Year to date

It has now been almost exactly five months since Torsten and I loaded all of our stuff into our car and the moving van and embarked on a three-day drive to Denver. And you know how people say that things simultaneously feel like they happened yesterday and that they happened years ago? Well, this isn't like that. This just flat-out feels like it happens years ago. In the best possible way.

I don't miss DC. I miss living in the same city as my sister and I miss my friends there and I miss being within driving distance of my parents--but I don't miss living in DC. I don't miss our apartment, and I don't miss not having a car and relying on the bus and Metro to get everywhere, and I don't miss working in an office, and I don't miss being the incredibly hot, sticky summer and the cold, gray winter, and I don't miss the very businesslike attitude so many people had and the way nobody talked to strangers and nobody had pets. I just don't miss the city. I don't miss the feel of it.

The thing is that I loved DC while I was there, and before I was there, which is why I chose to move there. I am so glad I lived there, and not just because if I hadn't lived there I would never have met Torsten. It was a great place to move after college, and three years was the right amount of time to live there. And it was my choice to live in DC that got me involved in nonprofit work, which is how I learned that I could combine my love of editing with my desire to do something that felt meaningful to me.

I'm not trying to say that DC sucks, is my point. Because it doesn't, at all. It's a great city with lots to do (and a lot of it is free), and lots of culture and gorgeous architecture and interesting people and it's very multicultural and it has an excellent public transportation system and some really lovely parks. It has a vibe and a feeling and a culture all of its own, and that's fantastic.

But it wasn't the city for me, and so I don't miss it.

Also, five months in, I cannot possibly be more glad that I ended up keeping my job. I love working from home, absolutely love it, but it's more than that. And I love the excellent benefits I get (the perks of working for a nonprofit--they pay very little but they make up for it in benefits), but it's more than that, too.

I love my job itself. I love the work that I do and the people that I work with. I love that they value me as much as I value them. I love that I've been given the latitude to move in the direction I want with my work. I love that even from 1600 miles away, I feel very involved in my office and our work. I love that I'm good at what I do and that I have learned so much about public health in the past 3+ years that I've been working in the field.

I feel valuable. I feel like I'm contributing. I feel like the work I do is meaningful. I really ENJOY working. And I also enjoy that I work at a place that really values work-life balance, that does more than just pay lip service to it, that actively encourages it.

When I first got into public health after college, it was basically by accident. I was applying to every editing-related job I could find in DC, and the one I ended up with was in the nonprofit public health field, and it was a pretty good first job. And then a coworker from my first job left the company and a few months later gave me a call to tell me about a position that had opened up at her new company, and I ended up getting that job, and really liking it.

If I had taken the new job in Denver, things would be very different. I would be much more about online marketing and social media and not really at all about editing. I would be working in the private sector getting a higher salary but much worse benefits, and probably working much longer hours. The guy who offered me the job was great, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed working with him, but I don't think that ultimately I would have wanted to stay with that company, or in that field, forever.

Whereas with the job I have, I feel like it's really a CAREER. I could see staying with this job, moving up within the company but continuing to do the same type of work, indefinitely. And I think I'd be happy doing it. So I think it was the much better option for me. And I'm glad I figured that out in time to accept their offer. Even though I will always be grateful to the company whose job I turned down for opening up the opportunity for us to move to Denver, even though it turned out I didn't actually need that job to do it.

What about you guys? Are you happy with the city you live in and the job you work in? Or do you want to change one or the other, or both?

Happy things on a happy Friday

It's been a great week. I thought it would drag after the three-day week I had last week, but it's actually gone by remarkably fast, and I'm feeling great. A few things that have helped out with that:

1. I figured out (after two and a half wasted months) that we don't have to wait until we file our 2009 taxes to claim our first-time homebuyer tax credit. It is very simple to file an amendment to your 2008 return to get the tax credit this year. I did so on Wednesday and now we have only to wait a couple months until we get it, then use it to pay off the surgery completely, saving ourselves a chunk of credit card interest. Then we can put the money we were going to use to pay off the surgery into a high-interest savings account, where we will actually EARN money on it instead of PAYING interest on it, until we have enough to pay for new windows.
2. Yesterday at the dog park, Montana spontaneously started fetching. She had sort of fetched a couple times in the past, in that she would run after the ball if you managed to get her attention, and bring it back once or twice before losing interest--and even that has only happened a couple times--but yesterday? She just suddenly pounced on a ball that she found at the dog park, so I threw it for her, and she sprinted after it full speed. And did it again, 15 or 20 more times, until we had to leave. A random spectator would have thought she was just ONE OF THOSE DOGS WHO FETCHES. I recognize that this sounds mundane to most people, but you guys, we have been trying to get her to do this for FOUR MONTHS. And then, out of nowhere, she just... DID.
3. A website that I worked really hard on for a year and a half (the huge deliverable that I had to get done right before my wedding) has FINALLY gone live. It took forever because of various holdups not related to our work, but the client has now put it on the internet for all to see. And it looks very similar to the version we submitted, which I'm proud of. And no, I'm sorry, I'm not going to link it here because it's work-related, but I still had to mention it because I'm so excited about it. (But don't be sad that it's not linked, because most of you would probably find it really boring.)
4. I am really loving this regular gym thing. I love swimming and I love that I feel fitter and more energetic already. I love that with the gym you see results SO FAST. Seriously, whereas normally right before my period I gain a couple pounds and get touchy and hormonal? This time I was totally normal, mood-wise (Torsten corroborates this) and I actually LOST a couple pounds during the days when I normally GAIN them. I am totally chalking this up to the exercise thing.
5. I'm starting to feel really settled in Denver. I have a few friends--one of whom is about to move back to the East Coast, which I'm sad about, but she is coming over for dinner this weekend. I have Jeni, and Rosie, and Kath, and two really cool girls I met at the dog park, and our very nice neighbors. I feel like I'm starting to build a social network, and that makes me happy.

What's making you happy these days?

People I have (barely) known

Something about moving 1600 miles away from your old home, and from the coast where most of your family lives, makes you think sometimes about the people that have come and gone from your life. Because when you move that far away from most of your friends, only the strong friendships survive. And really, that's fine. Honestly, I imagine that the people whose friendship has become fainter with distance--well, I think it would have become fainter with time, too, eventually.

But I've been thinking about other people, the kind of people who come in and out of your lives very briefly, the kind you never really get to know but who you remember for one reason or another. The ones you know hardly anything about--maybe you know only their first name, or only their last. You know almost nothing about their background or life circumstances. But you talked with them, chatted with them, had some sort of connection with them. You know those people?

Anyway, here are five such people from my life. People that I will likely never see again, not least because I don't even know how to get in touch with most of them, and also because I don't have the kind of relationship with them where I could call, if I did have their numbers, and be like, "So... what's up?"

1. Larry. He worked at the front desk of our apartment building in DC. He was also a musician and a music producer. He was really nice. He always chatted with me in the morning and told me to have a safe ride to work. He had dreadlocks and a really old car, and he wore very stylish, but not over the top, clothes. He lived in the building and every now and then we would see him with his girlfriend in the grocery store.
   
2. Ms. Larson. She worked at the prison training program and she was Montana's favorite. She was the one who brought Montana to meet us when we arrived at the prison for our dog interviews. When we were trying to decide between Montana and the other dog, she suggested that we take both, and we would have been tempted if it weren't for our then-apartment's pet weight limit. When we were in the go-home class and Montana was going through her commands with her inmate handler, Ms. Larson walked in the room and Montana saw her and immediately started whining to be able to go see her.
   
3. Matt and Tara. They lived next door to us in our DC apartment. They were about our ages, maybe a little closer to Torsten's age than mine. They were really friendly and the year they moved in, they left a bag of Lindt truffles on our door along with a holiday card. I would see them in the apartment gym sometimes and every now and then Matt and I would be on the same bus home from work.
   
4. Julie. We went to college together and graduated the same year, but barely knew each other. I had never even seen her until our senior year, when we had a class together. She always had interesting things to say and sometimes we whispered jokes to each other in class, or chatted afterward, with the vague idea that we'd get together sometime outside of class. We never did.
   
5. Connie. She brought her dog to the dog park that was close to our Denver apartment, the one we stopped going to when we bought our house. Her dog was sweet and adorable and he always wanted to play with Montana, but at the time Montana wasn't really into playing. She was very nice and friendly and welcoming. She asked about Montana's scars and when I told her I didn't know their origin, she said that she would just pretend that Montana had slipped when applying eyeliner.
   

What about you? Have you come across people like that in your life? Do you ever think about the ones from whom you've moved on?

Decorating without furniture

After our furniture-store-browsing experience of this weekend, both Torsten and I are feeling a bit frustrated about not being able to afford any of the stuff we want to decorate the house. I went back over the list we made at Room & Board, and if we bought everything on that list, we would spend $13,000 (before tax). Awesome. Because we TOTALLY have that kind of money lying around.

I am extra frustrated because of the stupid $10,000 we spent on my surgery. If it weren't for the surgery, we could have spent that money to buy a huge chunk of furniture. Not that we would have, because we didn't actually HAVE the $10,000 and are instead paying down the debt we took on to pay for the surgery. But we could have taken the money we're using to pay down the debt and used that to buy the furniture. Or a hot tub and some of the furniture. Or build up our savings a bit more and THEN bought some furniture. And instead we're pouring every extra cent into paying off a debt that my insurance company should have prevented me from ever taking on. And I am annoyed about that.

The furniture that we'd like to buy includes two shelving units for the living room, one shelving unit for the dining room, one shelving unit for the family room, a dining room table, eight dining room chairs, a coffee table, a dresser, and two nightstands. To buy all that, in the high-quality pieces that we want, would cost $13,000. Which means that to buy everything ELSE we'd need to fully furnish the house--an entertainment center, another coffee table, some end tables, a bed frame, dresser, and nightstand for the guest room, some shelves for our offices, and eventually, nursery furniture--will cost another many thousands of dollars.

Furniture IS really expensive, but that doesn't really bother me because it lasts forever. I mean, every piece of furniture my parents own, other than couches, has either been in their house since before I was born or has been added or replaced only once during my lifetime. When you divide the price over the number of years of use, it becomes very reasonable. And I have no problem investing more in higher-quality pieces that look nicer, feel nicer, are better built, and last longer. I would happily spend every penny of the higher price for that stuff. If only I HAD the pennies to spend.

Anyway, in the meantime I'm trying to focus on the affordable stuff I can do to the house. Namely, decorating with stuff we already have. We actually have a plethora of lovely vases, pitchers, etc., that would do very nicely displayed artistically around the house to add some color and points of interest. Except that we have no shelves or tables to display them on. The shelves they were displayed on in our apartment didn't fit right in the living room, so we put them in the basement. So all our nice things are crammed onto the mantel over the fireplace, which looks terrible and tacky. But we have nowhere else to put them until we get some freaking shelves.

And most of the art that we had hung in our apartment was on the cheap side, cute stuff that we had picked up here and there, stuff that's fine for a bedroom or an office but not for displaying front and center in a formal living room, you know? So, I can do some upstairs decorating but not really any downstairs.

But one thing I am thinking about doing is creating a wall of framed photos in the family room. I am pretty religious about printing photos and organizing them in albums, and framing the ones I love. I collect frames wherever I find them--if I see a nice frame and it's not too expensive, I'll buy it, knowing I'll fill it someday. And we just ordered a bunch of wedding prints and I bought frames for them at Target, where they are remarkably cute and inexpensive.

But here's the thing. I asked for frame wall opinions on Twitter, and everyone who responded seemed to think it was a great idea. But the thing I'm wondering about is whether our frames are too... diverse for a wall. Every frame is different. A lot of them are similar, in that they are variations on black and white with a mat, and some are silver.

But some are brighter than that, with primary colors or mother of pearl or some sort of pattern. And I love them. And I thought they looked nice displayed on a shelf all together in our apartment. But will it be shocking and overwhelming to put so many different frames all together on one wall? I have never done this before and I'm not exactly a decorating guru, so I need your opinions here.

Also, any thoughts on how I could try it out, just to see? Because I thought of just hanging them all and then, if it looked terrible, taking them down. But then there would be 30 or 40 holes in our wall, and it would be impossible to cover them all, and it would look terrible. So is there some other way for me to do a trial run to see how it would look without ruining our newly painted wall?

Slow burner

I am not one for falling in love at first sight. In fact, I don't really believe in love at first sight. I believe that people can become infatuated, or even get indications that they will or could fall in love, but I don't believe that you can actually fall in love immediately.

But I do think that I can sometimes tell that I will fall in love with something. And I can make decisions based on that.

For example, I had never been to Denver, or even to Colorado, until we moved here. But before we even arrived I was sure that I would love it. And yet, on that first day, as we drove through some pretty seedy and nondescript neighborhoods, I had a few moments of doubt. But I kept reminding myself that I would fall in love with it, that I KNEW it was right for me. And that is what happened. I do love it now. I have found the things about it that I love, and I know that there are many more things about it that I will love that I haven't found yet.

I also wasn't sure about Montana right away. I knew, based on her photo and description, that she was the right dog for us. But when I met her and the other dog we were considering, in the parking lot outside the prison, I didn't have an instant feeling of oh, that's my dog, oh, I love her. I was torn. I didn't think she was the cutest dog in the world. Cute, yes, but all the other dogs were as cute. That was part of why our decision was so hard.

Torsten was the same way, not quite sure. But we walked both dogs around the parking lot, and we could see the personality traits from both their descriptions--Montana sweeter and mellower, Tessa pulling like nuts, and we knew that Montana would be a better fit for us. So we went with her. It wasn't until I watched her in the middle of the go-home class a few hours later and started crying that I really started to love her. And now I don't just THINK she's the cutest dog in the world--I KNOW it. And also the smartest, and the quirkiest, and the funniest.

Even with Torsten, I sensed before we even met, when we were just emailing, that he was going to be something special, and that feeling was confirmed on our first date. In a sense I just knew that I wanted to marry him and spend my life with him. But I still wasn't ready to say that I was in love with him. In fact, a couple months after we started dating, I basically chased him down from the top of the Empire State Building at midnight because I could tell that he was going to tell me he loved me and I wasn't ready for that yet.

One thing I did know that I loved instantaneously was our house. I walked in the door and fell in love. But then, I'd been admiring it online for months, so maybe that doesn't count as right away.

I started thinking about all this recently when I was rereading Swistle's The Facts (for Some People) post, specifically the part about how some people love their babies right away and others take awhile. When I read that post for the first time, I automatically assumed that I would love my baby instantly, because of course I will, right? But as I think about my track record, I'm thinking maybe I won't be one of those. Maybe I'll take a little while. A few hours, or a day, or two. Or more. And while obviously I would hope to love my baby madly and immediately, if I don't, like many other mothers, I will just have to remember that I shouldn't feel guilty about it, or like a bad mother. Because the love will arrive. It always does.

What about you? Do you fall in love right away, or does it take you awhile?

Fireworks and tables and workouts

On Saturday, Torsten and I didn't have any specific fireworks-viewing plans, but when it got near dusk we decided to take Montana downtown and walk along the river, figuring maybe we'd see some fireworks in the distance. And we did, and it was lovely.

Then we stumbled across this park with a field and a hill, and a small crowd gathering on the hill to watch the fireworks from Mile High Stadium for free. So we joined them, and sat on the hill with the dog. She was fine at first, but then people in the field at the bottom of the hill started setting off amateur fireworks. As each one went off, Montana freaked out more and more.

At first it was just a little whining, then some yelping, them some frightened whimpering, then what I can only describe as moaning, followed by a strange, alarmed, high-pitched bark that I've never heard from her before. At one point, the keening got so bad that it made me think of a woman in the process of giving birth. Everyone was turning around to look and she was clearly petrified and shaking and was totally non-responsive to our attempts to calm her down. So, we gave up and left, as quickly as we could, the dog freaking out all the way.

As we walked along the river away from the fireworks, she started to calm down, and we knew she was over it when she finally pricked up her ears again. We were just starting to feel better about having scared our dog when some drunk asshole started lighting fireworks and dropping them on the sidewalk at random, then continuing on his way. Which, first of all, is dangerous, because without someone standing near it, it's very easy to overlook a firework and come very near it right before it explodes. And second of all, when you have an incredibly freaked-out dog on your hands? You don't want to be picking your way through a landmine of fireworks that are about to explode.

Anyway, so. Lesson learned. Fireworks scare the dog. She'll be staying home next year. Poor thing.

Yesterday was much better. We went back downtown to an arts festival, and although the festival itself was nothing special and also very crowded (making me wonder if we just don't have a good appreciation of festivals? Because I always think they're not great and yet they draw huge crowds), we had a lovely time wandering around, eating lunch, and looking in furniture stores.

And we found a lovely, inexpensive side table to put in our front hallway, the perfect place for keys, sunglasses, dog leashes, etc.--all the stuff that we are currently keeping on our kitchen island, which is not the best place because in theory, that island should be used for food prep. Plus, the table stands right below the mail slot, so our mail won't land on the floor anymore. And I am very thrilled about that. I am less thrilled about the cost of all the other furniture that we want and didn't buy. Again, as with every time we go to a good furniture store, we mentally spent about $10,000. Possibly more. Very frustrating.

We also hit the gym several times, and I am already seeing an improvement in my swimming stamina, which makes me very pleased. And we had a fruitless meeting with a personal trainer, which was very unfortunate, but I think I'll save the details on that one for a post over at Bodies. And I had an amazing gourmet hamburger with cheese and avocado, thereby undoing all of my good gym work. But it was delicious, so... no regrets! I'll just keep moving forward.

Just keep swimming

So, want to know how you can tell that I've officially gone crazy? I have the day off work, and yet I'm up early to go to a water aerobics class at the gym. I KNOW. I'm choosing EXERCISE over SLEEP. I don't know what's happened to me either.

Hence, I don't have a real post for you today. Instead, I'm going to send you over to Not a Diet in hopes that you'll lend some moral support as I try not to wish I'd had bypass surgery instead of lap-band.

Have a great holiday weekend!