Settling In

Well I am now in my third week at the new job.  It's been going okay so far.  I definitely have had to get used to getting up and going to work every day again.  Like everything in life things aren't always what they appear with the new job but I'm still going to try and make the best of it and learn as much as possible.  Which brings us to a good quote- "If you want to be happy, be" Leo Tolstoy.  I am going to try and use this as a new motto (for lack of a better word). 

I think, as much as I've been trying to like it here, I've been comparing everything to Madison.  Sadly, I don't think we'll ever find another place as great in so many ways as Madison was and I just need to start recognizing that.  I do still think my goal will be to move back to Madison at some point (I really don't think there is a better place to raise a family) but for now I just need to be happy with where we are at.  I'm really hoping that since I have a job now Matt and I can start to explore more of what the Detroit area has to offer.  I'm thinking I'll like it here more and feel more at home once I know more about the city and it's cultural offerings.

We're kind of doing that this Friday.  Although we have already gotten a membership to the zoo and visited a couple of times, we will be going to our first zoo fundraiser this Friday.  It's called "Wild Beasts, Wild Wine"  It pretty much sounds like a wine tasting at the zoo-which sounds pretty fantastic to me!  After this weekend we have a few busy weekends ahead of us.  Matt has a bachelor party, we have a house-warming party in a different state, and we're planning a trip back to Madison all in August!  Then we have weddings for two fantastic couples to go to in September and October.  It's really crazy how time flies!  So, even though everything isn't living up to expectations or hopes, I'm still going to work hard on finding good things to focus on.

Catch Up!

Hello!  I hope everyone had a lovely 4th of July!  I know I enjoyed mine!  I was lucky enough to be able to travel back to my hometown and spend some much needed time with family and friends.  My sister and I (plus or spouses) were even able to pull off a surprise birthday party for my mom.  It all turned out really well.  As an added bonus-we had wonderful weather.  I was even able to rid myself of some of my extreme pasty white skin :)  It was so great to spend time with my family and just hang out.  I'm already looking forward to the next trip home.  All in all a nice little vacation before I started my new job.

I started my new position as a Development Specialist with a local hospital foundation on Monday.  Monday was mostly spent at the hospital doing orientation.  I finally got to the foundation offices around 2.  Overall not a bad first day.  I would have loved nothing more than to have come straight home and gone to bed (I'm not used to that long of a day anymore!) but while we were in Wisconsin our house lost power for over a day so we had no edible food left in our fridge.  So we got to go buy all new food Monday night...yay (yes that is sarcasm).  Monday was an even longer day than it normally would have been because I had to take Matt to get a rental car at 6:45 am because we got into a minor accident on Monday before we left for Wisconsin (we really had an eventful week!).  No one was hurt but Matt's car was only drive-able enough to get it to the repair shop.  We're hoping to have that back by Friday this week.

I'm getting back in the work mindset.  There are a few perks to this job so far.  First-I don't have to be there until 8:30.  Love this!  It's perfect, Matt only has to get up a couple minutes earlier so I don't mess with his morning routine, I don't have to rush around like crazy in the morning to be on time, and I avoid what little traffic there is going my direction.  The only downfall I've discovered so far....my office is FREEZING (although I do get my own office so I can't complain too much)!  When I got there this morning it was 66 degrees.  I am not a person who thrives in cold.  My space heater will definitely be making the journey to work with me tomorrow!

Overall I'm pretty excited to be back at work and doing something productive.  Well I may not be doing all that much productive at the moment but I'll get there eventually!  This is really the perfect job for me at the moment.  I'm already using databases that I need to learn better and I'm in the field I really wanted to be-nonprofit development.  I think this quote is fitting for my experiences over the past 3 months: "When nothing is sure everything is possible"-Margaret Drabble.  I had no idea what would happen when we decided to move here.  I definitely had my doubts and was starting to really think I made a mistake moving here.  Then I saw this job posting...and wouldn't you know it a month later I have almost the exact same job I was in the running for in Madison.  There were innumerable possibilities here and I like to think I did as best I could to open as many doors to possibilities as I could find.  I had so many people offer fantastic advice and support over the ast few months.  Thank you to everyone who's helped and supported me these past three months.  I wouldn't have made it through this with a shred of sanity without you :)

Hooray!!!

I got a job offer this week!!! Yay!  I've accepted the offer from a large hospital organization in a nearby town to be there Foundation/Development Specialist.  I'll be working at the hospital foundation with two other women (its a very small shop as far as development offices).  It's very much (well almost exactly really) like a job I was trying to get in Madison.  My start date will be July 9th-3 months to the day from Matt's first day :)  I will be working for a woman I met through AFP.  She's a mentor in the mentor program I joined and I just happened to sit next to her at the very first meeting.  I think I picked a fantastic seat at that first mentor program meeting-I sat between Debbie, the Gilda's Development Director and Elsa, my new boss.  I think this job will be a great way to learn a lot more about development fundamentals and I think I'll really like the ladies I work with.  It will definitely be a bit of an adjustment-heading back to work after 3 months of just hanging out :)  It is kind of crazy how quickly those three months went.  I feel like I did a pretty good job of keeping busy though.


Anyway-just wanted to update everyone on the good news!  I hope you're all having a great weekend!

Visitors

Sorry for the two week lag!  We had our first house guests!  My sister and grandmother left this morning after staying with us for a week.  Overall I think it was a fun week- although I think it was the hottest week of weather I've ever dealt with!

We did some catching up, a bit of sightseeing, and lots of cooking!  I don't think I've ever had that much food in my refrigerator.   We got to go to a Tigers baseball game on Tuesday.  The temperature at the opening of the first inning was 93 degrees...at 7:10pm!  Crazy.  It ended up being a pretty good game-Detroit won so that always helps.  We did some shopping the next couple of days and some things around our house.  Always nice to have my grandma around to help me figure out what to do with my plants and figure out old curtains.

Thursday we went out to dinner with Matt's parents.  I think that was a success as well.  We went to a pizza place we'd never been to before and it was really good.  I'm glad we've found a good place around here to go for pizza.  Only problem is it's very popular, doesn't seat a lot of people, and doesn't take reservations.  I think we figured out if we go before 6:30 we can get seated fairly quickly.  Friday Matt took half a day off of work and we went to The Henry Ford-a very interesting and huge museum in Dearborn.  It's truly amazing the things they have in that museum.  If you are ever in this area that should be on your must see list.  Right now they have a special exhibit going on-The Titanic.  Definitely worth getting the extra ticket for that.  It's crazy how much stuff they've been able to recover from the wreckage.

Saturday saw a trip to the zoo.  Well first the farmer's market, then the zoo.  The market here is like a somewhat sad little sister of the one in Madison but I'll take it anyway.  The zoo was great.  It was only in the mid 80's that day so it felt almost comfortable :)  We stayed there for about 4 hours so we could be there for the 3:00 giraffe feeding.  My sister got to feed a giraffe-her favorite animal.  She was like a kid at Christmas.  Definitely worth hanging out for an extra hour.  Sunday was a nice day around the house.  We didn't do much-just kind of enjoyed the cooler weather (down to about 75-ish) and enjoyed a bit more time together.  Matt and I made a nice dinner on the grill and my sister made a nice dessert.  Then we finished off the evening and visit with a nice movie.  All in all a nice week.

Now I'm back to my days of having the house to myself.  I'm hoping something will come up on the job front soon.  And in the meantime-I have a trip planned to Wisconsin for 4th of July coming up soon to look forward to!

Settling In...For Now

Well I think I'm finally starting to totally settle in.  I'm getting to have a routine and everything.  Granted that routine doesn't include a whole heck of a lot but oh well!  I spend about an hour or two a day looking for jobs (I think this is the most depressing part of the day as there just aren't many jobs here) then I spend some time looking up new recipes, then I pick a project or errand for the day.  I know-my schedule is riveting :)  I am thankfully still volunteering at Gilda's Club about once a week.  Since the Development Director there is the only friend I've made (granted she's older than my mother and the mother of a teenage daughter herself) I'm happy to help out there.  I'm sure I'll have an adjustment period and set up a whole new routine when I get a job.  I really am looking forward to having to make that adjustment.

Matt and I are settling into a routine of our own as well.  Matt gets to have all the fun and go off to work during the day :)  Then when he gets home we make dinner and go for a walk.  We're getting pretty good at trying different recipes-maybe one or two a week.  Then we either read or do some work around the house.  The weekends have been great.  I love having two days of pretty much constant company- it's great having someone to talk to all day!  This weekend we went out on Matt's parent's boat with some of his family.  It was really nice.  The weather has been uncomfortably warm here lately.  I keep asking Matt if this is normal-I can't handle a summer of high 80's to 90's.  So the boat trip was a nice way to stay cool.

I'm starting to feel more at home here.  I've even managed to find multiple ways to get to the grocery store without using my gps at all!  I was quite proud of myself that day.  I think the other thing, besides just learning the lay of the land, that has helped me feel more at home is Matt and I have become a bit more dependent on one another.  I think we're both people that pride ourselves on being self sufficient so this is a big thing for us.  We've learned to communicate better on all issues big and small and we're just getting better at understanding what we each need and want to feel at home.  It's been a welcome and continual lesson from this move and one I wasn't really anticipating.  Just goes to show that there really is always room for improvement-even when you don't think things need it.

I'm also feeling more upbeat because I have family visiting next weekend!  My sister and grandmother will be coming to stay for about a week.  Then it's not too long until we head back to Wisconsin for a long 4th of July weekend.  It'll be so nice to see family again.  I never went home a ton when I lived in Madison but I think just having the option to be home in 4 hours was comforting.  It's like I lost that safety blanket when I moved.  But I guess, we all lose our safety blankets at some point.  I'm just happy I had great friends and family around me to make the transition easier.

Rainy Friday

I think for the first time since we moved it is actually raining on a day it was predicted to rain on!  I'm pretty okay with that-I've had a nice low key week.  I actually haven't done any real yard work in about a week (although I was able to mow our lawn!! Our little baby grass is doing so well)!  It's been a nice little break.

For the holiday weekend Matt and I decided to just have a weekend to ourselves.  It was great.  We really hadn't had a weekend that we did whatever we wanted since we moved.  We didn't do anything around the house except cleaning up from our meals.  It was just what we needed.  On Friday we went to a concert at DTE Pine Knob which is like a mini-Alpine Valley.  Overall it's a nice outdoor venue.  The concert was Eddie Money-I honestly don't know any of his music but it's the first concert of the season every year and some of Matt's high school friends were going so it seemed like a nice night out.  It was great meeting some girls Matt went to school with.  They were really sweet.  The drive home was a bit more eventful than I would have hoped.  I was the designated driver for the night (driving Matt's car) so Matt could enjoy hanging out with old friends and on the drive home one of his tires completely blew out.  Unfortunately it was at about 12:30 am on one of the busiest highways/express ways in the area.  I decided it was best just to call the police and a tow truck to get the tire changed.  We finally got home and in bed around 3 am.  A bit more of an adventure than I expected but things could have gone much worse.  I was just happy I was completely sober so I could deal with everything!  Matt and I have now decided we should take an afternoon and figure out how to change the tires on both of our cars.  Although I will say even if I had known how to change his tire I still would have called the police.  It just feels so much safer having them there.

Saturday was rainy and a perfect dreary day to check out garage sales.  We even ended up getting quite the find:

We've been in desperate need of a dresser so when we saw this guy for a good price we snatched it up.  Thankfully it fit in Matt's car....just barely!

Oh, on Friday I finally finished and hung up a project of mine.  This screen used to be bright blue.  Since we moved I've sanded it down, cleaned it up and stained it.  It finally got hung up and put to use as a jewelry holder on Friday.  I'm really quite happy with how this one turned out!

Sunday we took a trip to Ann Arbor.  It's kind of almost exactly like Madison (minus the lakes and fantastic capitol).  I loved it!  There's a sweet downtown area and we had lunch at a fantastic little restaurant that someone here told me we can also find in downtown Detroit.  Although I loved downtown Ann Arbor our main reason for heading that direction was actually to go to World Market (LOVE that store!).  Matt was pretty excited too since they had 50% off all of their grilling stuff.  We bought a grill last week so Matt actually made out better on that trip than I did!  But we put everything we got to good use right away and made a fantastic maple glazed salmon dinner on the grill Sunday night.  We're getting quite good at trying new recipies (last night I made some super yummy homemade granola-it was so easy).  Thankfully I have a cute little recipe box to keep all of the keepers in :)

Monday was a nice lazy day around the house topped off with dinner at Matt's parents complete with a game of bocce in which Matt and I continued to be the reigning champs. 

This week has gone fairly quickly.  I haven't done a whole lot.  Unfortunately last night was the only night this week I actually slept through the entire night.  I've had a terrible case of insomnia lately.  Hopefully that goes away soon.  I'd love to not feel like a walking zombie during the day.

Today is a cleaning/laundry/errand day.  I'm not quite sure what this weekend has in store.  I'm guessing a trip to the farmer's market and then who knows what.  Hopefully something low key!

I hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day weekend.  I'll be sure to post again soon.

Pictures!

As promised-here are some pictures of what I've been up to.  Not huge changes but time consuming none the less!

Outside:

You can't tell...but there are cute little pink/salmon colored impatients planted all along the front flower bed and I put in a hydrangea bush on the left. 

We have little baby grass!  We killed all the weeds and are hoping to have a decent grass filled lawn soon!

Sadly they haven't torn down the terrible old gazebo thing.  I'm hoping that happens very soon.  It'll seem so much more open without that thing!  Oh-those are my herbs (and a couple veggies) in the cage in front!  Something destroyed our broccoli  so we had to put up chicken wire.

All of the brown is grass seed and fertilizer.  This was planted a bit later so hopefully we'll have baby grass back here in another week or so.

Inside (only half of the upstairs....we need to do a few more things before I post the rest):

As you walk in the door.

Living Room Before

Living Room After.  View from the kitchen doorway

 

Dining Area Before

Dining Area After

I love our new couches.  So much better than the ones we left in Madison.  Plus you get cute matching pillows! :)

Very Pink Bathroom Before

Our Still Very Pink Bathroom After.  I've tried to tone down the pink.  A major part of that was to get a basic shower curtain to hide the majority of the pink tile.

I found a nice non-pink shower curtain!

Considering this is how it looked when all of our stuff was delivered-I'm pretty happy with the progress (this was only about 75% of the boxes)!

I'll try and get pictures of the rest of the upstairs this week.

I'm off to the garden store.  The squirrels/gophers/chipmunks have discovered our tasty tomato plants!  Hopefully they have some good repellent stuff at the store!