mushroom & Truffle Soup


[Main]
Slow Cooked Shoulder of Lamb with Roasted Vegetables
Maple Caramelized Carrots with Orange & Herb


[Dessert]
Orange & Cardamom English Cream
Molten Chocolate Cake

for caitlin

- i wish the ring had never come to me. i wish none of this had happened.
- ... so do all who live see such times. but that is not for them to decide. all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. there are other forces at work in this world Frodo besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring, in which case you also were meant to have it. And that, is an encouraging thought.

i'm not a crazed lord of the rings fan, but this bit seemed so fitting. sometimes i'm so overwhelmed by the evil around and so underwhelmed by the good. consumed by the moment, the here and now, what i can see before me, the present. i find myself also wanting to say "i wish none of this had happened". but somewhere there is an encouraging thought. today cait, you are my encouraging thought.

that's right sucka, she is that cute.

late but nonetheless important. pictures of my brother's daughter from our family vacation to vegas for my papa's 60th birthday.

attic house

i don't know if we have a particular style of decorating, but if we do i would call it "attic". the picture above is from a dresser in our bedroom filled with books, sean's grandfather's typewriter, a CD player, an old radio clock. the rest of our house is a mish-mash of old quilts and blankets, lamps...none of which match. our furniture wasn't picked for it's decorative-ness, it was mostly given to us. my husband is also a "keeper". it's an inherited trait. his grandfather had it, his mother has it... this trait is the reason we have a box full of football cards, an old boyscout uniform, walkmans that may or may not work any longer, shoes that no longer fit him, and boxes and boxes of pictures. most of the time when i look around our house i feel as though i live in a grandparent's attic. odds-n-ends, funny bits of things that you've never seen before, antiques, a tin full of buttons, dusty books and pictures of family history. an attic house never quite looks clean - always a bit out of sorts...but it's home.

All Hallows Eve

we celebrated two nights early (sean's working the next two nights). popcorn, hot coco, pumpkin carving, ghostbusters & roasted pumpkin seeds. perfect. maybe my favorite night of the year.

i feel badly for you if you don't enjoy wes anderson.

adrian brody's sunglasses were superb during this film. as always the music - brilliant. the next time i'm sick i think that i would like to watch wes anderson movies on a loop.

candle snuffers

Peter: what did you bring me over here for? But this is absurd it's just a dog.

JM Barrie: Just a dog? Just?? Porthos don't listen to him. Porthos dreams of being a bear and you want to dash those dreams by saying he's just a dog? What a horrible candle snuffing word. That's like saying he can't climb that mountain he's just a man. Or that's not a diamond, it's just a rock. Just...

Peter: Fine then turn him into a bear. If you can.

JM Barrie: With those eyes my bonny lad, I'm afraid you'd never see it.
from Finding Neverland

Sometimes I feel the world is so full of candle snuffers that I'm all alone.

the past few days: holy mole

sean spent most of monday evening pacing around the living room and leaning on the couch in a nervous frenzy, but it was all relieved when holliday scored the winning run in the 13th? inning [even if he did not actually touch home plate ... technicality].

tuesday evening i made a fennel & sweet potato cream soup and sean had made his first list of possible med schools to be narrowed down. so after dinner we sat at the table, ate hot chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven & talked about where we might live next: philadelphia, maine, new york, south carolina, california, oregon, tennessee, d.c., chicago, washington, iowa ...

this morning i had a doctors appointment and was given a hep. b shot & a tetanus shot in the same arm, which left me with dead arm all day. as a bonus it also sent me into a drug induced sleep comma...i awoke a few hours later with amazing pillow creases all over my face.