Major Announcement

Well it’s pretty much official: I’m buying a house! Yep, that’s right; I’m taking a huge step into adulthood. To be quite honest, it’s a really scary step! However, it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot in the past year. Basically, Austin is just not a good town for someone looking to rent. If you’re not low income or an old person, your choices are pretty limited. I live in one of the nicest places available to rent in Austin and while I really like my townhouse, I just can’t justify throwing away as much money as I am in rent anymore. I’m also excited to have a yard, paint my walls, grow a garden, wash my car in the driveway…you know all that good stuff that you miss out on in a rental. Things I’m not thinking about right now is scooping my own snow, what happens if the furnace breaks, if the roof leaks, if there’s a giant spider infestation….It’s better for my sanity that I try not to worry about those things!

My lease is not up until the end of August, so I don’t close on the house until mid August. Then comes all the fun of painting, moving, and whatever else comes with owning a home. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated!

Sweet Summertime

Finally I can post without complaining about snow! Summer has finally arrived in southern Minnesota. We had some hot days last week which caused an all out panic up here.  I believe these weirdos would rather have a foot of snow on the ground than it be over 85 degrees.  Don't get me wrong, it was hot, but it could have been so much hotter with a lot more humidity.  I thought it was wonderful!  

Since my last post I've put a lot of miles on.  Home for Easter, home for Bethany's wedding, a handful of trips to Nebraska, and I had some special visitors that I gave a personal Mall of America tour to.  I'm keeping busy to say the least! On Sunday I leave for a week to go to RMC, the Reciprocal Meats Conference, in Manhattan, Kansas followed by some tater work in Topeka. Then I'll make a pit stop in Minnesota before heading to Iowa City for Jessie's bachelorette party.  It will be a lot of traveling, but I can't wait!  Other than living my life as a gypsy traveler, life has been pretty much the same.  I play kickball on Thursday nights which has been a lot of fun and really amusing.  Tater business is booming, and I've been really busy at work.  Other than that it's been the same ol' same ol'.  I'll leave you with a few pictures summarizing the beginning of what is bound to be an awesome summer :)

Jessie and Adam's bachelor and bachelorette party in Waukon thrown by Jessie's family

Throwing a calf at VanDeWalle branding :)

Bethany's wedding!

Old roomies 

My first tanking experience in Ericson, NE

Justin and Clayton in Minneapolis <3

Kickball 

Home Sweet Chauncey 

 

April

I. Hate. Snow.

We've been under a Winter Storm Watch/Warning all week.  How is that even possible when the first day of Spring was back in March?????

If you hear tires screeching tomorrow around 4:00.  That's me driving away as fast as I can from stupid Minnesota to head to glorious Southern Illinois for the weekend.  It's supposed to be 70 degrees.  I may not come back.........

From my iPhone

Ooops.  I haven't updated this in awhile.  A good friend of mine reminded me that I needed to recently (thanks Tad! :)    So here it goes.

I'm too lazy to hook up to my external hard drive to get pictures I've taken over the last few months, so I'm going the easier route and using pictures from iPhone.  Enjoy!

1. For Ace's birthday in February he told me that all he wanted for his present was to eat at Fogo De Chao in Minneapolis.  So we went and ate delicious meat.  If you're ever near a Fogo De Chao, don't think, just go.  You won't be sorry!

2. For Ace's second birthday weekend he suggested  we should go to Lincoln, NE so that I could see my friends.  It was his sly way of getting back to Nebraska.  Luckily, I love my best good friend (and David) so I was easily swayed. 

  3. Rachel and I hadn't seen each other in a long time.  When we spend long periods apart, the following is bound to happen......

Yes, we are awesome.

David even thinks we're awesome.

We really should live closer. It would be better for both of us :)

4.  This is what the end of the parking lot at work looked like on March 22.  It's now gone.  This means spring is finally here!!!!!

5. Remember my finger injury? Well the nail fell off exactly 2 months after my finger met its fate in the car door.  The following is what it looked like then and how it looked a week ago.  I feel the need to document this because I'm weird.

6. My mom texted me to tell me that she got me a present and that I would love it.  Well the "present" was actually a package of random items from my childhood.  The items included a painted small tote bag, a cross stitched Taz picture, a Taz Pez dispenser (I really liked Taz as a kid), a "Rachel" stamp, an orange Illinois pencil, a 4H pin, and my personal favorites - an I <3 Petty pin, and a jewelry box of random rocks.  Yes I used to collect rocks. All of the cool kids did.

7. This is Mr. Pig.  He was my Christmas present and I love him.  I think he's going to live on my front porch once it's finally warm all the time (he's thick ceramic, but I was afraid the ice and cold would crack him).  He lives inside for now, and is doubling as the Easter Pig!!

8.  Last week I was in Brookings to visit Ace.  It was SDSU's Little International.  They go all out for this event, and even bring in colored wood chips like at Louisville.  Basically it's a giant showmanship contest for all species.  There are two divisions, novice and advanced.  Ace put on an alumni meats judging contest so I hung out in the meat lab all day and then we experienced the Little I.  I wish Illinois had had something like it. I think it would have been fun!

9. I spent two weekends in March at Ace's parents house in Nebraska for calving season.  I've been pretending I'm a good ranch hand.  Really I'm just there to see the cute little babies!



10.  My big brother is ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!    Congrats Rob and Brooke!!

Graceful

My mom always said I was graceful.  I think it goes back to when I was five, and it was a few weeks before my Uncle's wedding and I was the flower girl for.  I don't remember much, but I remember running full force, face first into my metal swing set.  Luckily, you could barely see the black eye at the wedding.  Since then I've been pretty much a walking accident.  I truly have a gift for injuring myself in stupid ways.  This week was no exception.  I was traveling to a plant in Minneapolis on Wednesday and had to go early to pick up the rental car.  The windows were frosty and so I had to scrape them.  After driving over to R&D to pick up some coworkers I got out of the car, shut the door, and found my glove was in the door.  Only when I tried to pull the glove out I realized my finger was also in the door. My fingers were so cold that I didn't even notice that I shut my finger in the door so my finger was in the door for probably 30 seconds before I opened the door.  I pulled the glove off and my fingernail was instantly black.  I'll save you all the nasty details, but after trying to relieve the pressure last night I think I was in some of the worst pain I've ever had.  It still hurts today.  I walked around at work looking like I was giving everyone the "I'm number 1" sign because I was elevating my hand to keep the swelling down. I'm also double medicated on cold medicine and ibuprofen.  I'm also learning to type without my right index finger.  Try it sometime, you don't realize how much you use your finger! Hopefully I don't lose my fingernail, but I'm not holding my breath.

If I had someone to take a picture I would show my normal finger with the swelled one because it doesn't look that bad here but holding it up to the regular finger makes it look huge!

Welcome 2011!

Happy New Year everyone!!  Another year has came and went, and I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for me!  I had a fabulous New Year's Eve.  Ace, Adam, Jessie, and I rang in 2011 here in Austin.  Somehow I failed big time and didn't take a single picture all night.  I'm not sure how that happened, but you'll just have to take my word that we had a great time.  We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and watching fooball.  I loved having a house of people, and I was sad to see them go this morning.  Now it's back to work tomorrow and time to get started on those new year resolutions.  :)  

You Make Me Smile

One of my favorite quotes is "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans." I feel like this has applied to my life so many times.  I wanted to go to grad school in Champaign, and I ended up in Iowa.  I said I would never move further north, and I end up working in Minnesota.  I've had so many plans change, and 99% of the time they have worked out better than I ever could have planned for. 
Life has changed for me once again. I don't know who actually reads this random rambling blog of mine, but some of you already know this but to some it might come as a surprise.

A very nice boy from Nebraska has been coming around again.  Remember him? The one with the strange name who shares the strange love of meat judging?  Yep - Ace.  The story of how this all came to be is long and somewhat complicated and doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that I'm super happy and he makes me smile everyday.  He is now living in South Dakota working on his PhD in meat science.  We're a little over 3 hours away from each other but we're making it work. 

He's been requesting to be back on the blog so this post is for him :)   If he starts making regular appearances now you won't be surprised.