The beginning of the end of my mid-twenties

Actually, who are we kidding, when I turn 27 I will still call myself mid-twenties. This post is dedicated to my recent birthday celebration. I'm a bit out of order but I wanted this post to stand on its own. For my birthday (26th!) my friends and I rented a boat on Lake Lanier. Its about an hour away and is the closest big body of water we have around here. Oddly enough all of us are from FL and truly miss being near the water...guess that's why we are drawn to each other. When Brendan and I went to pick up our friends, Tamar and Jimmy, I was greeted with quite a surprise. In compliance with my request for a fish-themed birthday party, Tamar had a mimosa waiting for me upon arrival (less fish themed, I guess) and bought me a nautical romper to wear on our boat trip. She also made fish and star fish shaped cookies, shrimp, a pasta concoction, and chicken taquitos. What a great friend! The next day Brendan continued the gifts with a scooter ride around town. It may sound weird but for some reason we just love scooters and Athens is the perfect place to zip around. My parents also sent presents - four Salt Life shirts....and a car insurance bill (bleck). All-in-all it was a great birthday weekend and I couldn't have asked for it to be better. My goal next year is to be in Belgium for my birthday...anyone want to join?

Me in my new nautical romper. I will say it is one of the most comfortable outfits I now own.

Jimmy, our captain, and Brendan, the first mate, getting us out of the harbor. 

Me, the navigation skipper. 

A cool picture Tamar took of an island we passed. 

Catching some sun. I'm wearing a bathing suit, promise. It was just a bit cold and I needed the towel.

 Tamar and I giving our most appropriate boat pose.

Me pretending to be "King of the World!" (a throw back to Titanic). Oddly enough, this not the first picture I have on Brendan's shoulders. I guess I'm just always curious what it's like above 5' 2"

Kickball champions!

For the past six months or so I have played in two seasons of community kickball. I joined as a way to find new non-academic friends and it turned out to be a great experience. I met a whole new group of great people and ended up having a ton of fun. Last season we got to the finals and lost 1-0 in the final game. This season, however, we won the entire tournament! We played 3 games in 4 hours on Sunday and the long sunny day was just my style. I didn't score (did get on base several times) but I did catch 2 balls for 2 outs! I wish I could be around to play again in future seasons but unfortunately there is no summer league. I did learn, however, that there should be a summer dodgeball league starting - can't wait!

Running progress

The birthday celebration post is still pending but I wanted to go ahead and update everyone on my running progress.


Week 1
Goal: 1 mile in 10 minutes          
    Melissa: 1 mile in 12 minutes (pick up the slack!),  Ali: 1 mile 9 minutes (great job!)
Goal: 1.25 miles in 11 minutes  
    neither of us made this one :(

Week 2
Goal: 1.25 miles in 15 minutes  
     Melissa: 2 miles in 19 minutes (take that!),  Ali: ah hem...
Goal: 1.5 miles in 15 minutes    
     Melissa: 1.25 miles in 11 minutes (dangit, thought the goal was 1.25!),  Ali: 1.5 miles in 13 minutes (boom!)

Upcoming goals:

Week 3

Goal: 2 miles in 20 minutes
Goal: 1.75 miles in 15.75


Goal: 2.25 miles in 25 minutes
Goal: 2 miles in 20 minutes

Dissertation, will you marry me? (proposal)

Yesterday (5-10-2012) I successfully defended my dissertation proposal. That leaves just one more step before graduation: dissertation defense. Well, data analysis, write-up of results and discussion and then defense. The proposal went very well and my committee was very supportive. I have set a tentative defense date of July 6th which is cutting it quite close for all of the things I have to do between now and then. The rest of my day was fantastic (birthday celebration) but that will deserve its own post.

I thought I'd throw in these pictures just for fun. The first is how I feel when I first sit down to work on something (like my dissertation). The second is how I usually end.

Mandy's Wedding!

This weekend the boys and I headed to FL for the wedding of one of my best friends, Mandy. The wedding was outdoors at a house in Fruit Cove. The entire thing was absolutely beautiful but I think my favorite part was seeing all of my friends. We are all spread out and only get to see each other a few times a year. Hopefully our next gathering will be at my house here in Athens before I graduate.

About a month ago we got together for Mandy's bachelorette party. Actually, it was her bridal shower, her bachelorette party, and our other friend Nadine's baby shower all in one weekend. I planned the bachelorette party to be a competition themed event. It was just Mandy's style.

One of the 2 v. 2 games was a blindfolded puzzle. Here Holly (left) is being guided by Sabrina (also left) while Abby (right) is being guided by Rigsby (not shown). Sabrina and Holly won by a landslide.

I think this is probably the trivia win, or maybe the scavenger hunt win.

This is one of my favorite pics from the wedding. Grace was awesome enough to help me and Sabrina with our make-up. In this picture she is laughing because Sabrina fears she will poke her eye out with mascara.

The posse. If Grace owned them, they'd be the Bosse posse. 

One of the beautiful bridesmaids and a good friend, Rigsby. Her name is actually Melissa too but one is enough for this crowd :)

The beautiful bride and her 'new' husband, Chris. Welcome to the family Chris!

Running challenge

Last year around this time I was getting ready for my first triathlon. I was in the best shape ever running, swimming, and biking nearly 5 days a week. My friend Ali trained with me which made getting to the gym every day a LOT easier than it is now. Last fall, Ali moved to DC and left me without a gym partner. Honestly, these days I'm lucky to get to the gym one day a week and try to get in exercise at the house or while walking/running with the dogs. I don't see another triathlon in my near future but I would like to get back in shape and would like to aim toward running often while in Australia. I pulled the trigger and just bought some new running shoes (not a cheap purchase) and am ready to start up again. With the days getting longer its easier to add in a run at the end of a long day rather as well. To fuel my jump start I've asked Ali to train with me from afar so that we can (hopefully) motivate each other to get running every week. I've made a goal schedule and will be posting our progress over the next weeks.
                                 

My new kicks

                             

What's going on with me, you ask?

I've been blogging for a few months now - originally because of a class requirement but then for other reasons (to keep up with writing skills, to keep family and friends 'in the know' of my life). I wanted to get a few posts in to ensure I was going to keep up with it before sending out the link to people. Well, here we are. You got the link. So, for those of you that I don't talk to as much, here is whats going on with me in a nutshell.

1. Renting out my house. Since 2008 I've lived in Athens, GA. In 2009 I bought my first house thinking that it would be a good investment and a good place for me and my 2 dogs. Now that I'm moving, I need to either sell or rent the house. Selling proved not possible as a realtor suggested I'd be lucky to lose only $25,000 in the sale. No thanks. So, I'm renting it out. Also, because I'll be moving out of the country, and I don't have family in the Athens area, I decided to sign with a property manager to take care of things while I'm gone. You can see my listing here. So far I have had several people come look at the house but nobody has signed a lease yet. Hopefully it will happen any day now...

                                            

2. Trying to finish my dissertation. I moved to Athens to attend the University of Georgia's PhD program in psychology. I'm (hopefully) months away from graduation and all that stands between me and a diploma is my dissertation. I work on it literally 6 days a week (I have always taken Saturday's off, no matter what) for several hours a day. I have my proposal coming up in a few weeks and then the final defense in early July. This is second hardest paper I've ever written (I would say my first was my comprehensive exam paper that took over a year).

3. I'm moving! My plans for after graduation include a 6 month stint in Melbourne, Australia. I had some extra funding from a pre-doctoral fellowship I received through the National Science Foundation and am using it to fund additional research experience in Melbourne. While I'm there I'll be working with both the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the University of Melbourne on various research projects. One paper I'm pretty sure I'll be working on is examining father-infant relationships with infants with chronic cardiac conditions. I'm very excited about my trip. As of today I have a plane ticket purchased but no where to live. I also am looking to borrow a VERY large suitcase if anyone has one to lend out for 6 months.

                                          

4. Looking for a home for Charlie. As you'll see in a post below I'm looking for a temporary home for one of my dogs, Charlie. My parents will take my other dog - Tank - while I'm gone but Charlie is too much for their house. He is a young (3 yrs) hound mix that is really a fantastic dog but struggles around other dogs. I have been working with a trainer for several months now and he does very well with obedience. I feel confident taking him places off leash and having him stay close or calling him back if he runs too far. So, I need a temporary home for him with someone that could take him on regular walks or let him run around a back yard. Ideally the person would not have any other pets unless they had experience with aggressive dogs. I'm going to be sending out an email to everyone I know soon to see if someone knows someone.

5. Spare time? The above is basically my life right now. I work like crazy on my dissertation, I'm teaching a class this summer (Social and Personality Development), I'm running a research project, and writing two other papers. In my spare time I try to take the dogs out for long walks and I play on a community kickball league.

I'm going to do my best to update this blog as often as possible to keep the family in-the-loop of my life, particularly when I change continents. You should be able to post comments below, as well, so we can keep this a two-way street. Let me know if there is anything special you'd like to know about!